Language and Literacy (Journal)
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Assessment Allegories: A Reflective Essay
No full textThree stories form the basis for exploring a series of issues in assessment. Issues explored include values underlying assessment, the manner in which the background knowledge and experiences of those being assessed are addressed, and the consequences of assessment
Constructing MasculinityHow Three Grade Eight Boys Explore the Boundaries of MasculinityThrough Writing Toward a Bio-Cultural Theory of Reading and Learning
No full textOver the last ten years, there has been much concern over the differential gender achievement patterns in English language arts on a local, national and international level. Boys under-achievement has captured the attention of the media, government, and policy personnel and though this phenomenon was identified a decade ago, differential achievement patterns persist today. At the root of this debate is the interplay between nature and nurture and we require a further socio-cultural understanding of this piece of the under-achievement puzzle. Based on three rural grade eight boys writing samples, the following examines how boys explore and define the boundaries of masculinity through their writing. I explain how the boys in this study explore masculinity through warrior discourse, character construction, intertextuality, and voice
Compos(t)ing Presence in the Poetry of Carl Leggo: Writing Practices that Disperse the Presence of the Author
No full textThis paper was presented as part of the Carl Leggo keynote address at the third annual CSSE pre-conference for the Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada. The paper explores the possibility of deconstructing “presence” in reflexive writing. The author examines Leggo’s “writing as compos(t)ing” as an example of arts-informed reflexive writing that problematizes the desire for presence, and argues that Leggo’s “clown” poetry interrogates notions of transparency in reflexive writing. Reflexive writing traces the presence of the writer in/through the text. It is a form of writing that celebrates the power of personal story to illuminate the intersections between self and society. The desire for presence, however, is never innocent and never without complication. In tracing that presence - in writing reflexively - the writer inscribes silence and absence while simultaneously making her/himself visible
Dancing from the Inside Out: Lessons in the Body as Text
No full textTeachers who have been literally “born and raised” into the tradition of print-based literacy teaching may experience difficulty with conceptualizing and implementing multiple literacies and multiple texts into their classrooms. In this article, the author enrolls in a jazz dance class to gain “inside out” experience with dance as literacy and the body as text, and considers how dance can broaden the world of the literacy classroom
Consciousness and the Literary Engagement: Toward a Bio-Cultural Theory of Reading and Learning
No full textIn this paper, we develop the understanding that in context of expanding notions of the literary engagement, consciousness is understood as a process that both participates in the acts of reading and response, and at the same time, is potentially transformed by those acts. Yet, uninterrogated understandings of consciousness – what it is, what it does, what it feels like - continue to shape the way we structure our experiences with literature in the classroom in predominantly implicit ways. In the context of an enactivist understanding of cognition, consciousness emerges as an orienting feature that brings together the cultural and biological aspects of the literary experience
Enhancing Engagement in Reading: Reader Response Journals in Secondary English Classrooms
No full textWriting reader response journals during the act of reading provides ideal opportunities for secondary English students to deepen and expand their understanding of literature. Based on data from three case studies conducted by a former high school English teacher, currently an English educator, this article examines the effectiveness of students recording response entries as they read a novel. Excerpts from student journals illustrate the positive results of combining the acts of reading and writing. Student engagement with text leads to better comprehension and through writing reflective responses, students become more effective readers
“We didn’t learn grammar, we learned Hebrew: Divisions and displacement in the language classroom”
No full textThe author explored her personal history of feeling stranded in anomie and displacement between two languages, cultures, and identities through her ethnographic research on the subject in a university modern Hebrew language class in Canada. She discoverd a clashing divide between two community sub-groups of “Canadian” and “Israeli” students who based their stereotypes and Othering on their definitions and relationships to the Hebrew language as primarily literary and text-based or oral and speech-based. As the author discoverd the roots of this in-group Othering, she ultimately came to terms with her own feelings of displacemen
Infusing arts/multimedia into a secondary pre-service course on language and literacy across the disciplines as imaginative and critical practices
No full textThis paper reports on a three-year project in which we infused arts-based media and digital learning into a mandatory language and literacy course for secondary pre-service teachers at a major Canadian university. Our underlying model favours dynamic, critical and transformative learning across modes, genres and social spaces in the secondary curriculum. We found prospective teachers to be committed to engaging in new media as a way to expand notions of literacy, author new genres of communication, and to be more engaging and inclusive of all students, yet they often remained sceptical of uncritical approaches
Six Found Poems
No full textThis group of six found poems explores the interrelated themes of identity, hybridity and liminality. They grew from a period of reading that the author undertook in order to more fully understand her family’s Anglo-Irish identity, and the significance of her “accidental” discovery of a Jewish heritage – a long-buried family secret
LIVING POETRY: FIVE RUMINATIONS
No full textAs a poet and language educator, I am often asked, Is this a good poem?, as if I carry some kind of standard measuring device for assessing the value of poems. But, perhaps the important question is not, Is this a good poem?, but instead, What is a poem good for? So, in this paper, I offer five reasons why poetry is important for living. Of course, there are many more reasons that could be discussed, but my goal is to contribute to an ongoing dialogue among language educators about the value of living poetry in our personal and professional lives