[Xmca-l] Re: A Question about Reading and Motivation
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Wed Aug 28 22:25:47 PDT 2013
Yes, all 3 modes of collaboration, Larry. I think this is a gap in
Activity Theory. I don't think "subjective" or personal motive becoming
the "objective" or "merely understood" motive copes with the issue of
motivation or the psychological import of joining a project. Literacy
education is not my archetype though, so it was a bit of a struggle for
me to get this. I have learnt that reading itself responds to at least 4
distinct types of motive, so these concepts of collaboration far from
exhaust the problem.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Larry Purss wrote:
> Andy,
>
> I have wondered if in a culture where hunting with bows and arrows is
> valued, the child grows ups motivated to be skilled with using a bow.
> Is the motivation *learning to read* the identification of wanting to
> be like the others who participate in your world.
> In our culture, [especially within schools], if reading is the way
> people participate in sharing narrative than this MODE of
> communication is valued. Is identification with doing what others are
> doing a motivation?
>
> Beginning reading activity is a form of collaboration. As you
> mentioned, collaboration may be master/slave, producer/consumer, or
> collaboration per se. However, the activity *learning to read* can be
> displayed in all three types of collaboration. The motivation is
> identification WITH ...??? in all 3 types of collaboration.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> So what this leads to is that my earlier formulation of
> motivations for reading which can create the conditions for
> someone to "learn to read" has to be generalised. And I guess that
> different "interests" or "pleasures" to be had from reading can be
> used to make an effective motive for reading. But I am trying to
> put my finger on the differene between offering a "reward" for
> reading and the object which turns out to be attainable
> essentially only through reading, be that the satisfaction of
> solving an integral equation, or the joy of entering Jane Austen's
> world or simply being able to read what everyone is talking about.
> Does this mean that the teacher's task is to somehow allow the
> learner, with assistance, to get a taste of that object, whichever
> it is that turns on this reader?
>
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> mike cole wrote:
>
> Yes, once one learns to read for meaning in Dewey's sense, and
> mine, marvelous things may result.
>
> The acquisition of reading, however, is not governed by
> phylogenetic constraints in the same way that the acquisition
> of oral/sign language is. It is a cultural-historically
> developed mode of mediated meaning making. With few
> exceptions, it requires literate others to arrange for it to
> happen.
>
> Consequently, getting there through the meat grinder of modern
> schooling, is a continuing
> issue. As is the notion of the violence of literacy.
>
> mike
> (The Dickens freak)
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
> Thank you Michael! It is always such a wonderful thing when
> someone reveals to you what was before your eyes but you
> didn't
> see! I had to put down a novel to read your message. I think I
> take "the world" to be inclusive of imaginative world
> evoked by a
> text, and suddenly, yes, I can see that youngsters
> generally read
> lots of fiction and if they enjoy it, that is a royal road to
> becoming a reader - even though, in a sense, the printed words
> disappear under their gaze as they evoke that imaginary
> world. I
> also think the social motivations are broadly covered by my
> initial very 'utilitarian' view of the object of reading.
> But what
> you describe as "the intellectual pleasure of figuring
> something
> out," which I guess is one of the things that used to
> motivate me
> at school with maths, and that is something else! Thank
> you. The
> world is always richer than what one at first thought,
> isn't it?
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>
> MICHAEL W SMITH wrote:
>
>
> A colleague and I just completed a study of the nature and
> variety of pleasure adolescents take from their
> out-of-school
> reading that draws on Dewey’s delineation of four kinds of
> educative interest in /Interest and Effort in
> Education. /One
> kind of pleasure we identified is what we call work
> pleasure
> in which readers use a text as a tool to accomplish
> some other
> end. That’s the kind of pleasure that Andy seems to be
> talking
> about when he writes about someone’s struggling to read a
> philosophical text to get something out of it that
> could then
> be usefully employed in some other context. But there are
> other kinds of pleasure. As Dewey explains “There are
> cases
> where action is direct and immediate. It puts itself forth
> with no thought of anything beyond. It satisfies in and of
> itself. The end is the present activity, and so there
> is no
> gap in the mind between means and end. All play is of this
> immediate character.” Readers experience the pleasure
> of play
> when they read narratives to immerse themselves in a story
> world. What matters to them is the pleasure they get from
> living through the experiences of characters in the
> here and
> now not what they can accomplish as a consequence of their
> reading at some future time. Another kind of pleasure is
> intellectual pleasure. Dewey explains that “instead of
> thinking things out and discovering them for the sake
> of the
> successful achievement of an activity (work
> pleasure),” we may
> institute an activity for the intellectual pleasure of
> figuring something out. An example would be reading to
> unravel the complexities of poem as an end in itself.
> Finally
> there are social pleasures in reading. People read to
> affiliate with others. That seems to me to be a kind of
> pleasure people on this listserv take. Or people read
> to mark
> their place in the world. They do a kind of identity
> work by
> using their reading to assert their difference from
> others.
> One of the informants in our study avoided reading
> the books
> that were most popular among her friends and instead
> read what
> she called dark fiction. That reading was an important
> part of
> how she understood herself. As she said “I’m weird in
> the way
> that [I don't have] inhibitions like most people. I
> can read
> dark fiction and not be disturbed by it.” I’d argue that
> teachers are most likely to foster motivation to read by
> creating contexts in which students can experience all
> four
> kinds of pleasure.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 4:43 AM, rjsp2
> <r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk>
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk>>
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk>
>
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk
> <mailto:r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk>>>> wrote:
>
> The first thing I thought on reading "assistance
> is given
> to kids to
>
> read in order to find out something they want to know
> about the world"
> was "This is basic Freire". Adult literacy had
> the same
> problem of
> meaningless texts till Freire came along and started
> teaching them
> about
> things that mattered to them. It also made me
> reflect on
> the idea of
> motive, whihc has for a long time been a question
> I have been
> intending
> to examine "when I have time". When I met the
> activity
> triangle,
> one of
> the most obvious issues about it was that it
> contains no
> separate
> place
> for motive. After a while that seemed logical
> because the
> motive
> was in
> the object, and maybe one of our difficulties is
> that we
> separate
> motive
> out from object in order to understand it better,
> and then
> forget
> to put
> it back in again.
>
> Children are just like people, they do need a
> reason to do
> things.
> I've
> always been puzzled by the idea of andragogy, the
> suggestion that
> adults
> learn differently from children. Proponents
> usually list
> several
> reasons
> which usually make no sense to me. One of the reasons
> usually given is
> that adults need to know why they are doing
> something, the
> unspoken
> contrast being presumably that children happily do
> what
> they're told.
> The kind of research you refer to here, Andy,
> suggests that
> children do
> need to know why they are doing something, but
> lack the
> power to
> say so.
> Hence, I think, a lot of the problems evident in
> our UK
> schooling
> system
> (lots of great schools, in my opinion, dreadful
> educational policies
> dictate that children are machined through exams
> in order
> to maintain
> the school's place in the league table. So there is a
> reason why the
> children do what they do, it is just not relevant
> to the
> child.)
>
> Rob
>
>
> On 28/08/2013 08:27, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
> Re: Peg Griffin -
>
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_05.dir/msg00530.html
> and Peg and Mike et al:
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/People/NEWTECHN.pdf
>
> The first article sets up a scenario in 5thD
> where kids
> "sneak" a look
> at piece of writing in order to find an answer
> to a
> current
> affairs
> question. As opposed to telling the kids to read a
> text and
> then (for
> example) testing them on it.
> The second talks about "reading for meaning" where
> assistance
> is given
> to kids to read in order to find out something
> they
> want to
> know about
> the world. As opposed to decoding "Jack and
> Jill" stories
> containing
> nothing of interest to them at all (and actually
> humiliating).
>
> I am trying to get my head around the issue of the
> motivation
> which
> the teachers are trying to engender in the
> child which
> facilitates
> learning to read.
>
> Following A N Leontyev, Peg talks about the
> "merely
> understood" motive
> for the child "to be a productive, informed,
> literate
> citizen"
> which
> is what the education system is supposed to be
> doing.
> Peg says
> this
> motive was "in the social interactions and
> ready to
> replace the
> 'really effective' motives that got the kid to
> come
> to/put up
> with our
> reading group." ... *in the social interactions*!
>
> Generally speaking I think there is no doubt
> that the
> distinction
> between "really effective" and "merely understood"
> motives is
> valid,
> and that in general children who have
> difficulty in
> reading,
> read only
> for "effective" but "external" motives which
> do not
> succeed in
> them
> learning to read effectively. Further, the
> task of the
> teacher
> may be
> or may be supposed to be to get the child to
> learn to
> read so
> as "to
> be a productive, informed, literate citizen." This
> objective is
> somewhere in the complex of motives underlying
> a teacher's
> motives,
> certainly in 5thD, but I suspect often a "merely
> understood"
> motive
> for many teachers, alongside earning a wage
> for their
> own family,
> having a quiet day and the kids getting good test
> scores, etc.
>
> But I question whether it is *ever* the
> child's motive
> "to be a
> productive, informed, literate citizen." This
> may be
> an "internal
> reward" for learning to read, but not for
> learning to
> read any
> particular text or even a particular type of text.
>
> Would this explanation make sense: Learning to
> read is
> like
> happiness.
> It does not generally arise through being the
> motivation of the
> activity which produces it. People learn to
> read as a
> byproduct of
> struggling to get something they want out of
> particular texts. And
> this applies to adults as much as children. I
> think
> people can
> only
> learn to read philosophy if they are
> struggling to get
> something out
> of a book on philosophy (other than pass the
> exam or
> acquire
> an air of
> erudition). In Peg's email message we learn
> that the kids
> jumped on
> the newspaper article to extract information they
> wanted in
> (what they
> took to be) /another/ task. In the QAR story,
> adults
> mediate kids'
> relation to a text which is in turn mediating
> their
> real and
> meaningful relation to the world. (I think if
> a kid is
> strongly enough
> motivated to pass a reading test, and
> assisted, they
> will usually
> manage to learn to read, but it is for those
> for whom
> this doesn't
> work that the issue arises, isn't it?)
>
> But in general I think it is neither necessary nor
> likely that
> a child
> has their eye on becoming a literate citizen
> when they
> struggle with a
> text and learn to read in the process. Isn't
> it always
> more
> proximate
> motives? The "internal" reward in reading a
> particular
> text is the
> particular content of that text, not actually
> anything
> to do with
> books, or texts, or reading or citizenship.
>
> I know there are dozens of experts in literacy
> education out
> there, so
> please help me.
>
> Andy
>
>
> -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal
> Charter (RC
> 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and
> a charity
> registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
>
>
>
>
> -- Michael W. Smith
> Professor and Chair
> Department of Teaching and Learning
> Temple University
> College of Education
> 351 Ritter Hall
> 1301 Cecil B. Moore Avenue
> Philadelphia, PA 19122
>
>
>
>
>
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