Annotated Table of Contents

Part I: Reading

1. Two Views Presentations: Demonstrating the Differences Between Theoretical Orientations in Reading Instruction Donna Wiseman

In this undergraduate reading methods course, Donna strives to develop students’ understanding of both skills-based and whole language approaches to reading instruction. Using a two views approach, students study a topic and then involve classmates in parallel lessons using the two approaches.

2. Matching Standards with Substance: Preparing Pre‑service Teachers to Teach Literacy Susan Pasquarelli and Rachel McCormack

Susan and Rachel have developed this year-long literacy course in light of their state’s standards for beginning teachers. In this chapter, they describe their course and their performance-based system of evaluation, which includes a “Preparing To Teach” portfolio and a “Performance in the Classroom” portfolio.

3. Social Foundations as a Foundation for Literacy Instruction: An Effort in Collaboration

Sally Oran, Kathleen Bennett DeMarrais and Jamie Lewis

This Literacy Block situates effective practices in language development and literacy education within a socio-cultural context. Sally, Kathleen and Jamie describe their collaborative efforts to construct and implement a course that engages preservice teachers in authentic literacy experiences.

4. Comprehension of Text: The Reader/Text Relationship

Victoria Purcell-Gates

Victoria works in this graduate course on comprehension to meet the needs of both master-level and doctoral level students. The course is built on the underlying assumption that comprehension is the result of an active search for meaning by a reader who is situated in a socio-cultural context.

5. The Book Club Workshop: Learning About Literacy and Culture Through Autobiography Taffy E. Raphael

Taffy's chapter describes a course for advanced masters and beginning doctoral students who wish to expand their knowledge of literature-based instruction (illustrated using the Book Club Program). In the course, students explore literacy and culture as they: (a) participate in peer book club thematic units based in the genre of autobiography and autobiographical fiction and (b) create their own literacy histories. They apply their experiences as they examine research related to the Book Club Program and create a thematically-based Book Club unit appropriate to the students they teach.

Part II: English/ Language-Arts

6. Teaching of Communication Arts Jane West

This undergraduate language arts course involved a small group of students who participate with Jane in writing workshop and in collaborative inquiry. The course is designed to model constructivist approaches to teaching and learning.

7. Writing Buddies: Linking School and University Teachers in Language Arts Methodology Instruction Donna Cooner and Donna Wiseman

This elementary language arts methods course was designed to be team taught by Donna Cooner and cooperating teachers from a professional development school and Donna Wiseman or another professor from the university. Approximately one-hundred and twenty students enroll in the course, take a weekly class from the professor, participate as reading/writing buddies to children in the professional development school, and discuss their experiences in breakout sessions after school with the classroom teachers.

8. Whole Language Teaching in Elementary and Middle School

JoBeth Allen

In this course, JoBeth creates an inquiry community where teachers are enabled to construct their own knowledge about whole language teaching based on their individual needs, questions, experiences, and explorations.

9. Teaching and Learning in the English Language Arts Nancy Farnan

Nancy’s English/language arts methods course was designed for middle and secondary preservice teachers. While taking this course, students are concurrently doing their first semester of student teaching. Therefore, they are able to integrate the coursework into their classroom work, and the classroom provides a rich context for questions and issues to bring back to the university methods class. Special emphases include interdisciplinary curriculum, teaching in multicultural classrooms, technology use in teaching and learning, and action research (student‑teacher‑as‑researcher).

10. Preservice Secondary Language Arts Teaching Methods

Peter Smagorinsky

Peter has designed this course to focus on methods of teaching high school English. Strands of the course 1) require that students draw on their prior knowledge from previous course work focusing on cultural diversity, media and technology, adolescent psychology, and language development as they consider instructional issues, 2) engage students in designing instructional units, and 3) involve students in field experiences in secondary classrooms.

11. Oral and Written Communication Peggy Albers

In this graduate course, Peggy emphasizes the ways that talking and writing contributes to learning in middle grades classrooms by examining current theories, research, and instructional practices.

12. Teaching of Writing as Story David Schaafsma

David shapes this course in a way that ensures prospective teachers of writing have the opportunity to read various theories of teaching writing while also writing themselves and struggling with it as they expect their students to do. Prospective teachers also create demonstrations based on their expertise and share these projects with their colleagues.

Part III: Literature and The Teaching of Literature

13. The Art of the Picture Book Kathy Short and Cheri Anderson

Kathy and Cheri designed this course so that teachers and librarians could explore art and illustration as meaning-making processes. Educators study art as a semiotic process, examine and respond to picture books, and create art in studio experiences. A complex interplay of experiences with interpreting and composing visual images form the context of the course focus on visual literacy and the essential role of illustrations in picture books.

14. Children’s Literature in the Curriculum Lee Galda

This course involves teachers in analyzing culturally diverse children’s literature and in exploring models of literature-based instruction. Lee integrates book sharings, literature study sessions, and individual projects into her course in order to introduce students to new children’s books and as a way to model good teaching practices.

15. Mediating Multicultural Children's Literature Patricia Enciso

Pat developed this summer seminar for graduate students and practicing teachers who are interested in reading current multicultural literature and raising questions regarding the theories and practices of selecting and mediating representations of self and others in K-8 classrooms.

16. Teaching Multicultural Literature: Struggling With Aesthetic, Educational, Political and Cultural Change Violet Harris

In this contribution, Violet incorporates excepts from her syllabi across the years to illustrate how she guides students to an understanding of multicultural literature, its role as a literary product, and its position in relation to social, historical, political, or other issues.

17. Adolescent Literature and the Teaching of Literature Bob Probst

Using a reader-response approach, Bob and his students discuss novels, drama, short stories, and poetry that are relevant to the needs, values, and interest of adolescents.

Part IV: Emergent Literacy

18. Literacy Development in the Early Years: Helping Children Read and Write Lesley Mandel Morrow

In this course, Lesley differentiates assignments to meet the needs of students seeking initial certification, of teachers working toward a master's degree in early childhood or reading, and doctoral students who can all be in the same section of the course. In addition to studying theories and varied accepted strategies and practices, she emphasizes current issues such as early intervention programs, teaching skills in a developmentally appropriate manner, achieving standards, and balancing guided or explicit instruction as well as constructivist approaches appropriate for young children.

19. Research and Theory for Constructivist Leadership in Early Childhood

Mona Matthews

Mona shares an in-process course record for an Early Childhood Master’s Program rather than a syllabus in the traditional sense. Instead of outlining future course experiences, the course record documents ongoing work and describes strategies that the class has identified as important to ensure the course goals are met. One goal is to enhance understanding of the tools and language of action research and the second is to organize the course experiences around constructivist principles.

20. Initial Encounters with Print: Beginnings of Reading and Writing

David Yaden, Angela Chavez, and Camille Cubillas

Using a dialogue format, David and two graduate students (Angela and Camille) reflect on a semester in a doctoral seminar focusing on the developmental and conceptual foundations of literacy growth in young children from socio-historical, constructivist, and critical perspectives. In doing so the authors provide personal, yet realistic accounts of the course’s design, content, tensions, and highlights.

Part V: Content Area Literacy

21. Reading for Secondary Teachers Carol Lloyd

In this course Carol integrates specific practices related to reading and writing in content areas with broader concerns of meaningful, relevant learning. Preservice teachers are asked to expand their perceptions of the role of texts in secondary classrooms, and to continue to evaluate what it means to be literate in their endorsement areas.

22. Secondary Content Area Reading Victoria Ridgeway

Victoria developed this course to emphasize the connection between literacy and learning in all content areas. Content area reading is taught concurrently and shares a field experience with required content specific methods courses. The course emphasizes reflective practice through the use of learning logs and their analysis, a course Listserve on which Victoria posts her professional journal entries, and student responses to those journal posts.

23. Content Area Literacy Tom Bean

Tom’s approach to this master’s degree course includes modeling literacy practices and strategies which can be used in the content areas. Teachers also read and discuss literature that can be integrated into the content areas and use websites to gather information applicable to science, math, social studies, and English classrooms.

Part VI: Literacy Assessment and Instruction

24. Assessment and Instruction in Literacy Courses and a Tutoring Practicum Penny Freppon

Penny shares her syllabus for the first course in a three-course sequence in which teachers tutor a child across a year. Teachers discuss research, theory, and instructional practices in a seminar setting, closely track their child’s responses, and integrate tutoring experiences and course assignments.

25. Reading Diagnosis and Remediation Steve Stahl

This course syllabus covers a class in the assessment and instruction of children with reading problems. Participants learn to work with children with reading problems by working with children through the university’s reading clinic. Steve notes that this approach makes the topics addressed in the class more meaningful for the students and the tutoring has been highly successful for the children who have been served.

24. Learner Centered Assessments for Preservice Classroom Teachers

Robert Tierney with Lora Lawson and Elizabeth Murray

This course undergraduates in exploring assessment from multiple perspectives - in terms of assessment’s relationship to school and society, the ethics of assessment, social justice and assessment, ways of knowing, and school reform and assessment, as well examining specific assessment practices. Students are involved in an internship as they explore issues and refine their own repertoire of assessment strategies.

Part VII: Language and Literacy in a Diverse Society

27. Community Literacy James Hoffman, Rachel Salas, & Beth Patterson

This undergraduate course is focused on literacy as it is situated in a low income, minority community. Preservice teachers explore the challenges and opportunities associated with literacy in this particular context. The major goal of the course is to provide students with a perspective on literacy that reaches beyond the traditional walls of the classroom or the school.

28. Language and Learning Jim Marshall

This chapter describes a course that explores issues of language development, language and schooling, and language and culture. Building on reading, classroom talk, and formal and informal writing assignments, the course asks students to examine basic assumptions about language and its powers, both in school and out.

29. Creating a Common Project in the Study of Diversity Michael Smith

Michael designed this course to encourage preservice and inservice teachers to grapple with questions of diversity and what diversity might mean for how they teach and for how their students learn. More specifically, in the course students read stories of language learners and teachers and write and share their literacy autobiographies.

30. Methods and Materials for the Bilingual/ESL Teacher Ruth Hough

In this graduate course, Ruth familiarizes teachers with current second language classroom research and how to adapt methods and materials for specific classroom settings.

Part VIII: Literacy and Technology

31. Computer‑based Instruction in Reading Education

Linda Labbo and David Reinking

This hands‑on course is designed primarily for inservice teachers interested in learning about the issues related to using technology in reading/language arts instruction. The course provides ample opportunities for students to explore and review various computer applications, including commercial software.

32. Topics in Computer‑Based Reading and Writing David Reinking

This graduate course focuses on the uniqueness of electronic reading and writing and how current conceptions of literacy may need to be altered in light of those characteristics.

Part IX: Inquiries into Literacy, Theory, and Classroom Practice

33. Action Research in Educational Settings Leslie Patterson

In this course, Leslie invites graduate students to join other educators who are using action research to study their practice for a range of purposes‑‑school reform, theory building, or social action. After a review of the historical and philosophical roots of action research, the learners collaborate to develop (or in future semesters, revise) the Action Research website "owned" by the class. Through developing this website as a resource for novice action researchers through their individual research projects, these learners explore the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of action research.

34. Creating Curricular Invitations: Reading, Writing, and Inquiry

Christine Leland and Jerome Harste

In this course, Christine and Jerry work together to provide an intense week-long experience for teachers interested in inquiry teaching. They designed the workshop to enable teachers to see “education as inquiry@ as a philosopical stance that could permeate the curriculum and to assist teachers in making connections between inquiry and their indiviudal classroom literacy programs.

35. The History of Reading Instruction James Hoffman

In this doctoral seminar, Jim and his students focus on an historical analysis of the methods and materials used in beginning reading instruction in American education. Participants examine trends in curriculum and instruction as they related to various sources of influence. This is a “hands-on@ course in the sense that a considerable amount of time is spent examining materials that are part of the vast collection at The University of Texas-Austin.