TE 891 Culture, Literacy and Autobiography

Fall Semester, 1997

Fall, 1997 Mondays, 4-6:50 p.m. 107 Erickson Hall

    TE 891, Culture, Literacy and Autobiography is a masters course with three objectives: (1) to examine the social and cultural dimensions of literacy in a multi-ethnic society; (2) to read and discuss ethnic autobiography as a source of insight into both the authors' and readers' diverse experiences of literacy; and (3) to learn about and practice peer dialogue in support of oral and written response to literature. Students will read and discuss ethnic autobiography, review selected research academic on topics including culture, personal narratives, and literacy development; and engage in inquiry and writing about language, culture, social identity and the process of schooling.

    The course offers several different kinds of learning oriented discussions. On alternate weeks students will deliberate in seminars about key concepts including ethnicity, autobiography, the cultural aspects of literacy development, and the role of teacher and school in educating diverse youth. In the intervening weeks, students will participate in book clubs organized around one of six published ethnic autobiographies. Students will also complete the following written work: (1) a pre- and post-course questionnaire concerning the cultural foundations of literacy (for course planning purposes only and not graded); (2) a response log keyed to the book club discussions (graded P/N) ; (3) an in-class personal essay (graded); and (4) a written and oral final project (graded) selected from one of the options listed below and supported in class by periodic discussions of student work-in-progress.

     In addition to selected readings from educational research available in a student reading packet , the major reading of the course will be six autobiographies. Two are written by white teachers working among culturally diverse students (Vivian Paley, White Teacher; Mike Rose, Lives on the Boundary); two are written by American-born members of "involuntary immigrant groups" (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory); and two are written by voluntary immigrants to the United States (Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation; Jill Ker Conway, The Road from Coorain). The autobiographies have been selected to offer readers a chance to explore the concepts of culture, ethnicity, social identity, literacy, and schooling in depth.

     This will be a graded course, and no "deferred" grades will be given. Grades will be based on a total of 100 points. Points will be assigned to activities as follows. Activities are described in the Course Outline.

  (1) Oral participation in each of the course's six book clubs: 30 pts
  (2) Six entries in response logs: 30 pts
  (3) One personal essay: 15 pts
  (4) A final project presented both orally and in writing at the end of the course: 25 pts
  (Grades: 92-100 pts.= 4.0; 85-91 pts.=3.5; 78-84 pts.=3.0; 70-77 pts.=2.5;62-69 pts.=2.0)

Course Schedule

Class One: Introduction

    ¥ description of course content and format, introduction to book club, and introduction to ethnic autobiography and course readings
    ¥ project planning
    ¥ reading due: none


September 4- Labor Day (University Holiday- No Class)


Class Two: Book Club I (see attachment for content and format of book club classes)
    ¥ reading due: Paley, V.G. (1979/89). White teacher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


Class Three: What is culture/ethnicity?: Implications for the work of teachers

    ¥ seminar
    ¥ project update
    ¥ reading due: see packet


Class Four Book Club II

    ¥ reading due: Angelou, M. (1969). I know why the caged bird sings. New York: Bantam.


Class Five: Ethnic autobiography: A literature for personal and cultural exploration

    ¥ seminar
    ¥ project update
    ¥ reading due: see packet
    ¥ response log due


Class Six: Book Club III

    ¥ reading due: Hoffman, E. (1989). Lost in translation: A life in a new language. New York: Penguin.


Class Seven: Cultural perspectives on teaching and learning literacy

    ¥ mid-term in class personal essay
    ¥ seminar
    ¥ reading due: see packet


Class Eight: Book Club IV

    ¥ reading due: Rodriguez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriguez. New York: Bantam.


Class Nine: Teaching and teacher education in multicultural school settings

    ¥ lecture/discussion
    ¥ project update
    ¥ reading due: see packet
    ¥ response log due


Class Ten: Book Club V

    ¥ reading due: Conway, J. K. (1989). The Road from Coorain. New York: Vintage.


Class Eleven: The role of dialogue in literacy learning and cultural understanding

    ¥ lecture/discussion
    ¥ project update
    ¥ reading due: see packet
    ¥ response log due


Class Twelve: Book Club VI

    ¥ reading: Rose, M. (1989). Lives on the boundary. New York: Penguin.


Class Thirteen: Final Project Presentations I

    ¥ response log due


Class Fourteen: Final Project Presentations II


Final Examination Week

    ¥ written projects due on Tuesday, December 11 no later than 5 PM


Assignment Descriptions

    Response Logs: Students will write about their reading of the autobiographies in response logs. They will sometimes be given prompts to organize this writing. The prompts will reflect book club discussions as well as the autobiographies and their themes and content. This writing will be read by the instructor six times during the semester. Each entry is worth 5 points toward the total grade for the course. Evaluation of the logs is on a P/N basis.

    Personal Essay: The personal essay is worth 15 points of the total course grade and will be written in class in order to provide Literacy Masters students with extemporaneous writing practice in support of their writing for the program's required Qualifying Examinations.

    Final Project: Students may choose among the following options in developing their final project of the course. The project will be presented orally to the rest of the class and also in a written document (suggested length: 10-15 pages, typed, double-spaced) due on Tuesday of finals week. The project grade will reflect both written and oral work and totals 30 points of the final course grade. Options for the project include the following:

    (1) Choose, read and write about two additional published ethnic autobiographies/autobiographical novels (.e.g. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston; How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez; Rain of Gold by Victor Villasenor; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee; The Centaur by John Updike). You should write an extended report both summarizing the important content and themes of the books for someone who has not read them, and also analyzing the books' content in comparison and contrast with one another and in relation to the other autobiographies we have read and the course's key themes and topics as appropriate. You are also encouraged to read what other reviewers/critics have written about these books and incorporate them into your writing.

    (2) Identify a "book set" and develop a Book Club plan for an Ethnic Autobiography Unit you might teach in your own class. The purposes of this unit should include fostering appreciation for the literature, teaching comprehension and writing by means of peer discussion and literature study and teaching about culture and cultural difference to your students. When presenting this unit to the class, be prepared to share the published autobiographies you chose, the rational for choosing them, as well as your design for the unit and any materials you develop in support of it;

    (3) Write your own extended personal narrative (or series of brief narrative vignettes) of cultural experiences and literacy development. These "literacy narratives" should stress the roles played by cultural/ethnic experience, gender, social class, and/or other social characteristics of your youth as they related to your experience of becoming literate in school. It may also include artifacts/performances reflective of those experience as well as expression in multiple modes and media (e.g. drama, dance, music, artwork, photography);

    (4) Research peer dialogue and the role it plays in learning both about literature and culture. To complete this project, you will use audio tapes of one or more of the Book Club meetings in which you have participated as well as any "field notes" you take as an "observant participant" in the book discussions. This analysis can be presented in the form of a case study of a book club and its conversations over time or as a report of conversation within a single club meeting where important issues were deliberated. Completing this project would give you some tools for studying peer response to literature in your own classroom.

    (5) View and analyze two of the following autobiographical films and write an analytic review of them: "Educating Rita," "Avalon," "Hoop Dreams," "Stand and Deliver," The Boyz in the Hood;" "The Joy Luck Club" (or others in the same genre and of your own choosing). Requirements same as in the autobiography project described in option #1 above.

Schedule of Book Club Activities Total time: 2 hrs. 50 min.

Introduction/Announcements: 10 minutes

Community Share I: 20 minutes
(whole class time to review issues of content and process in previous Book Club meetings and focus talk and writing for the day)

Response Log Writing: 10 minutes
(sustained extemporaneous writing in response to prompt about today's book from the teacher; organizing response to the literature in preparation for Book Club discussion)

Break: 10 minutes

Book Club Meeting: 1 hour 15 minutes
(in peer groups of five students/group; dialogue about today's book)

Break: 10 minutes

Community Share II: 30 minutes
(whole class sharing of Book Club discussions focusing both on issues of substance and process; looking back at previous meetings and looking ahead to the next book)


Reading Packet-Assignments

Class Three: What is culture/ethnicity? Implications for the work of teachers
(Read articles #1 and 2 and read either #3 or 4; other is optional)

    ¥ (1) Ogbu, J. U. (1992). Understanding cultural diversity and learning. Educational Researcher, 21(8), 5-14.

    ¥ (2) Singer, A. Multiculturalism and identity. Democracy and Education, 6(3), 24-28.

--and--

    ¥ (3) Eisenhart, M. (1995) The fax, the jazz player, and the self-story teller: How do people organize culture? Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 26(1): 3-26.

--or--

    ¥ (4) Florio-Ruane, S. (1995). Crossing borders in education. In Florio-Ruane, S. and deTar, J. Conversation and personal narrative: Transforming teacher learning about culture and literacy. (Unpublished manuscript).


Class Five: Ethnic autobiography: A literature for personal and cultural exploration
(read articles #1 and 2 and either #3 or 4; other is optional)

    ¥ (1) Greene, Maxine (1994). Multiculturalism, community, and the arts. In Dyson, A.H. and Genishi, C. (Eds.) The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana: NCTE. (11-27).

    ¥ (2) Abt-Perkins, D. & Gomez, M. (1993). A good place to begin--Examining our personal perspectives. Language Arts, 70, 193-202.

--and--

    ¥ (3) Edelsky, C. et al (1993). Lost and found. The Review of Education, 15, 307-315.

--or--

    ¥ (4) Proefreidt, W.A. (1989/90). The immigrant or "outsider" experience as a metaphor for being an educated person in the modern world: Mary Antin, Richard Wright and Eva Hoffman, MELUS, 16(2), 77-89.


Class Seven: Cultural Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Literacy
(read all three)

    ¥ (1) Ferdman, B. (1990). Literacy and cultural identity. The Harvard Educational Review, 60(2), 181-204.

    ¥ (2) Dasenbrock, R.W. (1992). Teaching multicultural literature. In Trimmer, J. and Warnock, T. Understanding others: Cultural and cross-cultural studies and the teaching of literature. Urbana: NCTE. (35-46).

    ¥ (3) Trueba, H. T. (1989). Cultural embeddedness: The role of culture on minority students' acquisition of English literacy. In Competing visions of teacher knowledge: Proceedings from an NCRTE seminar for education policymakers (vol. 2).Conference Series 89-1. National Center for Research on Teacher Learning. East Lansing: Michigan State University.(77-90).


Class Nine: Teaching and teacher education in multicultural school settings
(read articles #1 and 2; #3 is optional)

    ¥ (1) Paine, L. (1989). Orientation towards diversity: What do prospective teachers bring? Research Report 89-9. National Center for Research on Teacher Learning. East Lansing: Michigan State University.

    ¥ (2) Grant, C.A. (1989). Culture and teaching: What do teachers need to know? In Competing visions of teacher knowledge: Proceedings from an NCRTE seminar for education policymakers (vol. 2). Conference Series 89-1. National Center for Research on Teacher Learning. East Lansing: Michigan State University (55-76).

    ¥ (3) McDiarmid, G.W. (1990). What to do about differences? A study of multicultural education for teacher trainees in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Research Report 90-11. National Center for Research on Teacher Learning. East Lansing: Michigan State University.


Class Eleven: The role of narrative and dialogue in literacy learning and cultural understanding
(read either article #1 or 2 and read either article #3 or 4; others are optional)

    ¥ (1) Soliday, M. (19914). Translating self and difference through literacy narratives. College English, 56(5), 511-526.
--or--

    ¥ (2) Rosen, H. (1987). The nurture of narrative. In Stories and meanings. Sheffield, UK: National Association for the Teaching of English. (6-21).

--and--

    ¥ (3) Burton, R.S. (1992) Talking across cultures. In Trimmer, J. and Warnock, T. Understanding others: Cultural and cross-cultural studies and the teaching of literature. Urbana: NCTE (115-123).

--or--

    ¥ (4) Florio-Ruane, S. and deTar, J. (1995). Conflict and consensus in beginning teachers' discussion of ethnic autobiography. English Education, 27 (1), 11-39.