Textbook Review: Considering Literacy

Considering Literacy: Reading and Writing the Educational Experience by Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan University. New York: Pearson, 2006.

Considering Literacy is rhetoric designed for first-year students which foregrounds education, literacy and the university as the theme for the course (you might note that this has been a theme of mine). It includes readings that are designed to “provide a variety of approaches to literacy and encourage students to think creatively and innovatively about how they and others define ‘education’ and ‘literacy’” (from the publisher’s description). The readings include personal narratives, analytical works, and essays, including works Paolo Freire, bell hooks (both are on my cmap), W. E. B. Dubois and other engaging authors. There is a “Writing Assignments” section at the very front which provides a non-linear structure for students to use in thinking through questions asked about education. A major theme of the book, I’d say, is the bridging of experiences between high school and college, and I found that really useful. This theme is carried out in the reading and writing assignments, were familiar reading and writing strategies are connected to innovative reading and writing strategies (there is an introductory essay by the author on critical reading).

The book really lends itself to designing a freshmen composition course. The Instructor’s Manual even provides a sample syllabus and schedule of assignments. Each assignment includes a list of readings from the book that might be relevant for the assignment and that, in turn, helps students see connections between the readings and the concepts covered, as well as between the readings and the goals of writing. The author takes a “scaffolding” approach (which I have myself now borrowed), between four levels of reading and writing, each with a different but related focus (see the Table of Contents below). Within each level she builds connections horizontally between readings and writings for that level and then between levels she builds connections, facilitating an organic, holistic progression for the student. Each assignment also follows a very useful format, beginning with two “Developing Work” prompts that are to be used for first brainstorming and then developing ideas for the written essays. There are also “Pre-Reading Questions” which ask students think about why they are reading that particular section, and then “Post-Reading Questions” which ask them to reflect on what they just read. Following the scaffolding model, each level also has a “Critical Reflections” section that encourages students to synthesize the readings for that section and there are “Making Connections Questions” that help students connect readings between sections.

It feels strange to me to be seriously considering an actual text (rather than posting readings using eRes) in the first place, but Considering Literacy is threatening to push me over the edge. It's a close enough approximation of my dream book for first-year comp. I would have liked to see reading selections that cover more of an historical scope (something from John Dewey's Experience and Education, for example--or John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University). My main concern in adopting it, however, is as always the price (a steep $52). I'm debating with myself if I can in good conscience require a book that costs that much. Another book that I would like to at least recommend to students is This Books is Not Required: An Emotional Survival Manual for Students by Inge Bell et. al, but it's also pricey ($31.9). I've started securing used copies through my role as a buyer for the bookstore, however, and if I can procure enough, the savings used copies provide (25%) might be enough to push me over the edge.

Here's the table of contents for Considering Literacy:

Introduction for Instructors
About This Book: Approaches and Assignments

“Reading: Words and Images”
“Getting” reading
Reading questions
Strategic reading
Reading images

Assignments
“Learning from Self” Assignments
Expectations and Experiences
Influencing Your Literacy Development
The Purposes of Schooling
Why Are You Here?
“Your” Campus
Your Literacy History and Its Significance
Your Literacy Development

“Learning from Others” Assignments
What’s the Purpose of Education and Literacy
Literacy Practices and Schooling
Testing Definitions: Dominant and Vernacular Literacies
What Counts as “Learning” and for Whom?
How Is Literacy/Education Defined by You and by Others?
Community Literacies

“Learning Through Research” Assignments
Debating the Purpose of School
Representing the College Experience
Designing Assessments
What Counts, for What, and Who Says?
Analyzing Literacy Experiences
Positive Learning Experiences
What’s Taught and Why
What Counts, for What, and Who Says?
Observing Literacy Practices

“Speaking Out, Joining In, Talk Back” Assignment

Readings About Uses of Learning:
David Barton and Mary Hamilton. “Literacy Practices”
bell hooks. “Engaged Pedagogy”
Paolo Freire. “The Banking Concept of Education”
Theodore Sizer. “What High School Is”

Readings About Learners:
David Barton and Mary Hamilton. “How They’ve Fared in Education: Harry’s Literacy Practices”
Lorene Cary. From Black Ice.
Mark Edmundson. “On the Uses of a Liberal Education I: As lite entertainment for bored college students.”
Andrea Fishman. “Becoming Literate: A Lesson from the Amish”
June Jordan. “Don’t Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.”
Robert Louthan. “Heavy Machinery”
Mike Rose. “I Just Wanna Be Average”
Michael Ryan, “The Ditch”
Earl Shorris. “On the Uses of a Liberal Education II: As a weapon in the
hands of the restless poor.”
Ron Suskind. “Fierce Intimacies”

Readings About Learning (in and out of school):
W.E.B. DuBois “On Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others”
Kate Daniels. “Self-Portrait with Politics.”
Frederick Douglass. From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Darcy Frey. “The Last Shot.”
Stanley Kaplan. “My 54-Year Love Affair with the SAT”
Nicholas Lemann. “The President’s Big Test.”
Teresa McCarty. “Classroom and Community”
Michael Moffatt. “What College Is REALLY Like”
Executive Summary of the “No Child Left Behind” Act.
Wendy Darling. “What ‘No Child Left Behind’ Left Behind.”
Gary Orfield and Johanna Wald. “Testing, Testing”
Peter Sacks. “Do No Harm: Stopping the Damage to American Schools”
James Traub. “The Test Mess”
Booker T. Washington “The Atlanta Exposition Address”

Photographs

Credits

Index