Raising Standards in Literacy represents the best current thinking and research about literacy. The book is the outcome of a high-profile series of seminars on raising standards in literacy, and includes contributions from an impressive group of international researchers and policy makers. By offering a rich and unique mix of contemporary perspectives on literacy education, this book provides an invaluable source of study and insight into the latest research and developments in the teaching of literacy.
It includes sections on:
*how research into literacy teaching can inform new approaches found in England, the USA and Australia
*the issues involved in assessing progress in literacy and the validity of research claims made about standards of attainment
*the ways in which literacy education is developing in England, the USA and Australia
The book celebrates the apparent success of current literacy initiatives at the same time as raising questions about the feasibility and relevance of such initiatives to the literacy co-ordinators and consultants and for all those undertaking further study or research in literacy education.

Raising Standards in Literacy represents the best current thinking and research about literacy. The book is the outcome of a high-profile series of seminars on raising standards in literacy, and includes contributions from an impressive group of international researchers and policy makers. By offering a rich and unique mix of contemporary perspectives on literacy education, this book provides an invaluable source of study and insight into the latest research and developments in the teaching of literacy.
It includes sections on:
*how research into literacy teaching can inform new approaches found in England, the USA and Australia
*the issues involved in assessing progress in literacy and the validity of research claims made about standards of attainment
*the ways in which literacy education is developing in England, the USA and Australia
The book celebrates the apparent success of current literacy initiatives at the same time as raising questions about the feasibility and relevance of such initiatives to the literacy co-ordinators and consultants and for all those undertaking further study or research in literacy education.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415263506

This unique book tells the story of a select group of schools and teachers who have managed to beat the odds in terms of improving elementary students reading achievement. Originating with the CIERA "School Change Project" directed by Barbara Taylor and David Pearson, it was subsequently expanded to include the work of other research teams doing similar work. It combines large scale studies of effective schools and teachers (Part I) with case studies of individual schools and teachers who have successfully transformed research findings into situation-specific strategies appropriate to their schools and classrooms (Parts II and III). The book's distinct contribution is showing that no matter how consistent the research findings on effective school and classroom practice, groups of teachers must improvise their own situation-specific programs and practices. In short, they must be able to create variations on a common theme. Key features of this outstanding new volume include:
*Integration of research and cases--One cannot fully understand research-based general principles without knowing how they play themselves out in specific settings. Similarly, one cannot fully understand cases without seeing the commonalities across different schools and classrooms sharing similar goals. This book provides both perspectives.
*Diverse cases--The schools and classrooms depicted in this book are urban, rural, and suburban; poor and middle class; and English-only and bilingual. Rather than telling readers how to beat the odds, it provides them with a wide variety of cases from which they can extrapolate to build their own customized teaching programs and practices.
*Summarizing section--The final section contains a summary of research on effective schools and teachers and a concluding chapter by Gerry Duffy and Jim Hoffman in which they reflect on the book's content and possible directions for future research.
The book is targeted to both in-service elementary teachers and literacy students in advanced college courses.

This unique book tells the story of a select group of schools and teachers who have managed to beat the odds in terms of improving elementary students reading achievement. Originating with the CIERA "School Change Project" directed by Barbara Taylor and David Pearson, it was subsequently expanded to include the work of other research teams doing similar work. It combines large scale studies of effective schools and teachers (Part I) with case studies of individual schools and teachers who have successfully transformed research findings into situation-specific strategies appropriate to their schools and classrooms (Parts II and III). The book's distinct contribution is showing that no matter how consistent the research findings on effective school and classroom practice, groups of teachers must improvise their own situation-specific programs and practices. In short, they must be able to create variations on a common theme. Key features of this outstanding new volume include:
*Integration of research and cases--One cannot fully understand research-based general principles without knowing how they play themselves out in specific settings. Similarly, one cannot fully understand cases without seeing the commonalities across different schools and classrooms sharing similar goals. This book provides both perspectives.
*Diverse cases--The schools and classrooms depicted in this book are urban, rural, and suburban; poor and middle class; and English-only and bilingual. Rather than telling readers how to beat the odds, it provides them with a wide variety of cases from which they can extrapolate to build their own customized teaching programs and practices.
*Summarizing section--The final section contains a summary of research on effective schools and teachers and a concluding chapter by Gerry Duffy and Jim Hoffman in which they reflect on the book's content and possible directions for future research.
The book is targeted to both in-service elementary teachers and literacy students in advanced college courses.

This volume offers concrete answers to the question of how we can use imagery to enrich the teaching of reading and writing. The chapters are organized according to two guiding principles. First, each addresses specific aspects of the inextricable integration of imagery and language in the teaching of reading and writing. Imagery is not privileged over language; the fusion of the two is emphasized. Second, each focuses on a particular kind of imagery--mental, graphic, or verbal--describing teaching/learning strategies based on the deployment of that kind of imagery in the classroom.
There is currently a renewed acknowledgment of the importance of imagery in meaning. The rapid spread of the World Wide Web, computer interfacing, and virtual reality further highlights the need to attend to the influence of imagery in a networked world. In response to these shifts in scholarly and cultural perspectives, NCTE has established a committee on visual literacy, and an emphasis on visual literacy has been incorporated into the IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts. This book contributes significantly toward filling the need for explicit and specific theory-based methods teachers can use to integrate imagery into their pedagogy. Accessible and lively chapters include classroom activities and student-generated examples. "Language and Image in the Reading-Writing Classroom" is an excellent text for preservice and in-service pedagogy courses and an important resource for practicing teachers, researchers, and professionals in the field.

This work is an important contribution to the multidisciplinary study of literacy, narrative and culture, arguing that literacy is perhaps best described as an ensemble of socially and historically embedded activities and of cultural practices. It suggests viewing written language, producing and distributing, deciphering and interpreting signs, as closely related to other cultural practices such as narrative and painting. The book makes the point that there is no theory and history of writing that does not presuppose a theory of culture and social development. At the same time, it demonstrates that every theory and history of culture must unavoidably entail a theory and history of writing and written culture. The book brings together perspectives on literacy from psychology, linguistics, history and sociology of literature, philosophy, anthropology, and history of art, and addresses these issues in plain language not coded in specialized jargon.

This book explores how writers from several different cultures learn to write in their academic settings, and how their writing practices interact with and contribute to their evolving identities as students and professionals in academic environments in higher education.
Embedded in a theoretical framework of situated practice, the naturalistic case studies and literacy autobiographies include portrayals of undergraduate students and teachers, master's level students, doctoral students, young bilingual faculty, and established scholars, all of whom are struggling to understand their roles in ambiguously defined communities of academic writers.
In addition to the notion of situated practice, the other powerful concept used as an interpretive framework is captured by the metaphor of "games"--a metaphor designed to emphasize that the practice of academic writing is shaped but not dictated by rules and conventions; that writing games consist of the practice of playing, not the rules themselves; and that writers have choices about whether and how to play.
Focusing on people rather than experiments, numbers, and abstractions, this interdisciplinary work draws on concepts and methods from narrative inquiry, qualitative anthropology and sociology, and case studies of academic literacy in the field of composition and rhetoric. The style of the book is accessible and reader friendly, eschewing highly technical insider language without dismissing complex issues. It has a multicultural focus in the sense that the people portrayed are from a number of different cultures within and outside North America. It is also a multivocal work: the author positions herself as both an insider and outsider and takes on the different voices of each; other voices that appear are those of her case study participants, and published authors and their case study participants. It is the author's hope that readers will find multiple ways to connect their own experiences with those of the writers the book portrays.

For the first time, the major theoretical and pedagogical approaches to genre and related issues of social construction are presented in a single volume, providing an overview of the state of the art for practitioners in applied linguistics, ESL/EFL pedagogies, rhetoric, and composition studies around the world. Unlike volumes that present one theoretical stance, this book attempts to give equal time to all theoretical and pedagogical camps. Included are chapters by authors from the Sydney School, the New Rhetoric, and English for Specific Purposes, as well as contributions from other practitioners who pose questions that cross theoretical lines.
"Genre in the Classroom: "
*includes all of the major theoretical views of genre that influence pedagogical practice;
*takes an international approach, drawing from all parts of the world in which genre theory has been applied in the classroom--Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Middle East, the United States;
*features contributors who are all both theorists and classroom practitioners, lending credibility and authenticity to the arguments;
*combines theory and practice in every chapter, showing how particular theoretical views influence classroom practice;
*grounds pedagogical practices in their own regional and theoretical histories;
*openly discusses problems and questions that genre theory raises and presents some of the solutions suggested; and
*offers a concluding chapter that argues for two macro-genres, and with responses to this argument by noted genre theorists from three theoretical camps.

The ability to use language in more literate ways has always been a central outcome of education. Today, however, "being literate" requires more than functional literacy, the recognition of printed words as meaningful. It requires the knowledge of how to use language as a tool for analyzing, synthesizing, and integrating what is heard or read in order to arrive at new interpretations.
Specialists in education, cognitive psychology, learning disabilities, communication sciences and disorders, and other fields have studied the language learning problems of school age children from their own perspectives. All have tended to emphasize either the oral language component or phonemic awareness. The major influence of phonemic awareness on learning to read and spell is well-researched, but it is not the only relevant focus for efforts in intervention and instruction. An issue is that applications are usually the products of a single discipline or profession, and few integrate an understanding of phonemic awareness with an understanding of the ways in which oral language comprehension and expression support reading, writing, and spelling. Thus, what we have learned about language remains disconnected from what we have learned about literacy; interrelationships between language and literacy are not appreciated; and educational services for students with language and learning disabilities are fragmented as a result.
This unique book, a multidisciplinary collaboration, bridges research, practice, and the development of new technologies. It offers the first comprehensive and integrated overview of the multiple factors involved in language learning from late preschool through post high school that must be considered if problems are to be effectively addressed. Practitioners, researchers, and students professionally concerned with these problems will find the book an invaluable resource.

For the first time, the major theoretical and pedagogical approaches to genre and related issues of social construction are presented in a single volume, providing an overview of the state of the art for practitioners in applied linguistics, ESL/EFL pedagogies, rhetoric, and composition studies around the world. Unlike volumes that present one theoretical stance, this book attempts to give equal time to all theoretical and pedagogical camps. Included are chapters by authors from the Sydney School, the New Rhetoric, and English for Specific Purposes, as well as contributions from other practitioners who pose questions that cross theoretical lines.
"Genre in the Classroom: "
*includes all of the major theoretical views of genre that influence pedagogical practice;
*takes an international approach, drawing from all parts of the world in which genre theory has been applied in the classroom--Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Middle East, the United States;
*features contributors who are all both theorists and classroom practitioners, lending credibility and authenticity to the arguments;
*combines theory and practice in every chapter, showing how particular theoretical views influence classroom practice;
*grounds pedagogical practices in their own regional and theoretical histories;
*openly discusses problems and questions that genre theory raises and presents some of the solutions suggested; and
*offers a concluding chapter that argues for two macro-genres, and with responses to this argument by noted genre theorists from three theoretical camps.

Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation considers gender and sexuality in modern Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapters look individually at gender and sexuality through history, art, folklore, philosophy or literature,but are also arranged into sections according to the arguments they develop. A number of chapters also consider Russia in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Thematic sections include:
*Gender and Power
*Gender and National Identity
*Sexual Identity and Artistic Impression
*Literary Discourse of Male and Female Sexualities
*Sexuality and Literature in Contemporary Russian Society

In this volume, 10 reviews of significant reading research methodologies are reprinted from the "Handbook of Reading Research, Volume III." The editors have judged that these specific methodologies have had great impact on reading research since the publication of "Volume II" in 1991. This text is especially well-suited for use in upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level reading research methods courses.

First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms" brings together accounts of educators who have sought to make a difference in the lives of their students through literacy education--from university classrooms in the United States, England, and South Africa, to policy and curriculum development in Singapore and Australia. Each chapter represents the results of extended research on classroom practice.
The authors in this collection write as teachers. The literacy classrooms they explore range from the early years of schooling, to primary and secondary education, through to community and university sites. Although the volume is organized around different levels of education, clearly overlapping themes emerge across the chapters, including identity formation and textual practices, politicizing curriculum and textbook production, and changing the power relations in classroom talk around text.
An overarching theme of this collection is the belief that there is no one generic, universal critical literacy--in theory or in practice. Rather, the authors reveal how a range of theories can serve as productive starting points for educators working on social justice agendas through the literacy curriculum, and, equally important, how particular critical literacy theories or pedagogies must be worked out in specific locations. In each of these accounts, educators explain how they have taken a body of theory and worked with and on it in classrooms. Their rich portrayals and narratives of classroom realities illustrate the unanticipated effects of pedagogies that emerge in specific contexts. Experiences from the classrooms have led them to revise theories that are central to critical literacy, including constructs such as "empowerment," "resistance," and "multiple readings." This collection documents what occurs when educators confront the difficult ethical and political issues that evolve in particular classroom situations.
"Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms" is appropriate as a text for courses in language and literacy education, and will be of broad interest to educational researchers, practitioners, and theorists. The practical classroom focus makes this book accessible and of interest to a wide range of teachers and an excellent resource for professional development. The international scope will appeal to a global educational readership.

"Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms" brings together accounts of educators who have sought to make a difference in the lives of their students through literacy education--from university classrooms in the United States, England, and South Africa, to policy and curriculum development in Singapore and Australia. Each chapter represents the results of extended research on classroom practice.
The authors in this collection write as teachers. The literacy classrooms they explore range from the early years of schooling, to primary and secondary education, through to community and university sites. Although the volume is organized around different levels of education, clearly overlapping themes emerge across the chapters, including identity formation and textual practices, politicizing curriculum and textbook production, and changing the power relations in classroom talk around text.
An overarching theme of this collection is the belief that there is no one generic, universal critical literacy--in theory or in practice. Rather, the authors reveal how a range of theories can serve as productive starting points for educators working on social justice agendas through the literacy curriculum, and, equally important, how particular critical literacy theories or pedagogies must be worked out in specific locations. In each of these accounts, educators explain how they have taken a body of theory and worked with and on it in classrooms. Their rich portrayals and narratives of classroom realities illustrate the unanticipated effects of pedagogies that emerge in specific contexts. Experiences from the classrooms have led them to revise theories that are central to critical literacy, including constructs such as "empowerment," "resistance," and "multiple readings." This collection documents what occurs when educators confront the difficult ethical and political issues that evolve in particular classroom situations.
"Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms" is appropriate as a text for courses in language and literacy education, and will be of broad interest to educational researchers, practitioners, and theorists. The practical classroom focus makes this book accessible and of interest to a wide range of teachers and an excellent resource for professional development. The international scope will appeal to a global educational readership.

Making culture a more central concept in the texts and contexts of teacher education is the focus of this book. It is a rich account of the author's investigation of teacher book club discussions of ethnic literature, specifically ethnic autobiography--as a genre from which teachers might learn about culture, literacy, and education in their own and others' lives, and as a form of conversation and literature-based work that might be sustainable and foster teachers' comprehension and critical thinking. Dr. Florio-Ruane's role in the book clubs merged participation and inquiry. For this reason, she blends personal narrative with analysis and description of ways she and the book club participants explored culture in the stories they told one another and in their responses to published autobiographies. She posits that autobiography and conversation may be useful for teachers not only in constructing their own learning about culture, but also, by doing so, in participating in the transformation of learning within the teaching profession.

The central question in this volume is how to create a society of "engaged readers" in today's world, where reading is increasingly overruled by other media, such as television and personal computers. Engaged readers, as the term is used in this book, means readers who are socially interactive, strategic, and motivated.
This state-of-the-art review contains research on integrating cognitive, social, and motivational aspects of reading and reading instruction, the chapter authors argue that coming to grips with the notion of engagement in literacy requires redefining literacy itself to acknowledge the degree to which it is not only a cognitive accomplishment, but a social activity and an affective commitment as well. Promoting literacy acquisition thus requires interventions that address attitudes and beliefs as much as those that assure cognitive changes in learners.
Equally important, the authors posit that literacy engagement involves the integration of cognitive strategies and motivational goals during literate activities. This necessary link between literacy and motivation is addressed from a variety of perspectives.
Acknowledging the value of cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons, the book features chapters on the promotion of literacy in different regions around the world.

The central question in this volume is how to create a society of "engaged readers" in today's world, where reading is increasingly overruled by other media, such as television and personal computers. Engaged readers, as the term is used in this book, means readers who are socially interactive, strategic, and motivated.
This state-of-the-art review contains research on integrating cognitive, social, and motivational aspects of reading and reading instruction, the chapter authors argue that coming to grips with the notion of engagement in literacy requires redefining literacy itself to acknowledge the degree to which it is not only a cognitive accomplishment, but a social activity and an affective commitment as well. Promoting literacy acquisition thus requires interventions that address attitudes and beliefs as much as those that assure cognitive changes in learners.
Equally important, the authors posit that literacy engagement involves the integration of cognitive strategies and motivational goals during literate activities. This necessary link between literacy and motivation is addressed from a variety of perspectives.
Acknowledging the value of cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons, the book features chapters on the promotion of literacy in different regions around the world.

Literacy and Development is a collection of case studies of literacy projects around the world.
The contributors present their in-depth studies of everyday uses and meanings of literacy and of the literacy programmes that have been developed to enhance them. Arguing that ethnographic research can and should inform literacy policy in developing countries, the book extends current theory and itself contributes to policy making and programme building.
A large cross-section of society is covered, with chapters on Women's literacy in Pakistan, Ghana, and rural Mali, literacy in an Iranian village and an 'Older Peoples' Literacy Project
This international collection includes case studies from: Peru, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Iran, Eritrea, Ghana.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203468414

Literacy and Development is a collection of case studies of literacy projects around the world.
The contributors present their in-depth studies of everyday uses and meanings of literacy and of the literacy programmes that have been developed to enhance them. Arguing that ethnographic research can and should inform literacy policy in developing countries, the book extends current theory and itself contributes to policy making and programme building.
A large cross-section of society is covered, with chapters on Women's literacy in Pakistan, Ghana, and Rural Mali, literacy in village Iran, and an 'Older Peoples' Literacy Project.
This international collection includes case studies from: Peru, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Iran, Eritrea, Ghana.

This volume explores the unique sociocultural contexts of literacy development, values, and practices in African American communities. African Americans--young and old--are frequently the focus of public discourse about literacy. In a society that values a rather sophisticated level of literacy, they are among those who are most disadvantaged by low literacy achievement. "Literacy in African American Communities" contributes a fresh perspective by revealing how social history and cultural values converge to influence African Americans' literacy values and practices, acknowledging that literacy issues pertaining to this group are as unique and complex as this group's collective history.
Existing literature on literacy in African American communities is typically segmented by age or academic discipline. This fragmentation obscures the cyclical, life-span effects of this population's legacy of low literacy. In contrast, this book brings together in a single-source volume personal, historical, developmental, and cross-disciplinary vantage points to look at both developmental and adult literacy from the perspectives of education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and communication sciences and disorders. As a whole, it provides important evidence that the negative cycle of low literacy can be broken by drawing on the literacy experiences found within African American communities.

This volume explores the unique sociocultural contexts of literacy development, values, and practices in African American communities. African Americans--young and old--are frequently the focus of public discourse about literacy. In a society that values a rather sophisticated level of literacy, they are among those who are most disadvantaged by low literacy achievement. "Literacy in African American Communities" contributes a fresh perspective by revealing how social history and cultural values converge to influence African Americans' literacy values and practices, acknowledging that literacy issues pertaining to this group are as unique and complex as this group's collective history.
Existing literature on literacy in African American communities is typically segmented by age or academic discipline. This fragmentation obscures the cyclical, life-span effects of this population's legacy of low literacy. In contrast, this book brings together in a single-source volume personal, historical, developmental, and cross-disciplinary vantage points to look at both developmental and adult literacy from the perspectives of education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and communication sciences and disorders. As a whole, it provides important evidence that the negative cycle of low literacy can be broken by drawing on the literacy experiences found within African American communities.

"Constructions of Literacy" explores and represents, through a series of cases and commentaries, how and why secondary school teachers and students use literacy in formal and informal learning settings. As used in the context of this book, secondary literacy refers to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and performing. It also refers to how these processes or events are constructed, negotiated, and used for specific purposes by teachers and students as they engage in various classroom, school, and community practices and interactions.
The authors operate from a stance that literacy is socially, culturally, and historically constructed. They recognize that there are many different perspectives on how that construction occurs--some arguing for institutional and structural influences--others suggesting that people have some degree of agency within the constraints imposed by larger structures. A distinguishing feature of the volume is that the contributors explore and make explicit "differing" perspectives on literacy as a social construction.
The volume is built around case studies of secondary school teachers' and students' literacy practices inside and outside of schools. The cases include diverse (critical, cultural, feminist, interpretive, phenomenological, and postmodern) theoretical and epistemological perspectives and research methodologies, making this one of the first collections of studies in secondary content area classrooms conducted from multiple perspectives. It concludes with two Commentaries, one by Donna Alvermann and one by David Bloome, in which they discuss and critique the contributions made from the different perspectives and grapple with how they simultaneously illuminate and confuse issues in literacy theory, research, and practice.
Preservice and in-service teachers, school professionals, and researchers in literacy education, secondary education, and curriculum theory will find this book stimulating and informative. It will help them analyze the complexities of secondary literacy teaching and learning, and examine their own understandings of literacy within their own literacy contexts.

This work explores the lives and literacies of different generations of people living in Spitalfields and The City at the end of the 20th century. It contrasts these two square miles of London, which outwardly symbolize the huge difference between poverty and wealth existing in Britain at this time. The book presents a study of living, learning and reading as it has taken place in public settings, including the school classroom, clubs, places of worship, theatres, and in the home. Over fifty people recount their memories of learning to read in different contexts and circumstances. Eve Gregory and Ann Williams contextualize the participants' stories and go far to dispel the deep-seated myths surrounding the teaching and learning of reading and writing in urban, multicultural areas. The result is both poignant and highly significant to the study of literacy.

Now We Read, We See, We Speak compellingly captures eight women's progress toward empowerment through a Freirean-based literacy class in rural El Salvador and, in the process, provides telling lessons for literacy and adult educators around the world. This book fills a real gap in the educational literature on critical theory and literacy teaching and learning. For the first time, we have a multi-layered description and analysis of a literacy class based on Freirean precepts and principles, through the perspective of "traditional" literacy theory and as interpreted through a literacy development lens. This allows us to consider how the adult students learned to read and write within a classroom context that embodies such Freirean precepts as dialogic teacher/student relations; respect for and knowledge of the learners' lives, language and culture; and intentionality about social-political change. Thus, this book is directed toward literacy practitioners, teachers, and researchers who may have heard or read about critical theory but have a need for concrete examples of the methodological implications of such theory. Enlivening this account is the compelling description of the histories and lives of the students in the literacy class campesinos women who have survived a brutal and devastating civil war in El Salvador and who, nevertheless, stepped forward to work with a U.S.-trained literacy teacher, Robin Waterman, to learn to read and write for purposes of personal and sociocultural empowerment. The authors provide a highly readable presentation of the historical and cultural contexts for the women and the literacy class. They also raise issues of socioeconomic marginalization, unequal power relationships, and gender as they relate to literacy development. Basing their account on meticulously gathered and analyzed ethnographic data, Purcell-Gates and Waterman go beyond the presentation of the study to suggest implications and issues for adult literacy education in the United States, linking their findings to current topics in adult education, as well as literacy development in general.