Critical approaches to making meaning

"To say one is committed to 'critical' work in literacy education is not to say something simple, but something profound" (Morrell, 2008, p. 82).



This week, we read an assortment of essays that you will synthesize in your own blog posts.

On writing and teaching
I am a writer. I write poems and short-stories, and essays about theory, schooling, and my research. A big part of the appeal of being an academic is that as an academic I can have a writing life. I work on my writing daily, often as soon as I wake up in the morning. I love to write. I read to write. I write to read. I write to know. I write to figure out.

One thing that has always struck me as a missed opportunity is that the kind of writing taught in schools is a kind of writing that is at best a shell of the writing that writers actually do. Luna, as we read earlier this summer, taught us that we have allowed academic or school literacy to stand in the place of what we might mean by literacy.

When I consult with schools and teachers on improving writing instruction, I ask them to think about the kind of writing that is practiced/praxised in their fields. What kinds of writing do chemists, mathematicians, biologists, historians, anthropologists, poets, essayists, do? This kind of writing is done, not because it is a shell or a performance, but because this kind of writing makes meaning. In this kind of writing, the writer is making meaning. Web 2.0 technology has yielded additional fora such as blogs and wikis in which writers can make meaning.


On critical mathematical literacy
This week I have two video clips for you to watch in order to support your reading. Both are posted below this post. The first is from a PBS special on Robert Moses' Algebra Project. After the video loads, you can move the timer to minute 12:30, when the segment on Moses begins.

[Copy and paste this link into your browser http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/328/video.html ]

The second is a clip from the February 2, 2010 (airdate) edition of the Rachel Maddow show. The clip is in response to Tea Party member Tom Tancredo's call for a reinstatement of literacy tests for voting (the very literacy tests Moses was working to overthrow). For our purposes, you can stop watching at 2:35, but you may want to continue watching to see how Tea Party members are constructing literacy.

[Copy and paste this link into your browser: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/02/09/3872703-when-the-tea-party-cheers-the-literacy-test ]

Delect and delight in your meaning making this week!