SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
    EDUCATION 341-3
    LITERACY, EDUCATION AND CULTURE
    ?
    E1.0O)
    Regular Summer Semester, 1992
    ? Instructor: M. Asselin
    (May 4—July 31)
    Mondays, 5:30 - 8:20 p.m.
    Location: MPX 9511
    PREREQUISITE:
    60 hours of credit.
    OVERVIEW
    This course provides an introduction to the study of literacy from an interdisciplinary perspective.
    We shall explore the origins of western literacy, the conditions which favoured its development
    and the role of literacy in social evolution, the economic and cultural values of literacy, and the
    effects of literacy on cognitive processes. Of particular interest is the reliance on formal
    educational institutions for the mass transmission of literacy. We will be looking in some detail
    at the varying conceptions of literacy that educators have traditionally valued, and we will be
    looking at some of the current research and scholarship that attempts to explain, justify and
    prescribe educational practices intended to increase literacy.
    PURPOSE
    By the end of the course, students should be able to identify, analyze, and justify or criticize the
    aesthetic, communicative, cognitive and socially-transformative consequences attributed to or
    associated with the acquisition of literacy. They should know something of its history and be
    aware of the range of definitions traditionally and currently given to literacy. They should have
    some understanding of the distinctive contributions of conceptual study and empirical research
    into literacy, and understand both the capacities and limitations of each of these approaches to
    literacy research and practice.
    EVALUATION
    Grades are based upon four components:
    1.
    consistent and active participation in seminars, including presentations of assigned
    course readings - 20%
    2.
    a learning journal consisting of both ongoing responses to readings and lectures, and
    occasional assigned writings - 20%
    3.
    a major paper on a topic of the student's own choice, relevant to topics covered in the course
    - 30% ( 10-12 pages)
    4.
    a final exam, for which questions will be provided in advance - 30%.
    REQUIRED TEXTS
    Literac
    y . Society
    and Schooling: A Reader (Eds. S. deCastell, A. Luke and K Egan). Cambridge
    University Press, 1986.
    Rewritin g Literacy:
    Culture and the Discourse of the Other (Eds. C. Mitchell and K Weiler).
    OISE Press, Toronto, 1992.
    RECOMMENDED TEXTS
    Broken Words. Calamal, Peter. Southam Press, 1990.
    Perspectives on Literacy (Eds. E. Kintgen, B. Kroll and M. Rose). Southern Illinois University
    Press, 1988.

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