While much is starting to be said about textbooks, I think there is much
more to be investigated not only in their form, but in their structuring
axctivities as well as knowledge forms for students and then their role
in structuring the communicative economy of the classroom, and the
relationship between education and economic entities producing the books
(although there are frequent articles pointing out the mass-market profit
dynamics affecting textbook publishers choices and strategies and the
influence of local political pressures on the textbook market--but I
think there are much deeper issues in how the economic organization
realized in publishers influences the shaping of knowledge-learning
practices).
As a final confession of my inextricatable complicity, I will point out
that two of my textbooks now in press devote substantial attention to how
students might approach these commodified knowledge products. The first ,
a developmental reading book, READING TEXTBOOKS, is co-authored with
Harvey Wiener. The second is entirely my own fault, INVOLVED: Writing
for College, Writing for Your Self in which I try to make students savvy
about the rhetorical nature of classroom interaction, including the role
of textbooks in structuring the communication situations.
I am afraid if I start talking about this subject I will go on far
too long, with my desk piled high with work.
Chuck
On Mon, 29 Apr 1996, David Russell wrote:
> Staton, you might also find of interest Charles Bazerman's discussion of
> the commodification of knowledge in college textbooks, though this analysis
> is not specifically marxist (perhaps via Vygotsky and activity theory).
>
> Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental
> Article in Science. Madison: Univeristy of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
>
> David R. Russell
> English Department
> Iowa State University
> Ames, IA 50011
> USA (515) 294-4724,fax 294-6814
> drrussel who-is-at iastate.edu
>
>