Re: [xmca] Bruner on Vygotsky

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

The discussion on direct instruction and its advocates and distractors is
an important debate going on in the "literacy wars"
Direct instruction is SYSTEMATICALLY scripted in its attempt to be "teacher
proofed"
However, this scripted approach does improve test scores.

Esther wrote her observation of scripted classroom routines:

What is striking in these formulaic classrooms is that both pupils
and teacher(s) become skilled in the routines. They seem to enjoy
participating. Those in each role act as though they were conducting a
valuable, joint, performance. The object of my research is to understand
elements/processes' of effective learning: but whatis being learned here is
dialogue routines.

Esther's last comment that what "is being learned here is dialogue
routines"

How central to some forms of learning are dialogue routines??

Bahktin's perspective on "understanding" is that there must be two aspects
for "understanding"
Understanding & RESPONSE. It is the RESPONSE which gives understanding its
VITAL capacity.  Without the response there is no real understanding.

Could it be possible is that what direct instruction has developed is a
systematic way to elicit FORMULAIC responses which IS a particular KIND of
dialogical "understanding and response"  Direct instruction methodically
requires RESPONSES and students who have seldom experienced dialogical
understanding and response in classroom settings experience these
FORMULAIC "successes" as motivating .

A possible response to Esther's question of what elements and processess
developm EFFECTIVE LEARNING is the experience of VITAL RESPONDING and the
perception of "understanding".

Now the question then becomes how can we have develop activities  which
support VITAL responding [as true understanding] that is more imaginal and
creative and less systematic and formulaic.
The other question is if systematic formulaic dialogic responding is an
improvement on sitting passively with little or no responding
resulting in little or no undestanding.


Larry
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you Helen for explaining AL, the problem it addresses in remote
> Australia and the relevance of Bruner far more clearly than I could do.
>
> As I said I'm a newbie to literacy teaching - but did become aware in the
> course of my 2 days training (from the excellent instructors in South
> Australia, as you point out) that I have been using a Vygotsky - Bruner ZPD
> / scaffolding approach for many years in teaching maths using Papert's logo
> software and various materials that have spun off from that over the years.
> The Bruner article was an AHA moment for me in that it took me from a vague
> knowledge of ZPD (ain't it obvious) to a deeper understanding (oh yes,
> achieving this shared vicarious consciousness is a method to resolve a real
> contradiction - how can the learner construct knowledge for *themselves*
> with the help of *another*). What I found impressive about AL was the
> extent to which the nitty gritty detail of doing this had been systematised
> but in a way which still made the teaching interesting / fascinating.
>
> You raise the question of the difficulty of scaling and patchiness of
> implementation of this approach including some detail of problems
> encountered in the NT. This is what interests me so much about the Noel
> Pearson / Engelmann initiative in the Cape York schools. Since it is more
> highly scripted then does that mean it has a better chance of scaling? Our
> instructor (Bron) pointed out at the beginning in introducing AL, "This is
> rocket science". I went away thinking "yes, it is rocket science" and so
> the demands on the teacher and ongoing degree of support required will
> likely mean that it won't scale to the degree required. If the Cape York
> initiative can scale better then that would justify that approach.
>
> btw I wrote up some notes on a speech that Pearson gave last year which did
> provide some evidence that the DI approach in Cape York was working. You
> can read them at
>
> http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2011/12/ending-groundhog-day-of-educational.html
>
> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:43 PM, Helen Harper <helen.harper@bigpond.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > I'm a fan of the Accelerated Literacy (AL) approach under discussion here
> > and have contributed to training teachers in the approach in the Northern
> > Territory over a number of years, so I have an interest in this
> discussion
> > and would like to chip in.
> >
> > I've made some headings, because it seems the easiest way to deal with
> all
> > the different things that have come up so far. So here goes (in no
> > particular order)
> >
> > On Accelerated Literacy and linguistics:
> > David, the Accelerated Literacy (AL) approach is indeed very much
> > underpinned by a functional approach to language (it was developed in
> > Australia after all, so it would be difficult to ignore all of the
> > educational linguistics work that has gone on here over the past 4
> decades
> > or so). The approach involves using age-appropriate literate texts to
> > - create classroom conversations about complex ideas;
> > - use literate language;
> > - use the conversations to bring students into focusing on print, to work
> > on decoding and to explore and the way words and clause complexes are
> > structured in print;
> > - explore the inferential meanings and the impact that specific language
> > choices have on the reader; and
> > - as models for student writing.
> >
> > So functional grammar is an essential tool for helping us think about
> text
> > and how it is structured, and in finding ways to make these structures
> > explicit to students. The relationship between language and meaning, and
> > how you use interesting stories to help you talk about that with
> children,
> > has been an integral part of the thinking of everyone I know who's
> engaged
> > seriously with using the AL approach.
> >
> > On the AL and Reading Recovery (which somebody mentioned in a previous
> > post):
> > AL has much in common with Reading Recovery. But where Reading Recovery
> > was designed as a remedial approach, working one-on-one with children,
> and
> > targeting children in the youngest school years, before their reading
> > problems really set in, AL has been designed for working with whole
> > classes, and with children of all ages. Part of the impetus for this has
> > been that there are whole schools of kids in remote communities who
> > practically can't read at all - so we need an approach that caters for
> > classes of, say, 12 year olds who have Year 1 level literacy (and below).
> >
> > Another difference is that we've found that with very low achieving kids
> > from a very different cultural context we have work a lot harder to show
> > them how to approach written text with a literate mindset.  So we do a
> lot
> > of work orienting kids to a text before they even start to read it - much
> > like Marie Clay's 'book orientation' (in Reading Recovery), but we call
> it
> > 'literate orientation'. The terminology is neither here nor there; the
> > point is that the orientation needs to bring kids' attention to the
> > purposes of the texts they are reading, the cultural setting of the text,
> > the impact the text has on the reader, etc. The onus is on the teacher to
> > do this kind of orientation in an engaging way, of course, but the AL
> > approach incorporates some specific strategies that help teachers to do
> > this.
> >
> > On the Bruner chapter that Bill mentioned (Ch 5 "The Inspiration of
> > Vygotsky" In "Actual Minds, Possible Worlds"
> > http://wisdomandwit.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/zpd_bruner.pdf)
> >
> > Larry mentioned some contestable points about this text. I don't have the
> > theoretical background to enter into a discussion about Bruner's approach
> > to language and concepts on this forum, but there are some other nice
> ideas
> > in this particular chapter for teachers to grapple with in this
> particular
> > chapter, notably the idea of 'vicarious consciousness', or 'consciousness
> > of two'. This is a useful idea to help us frame our thinking about
> > teaching, particularly in contexts where we've become enculturated into
> > having very low expectations of the kids.
> >
> > I think the question that's pertinent here is: 'how the more competent
> > assist the young and the less competent to reach that higher ground' (p.
> > 73), or how the competent adult can 'lend consciousness' to a child who
> > does not ‘have’ it on his own?  Bearing in mind that in Aboriginal
> > education we're largely working with kids who have little or no sense of
> > the broader, mostly tacit, purposes of schooling, this seems to me to be
> an
> > important question for teachers to think about.
> >
> > There are lots of things in the context of teaching literacy for which a
> > teacher can lend consciousness, but perhaps the most important is the
> > 'lending' of a 'literate' reading of a text, in situations where a child
> > would otherwise have no way of knowing where to start with an
> > interpretation of the text. So if for example we're reading a text by
> Roald
> > Dahl in which Dahl has constructed an unequivocally unlikeable character,
> > we can 'orient' the students to the text by telling them just how nasty
> > this character is, and talk about the effect this has on the other
> > characters and on our own feelings as readers, and then show the students
> > how Dahl has achieved this through lexical and grammatical choices. (It's
> > also good fun when you start to appreciate how horrible Dahl's characters
> > really are, and good fun when you twig how he does it and have a go at
> > doing it for yourself.) The AL approach is essentially just a teaching
> > sequence that allows you to do this systematically.
> >
> > Taking the children from a place where they don't appreciate the impact
> of
> > the writing to a place where can produce some writing with a similar
> impact
> > themselves involves the teacher doing some telling and some storytelling
> -
> > this is, I think, the lending of consciousness - hence the relevance of
> > Bruner.
> >
> > Of course, one could potentially see this kind of teaching in lots of
> > lessons which are not branded as 'Accelerated Literacy'. In fact, having
> > this brand has worked against us in the Northern Territory, where the
> > teaching culture is actively suspicious of 'the next new package' and
> much
> > of the profession has not been interested in engaging with the kinds of
> > things we've been trying to do. At the same time, packaging a set of
> > strategies into an approach with a name (albeit a fairly irritating one)
> > has better allowed us to systematise what we are doing, and to produce
> some
> > consistent resources and training.
> >
> > On the Direct Instruction approach being used in North Queensland
> > I haven't had direct involvement with this approach, but I believe it's a
> > much more heavily scripted and prescriptive approach than AL. I'm not
> > attracted to it, but colleagues from Queensland tell me it seems to be
> > working well in the 3 or so schools that are using it. The catch is that
> at
> > the moment those schools have enormous levels support from their American
> > mentors, and that level of support is probably unsustainable over the
> long
> > term and across more than a handful of schools.
> >
> > Which brings me to the question of 'good programs' versus 'programs that
> > can sustain upscaling in the remote context'. In remote schools in
> > Australia there are chronically huge rates of teacher turnover, making it
> > difficult to sustain any program over time without enormous energy and
> > investment in (re)training teachers. And (re)convincing bureaucrats that
> we
> > need to keep doing this (because the bureaucrats turn over as fast as the
> > teachers). Despite my own enthusiasm for AL as a particular approach, I'm
> > aware that it's an approach that requires teachers to think hard about
> what
> > they're doing. I've seen lots of urban schools and some remote schools
> run
> > great AL programs over the past few years, but much of the remote
> > implementation has been somewhat mediocre, because it's demanding to
> > implement, teachers need hands-on support at the beginning, and we
> haven't
> > had the resources to support the schools properly. So I'm watching the
> > Direct Instruction story carefully to see what happens.
> >
> > On David Rose's approach to teaching literacy:
> > Jay mentioned this approach - it is called 'Reading to Learn, Learning to
> > Read'. It has part of its genesis in common with AL, which grew out of
> > Brian Gray's work at Traeger Park School in Alice Springs in the 1980s,
> and
> > then from collaborative work with Wendy Cowey, David Rose and others from
> > the 1990s. David uses different terminology from Brian, but the
> approaches
> > are very similar, although David favours working with factual texts,
> while
> > AL has focused largely on using narrative text, for a bunch of reasons I
> > won't distract myself with right now. AL was previously called
> 'Scaffolding
> > Literacy', so that name pops up from time to time too. All of the
> > approaches are works in progress, so it's worth pointing out that there
> are
> > many incarnations, depending on who learned what from whom, in what part
> of
> > Australia, and when.
> >
> > Teaching resources:
> > If you take Bill's suggestion and go to the NALP website, you can
> download
> > some resources for free. Go to the support materials link
> > http://www.nalp.cdu.edu.au/supportmaterials.html and you can log in with
> > user name: supportmaterials [one word]
> > and password: nalp
> >
> > Please do have a look/use these materials if they interest you at all, as
> > the Australian government did invest considerable money in helping us
> > develop them - and then promptly stopped investing in helping us train
> and
> > support teachers to use the approach (Bill, South Australia's been much
> > luckier than the Northern Territory on that count, thanks in no small
> part
> > to the amazing group of people you've got down there). So it's nice if
> > people at least get to see the materials!
> >
> > Thank you to Bill for raising this topic on this forum and for promoting
> > discussion on approaches to literacy teaching and Aboriginal education.
> >
> > Helen Harper
> > Darwin
> >
> >
> > On 26/01/2012, at 6:00 AM, mike cole wrote:
> >
> > > I'll try to keep up here.
> > > David-- I am totally uninterested in a fight about Dewey and reflex
> arc.
> > I
> > > got stopped by
> > > this statement:
> > >
> > > bittiness and its dualism only, not on its inapplicability to language.
> > >
> > > What is bittiness? Why is it only about dualism? Anyway, gotta go deal
> > with
> > > my local
> > > bureaucracy which is run away nuts. Will follow up as life allows.
> > > mike
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 5:29 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I was very impressed by Dewey's article on the Reflex Arc.
> > >> Here's what I thought: http://home.mira.net/~andy/**
> > >> works/concepts-sources.htm#**dewey<
> > http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/works/concepts-sources.htm#dewey<http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/concepts-sources.htm#dewey>
> >
> > >>
> > >> Andy
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> David Kellogg wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Bill:
> > >>> Well, I may be the one who is out of his ZPD here! I stopped working
> > >>> with kids about six months ago--I am just working on textbooks now,
> and
> > >>> it's really not at all the same thing. But we had Bev Derewianka here
> > in
> > >>> Korea a while back, and she gave a really GREAT presentation on using
> > genre
> > >>> for teaching reading.
> > >>> I criticized her a little in the discussion, because I think that the
> > >>> way in which genre is being taught is very strongly FRAMED--it makes
> it
> > >>> quite hard to take skills developed in one writing genre and apply
> > them to
> > >>> another, and it also makes writing seem much less like PLAY.  But I
> now
> > >>> think this criticism was unfair. I think that from the child's point
> of
> > >>> view, the writing genre is really a kind of game, and a lot of games
> > are
> > >>> very strongly framed in precisely this way. Chinese "Elephant" chess
> > >>> (xiangqi) will not help you play checkers or even Western-style
> chess.
> >  At
> > >>> the highest level, this isn't true, but that's not the level the kids
> > play
> > >>> at. (I once played Elephant chess with a Danish grand master, and he
> > >>> stomped all over me--although I had to keep reminding him of what the
> > >>> pieces could and couldn't do!).  I think the Hallidayan approach is
> > much
> > >>> closer to looking at "cultural tools", and I think that Halliday has
> a
> > much
> > >>> more Vygoskyan idea of language that Bruner does. (Halliday certainly
> > does
> > >>> see consciousness as a social form of being, and I am not at all sure
> > that
> > >>> is true of Bruner...see below!).
> > >>> Mike--
> > >>> Again, I'm sure you know this a whole lot better than I do. But I am
> > >>> learning, as I sink deeper into bureaucratic life here, that it is a
> > good
> > >>> idea to pick fights with people bigger than you--you learn a lot, and
> > one
> > >>> of the things you learn is not to pick fights too often.
> > >>> Here's what I think. Dewey's attack on the reflex arc was an attack
> on
> > >>> its bittiness and its dualism only, not on its inapplicability to
> > language.
> > >>> He thought the idea that the reflex arc has a clear beginning in
> > sensation,
> > >>> a clear middle in thinking, and a clear end in action was wrong. He
> > saw the
> > >>> mind as sensorimotor unity (hence the motor theory of consciousness,
> > and
> > >>> functional psychology).  Sensorimotor unity is not a good theory of
> > >>> language. For one thing, it's not a social theory or a cultural
> theory;
> > >>> it's purely individual and physiological. Actually, LSV and ARL point
> > out
> > >>> (Chapter Three of Tool and Sign) that language has the effect of
> > BREAKING
> > >>> UP this sensorimotor unity! It can do this because it is introducing
> > into
> > >>> the reflex arc exactly what the motor theory of consciousness takes
> > away:
> > >>> volition, which is derived, paradoxically, from socio-cultural
> > necessity.
> > >>> The problem is that treating a response to a word as being similar
> to a
> > >>> response to a noise, as Dewey does, does exactly the same thing.
> > Worse, it
> > >>> creates a view of language that is essentially identical to the one
> > that
> > >>> Saussure developed: noises which are somehow decoded into concepts,
> and
> > >>> concepts which are somehow translated into noises. Making the process
> > >>> continuous and infinite in both directions doesn't really make it
> more
> > >>> accurate...or more developmental.  David Kellogg
> > >>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> > >>>
> > >>> --- On Tue, 1/24/12, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> > >>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Bruner on Vygotsky
> > >>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>> Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2012, 7:54 PM
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> David--- I am reading along trying to understand the flow of the
> > >>> discussion
> > >>> and I come up against your statement that
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> But Dewey believed in reflex arcs--that is, the good old Saussurean
> > idea
> > >>> that language was stimulus-concept-response.
> > >>>
> > >>> I very heavily associate Dewey with his devastating attack on the
> > >>> reflex-arc concept which seems to bear a lot of resemblence to
> > >>> Vygotsky-Goethe-Hegel view that in the beginning is the deed.
> > >>>
> > >>> Could you back up and set me on the right course?
> > >>>
> > >>> Bill-- A shocker the Englemann is peddling DE. Just been reviewing
> its
> > >>> origins in Toronto, lo these 50 years. Chilling.
> > >>>
> > >>> mike
> > >>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 2:36 PM, David Kellogg <
> > vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
> > >>> **wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> Bill--
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Thanks for writing. I for one am very interested (in your accounts
> of
> > >>>> reading programmes in Australia) but also somewhat taken aback. No
> > >>>> mention
> > >>>> of the work of Bev Derewianka, Frances Christie, Claire Painter, Jim
> > >>>> Martin, Ruqaiya Hasan...Michael Halliday? What is going on down
> under?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I was also taken aback when I took your advice and revisited the
> > Bruner.
> > >>>> I
> > >>>> remember being very impressed by this ten or fifteen years ago. Now
> I
> > >>>> find
> > >>>> it appalling.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> For one thing, it's appallingly written. This is p. 72:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> "Language is (in Vygotsky's sense as in Dewey's) a way of sorting
> out
> > >>>> one's thoughts about things. Thought is a mode of organizing
> > perception
> > >>>> and
> > >>>> action. But all of them, each in their way (sic), also reflects
> (sic)
> > the
> > >>>> tools and aids available in the culture for use in carrying out
> > action."
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I guess we are really talking about Vygotsky's and Dewey's allegedly
> > >>>> "shared" sense of language (and not their shared sense of "is"). But
> > >>>> Dewey
> > >>>> believed in reflex arcs--that is, the good old Saussurean idea that
> > >>>> language was stimulus-concept-response. Thinking and Speech is all
> > about
> > >>>> how the relationship between thinking and speech develops. It
> > develops in
> > >>>> many ways, but it never looks like this.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> So Bruner says that Vygotsky and Dewey say that language (wherever
> it
> > >>>> comes from) just organizes thought (wherever that came from).
> Thought
> > >>>> organizes perception and action (and also, on the next page,
> reflects
> > on
> > >>>> itself). And action reflects the cultural tools for carrying out
> > itself.
> > >>>> No
> > >>>> wonder Bruner finds that Vygotsky's genius is not massive and
> glacial
> > >>>> like
> > >>>> Piaget's, but only aphoristic and sketchy like Wittgenstein's!
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Bruner finds that there is a contradiction between Vygotsky's
> finding
> > >>>> (actually that of Claparede and Piaget) that consciousness of a
> > function
> > >>>> arises AFTER unconscious mastery of it and his assertion that the
> only
> > >>>> "good" learning is that which leads development. This assumes that
> > >>>> learning
> > >>>> is equal to conscious mastery of a function. But there are no
> grounds
> > for
> > >>>> that assumption, and there are two grounds for rejecting it.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> First of all, learning refers to the process of mastery and not to
> its
> > >>>> product. If learning is equal to conscious mastery, then learning is
> > >>>> just,
> > >>>> to use Bruner's phrase, a thought reflecting on itself.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Secondly, learning does not refer to development. It can lead
> > >>>> development, it can also lead to riding a bicycle, swimming, and a
> > better
> > >>>> game of golf or lead nowhere it all. Learning can limp well behind
> > >>>> development (which is what I see in a lot of foreign langauge
> classes
> > >>>> here). You can, as Koffka says, learn a pfennig's worth and get a
> > whole
> > >>>> mark of developent, but you can also roll over, fall asleep and
> > >>>> completely
> > >>>> forget what you have learned (I do a lot of that in Russian class
> > these
> > >>>> days).
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Most of what Bruner is describing in his account of the Bruner, Ross
> > and
> > >>>> Wood experiment in the subsequent pages has nothing to do with the
> > zone
> > >>>> of
> > >>>> proximal development: he is describing a zone of proximal learning,
> in
> > >>>> which development is synonymous with lengthening Dewey's reflex arc
> by
> > >>>> extending the distance between stimulus and response.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The only thing I get out of this is that we should really have a
> good
> > >>>> look
> > >>>> at those cultural tools and try to sort out the sheep from the
> goats.
> > >>>> That's just what the Halliday school was doing, with their idea of
> > genre.
> > >>>> What happened?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> David Kellogg
> > >>>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies..
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> --- On Tue, 1/24/12, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > >>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Bruner on Vygotsky
> > >>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>>> Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2012, 6:46 AM
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Hi Bill
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I appreciate you engaging with this topic. I would like to encourage
> > you
> > >>>> to
> > >>>> go into some depth, bringing in Bruner's insights distinguishing
> > >>>> Piagetian
> > >>>> and Vygotskian approaches. The Vancouver school district is
> searching
> > for
> > >>>> effective ways to support first nations students
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Also, if anyone has any information, articles, or musings on a
> > particular
> > >>>> computer reading program [from LEXIA].  It would help.me to reflect
> > on
> > >>>> and
> > >>>> consider  the consequences of Vancouver buying a site licence for
> > Lexia
> > >>>> to
> > >>>> distribute in Vancouver schools who want to participate
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Larry
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 1:53 AM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Ch 5 "The Inspiration of Vygotsky" In "Actual Minds, Possible
> Worlds"
> > >>>>> http://wisdomandwit.files.**wordpress.com/2007/11/zpd_**bruner.pdf
> <
> > http://wisdomandwit.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/zpd_bruner.pdf>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I was told to read this for HW in an accelerated literacy course I
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> recently
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> attended. Accelerated Literacy is one of the methods used in
> teaching
> > >>>>> indigenous Australians and low socio-economic students. See
> > >>>>> http://www.nalp.cdu.edu.au/**index.html<
> > http://www.nalp.cdu.edu.au/index.html>for a bit more detail.  There are
> > >>>>> two
> > >>>>> other methodologies I am aware of used in Australia. One is called
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> MULTILIT
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) and the other is Zig Engelmann's
> > >>>>> Direct
> > >>>>> Instruction, used by Noel Pearson's group in Cape York.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> To understand Bruner's point properly I had to read pp. 72-77
> > carefully
> > >>>>> where he elaborates on the contradiction b/w children having to
> learn
> > >>>>> for
> > >>>>> themselves (a sort of Piagetian view) and the adult really teaching
> > them
> > >>>>> across the ZPD rather than just broadcasting knowledge at them.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> After my 2 days training in AL (another 2 days due later in
> > February) I
> > >>>>> think they have worked out how to do that in an "honest" way. ie.
> the
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> nitty
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> gritty of raising the literacy level which involves a detailed
> > analysis
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> of
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> the text of good writers. They selected writers, text, various
> > processes
> > >>>>> gone through, then shortish passages from those texts and then did
> > the
> > >>>>> analysis of them in such a way that real skills were being
> > transferred.
> > >>>>> This is very truncated. I can go into a bit more detail if
> requested.
> > >>>>> Altogether I found it an inspirational coming together of theory
> and
> > >>>>> practice. My background is in maths / science / IT teaching (and
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> secondary)
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> so I hadn't really gone into the literacy side in this depth
> before.
> > >>>>> ______________________________**____________
> > >>>>> _____
> > >>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> ______________________________**____________
> > >>>> _____
> > >>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>>> ______________________________**____________
> > >>>> _____
> > >>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>> ______________________________**____________
> > >>> _____
> > >>> xmca mailing list
> > >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>> ______________________________**____________
> > >>> _____
> > >>> xmca mailing list
> > >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> > >> ------------
> > >> *Andy Blunden*
> > >> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
> > >> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > >> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<
> > http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ______________________________**____________
> > >> _____
> > >> xmca mailing list
> > >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> > >>
> > > __________________________________________
> > > _____
> > > xmca mailing list
> > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> __________________________________________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca