Browsing by Subject "Family literacy"
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Item Learning to write in (networked) public: children and the delivery of writing online(2014-12) Roach, Audra Katherine; Bomer, Randy; Hoffman, Jim; Maloch, Beth; Schallert, Diane; Hodgson, JustinThis investigation explored how three children (together with parents) developed networked publics that were diverse, well-connected, and powerful in the world. It was framed in response to calls in the field to better understand the new literacies young writers develop online and outside of school, and to increase literacy educators’ attention to the role of public audiences in writing and how writing is circulated. Performative case study methodology, ethnographic methods, and digital methods were employed to track and describe the online networks of three children (ages 11-13). These focal children were actively involved with their parents in social media, and had developed widespread networks with shared interests in children’s books and book reviews (Case 1), baseball (Case 2), and helping the homeless (Case 3). The children’s online networks were conceptualized as networked publics, drawing on Warner’s (2002) notion of publics as ongoing discursive relations among strangers, and on Actor-Network Theory’s notion of networks as assemblages of diverse interests that mobilize toward a common goal (Callon, 1986) and that develop stability in relation to ongoing circulations of texts (Latour, 1986; Spinuzzi, 2008). Research questions were framed broadly around the rhetorical canon of delivery [now digital delivery (Porter, 2009)], and were concerned with how writers distributed texts online, how those texts circulated, how the networked publics become more stable and powerful, and what instabilities children and parents had to negotiate in order to accomplish all of this. Data sources included interviews with 15 children and 28 adults, and fieldnotes observations of approximately 1,700 screen-captured webpages and other online artifacts. Findings showed that the young writers and their parents initiated and sustained networked publics through distribution practices that were oriented toward building trust; their texts displayed: interest, appreciation, reliability, service, credibility, and responsiveness. Both grassroots and commercial entities circulated texts in these networks, as they were sources of the ongoing renewal these different groups all needed in order to thrive. Sources of instability included conflicts over standards of writing quality, matters of profit, and the constancy of the demand to generate new interest and writing online. Children and their parents responded to these instabilities by welcoming and negotiating heterogeneous perspectives and partnerships. Implications of the study call for further research and teaching about the art of networked public discourse and digital delivery.Item What’s in their backpacks : pre-kindergartners’ literacy practices from home to school and back(2010-12) Scott, Deana Jill Allen; Brown, Christopher P., Ph. D.; Mosley, Melissa; Schallert, Diane; Reifel, Stuart; Worthy, JoPre-kindergarten students often arrive the first day of school carrying a backpack filled with supplies which they are eager to use. Inside these backpacks are scissors, glue, and crayons. This study proposes that the pre-kindergartners are also carrying another backpack, their literacy backpack holding all of their literacy skills and practices that they use every day at home. This qualitative case study examined these literacies brought from home in the students’ figurative literacy backpacks. The study also focused on their teachers’ literacy views and practices. The study was conducted in three parts. First, through field observations and interviews with parents, the literacy practices occurring at home were identified and examined. Unique “literacy stories” were crafted from the data for each of the pre-kindergartners and shared with their parents. Part two of the study examined the two pre-kindergarten teachers’ literacy practices through semi-structured interviews. The impact of external forces (e.g. state and federal mandates, school curriculum, grant requirements, and trainings) on the views and practices of the pre-kindergarten teachers was discussed. These external forces stress the development of formal literacies, thus modeling a narrow definition of literacy. Part three of the study focused on sharing the students’ “literacy stories” with their teachers and examining the teachers’ reactions to the stories. Data from the interviews following reading the stories pointed to the teachers’ acknowledging the multiple literacies found in the homes of their students and a desire to learn more about their families’ literacy practices in order to utilize them in the classroom. The students’ “literacy stories” proved to be a valuable tool in expanding the teachers’ definition of literacy. The stories helped the teachers broaden their views of literacy to include literacy practices that occur in many different cultural and social contexts; adopting a definition more in line with the socio-cultural development of literacy and the NLS concepts (Street, 2003). Using this definition, multiple literacies will be made visible in the classrooms and connections from home to school can be made allowing students to strengthen their existing literacies and expand them to incorporate other literacies.