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EDUCATION 487-4 (For Undergraduate students)

EDUCATION

807-5

(For Graduate students)

SPECIAL TOPICS: LITERACY - PRACTICE, THEORY AND RESEARCH

FALL, 1980

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INSTRUCTOR: Prof. Suzanne DeCstell

CAMPUS

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Wednesdays 4:30 - 8:30

Recently, a great deal of attention has been focussed on the issue of literacy.

But what is literacy? A functional competence or the ability to transform

experience through language? And what educational intervention, if any,

i's appropriate in response to the recent (1979) report of over 20° of

the population "functionally illiterate"? Is the data base of literacy/

illiteracy in this country adequate to support contentions of a "literacy

crisis"? This course examines historical and current conceptions of literacy,

literacy-related instructional changes, and research paradigms within

historical evaluations of literacy. Theory and research in reading and

composition will be critically considered. ?

Finally, data on literacy in B.C.,

1920-1980 will be examined, and various frameworks for the interpretation

of that data will be explored.

Four areas will be focussed on:

1.

Introduction: Literacy as the foundational educational competence.

2.

Historical: Concepts of literacy - Matthew Arnold; the "High Literacy"

paradigm; transition in the 19th century via the rise of vocationalism

leading to notions of "functional literacy" (1870 - 1920); systematized

by the U.S. military, further developed by Kirch & Guthrie, Thomas

Sticht. The relation of paradigms of "literacy" to methods educational

evaluation and social context.

3.

'Composition Instruction: Review of curriculum, theory and research

Reading Instruction: Review of curriculum theory and research

4.

Contemporary view of literacy:

The relationship of reading/writing/oral expression

The Data Base: interpretation and validity

What criteria of "literacy" were used to gather data? What factors

must be taken into account in the interpretation of that data? What

inferences, if any, can be drawn from the data to direct curricular

and instructional change?

INDICATIVE READINGS:

COPP, P.; THE LITERACY HOAX

JUDY, Stehpen; THE A.B.C.'S OF LITERACY

CHALL, Jeanne; LEARNING TO READ: THE GREAT DEBATE

RESNICK & RESNICK; THE NATURE OF LITERACY: AN HISTORICAL EXPLORATION;

Harvard Ed. Review, V

1

47, 3,

August

1977

STICHT, Thomas (ed.); READING FOR WORKING: A FUNCTIONAL LITERACY ANTHOLOGY