Return-Path: <nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i35CH2m22188; Mon, 5 Apr 2004 08:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 08:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <20040403.093823.6382.0.socrates555@juno.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "George E. Demetrion" <socrates555@juno.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FOBASICS:1028] The Reading Wars--Atlantic Monthly article X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Juno 1.49 Status: O Content-Length: 1909 Lines: 39 http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97nov/read.htm That gets you to Nicholas Lemann's (a historian and journalist) article on the politics of the reading wars in the 1990s, which may have some relevance to our discussion. For what it's worth, my objective is not to reduce reading instruction to politics, though it is to argue that the production of knowledge cannot be easily separated from the discourse powers in which it is embedded. That is, reading theory and its accompanying instructional models (regardless of specific schools of interpretation is a socio-culturally embedded process that needs to be understood thusly and interpreted with that frame in mind. That would include accepting the basic premises of any given school of thought, while recognizing its constructed nature. That would also include accepting the reality that people have little choice, but to choose from whatever constructed realities they are working from or have some knowledge of, and that some choices are better than others, which, of course, presupposes values, and not all values are equal or self-evident. One of the core issues of adult literacy education is that of definition, whether the focus is primarily on reading as a component set of functional technologies, or whether the focus is on primarily knowledge acquisition in which literacy is a metaphor for knowledge. Obviously, there are relationships between the technology and knowledge acquisition, however variously defined. The various perspectives on reading theory need to be understood within the range of definitions that surround such terms as "reading" and "literacy." Science helps, but it is not a cure all, or master narrative, at least as I see it. The issue of values clarification and definition of terms are issues that need to be grappled with in order to put reading theory in context. That's how I see it. George Demetrion
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