Clayton Second semester 2008 (Off-campus)
In this unit, 'literacy' is the focus of study. But 'literacy' is defined here as more than just reading and writing; it is reconceptualized as a social practice. New Literacy Studies (NLS) examines new kinds of 'literacies' and 'texts' in a variety of 'contexts'. From in-school literacy to out-of-school literacies, print texts to multimodal texts, school texts to popular culture/media texts, NLS explores and challenges teachers to re-think and re-design new pedagogies in schools of the 21st century
Upon successful completion of the unit, students should have developed a critical perspective of the literacy crisis debate and the variable sociohistorical, political and cultural contexts that determine how literacy as a concept is defined and understood. Students should have become more critically informed of how to bridge in-school and out-of-school literacies and re-design literacy pedagogies that will engage the students they teach. Finally, students should have the knowledge to conduct literacy related classroom research.
Essay (2000 words) 20%; Research Proposal (1000 words) 15%; Literacy Research Paper (5000 words) 65%
3 hours per week