A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representati... more A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representations of "self " are explored, as are their interrelationship with language, culture, and history. Realizing the linguistic and philosophical complexities inherent in defining the self, especially its relationship to the written word, attempts are made to untangle the web of constructs and images in which selflis expressed and identified, including interpretive conventions, culturai and cognitive frames of mind, and cultural, metaphoric, and symbolic associations. It is concluded that regardless of how people use literacy, it continues to shape how individuals understand themselves, our world, and others, and it contributes to the creation of a culture. Once conceptualized, the "self " becomes embodied in the texts, symbols, and literate practices of a culture, and in reading and interpreting meaning, it is recreated again. (Contains 90 references.) (MSE) * Reproduction...
Integrating critical thinking and reasoning skills with content in the humanities and the social ... more Integrating critical thinking and reasoning skills with content in the humanities and the social science curricula at the postsecondary level invites students to become co-participants in discovering and constructing knowledge as members of a learning "community." Readers of the research literature on critical thinking confront many definitions and interpretations of critical thinking, not to mention considerable debate about what thinking skills are involved and how they should be taught. The common ground among critical thinking theorists is the belief that teaching critical thinking must be integrally related to some form of content knowledge. Instructors ought to begin to teach the philosophy or structure of their disciplines, be it history, sociology, or literature, in addition to examining the various ways that arguments are constructed and evidence used to substantiate statements and knowledge claims. Critical thinking skills can be taught most effectively in an interdisciplinary curricula in which critical. thinking is valued and established as an educational goal and where faculty reach a consensus on a pedagogy to teach reasoning skills across the disciplines. An interdisciplinary curricula in critical thinking should teach students to think and make judgments in different interpretive frames, to step outside of preconceived and limited thinking patterns. A major pedagogical goal of a critical thinking curriculum must be to problematize received knowledge and paradigms by engendering a critical spirit in institutions and in classrooms, not in a way that devalues inherited knowledge and values, but in a way that enriches them. (RS)
The aim of this review is to identify and examine the rhetorical features, conventions, and socio... more The aim of this review is to identify and examine the rhetorical features, conventions, and sociocultural contexts that students engage when they enter an academic discourse community. The review seeks to identify and analyze the intertextual relationships between teacher/authority recommendations and the development of student autonomy and voice in revising texts; the interaction and conflicts between students' personal experience and the development of a professional persona and voice in academic discourse; and the interaction between the institutional/disciplinary, cultural, and social contexts and students' personal experience and prior knowledge as they learn to compose academic discourse. It also examines how teacher/student conflict may create a dynamic that alters both the role of the participants and the processes for creating disciplinary knowledge. After a critique of the studies, suggestions are offered about areas to the explored for additional research to identify instructional methods and contexts for teaching writing in and across the disciplines. Contains 13 references. (Author/RS)
A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representati... more A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representations of "self" are explored, as are their interrelationship with language, culture, and history. Realizing the linguistic and philosophical complexities inherent in defining the self, especially its relationship to the written word, attempts are made to untangle the web of constructs and images in which selflis expressed and identified, including interpretive conventions, culturai and cognitive frames of mind, and cultural, metaphoric, and symbolic associations. It is concluded that regardless of how people use literacy, it continues to shape how individuals understand themselves, our world, and others, and it contributes to the creation of a culture. Once conceptualized, the "self" becomes embodied in the texts, symbols, and literate practices of a culture, and in reading and interpreting meaning, it is recreated again. (Contains 90 references.) (MSE)
Since this was not what we predicted, an alternative model, based on shifts in the type of proble... more Since this was not what we predicted, an alternative model, based on shifts in the type of problem solved early in the training, was developed. Before acquisition, both shaped groups were solving ill-defined problems; both instructed groups had well-defined ones. As shaping proceeded, differential reinforcement selected responses which met the criterion, thus specifying the goal and ways to to meet it. As soon as subjects in the 1-Shape group acquired the target, their problem became well-defined, making them like the instructed groups in which repetition rather than variation sufficed to earn points. In the 4-Shape group, the criterion continued to change, reinstating an ill-defined problem at each step Since variation was necessary to keep earning points, a high implicit variability criterion was in effect longer during shaping. Support for this interpretation comes from two additional pieces of data Remember, a high vdriability criterion requires that current responses differ from prior ones. During acquisition, there wert more shifts to different Run Lengths in the 4-Shape group, and more to same Run Lengths in the other three groups Since the 4-Shape group also generated more different Run Lengths during acquisition, higher variability after acquisition could be due to maintaining these earlier, shorter Run Lengths. This was not the case. At the end of training (last 25 reinforced trials), the 4-Shape group had few Run Lengths under 10, 21% at 10 and 68% over 10.0. Responding in the other groups centered at the target, 10 It looks as if repeatedly reinstating ill-structure generates high variability If this is true, then holding the number of steps and target Run Length constant, there should be no difference if step sizes increase, decrease or stay the same To examine this possibility (Stokes & Balsam, unpublished data), two additional groups were trained. The 4-Shape group had been shaped with targets (1, 3, 6, and 10) of increasing step size (+2, +3, +4). The new groups were shaped with equal (targets:1, 4. 7 and 10; all steps +3) or decreasing steps (tar2ets: I, 5, 8 and 10; steps: +4, +3, +2). There were no declines in uncertainty after acqusition and no differences between groups. Coda on Creativity. The current studies. as well as prior developmental ones (e.g., Seigler, 1994), support the idea that variability levels, and by extension, boredom thresholds, are acquired. When you get bored in an area depends on a learned variability requirement in that area. Look again at Figure 1. Along the diagonal, skill matches structure. Problem solving is rewarding, intrinsically via self-reinforcers like competency, or extrinsically via reinforcers like status and salary. Responses that are reinforced tend to be repeated this is the definition of an operant: a behav lor whose frequency depends on its consequences.
Proceedings of the 1996 World Conference on Literacy, 1996
Reviewing the research literature in literacy studies demands patience to deconstruct the multila... more Reviewing the research literature in literacy studies demands patience to deconstruct the multilayered meanings of the concept of literacy. Literacy is a loaded term that is also embedded in myths associated with social and economic progress, political democracy, social and educational mobility, and the development of cognitive skills. Graff (1995) reminds readers that literacy has historically represented and continues to represent different things to people. Scribner (1988) "unpackages literacy" by using the metaphors of "adaptation," "power," and "state of grace"-if students' literacy skills are at level they are in the adaptive mode, below level and they have fallen from grace, and above level they attain power or status. Viewed as an abstract set of decontextualized skills, literacy contributes to the creation of the "deficit" model in educational and social systems. This model has been applied in many remedial reading and writing programs at all educational levels. Ironically, attempts to teach literacy skills in the schools often restricts literacy development because of educators' lack of knowledge and awareness of the interweaving of social, cultural, and oral literacy contexts of language use and identity. Students' language use in other contexts dramatically conflicts with school discourse and many students fail to acquire higher literacy skills. "Multiliteracies" must be studied in many contexts to better understand their role in instruction and curriculum development. There is a pressing need to define and recognize "non-schooled" literacies associated with different mediums and tools, including the technological, visual, and mathematical, and literacies associated with using information technology. (Contains 58 references.) (NKA)
A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representati... more A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representations of "self " are explored, as are their interrelationship with language, culture, and history. Realizing the linguistic and philosophical complexities inherent in defining the self, especially its relationship to the written word, attempts are made to untangle the web of constructs and images in which selflis expressed and identified, including interpretive conventions, culturai and cognitive frames of mind, and cultural, metaphoric, and symbolic associations. It is concluded that regardless of how people use literacy, it continues to shape how individuals understand themselves, our world, and others, and it contributes to the creation of a culture. Once conceptualized, the "self " becomes embodied in the texts, symbols, and literate practices of a culture, and in reading and interpreting meaning, it is recreated again. (Contains 90 references.) (MSE) * Reproduction...
Integrating critical thinking and reasoning skills with content in the humanities and the social ... more Integrating critical thinking and reasoning skills with content in the humanities and the social science curricula at the postsecondary level invites students to become co-participants in discovering and constructing knowledge as members of a learning "community." Readers of the research literature on critical thinking confront many definitions and interpretations of critical thinking, not to mention considerable debate about what thinking skills are involved and how they should be taught. The common ground among critical thinking theorists is the belief that teaching critical thinking must be integrally related to some form of content knowledge. Instructors ought to begin to teach the philosophy or structure of their disciplines, be it history, sociology, or literature, in addition to examining the various ways that arguments are constructed and evidence used to substantiate statements and knowledge claims. Critical thinking skills can be taught most effectively in an interdisciplinary curricula in which critical. thinking is valued and established as an educational goal and where faculty reach a consensus on a pedagogy to teach reasoning skills across the disciplines. An interdisciplinary curricula in critical thinking should teach students to think and make judgments in different interpretive frames, to step outside of preconceived and limited thinking patterns. A major pedagogical goal of a critical thinking curriculum must be to problematize received knowledge and paradigms by engendering a critical spirit in institutions and in classrooms, not in a way that devalues inherited knowledge and values, but in a way that enriches them. (RS)
The aim of this review is to identify and examine the rhetorical features, conventions, and socio... more The aim of this review is to identify and examine the rhetorical features, conventions, and sociocultural contexts that students engage when they enter an academic discourse community. The review seeks to identify and analyze the intertextual relationships between teacher/authority recommendations and the development of student autonomy and voice in revising texts; the interaction and conflicts between students' personal experience and the development of a professional persona and voice in academic discourse; and the interaction between the institutional/disciplinary, cultural, and social contexts and students' personal experience and prior knowledge as they learn to compose academic discourse. It also examines how teacher/student conflict may create a dynamic that alters both the role of the participants and the processes for creating disciplinary knowledge. After a critique of the studies, suggestions are offered about areas to the explored for additional research to identify instructional methods and contexts for teaching writing in and across the disciplines. Contains 13 references. (Author/RS)
A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representati... more A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representations of "self" are explored, as are their interrelationship with language, culture, and history. Realizing the linguistic and philosophical complexities inherent in defining the self, especially its relationship to the written word, attempts are made to untangle the web of constructs and images in which selflis expressed and identified, including interpretive conventions, culturai and cognitive frames of mind, and cultural, metaphoric, and symbolic associations. It is concluded that regardless of how people use literacy, it continues to shape how individuals understand themselves, our world, and others, and it contributes to the creation of a culture. Once conceptualized, the "self" becomes embodied in the texts, symbols, and literate practices of a culture, and in reading and interpreting meaning, it is recreated again. (Contains 90 references.) (MSE)
Since this was not what we predicted, an alternative model, based on shifts in the type of proble... more Since this was not what we predicted, an alternative model, based on shifts in the type of problem solved early in the training, was developed. Before acquisition, both shaped groups were solving ill-defined problems; both instructed groups had well-defined ones. As shaping proceeded, differential reinforcement selected responses which met the criterion, thus specifying the goal and ways to to meet it. As soon as subjects in the 1-Shape group acquired the target, their problem became well-defined, making them like the instructed groups in which repetition rather than variation sufficed to earn points. In the 4-Shape group, the criterion continued to change, reinstating an ill-defined problem at each step Since variation was necessary to keep earning points, a high implicit variability criterion was in effect longer during shaping. Support for this interpretation comes from two additional pieces of data Remember, a high vdriability criterion requires that current responses differ from prior ones. During acquisition, there wert more shifts to different Run Lengths in the 4-Shape group, and more to same Run Lengths in the other three groups Since the 4-Shape group also generated more different Run Lengths during acquisition, higher variability after acquisition could be due to maintaining these earlier, shorter Run Lengths. This was not the case. At the end of training (last 25 reinforced trials), the 4-Shape group had few Run Lengths under 10, 21% at 10 and 68% over 10.0. Responding in the other groups centered at the target, 10 It looks as if repeatedly reinstating ill-structure generates high variability If this is true, then holding the number of steps and target Run Length constant, there should be no difference if step sizes increase, decrease or stay the same To examine this possibility (Stokes & Balsam, unpublished data), two additional groups were trained. The 4-Shape group had been shaped with targets (1, 3, 6, and 10) of increasing step size (+2, +3, +4). The new groups were shaped with equal (targets:1, 4. 7 and 10; all steps +3) or decreasing steps (tar2ets: I, 5, 8 and 10; steps: +4, +3, +2). There were no declines in uncertainty after acqusition and no differences between groups. Coda on Creativity. The current studies. as well as prior developmental ones (e.g., Seigler, 1994), support the idea that variability levels, and by extension, boredom thresholds, are acquired. When you get bored in an area depends on a learned variability requirement in that area. Look again at Figure 1. Along the diagonal, skill matches structure. Problem solving is rewarding, intrinsically via self-reinforcers like competency, or extrinsically via reinforcers like status and salary. Responses that are reinforced tend to be repeated this is the definition of an operant: a behav lor whose frequency depends on its consequences.
Proceedings of the 1996 World Conference on Literacy, 1996
Reviewing the research literature in literacy studies demands patience to deconstruct the multila... more Reviewing the research literature in literacy studies demands patience to deconstruct the multilayered meanings of the concept of literacy. Literacy is a loaded term that is also embedded in myths associated with social and economic progress, political democracy, social and educational mobility, and the development of cognitive skills. Graff (1995) reminds readers that literacy has historically represented and continues to represent different things to people. Scribner (1988) "unpackages literacy" by using the metaphors of "adaptation," "power," and "state of grace"-if students' literacy skills are at level they are in the adaptive mode, below level and they have fallen from grace, and above level they attain power or status. Viewed as an abstract set of decontextualized skills, literacy contributes to the creation of the "deficit" model in educational and social systems. This model has been applied in many remedial reading and writing programs at all educational levels. Ironically, attempts to teach literacy skills in the schools often restricts literacy development because of educators' lack of knowledge and awareness of the interweaving of social, cultural, and oral literacy contexts of language use and identity. Students' language use in other contexts dramatically conflicts with school discourse and many students fail to acquire higher literacy skills. "Multiliteracies" must be studied in many contexts to better understand their role in instruction and curriculum development. There is a pressing need to define and recognize "non-schooled" literacies associated with different mediums and tools, including the technological, visual, and mathematical, and literacies associated with using information technology. (Contains 58 references.) (NKA)
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