CHILDREN AND THEIR TEXTS-  

 39th UKRA Conference

11th – 13th July 2003

  University of Cambridge

 Homerton College

TEACHING READING IN THE 21ST CENTURY:

Reading as a set of interrelated social and cultural practices.

Pat Smith & Margaret ZeegersUniversity of Ballarat

READING PRACTICESLuke & Freebody 2000

• code-breaker (How do I crack this?)

• text participant (What does this mean?)

• text user (What do I do within the here and now?)

• text analyst (What does all this do to me?)

READERS AS TEXT CODE BREAKERS

• ‘Pooh plunged into the water, seized the bottle, and struggled back to his feet again. “Bother!” said Pooh, as he opened it. All that wet for nothing. What’s that bit of paper doing?” He took it out and looked at it. “It’s a message,” he said to himself, “that’s what it is. And that letter is a ‘P’, so it’s a very important Message to me, and I can’t read it. I must find Christopher Robin or Owl or piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can read things, and they will tell me what this Message means. Only I can’t swim. Bother!” ‘

(A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1927, p.123)

Read this paragraph. Be ready to answer some questions.

• ‘”Eth exten four pacherts will manimex three spectas of dinger crapites. The three spectas of dinga crapites which will be manimexed are;

• 1. Thaw eth ding esod:• 2. Who eth ding spoleved; and• 3. Thaw cheaters od ot tureen sheet dinger

crapites. Sith pachert manimexes dings sa edoc-karebers.’ (After Ken Goodman)

Text code breakers

• They attend to visual information and to non-visual information to decipher text

• Word attack skills; phonological perceptions, discriminations and predictions to crack the code

• Know the patterns and conventions of print • Use IT skills• Decipher visual/pictorial symbols

SCAFFOLDING CHILDREN AS TEXT CODE BREAKERS

Facilitate and transfer code breaking skills through a systematically orchestrated teaching and learning cycle.

Related classroom practices include

1. Modelled reading

2. Guided reading

3. Independent reading

Objectives related to literacy.

• To consolidate students’ knowledge and skills related to research

• To consolidate and extend students’ knowledge and skills related to report and persuasive texts

• To develop students’ knowledge and skills related to conducting WWW searches

• To nurture students’ sense of purpose in research and reporting of outcomes.

Modelled Reading 1

• Review skills in using library catalogues, shelf skimming and scanning, and text selection.

• Review students’ access procedures for entering WWW

• Review search engines and where and how to find them

Searching the WWW

• We then went about researching on the net initially typing in McLibel ...and a whole lot of stuff came up !!!! • http://www.btimes.co.za/97/0629/world/world1.htm • http://asups.ups.edu/tanthony/pg315/summary.htm • http://www.tmtm.com/sides/mclib.html This one also mentions use of

their toys• http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/commercial-alert/2002/000122.html

Thisone is a useful one to focus on the potential to buy corporate citizenship•  We tried to ensure that the sources of information were as reputable

as we could ascertain. We didn't want to lose out creditability just because we'd tapped into some fringe stuff.

• This web site sets some of the background for the current ads that focus on the 'real' food

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2787219.stm

Search

• SearchMad cow: news+sci+picsGoogle +Lycos+Yahoo

• News ServicesScience news+TickerNY Times+W.PostUSATodayWorld+US papersIndependent+TelegraphGuardian+BBC+IHTMeat News; Braakman

Modelled Reading 2

• Demonstrate searches in regard to topic• Demonstrate searches in relation to another

aspect of topic• Demonstrate different kinds of searches and

their impact on search results• Demonstrate and discuss search results• Demonstrate skimming, scanning, culling

and book marking of search results

Guided reading

• Practising what has been previously modelled.• Shift the focus to a new aspect • Have students gather information and take notes in

library and back in classrooms.• Allow for mediating conversation especially about

code breaking practices used to locate information.

• Each side jointly drafts and composes text

Independent reading

• Students continue to work in groups cooperatively at computer terminals

• Explore relevant sites• Provide opportunities for students to visit

local public library.• Collate information into reports as

previously modelled and guided• Build up debate argument from research.

Guided reading

• McDonald's is "bad" (2001). This group’s focus was the affirmative side

• Guided reading: Discussed some of their initial ideas and planned out what they saw as some key issues I.e. to look at how McDonald's worked and the type of 'food' they provided!);who would be the people who would be wanting to present a 'different' side of McDonald's and why they wouldn't bother searching McD's sites. The teacher was aware that McDonald's had a court case in the UK in 1999 and they talked about how that could demonstrate how McD's operated and how it represented their ability to be either customer-focused or corporation-focused.

• Printed off reports, sorted into useful group and used these for Guided and Independent Reading.

READERS AS TEXT PARTICIPANTS

Text participants make meaning from texts. They can:1. Retrieve literal meanings2. Draw inferences3. Interpret4. Construct figurative meanings5. Evaluate text6. Make links to prior knowledge and experience7. Read pictures and other kinds f visual images across

print, IT and other media

Text Participants and related practices in modelled, guided and independent reading

• Discuss prior knowledge of text types (genres), text structure and language appropriate to text type.

• Help students to anticipate and select appropriate reading strategies

• Engage students in a range of activities to explore and express their meanings and responses eg Book circles, Read and retell. DRTA, KWL, semantic webs, debates.

KWL

• Always greener: environmental policy launch

McD’s Sauce

READERS AS TEXT USERS

• Use texts in social and personal situations to achieve purposes

• Interact with others about texts

• Participate in reading events

• Select texts to suit reader purpose

• Adjust reading strategies to suit text type and readers purpose.

A text user

CONCENTRATE1. As a text code breaker, are you able to

decipher the text? What does the word say?

2. As a text participant, what meaning did you make from the text?

3. As a text user, what is the purpose of the text?

You are what you eat.

• McDonald's: Mad Cow Worries May 21, 2003  • Chicago - Shares in major hamburger chains like McDonald's fell

sharply after Canada said it had confirmed a case of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE). The fatal brain-wasting disease has never been detected in U.S. cattle, but a case so close to the U.S. border scared investors. Mad cow caused sharp declines in beef consumption in Britain, Continental Euro and Japan after outbreaks there in recent years. A similar disease in humans is contracted by eating tainted meat from infected animals. The human variant of the disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, has killed more than 100 people in Britain and Europe in recent years.

• John Glass, an analyst with CIBC World Markets, said even though Canada is not a major market for McDonald's, "this is a serious issue, because you're not dealing facts, you're dealing in perception."

Readers as text analysts

• Reflect on a text’s ideological meanings

• Interrogate texts

• Detect a text’s position

• Take a position-accepting, rejecting, or challenging a text’s position

• Recognize and talk about opinion, bias and point of view in texts

• Construct alternative positions to those in texts

• Recognize and describe ways in which a text is crafted

Palm notes 1

» That McDonald’s is ‘bad’1 Introduction. According to the Oxford dictionary to be bad

means having undesirable qualities; being harmful, wicked or evil. I want to show that in fact McDonalds is all of these.

2 In a recent court case in England, McDonalds was shown to be very ‘bad’. The judge ruled that McDonalds was ‘bad’ in lots of ways. These ways included that:McDonald’s exploits children because they are more susceptible to advertising, pressuring their parents into going to McDonald’s.

• McDonald’s marketing has pretended that their food has a nutritional benefit that it can not match (it’s actually high in fat and salt, etc.) McDonald’s is responsible for animal cruelty

• McDonald’s pays low wages, helping to keep wages down in food service

Palm notes 2

3 McDonald’s uses children•  McDonald’s has a worldwide budget for promotion and

advertising of $2 billion pa..• They aim their advertising at children.• In their “Operations Manual” they say that ‘because

children like Ronald McDonald and he likes McDonald’s, then children will like McDonald’s too’.

• Children nag their parents to go to McDonald’s, to collect toys and to play in the playgrounds.

• Parents agree because it keeps the kids quiet. There is always a McDonald’s store - no matter where they are going.

Palm notes 3

4 McDonald’s is not good food Show poster – • McDonald’s meal is high in fat, salt and sugar• The other meals is low in fat, salt and sugar but high fibre, water,

vitamins and minerals• McDonald’s public relations staff actually said that “We don’t sell

nutrition and people don’t come to McDonalds for nutrition”5 McDonald’s causes animal cruelty•  McDonald’s produced a statement on cruelty to animals.• But they say they only do this in some countries and that the cost of

the animal product is much more important than the animal’s quality of life.

• McDonald’s buy battery eggs because they cost 50% less than free range

• Suppliers to McDonalds have been shown to have chickens laying eggs in cages 5 to a cage, each with less than an A4 piece of paper for space.

Social critical literacy

• They act on what they have learned

• They are attention grabbers in the attention economy (Lankshear 2003).

• They use literacy to make a difference.

Mad About You

Mad About You - A documentary about the mad cow and man questionDaniele Tabellini, Francesco Buso