.

?

.

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

EDUCATION 341-3

?

LITERACY, EDUCATION AND CULTURE

Fall Semester, 1990

?

Instructor: ?

Michael Hoechsmann

Mondays, 7:30-10:20 p.m.

?

Office: ?

MPX95O1a

Harbour Centre (HC

?

)

TBA

PREREQUISITE:

60 credit hours.

OVERVIEW

Given that this is the International Year of Literacy it might be useful to consider what

literacy is, how it is practised and to what ends. Like the air we breathe, literacy seems

to be so obviously a social 'good,' that it appears conceptually invisible. For the

individual, literacy is seen as a requisite to social advancement and personal

enlightenment; for the society at large, literacy is said to be necessary for economic

take-off, social management, and the intergenerational transmission of 'culture'.

This course provides an introduction to the study of literacy from an interdisciplinary

perspective. We shall explore the history of literacy in order to identify, analyze, and

justify or criticize the aesthetic, communicative, cognitive and socially-

transformative consequences commonly attributed to literacy. In addition, we will

spend a small portion of each class focussing on our own (critical scholastic) literacy.

PURPOSE

To provide the background and the context to ask some serious questions of current

literacy 'crises'.

EVALUATION

Short paper

?

20%

Final paper

?

40%

Final exam

?

30%

Preparation & Participation

?

10%

REQUIRED TEXTS

Barthes, R. (1972). M

y

thologies (trans. Annette La

y ers). Hill & Wang.

Broken Words. (1987). Southam News.

Perspectives

-

on Literac y

. Eds. E. Kintgen, B. Kroll, M. Rose. (1988). Southern

Illinois University Press.

Please read Ong & Bartholomae (in Kintgen et al.) prior to the first session

(September 10).