LIS 580: Winter 2006 - Tentative Timetable

January 12 - Introduction, assignments, etc. Case study and ethics clearance. History of studies in reading as part of history of library schools.

Theory and practice: What is reading? How do we do it? How is it changing?

• "Rules of Reading" Peter Rabinowitz. Before Reading: Narrative Convention and the Politics of Interpretation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987. 42-46.
• "Editorial." Eve Bearne and Gunther Kress. Reading: literacy and language, November 2001. 89-93.
• "Outside In." Scott McCloud. Computer Gaming World, #209, December 2001. 96-101.
• "Reading." Poems by Shantaro Tanikawa. The Book & the Computer, 2003. http://www.honco.net/gallery/reading/

(These four readings are not in Henderson Hall.)

January 18 - Personal issues of literacy. Reading values, reading styles. Discussion of personal reading styles and impact on reading life.

• "Reading: The Most Dangerous Game." Harold Brodkey. The New York Times, November 24, 1985.
• "The Shadow Life of Reading." Sven Birkerts. The Gutenberg Elegies. 95-108.
• "Many Spaces: Some Limitations of Single Readings." Margaret Mackey. Children's Literature in Education 24(3), 1993. 147-163.
• "The Literary Transaction: Evocation and Response." Louise Rosenblatt. Theory into Practice XXI(4), 1982. 268-277.

January 25 - Social elements and social framing of reading.

• "Social Literacies." Brian Street. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 2, Literacy. Ed. V. Edwards and D. Corson. Kluwer, 1997. 133-141.
• "Understanding Literacy as Social Practices." David Barton and Mary Hamilton. Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community. London: Routledge, 1998. 3-22.
• "Reading Youth." Robert Wright. Hip and Trivial: Youth Culture, Book Publishing, and the Greying of Canadian Nationalism. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2001. 119-156.
• "Ecological Influences of the Home and Child-Care Center on Preschool-Age Children's Literacy Development." Reading Research Quarterly 40(2), April/May/June 2005. 204-233.

February 1 - NO CLASS

February 8 - Conditions of reading: publishing decisions and frameworks

• "The Political Economy of Reading." William St. Clair. The John Coffin Memorial Lecture in the History of the Book, 2005. School of Advanced Study, University of London.
• "Beyond Gatekeeping: Publishing in an Era of Information Overload." Jenny Lee. The Book and the Computer/Online Symposium, May 6, 2005. http://www.honco.net/os/print_0504.html
• " "'That, My Dear, Is Called Reading': Oprah's Book Club and the Construction of a Readership." Rona Kaufman. Reading Sites: Social Difference and Reader Response. Ed. Patrocinio P. Schweickart & Elizabeth A. Flynn. New York: Modern Languages Association, 2004. 221-255.
• "Storyselling: Are Publishers Changing the Way Children Read?" Daniel Hade. Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2002. 509-517.

February 15 - Politics and practice in early reading

Video: Children reading

• "Helping Children to Read;" "Reading for Meaning." Cedric Cullingford. How Children Learn to Read and How to Help Them. London: Kogan Page, 2001. 83-91;124-133
• "Knowledge Resources that Support the Skill of Reading." Inquiry into Meaning: An Investigation of Learning to Read. Rev. ed. Edward Chittenden and Terry Salinger with Anne M. Bussis. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. 44-72.
• "Introduction;" "Barbara Comber's Observations, Suggestions and Theoretical Perspectives." Kathy Hall. Listening to Stephen Read. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003. 1-15; 155-166.
• "Expanding the Web of Meaning: Thought and Emotion in an Intergenerational Reading and Writing Program." Anne DiPardo and Pat Schnack. Reading Research Quarterly 39(1), January/February/March 2004. 14-37.

February 22 - READING WEEK

March 1 - Working with readers: tastes, standards and judgements

Video: RA 101

• "What We Know from Readers about the Experience of Reading." Catherine Sheldrick Ross. The Readers' Advisor's Companion. Ed. K.D. Shearer & R. Burgin. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. 77-95.
• "No Time, No Interest, No Way! The Three Voices of Aliteracy." G. Kylene Beers. Part 1, School Library Journal, February 1996: 30-33; Part 2, School Library Journal, March 1996: 110-113.
• "A Defence of Rubbish." Peter Dickinson. Writers, Critics, and Children. Ed. Geoff Fox, Graham Hammond, Terry Jones, Frederic Smith, Kenneth Sterck. New York, Agathon Press, 1976. 73-76.
• "Reading May Be Harmful to Your Kids." Tom Engelhardt. Harper's Magazine, June 1991. 55-62.

March 8 - Explaining reading: a multidisciplinary challenge

• "The Reader's Altered State of Consciousness." Brian Sturm. The Readers' Advisor's Companion. Ed. K.D. Shearer & R. Burgin. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. 97-117.
• "What is a Novel?" Jane Smiley. 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 14-28.
• "Viewing Eye Movements during Reading through the Lens of Chaos Theory: How Reading is like the Weather." Reading Research Quarterly 40 (3), July/August/September 2005. 338-358.
• "Complicating Contexts: Issues of Methodology in Researching the Language and Literacies of Instant Messaging." Gloria E. Jacobs. Reading Research Quarterly 39(4), October/November/December 2004. 394-406.

March 15 - Adult literacy and adult literacy programs

• "The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at the Twenty-First Century." Literacy in American Lives. Deborah Brandt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 169-186.
• "The Role of Literacy in People's Lives: A Case Study of its Use amongst the Homeless in Australia." Geraldine Castleton. Powerful Literacies. Ed. Jim Crowther, Mary Hamilton and Lyn Tett. Leicester,UK: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, 2001. 56-68.
• "Creating a Community of Readers to Fight Functional Illiteracy." Steve Sumerford. Literacy and Libraries: Learning from Case Studies. Ed. GraceAnne A. DeCandido. Chicago: Office for Literacy and Outreach Services and American Library Association, 2001. 97-105.
• "Synthesis." Juliet Merrifield, Mary Beth Bingman, David Hemphill, Kathleen P. Bennett deMarrais. Life at the Margins: Literacy, Language, and Technology in Everyday Life. New York: Teachers College Press,1997. 181-219.

March 22 - Field trip

Field trip

• to the Centre for Family Literacy
• and to the Centre for Reading and the Arts, Stanley A. Milner Branch, Edmonton Public Library.

March 29 - Contexts of reading

• "The Sovereignty of the Reading Experience." Victor Nell. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 226-255.
• "Introduction: Reading as a Craft;" "Sacred Reading: A Fundamental Problem." Robert Scholes. The Crafty Reader. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. xi-xvi; 212-239.
• "Lolita." Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House, 2003. 3-47.
• "A Cyber-Revolution in Iran." Azar Mahloujian. The Book & the Computer. Online Symposium, June 4, 2003. http://www.honco.net/os/print_0305.html

April 5 - Reading and gender: what are the issues?

• "Reading like a Woman." Anne G. Berggren. Reading Sites: Social Difference and Reader Response. Ed. Patrocinio P. Schweickart & Elizabeth A. Flynn. New York: Modern Languages Association, 2004. 166-188.
• "I Have Better Things to Do." Bruce Pirie. Teenage Boys and High School English. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann - Boynton/Cook, 2002. 76-100.
• "'I Just Like Being Good at It': The Importance of Competence in the Literate Lives of Young Men." Michael Smith & Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 47(8), March 2004. 454-461.
• "Who Are the Info Kids," "Interest is Paramount," "Engaging Information Resources," "A Parallel Curriculum." Ron Jobe & Mary Dayton-Sakari. Four chapters from Info-Kids: How to Use Nonfiction to Turn Reluctant Readers into Enthusiastic Learners. Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers, 2002.

April 12 - Reading in new media

• "Charting Maps and Raising the Dead: Readers' Encounters with Hypertext Fiction." J. Yellowlees Douglas. The End of Books - or Books without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. 63-88.
• "An American Otaku (or, A Boy's Virtual Life on the Net)." Joseph Tobin. Digital Diversions: Youth Culture in the Age of Multimedia. Ed. Julian Sefton-Green. London: UCL Press, 1998.
• "Writing, Designing and Making." Keri Facer, John Furlong, Ruth Furlong, & Rosamund Sutherland. ScreenPlay: Children and Computing in the Home. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. 88-108.
• Sample hypertexts - to be made available later in the semester.