Read and post your comments on the following before class on 8 June (Friday):
Gee (1996) Social Linguistics & Literacies: Ideologies in Discourses (Chapters 3, 6 & 7) NY:
Routledge Falmer.*
2. Heath, S. B. (2005) What No Bedtime Story Means. In Duranti, A. (2005) Linguistic anthropology: a
Have to Teach us about Learning and
Literacy OR
3. Rex, L. (2001) The remaking of a high school reader. In Reading Research Quarterly 36:3, 288-314
AND
Apple, M. W. (1997) The text and cultural politics. Educational Researcher 21:7, 4-12.*
2. Loh, C. E. (2009) Reading the World: Reconceptualizing reading multicultural literature in
the ELA classroom in a Global World. In Changing English 16:3, 287-299.*
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ReplyDeleteApple in ‘The text and Cultural Politics’ notes:
ReplyDelete“Any text is open to multiple readings. This puts into doubt any claim that one can determine the meanings and politics of a text “by a straightforward encounter with the text itself.”
There are clearly then, implications for teachers as evaluators of texts: can one “fully understand the text by mechanically applying any interpretive procedure(?) Meanings, then, can be and are multiple and contradictory, and we must always be willing to “read” our own readings of a text, to interpret our own interpretations of what it means” (Grossberg & Nelson, 1988)
Applying this to our benchmarking exercise, I think we saw for ourselves the range in interpretation in the reading of the text and the various reasons we offered in privileging our own reading of the text- be it “structure”, “elaboration” or notions of “plausibility”. But these criteria are slippery and are not neutral categories as it may seem; they are in fact ideological. What leads us to invoke one notion of plausibility (as we saw with script 10) and undervalue or dismiss another? And how often are we willing to “read” our own readings of a text”?
Heath refers to the exercise of making meaning from the text as “but one ‘way of taking’ that is often interpreted as “natural” rather than learned”. So what are the’ ways of taking’ that we expect our students to “naturally” be able to do? More often than not, what is valued in most English exercises is close-reading. In a literary response exercise, close-reading entails making judgements based ostensibly on patterns that we spot, that we believe are inherent in the text. And in requiring students to substantiate their claims, we believe that we have established criteria for interpretive validity.
The benchmarking exercise that we had on Wednesday revealed more levels of ambiguity than I usually encounter as a marker being that there was no readymade answer scheme. In benchmarking exercises, the marking scheme is supplied with the assumption that it will serve as a standard- but now I’m wondering if this actually serves to disambiguate what is a contested process and over-simplify plausible "ways of taking" from the text.
Brigit
It is an interesting point you make about the answer scheme, Brigit, and that reveals just how much we can be schooled by the appeaarance of authority in the form of a formal answer scheme.
ReplyDeleteof course, we bring to the marking our own identities as markers, including our personal experiences. The lack of confidence that, say a beginning teacher, may feel and her need to fit in with the community of practice within her school may further determine her growth as a marker, her sensibilities of what is right and good. Having been exposed to 'good' writing in RGS shapes my understanding a good piece of work; yet experience complicates what is meant by good in different contexts and for different purposes.
ReplyDeleteReading about the 3 communities featured in Heath made me reflect on some of the students I encountered while teaching P1s and P2s some time back. Every year, we encounter students who were either unable to read or were very much struggling readers. A handful were having difficulties in recognizing letters from the alphabet. Once in a while, there will be some who had skipped kindergarten due to reasons like financial constraints. Some were at a disadvantage because they simply do not have that support from family members to ensure they have the "literacy orientation" and "literacy-related interactions" from a young age. Unfamiliarity with books and reading become a massive obstacle for these students to overcome when they are required to communicate and write effectively in schools.
ReplyDeletePre-school education is not compulsory, thus we still have some students who missed the opportunity to attain and develop the level of reading and writing mastery they are expected to have by the time they enter P1. There are crash courses for these students prior to their entrance to primary schools, but by then, they have missed 2 to 4 years (pre-nursery to K2) of education or literacy events that their other peers have experienced. It might be too late. Often, these students find themselves struggling with schoolwork and for a good number of them, their struggles continue till later years due to the fact that they started having to play catch-up with their peers from the start.
In reflection of Apple's article, I go back to my earlier question on what is the reason for the "recycling" of some of the texts in the set texts list of the Lit. syllabus. Texts "participate in no less than the organized knowledge system of society". In selecting those texts, what "legitimate knowledge" does the curriculum expect our students to acquire? Why are some texts chosen (some again and again) and some are not?
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteBrigit points to how benchmarking exercises and scripted answer keys run the risk of "over-simplifying" plausible "ways of taking from the text". These "preferred ways of reading and writing about literature", as Karmer-Dahl shows, "reproduces disadvantage" as it privileges a particular literacy. Furthermore, Gee also makes the point that these literacies are not just 'habits of the mind', 'ways of taking' or 'thinking' but part of one's identity. Therefore, what we award high marks to is also what we perceive to 'good', 'moral' and 'right' (literally, in a monetary and also moral sense). In other words, by doing so unthinkingly, we have conflated morality with capitalism, and this morality has become nothing more than a form of consuming and consumption: to have is to be good, to not have is to be bad.
This recognition of this problem, poses another problem - "how" we can change things? How can one honor both the student and the normative standards of schools? Don't we have to make a choice? What should we 'value' most? The assumption behind this dilemma is, I think, that we are called to make a choice between validating to the primary discourse OR the school discourse. Yet, by thinking in this manner, we are responding to this question with a particularly "old" frame of mind, in fact, the capitalist one, that assumes that we operate in a world that has "unlimited resources and limited wants" (scarcity). I think this is the basic assumption we first have to question - is this so? After all, something is only "scare" and becomes "rare" when we ascribe a higher value to it. Is there, for instance, really a shortage of branded handbags? We know that there are plenty real ones in China. It is the perception of what it means to own a branded LV bags (and hence to desire it) that give branded bags its 'value', hence making it "rare". (This goes back to my point about how i don't think there is really a shortage of "qualified" English Literatures in the system, rather, the "problem" lies in the allocation of resources). Another reason why people might resist validating the student's discourse or even attempt to implement more 'equal' socialist policies is the fear the lack of competition would breed dependency and complacency. Again however, this fear is, in my mind, somewhat irrational because it is still founded upon the notion of scarcity - we must compete because there is not enough "good" things to go around.
Relatedly, Gee cites two cultural models in chapter 6 - the "success model" (the one which white collar professionals live within) and the "breadwinner model". He uses these models to explain WHY people don't act and change things. Both models are defined by a system of difference. The people in the "success model" (Western 'values?) are ego-centric, and competitive, and do not see the need to 'help others'. This attitude is clearly evident in our elite schools where students believe in the "if I can do it, why can't you?" -thing, so why should I help YOU. But fail to see that they are the ones who do not grant their maids an off-days as it inconveniences them. On the other hand, the "breadwinner model" ("Asian model?) emphasizes the well-being of the community resulting in the production of a self-sacrificial lamb-attitude that believes that one should sacrifice the self for the sake of the community (utilitarian ethics). They compare themselves to the "success" model and hence always view themselves as "inferior" and "lacking". This leads to low self-esteem and self-efficacy -- I don't think I am ever going to be capable of succeeding, so why should I act? Both models, Gee writes, views 'something' as an "inescapable fact of life". But these models suggest that the "inescapable fact of life" is really, not so inescapable - we can choose, or if we refuse to choose, we can create our own. How?
ReplyDeleteHow questions are evil, I think, because we 'teach' people a way to specific way of doing 'life' rather than allow them to 'do' their own life and take responsibility for their own actions. The literature question "How does the writer vividly convey the boy's anxieties" requires one to look for codes (metaphor, diction, action, thoughts, feelings, imagery). We talked about this extensively, these skills are not neutral, but in treating them in such a manner, it has become like capital (money), "abstracted away from the context of human activity and human relationships" (108). I asked the question of what the difference between critical literacy and new literacies is - I still don't know. But I think to advocate the incorporation of a particular literary as Dr Poon suggests (I agree with the idea of spotting gaps and silences but not the use of the term critical literacy) does not truly change the "structure" of the field. Critical literacy (even as it is critical of itself) is still a way of thinking, a set of dispositions and when inserted into any field/context that quantifies "success" starts to "reproduce disadvantage" (as natural). When we speak of critical literacy as though it is a "skill", and think of methods (how) to implement it, we run the risk of creating a society of good people (people who can think) and bad people (people who can't think).
It is so easy to speak ill of the system, but what people want are suggestions - is there that one can offer? Gee suggests that we should "allow these conflicts to become part of instruction. Brought to the student's attention, allowed to become part of ongoing discussion with teacher and peers, they can themselves serve to focus students' attention on relevant aspects of cultural models, in the students' own home cultures, in their multiple other social identities, and in mainstream school culture" (110), yet he does not specify how. I think the key lies in criticizing the system and the discourses around us through deconstruction. When I first joined my workplace, I was excited by what it had to offer (its emphasis on so-called "critical thinking"), and yet repulsed by what it was "a money-making machine. The thing that ANNOYED me the most was how EVERY student I had thought the WORLD of this tuition centre. And so, I made every class deconstruct the space that they were in. I don't know anything about larger classes and MOE schools and I can't claim to how to do things, but I think it is possibly do-able even with primary school kids. I asked them why they thought the tuition centre was prestigious? And why they were happy to be be part of this centre? They said it had white walls, glass doors and was sophisticated and high-tech. I got the kids to stand outside and knock on the porous poorly built and badly painted walls and asked them if they now thought it was sophisticated. Rabbits - they are guinea rabbits, they are not suppose to grow so big, do you know how many have died? Glass doors - to watch you? We even deconstructed toilets, which was fun! :) They all write a proper essay on it, so it is not as frivolous as it might sound. haha. :) Deconstruction as a class activity values the individual's primary discourse because it begins with them the individual, as a class activity it promotes community boding, the deconstructed "product" is not "useless" - every deconstruction (is a critique, it is a reconstruction, a new way of "writing the word/world)(think Karmer-Dahl's piece - it is a deconstruction of the O level examination while at the same time a critique of it, and a gesture at what it ought to be). The deconstructed product necessary spots the "gaps and silences" in the narrative, to borrow Dr Poon's words, it is a "beginning utterance", it changes the way things are (simply because it has changed the way we perceive something, the way we to borrow Heath's words "take from the world"). The individual in the class that comes together to individually create the deconstructed product forms a "semiotic solidarity" - this increase their perception of their ability to play the role of "substantive actors" (Gee 107). As active agents in the field, we all contribute to changing things. As such, I don't' think we should think about HOW to read more critically or how to read the way we read our world. I think we should just, for a lack of a better word, deconstruct - but of course to do it within the socio-historical context, and what better to way to start with the deconstruction of the school the students belong to.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I think the solution to our problems is to begin by asking radical questions that get students to "think" - whatever thinking might "mean" to them, it doesn't matter.
Deletesorry I do have time to edit this ... I'm going to be late for class. I'm sorry, Dr Loh. I got carried away.
Criticism that is situated in the lived realities of a student, does NOT run the risk of manufacturing "symbolic analyst" (to be honest, I have not checked out this term, I just remember that Dr Loh mentioned it; but I will)(who fall into the success model) whose "ideas", "concepts" and "abstractions" are separate and torn from society and valued according to capitalist terms. Pedagogical methods aimed at "critical thinking" WILL that do not consider these lived realities produce "symbolic analyst" who can't care less (or don't see their relation to) about the society they are formed and forged by. This is why I think the so-called "Culturally relevant pedagogy" is IMPORTANT. There is no skill and technique to do this, it simply involves asking necessarily radical, rebellious questions. Questions that are radical are an affront to the norm, and they are thus most effective at locating the "gaps and silences" in the narrative/text. Critique in other words, IS "meaningful-making". And "meaningful-making" is fun as the individual is as Dr Loh said Csikeszentmihalyi in a state of "flow". Everyone says that if we do what we are interested in, we will be happy and experience "flow" -- and who amongst us is not most comfortable in our primary discourse? My students for instance were excited about putting their "deconstructed thoughts" into a proper essay format, they were, (I would like to think - ha ha or at least they seemed) intrinsically motivated to take on the "formal discourse". If in schools their written work could be used to change school policy, then, they would feel even more motivated (i think) to adopt the literacy of "formal letter writing". In other words, they would meet whatever standards are required of them.
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ReplyDeleteLast point - Meaning for me, is made through interpretation, which is in turn, dependent on communication with the other. In other words, how we respond to someone always depends on the propositional attitude or our perception of the person's actions. The quotidian, question "How are you?" calls for a quotidian uninteresting response. In many ways, "how are you" is not a question but rather a "greeting". Radical questions in comparison do not have predictable answers, one is therefore called to pay attention to the Other (we are after all defined by them) that we have been attenuated from over time. The question "Why are you frowning?" as a form of greeting for instance requires the person asking the question to "read" the other, to infer, in a way that calls himself into question - did my actions for instance, result in the frown on Brigit's face? (sorry for invoking your name, Brigit, I could not resist! :). On a separate note, the wonderful thing about 'btiching' about someone is that at some point you find yourself asking yourself if you are not also either capable of and/or complicit of such egregious misdeeds - in other words, bitching is self-reflexive tool. Perhaps we can get students to criticize characters in stories as harshly as they can. This is not only fun, but as individuals they would each have their own reasons for criticizing such characters (i.e. it is culturally relevant), also helps them master the literacy needed for writing a complain letter for instance (an essential literacy). The effect of such an exercise would lead to greater self-awareness, which in my view, is what education should and can do. Teaching as Gee writes, "is ultimately a moral act" (111). As teachers, we are responsible are the socially inequality we perpetuate every single day. This is all nothing but mere-talk, and it is certainly more difficult (perhaps even impossible - who knows) in practice, but if we do nothing, these inequalities would continue to become an "inescapable fact of life" (106).
ReplyDeleteFrom Kodi: Texts and Readers
ReplyDeleteHeath notes that ‘the culture that children learn as they grow up is, in fact, “ways of taking” meaning from the environment around them’ and that this has a profound impact on them. In particular, their experiences in their homes and the types of interactions or lack of have a profound impact on them. It was interesting how something seemingly simple like the tradition of telling or not telling bedtime stories and the ways that children are engaged in the questions about those stories have a lasting impact on their school years. I found the case of the Roadville adults particularly interesting. They did read to their children since young. It was noted that ‘the rules for cooperative discourses are repeatedly practiced, coached and rewarded in the preschool years’. However, they restrained their toddlers from asking questions or interrupting them as they grew older and wanted to ‘talk’ during the sessions. This resulted in these children not being able to offer personal responses in class or really engage with the texts in class. This is in part due to the fact that ‘Roadville adults do not extend either the content or the habits of literacy events beyond bookreading’ nor ‘shift the context of items in their talk’. More significantly, the lack of exposure to books and having a different mainstream culture like the Trackton children also have a devastating effect as they are not tapped into school literacy. These two cases make me question, what can be done to breach these gaps in our schools and especially in the literature classroom.
This seeks to highlight the needs of the readers we have in our classroom and some of the considerations that must be taken into account when choosing literature texts. In fact, in Apple’s article it is emphasised that ‘texts are not simply “delivery systems” of “facts”. They are the simultaneous results of political, economic, and cultural activities, battles, and compromises.’ Our choice of texts can either enable the students’ understanding and appreciation of the texts when they are culturally relevant or further alienate them. Though students do respond to culturally relevant texts as they are able to identify with characters and issues in the texts, it is also important that students are exposed to texts from different cultures and countries. As Loh notes, ‘From cross-cultural perspectives, exposure to literary texts about other cultures allow for the imagination of a world where self exists in relation to others.’ This is especially important when looked at the increasingly globalised world that we live in and our multicultural classrooms.
The way students are taught to read these texts is just as important. Thus, how can we go about cultivating ‘critical reading dispositions’? How can we cater to students from diverse backgrounds for whom reading is not a part of their lives?
Heath’s ethnographic study of the Maintown, Roadville and Trackton communities is significant. These communities may not be typical of the various ethnic and class groups that can be in Singapore. However, there are similarities that may be drawn. The main take away for me was that children come to from a myriad of different backgrounds and cultures. As teachers, we need to be able to discern their strengths and the areas in which they have not had much exposure to.
ReplyDeleteIt is crucial for us to ensure that our methods and content are culturally relevant so as not to exclude any child in the classroom. Having its roots in sociocultural theory, this study raises crucial links to parents and the community in the development of a child.
When I was preparing for my presentation today, I understood how a reading of the text informs our perception of the world and the limits to which it can manipulate the knowledge reproduced as official knowledge. By studying Radway as a primary text for understanding women’s reading of novels, one cannot assume that her research is the only “true” knowledge. Apple (1997) strongly opposes the idea of “one text”. No one text can be expected to dominate the ideas of individuals. In other words, Radway’s perception of the romance readers and their habits is influenced by her reading of the world and her personal opinion of it. But, her reading cannot and should not limit our understanding of “romance novels”.
ReplyDeleteWhen a person writes or reads a text, he/she is constantly dialoguing with the ideas presented in the writing. Can this healthy interaction between a reader and their book be seen as the success of literacy? According to Gee, “ Literacy is the ability to read and (sometimes) to write." Literacy I feel is something we continuously build up on as individuals. On the first day of class, when Dr Loh asked us to trace the kind of reading we did through the years, we all listed the books that shaped our understanding. How did we cultivate the activity of reading? I remember how my parents sat down with me when I read about Dick and Jane. As children, we are coaxed to read something, but after a while we begin enjoying the process as we start choosing books that interest it. Gee refers to this process as socialization that a person inherits in the act of reading. We are social beings and the habits we form or develop are a result of the environment in which we grow up in.
I feel schools and institutions play a major role in socializing us into the way we read texts. We want our students to develop critical thinking skills and we constantly provide them with support to made a critical reading of the text. What we are in other words is educating them in the norm of the word. Even in our role as student teachers, I think MOE also sets standards for the way we read texts. We are made to question the texts as we read and master education and pedagogy. Good thinking reflects the elements of thinking that fuses together our understanding and critical analysis of a particular idea. I feel wherever we go, we will be socialized in some way or the other to fit into a community or group we join. So, is the process of learning and socialization any different outside the educational field?