Re: [xmca] dynamics of learning and development

From: Cathrene Connery <cconnery who-is-at ithaca.edu>
Date: Thu Nov 29 2007 - 17:10:51 PST

Hi Peter,
Please don't be humble or shy like Mike :-) and keep us posted on the
publication date. Your book is exactly what I have been looking for.
Gracias,
Cathrene

Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
> If all goes well, by AERA? If not, by summer 2008. The reference:
> Christenbury, L., Bomer, R., & Smagorinsky, P. (Editors) (in press).
> Handbook on adolescent literacy. New York: Guilford.
>
> Peter Smagorinsky
> The University of Georgia
> 125 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> smago@uga.edu/phone:706-542-4507
> http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/faculty/smagorinsky/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 9:32 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: RE: [xmca] dynamics of learning and development
>
>
> Peter:
>
> Yes, thanks for the addition. When will the handbook be available?
>
> eric
>
>
>
>
> "Peter
>
> Smagorinsky" To: "'eXtended Mind,
> Culture, Activity'" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> <smago@uga.edu> cc:
>
> Sent by: Subject: RE: [xmca] dynamics
> of learning and development
> xmca-bounces@web
>
> er.ucsd.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> 11/29/2007 07:56
>
> AM
>
> Please respond
>
> to "eXtended
>
> Mind, Culture,
>
> Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Just one addendum: Two friends and I are editing a Handbook on Adolescent
> Literacy (Guilford, 2008). When writing the intro and defining literacy,
> when all was said and done and after reviewing much writing on the topic,
> we
> returned to Scribner and Cole's definition from way back in 1981:
> This review suggests the importance of Scribner and Cole's (1981) insight
> that literacy is a social and cultural practice, i.e.,
> a recurrent, goal-directed sequence of activities using a particular
> technology and particular systems of knowledge . . . [a set of] socially
> developed and patterned ways of using technology and knowledge to
> accomplish
> tasks. . . . [Literacy consists of] a set of socially organized practices
> which make use of a symbol system and a technology for producing and
> disseminating it. Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write a
> particular script but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in
> specific contexts of use. The nature of these practices, including, of
> course, their technological aspects, will determine the kinds of skills
> ("consequences") associated with literacy. (p. 236)
>
> I haven't found anything better. Peter
>
> Peter Smagorinsky
> The University of Georgia
> 125 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> smago@uga.edu/phone:706-542-4507
> http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/faculty/smagorinsky/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:14 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] dynamics of learning and development
>
>
> In my personal quest for understanding on this subject I keep returning to
> the grand text of the "Psychology of Literacy by Scribner and Cole. I have
> the 1999 reprint. The importance this text plays for me is I see it as a
> culmination of the many ethnographic studies undertaken to understand
> cognition in context. It has help me greatly in my understanding of
> working with the students who attend my school with their varying degrees
> of disabilities. I submit quotations from Chapter 14 for your
> consideration:
>
> "In this book we have made a seemingly relentless descent from the general
> to the specific. We began with grand and ancient speculation about the
> impact of literacy on history, on philosophy, and on the minds of
> individual human beings; we ended with details of experiments on mundane,
> everyday activities that would, under other circumstances, probably escape
> our notice or our interest. Instead of generalized changes in cognitive
> ability, we found localized changes in cognitive skills manifested in
> relatively esoteric settings. Instead of qualitative changes in a person's
> orientation to language, we found differences in selected features of
> speech and communication. . . .we believe it is important that we have
> identified skills that are associated literacy learning. . .To give a
> satisfactory account of the nature and significance of the differences we
> found-and failed to find-we would need to draw on some well-specified
> theory of cognition. . .no such theory was at hand. Within anthropology
> and sociology, we encounter theories of the "Great Divide" variety. . .a
> dominant trend is to consider cultural inventions, such as literacy, as
> unrelated to basic processes of intellectual development; literacy may
> influence how society does its work but not the structures of mental
> operations (piagetian theory). we made progress in finding terms more
> suitable for specifying culture-cognition relationships than the antimonies
> offered by existing theory. . . We call this framework a "practice account
> of literacy" to emphasize that it is neither a formal model nor a grand
> theory but a preliminary attempt to bring new question to our enterprises."
>
> any thoughts?
> eric
>
>
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-- 
Dr. M. Cathrene Connery
Assistant Professor of Education
607.274.7382
Ithaca College
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Received on Thu Nov 29 17:14 PST 2007

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