enhancing literacy pedagogy by understanding practice

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Editorial Enhancing literacy pedagogy by understanding practice Curriculum and assessment initiatives that grow from settings that have high relatability for teachers and learners are known to be more likely to succeed than initiatives that are handed down in diktat fashion. This is so, not just because the process is more democratic and hence participants experience more ownership, but because such approaches are more likely to take better account of the realities and complexities of practice. They are better placed to attend to what learners and teachers do and can do, and by implica- tion, don’t and can’t do. The articles in this bigger- than-usual issue remind us of this point. Many of us are familiar with assessment practices and tools that are narrow, inflexible and designed to yield information for purposes of accountability only. Although we are also familiar with formative assess- ment practices that are more responsive to how learners perform in various situations with various supports, including peers and teachers as supports, the realm of aesthetic experience and artistic performance remains a challenging one for teachers to describe and assess. Sue Ellis, from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, and her teacher colleague, Becky Lawrence, shed light on some difficult questions in this regard, including the following: how can teachers evaluate children’s progress when they are creating sculptures, developing dance pieces and making a film? How might teachers describe this learning and performance? Are there common threads linking learning in different arts subjects? And, do we risk undermining the creative dimension by assessing it? Their article charts the refinement of a tool for analysing interrelated dimensions of children’s learn- ing in creative areas, and importantly, a tool that helps teachers to negotiate with learners, to understand the perspectives they bring to bear on what they do, and so fine-tune practice in response. The result is a rich framework for thinking about and describing learners’ achievements in artistic endeavours, a framework that has the potential to enhance the teaching, learning and assessment of aesthetic aspects of curriculum and literacy. How the personal and the professional/institutional are enmeshed, regardless of who or what age the learner is, is something that is becoming increasingly recognised in attempts to enhance all learning, includ- ing professional learning. Premised on the notion that teachers’ personal and professional reading can have a positive impact on their pedagogy and specifically on their students’ reading for pleasure, Teresa Cremin, Marilyn Mottram, Fiona Collins, Sacha Powell and Kimberly Safford develop the concept of the ‘reading teacher’ – ‘‘a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches’’. Their multi-authored research and develop- ment study, funded by several agencies, including the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA), inte- grates a range of research techniques to probe practice and thinking at individual, school and local authority levels. The project, which is an extension of an earlier study on how teachers use children’s literature, sought to develop, not only teachers’ knowledge and peda- gogy in relation to children’s literature, but crucially, sought to extend and make connections with teachers’ own reading and their reader relationships within and beyond the school. The evidence shows, among other things, how the new kinds of relationships that were forged across pupils, teachers and community mem- bers, enabled new kinds of text talk and new opportunities for learning. Developing technology to maximise learning in sec- ondary classrooms is the theme of Tom Conlon’s article about non-fiction text concept mapping. The article which stems from a collaborative, case-study research project in Computing and English classrooms in different comprehensive schools, attends to ways in which pupils might develop text comprehension and summarising competency through concept mapping. The development and refinement of ‘‘a new peda- gogy’’ and its associated technology is documented with reference to student and teacher responses. The new technology includes tools that pupils can use for text mark-up, phrase extraction from marked-up text into list windows, drag and drop aids for transfer from list windows to concept map window, and sentence generation facilities from the concept map. The research team is working on the development of tools that will allow students to analyse and evaluate argument in discursive texts. For now though it would appear that the new technology offers a promising addition to the repertoire of literacy approaches for text comprehension. Staying with classrooms, learners and new technolo- gies, Lisa Kervin’s article details how one teacher and her students planned, wrote, filmed and edited a 30- second ‘commercial’ designed to capture a social justice issue. Operational, cultural and critical dimen- sions of the process are fully described in a way that makes explicit the learning journey students made. Literacy Volume 43 Number 1 April 2009 1 r UKLA 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Page 1: Enhancing literacy pedagogy by understanding practice

EditorialEnhancing literacy pedagogy byunderstanding practice

Curriculum and assessment initiatives that grow fromsettings that have high relatability for teachers andlearners are known to be more likely to succeed thaninitiatives that are handed down in diktat fashion. Thisis so, not just because the process is more democraticand hence participants experience more ownership,but because such approaches are more likely to takebetter account of the realities and complexities ofpractice. They are better placed to attend to whatlearners and teachers do and can do, and by implica-tion, don’t and can’t do. The articles in this bigger-than-usual issue remind us of this point.

Many of us are familiar with assessment practices andtools that are narrow, inflexible and designed to yieldinformation for purposes of accountability only.Although we are also familiar with formative assess-ment practices that are more responsive to howlearners perform in various situations with varioussupports, including peers and teachers as supports, therealm of aesthetic experience and artistic performanceremains a challenging one for teachers to describe andassess. Sue Ellis, from the Centre for Literacy inPrimary Education, and her teacher colleague, BeckyLawrence, shed light on some difficult questions in thisregard, including the following: how can teachersevaluate children’s progress when they are creatingsculptures, developing dance pieces and making afilm? How might teachers describe this learning andperformance? Are there common threads linkinglearning in different arts subjects? And, do we riskundermining the creative dimension by assessing it?Their article charts the refinement of a tool foranalysing interrelated dimensions of children’s learn-ing in creative areas, and importantly, a tool that helpsteachers to negotiate with learners, to understand theperspectives they bring to bear on what they do, and sofine-tune practice in response. The result is a richframework for thinking about and describing learners’achievements in artistic endeavours, a framework thathas the potential to enhance the teaching, learning andassessment of aesthetic aspects of curriculum andliteracy.

How the personal and the professional/institutionalare enmeshed, regardless of who or what age thelearner is, is something that is becoming increasinglyrecognised in attempts to enhance all learning, includ-ing professional learning. Premised on the notion thatteachers’ personal and professional reading can have apositive impact on their pedagogy and specifically on

their students’ reading for pleasure, Teresa Cremin,Marilyn Mottram, Fiona Collins, Sacha Powell andKimberly Safford develop the concept of the ‘readingteacher’ – ‘‘a teacher who reads and a reader whoteaches’’. Their multi-authored research and develop-ment study, funded by several agencies, including theUnited Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA), inte-grates a range of research techniques to probe practiceand thinking at individual, school and local authoritylevels. The project, which is an extension of an earlierstudy on how teachers use children’s literature, soughtto develop, not only teachers’ knowledge and peda-gogy in relation to children’s literature, but crucially,sought to extend and make connections with teachers’own reading and their reader relationships within andbeyond the school. The evidence shows, among otherthings, how the new kinds of relationships that wereforged across pupils, teachers and community mem-bers, enabled new kinds of text talk and newopportunities for learning.

Developing technology to maximise learning in sec-ondary classrooms is the theme of Tom Conlon’s articleabout non-fiction text concept mapping. The articlewhich stems from a collaborative, case-study researchproject in Computing and English classrooms indifferent comprehensive schools, attends to ways inwhich pupils might develop text comprehension andsummarising competency through concept mapping.The development and refinement of ‘‘a new peda-gogy’’ and its associated technology is documentedwith reference to student and teacher responses. Thenew technology includes tools that pupils can use fortext mark-up, phrase extraction from marked-up textinto list windows, drag and drop aids for transfer fromlist windows to concept map window, and sentencegeneration facilities from the concept map. Theresearch team is working on the development of toolsthat will allow students to analyse and evaluateargument in discursive texts. For now though it wouldappear that the new technology offers a promisingaddition to the repertoire of literacy approaches fortext comprehension.

Staying with classrooms, learners and new technolo-gies, Lisa Kervin’s article details how one teacher andher students planned, wrote, filmed and edited a 30-second ‘commercial’ designed to capture a socialjustice issue. Operational, cultural and critical dimen-sions of the process are fully described in a way thatmakes explicit the learning journey students made.

Literacy Volume 43 Number 1 April 2009 1

r UKLA 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Page 2: Enhancing literacy pedagogy by understanding practice

The author’s evidence allows her to show how textgenres interact and overlap, thus blurring traditionalboundaries across the written and the visual, the‘new’ and the ‘old’ technologies, and, of course,out-of-school and in-school practices. The play on‘authenticity’ in the title challenges us to consider ourpractices in the light of what our learners genuinelyfind meaningful and generative.

‘‘Meaning is the central element of the readingacquisition process’’ and ‘‘Pragmatic aspects of read-ing acquisition were given first priority in the earlysteps of literacy acquisition, instead of solely focusingon decoding abilities’’. Thus concludes a paper by UllaDamber, which describes the second phase of a large-scale study of teacher and classroom factors impactingon successful literacy learning in multicultural Stock-holm. Echoing the premise of Cremin et al. above,literature and enjoyment emerged as key issues insupporting the inclusion and full participation of alllearners, regardless of their initial competence in themedium of instruction of the school (Swedish). What isworthy of repetition here is that success with learnerswhose first language was not Swedish stemmed fromgenuine opportunities to catch up with their nativeSwedish peers, which included the use of the mothertongue in literacy pedagogy. Awareness of andsensitivity to learners’ ways of knowing and culturalrepertoires would seem to be basic to moving awayfrom locating problems within individuals and theircommunities and moving towards a more criticalengagement with what is available to be learned.

Readers of this journal and delegates at UKLA andother literacy conferences cannot but notice theincreasing emphasis on multimodal texts and theiraffordances for learning and teaching. Typically thiswork embraces the new technologies, justifies their usein school literacy curricula and critically illuminatesprocesses involved in their incorporation into class-room pedagogies. The next article by Havard Skaarstarts from quite a different perspective, that is, that thedigital technology allows us to avoid semiotic work.While not denying the potential benefits for learning ofnew technologies, the article highlights the pedagogi-cal benefits of the written mode. Writing as a mode isdefended, as the title says. I am summarising the

defence and the problem, as Skaar sees it, as follows: asign made by another person is inevitably imbued withthat person’s interest and intentions; if it is thenreproduced by the learners for their purposes, a finepiece of work can result – sophisticated and advanced– but without the level of semiotic work that would bethe case if the learners had made the sign forthemselves in the first place. Because the new textdoes not reflect their participation in the productionprocess, it does not reflect their learning. The argu-ment, from a learning perspective, is that ‘‘writingshould retain its dominant and privileged positioneven in the new media age’’. I suspect this is acontroversial thesis and one that readers may beinterested in debating further through the pages ofthis journal.

The final article in this issue is a deeply personalreflection on a bookmaking project conducted withSerbian and Bosnian girls at a summer camp outsideSarajevo in 2005. Jacqueline Darvin, the author,describes the manner in which the story telling of thechildren in post-war Bosnia and the production of theirnarratives acted as vehicles for healing rifts betweendisparate groups. The article shows something of thetransformatory and therapeutic role of literacy infundamental aspects of our lives. Here we see howparticipants, including their workshop leaders, ima-gine new possibilities for seeing themselves, theircultures and their relations with others; not only that,but also new possibilities for enacting selves, culturesand relationships.

Recognising learners’ perspectives, practices, experi-ences, meanings and intentions – whether they arepupils in schools or their teachers and parents –remains an important principle of literacy pedagogy, aprinciple that, in their different ways, these articlescollectively endorse. Acknowledging it pedagogicallyand research methodologically focuses attention onpractices, and assumptions underlying practices. En-hancing literacy pedagogy, it would seem, directs us towhat people do with literacy to make sense ofthemselves, their learning and their worlds.

Kathy Hall

2 Editorial

r UKLA 2009