CON TEAM POSITIONRick Beach, John Guthrie, Freddy Hiebert, & Kris Gutierrez

OUR POSITION

Charles Payne: “So why are you (NRC audience) here?”

Our position: Literacy researchers HAVE produced a base of knowledge that provides practitioners and policy makers with explicit guidance for improving literacy instruction and policy.

DEFINITIONS: POTENTIAL VERSUS ACTUAL UPTAKE

Researchers seek positive potential uptake NOT responsible for actual update Actual uptake shaped by status-quo political,

economic, and cultural forces Need to curb carbon emissions Need to regulate high-fat food: obesity Need for public health-care programs

REASONS FOR LACK OF ACTUAL UPTAKE

Inadequate preservice education and inservice professional development

Lack of public support for the value and need of schooling

Need for simplistic solutions/perspectives

Teachers not reading research reports Problematic application of labels and

standardized test scores Opposition of organized groups

GUIDANCE: AMOUNT OF LITERACY RESEARCH

JLR, RRQ, J. Ed. Psych., SSR, R&W Quarterly, Reading Psychology, Reading Research and Instruction, Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Research in Reading, Journal of Educational Research

Bibliographies/databases (ERIC, library databases, Bibliography: RTE); handbooks

GUIDANCE GALORE

Your NRC presentations: Drawing implications for teaching and policy

Counter-examples to Team 1 claims that what you do makes no difference

POSITIVE POTENTIAL UPTAKE: TEACHERS CLASSROOM QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Descriptions of classroom learning Illustrate and model those practices for

teachers Provide alternative theoretical perspectives on

literacy learning

POSITIVE POTENTIAL UPTAKE: POLICY MAKERS DRAW ON RESEARCH Kris: Literacy framework --> Learn Act John: Reading Next project

Based on research from a range of different perspectives and populations that are consistent with their own contexts

INFLUENCING ELL/DLL POLICY

Influencing policy and practice at federal, state, and local levels

Goal: to improve educational outcomes for English language learners (ELLs).

--Individual experts--Working Group on ELL Policy

Consortium of ELL researchers organized to influence

American Recovery and

Reinvestment Act (ARRA) ESEA Reauthorization

Build DLL Capacity at the Federal and State

Provide ongoing expert advice on key issues

1) Human Capital/Effective Instruction and Practices

2) Federal Role

3) Standards, Assessments, and Accountability

SPECTRUM OF GUIDANCE: QUALITY OF GUIDANCE: USE OF MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES AND CONTEXTS

limited multiple overly- perspectives perspectives prescriptive

PROBLEMATIC GUIDANCE: TOO GLOBAL/LIMITED PERSPECTIVES

Too global: Little sense of particular contextsSpecific classroom or school/community

context Lack of alternative perspectives

DIBBELS researchLimited theoretical perspective on literacy

PROBLEMATIC GUIDANCE: TOO SPECIFIC/PRESCRIPTIVE

“What works” prescriptions do not apply to different/diverse populations Little relevancy for low-income and/or ELL

students Too prescriptive

Do X in the classroom, and Y will occur

IDEAL GUIDANCE: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES/CONTEXTS Positive potential uptake occurs:

Employ different perspectivesDescribe unique aspects of contexts and

spacesDescribe instructional practices for use by

teachers

EXAMPLE: GUIDANCE: VALUE OF MEDIA LITERACY INSTRUCTION

Problem: Marginalization of media literacy instruction as not contributing to “reading” or “writing” test scores

Effects of critical media literacy instruction (Hobbs, 2007)

Positive effects of instruction on increases in reading and writing tests

EXAMPLE: GUIDANCE: USE OF ACTIVE, CONSTRUCTIVIST LITERACY LEARNING

Instruction: Teacher-dominated instruction

30 classes: 6th-8th grades (Hillocks, 2009)

Active “declarative” versus didactic “procedural” instruction

Correlations: mean gain/loss writing ability scores“declarative” - .48 “procedural” + .53

EXAMPLE: GUIDANCE: DIGITAL LITERACIES

Enhanced student engagement in schooling:Online interaction/production (Corio,

Knobel,Lankshear, & Leu, 2008; Leander, 2008)

Digital storytelling (Hull & Katz, 2007)Gaming/simulation/avatar (Thomas, 2008)Fanfiction (Black, 2008)E-Zines (Guzzetti, 2004)Texting (Lewis & Fabos, 2005)

EXAMPLE: GUIDANCE: CHALLENGE PROBLEMATIC PRACTICES

Traditional grammar instruction: improving writing quality

Final draft feedback only Teacher dominated discussions Phonics-only reading methods Excessive use of standardized tests to

dictate instruction

GUIDANCE: LITERARY RESEARCH: LITERACY LEARNING

Acquiring practices of person-text interaction in a social context for shared purposes.

Occurring in socially and digitally mediated environments.

Empowering the learner to acquire understanding about the external world, the self and the cultural milieu in which she participates.

Modeling and guiding students in literacy practices with increasing adeptness, social generativity, and agency.

SUMMARY: LITERARY RESEARCHERS:

Want to make a difference in improving literary instruction and in shaping policy

Have generated extensive research providing potential positive uptakeEmploy multiple perspectives related to

different contexts to achieve positive potential uptake

Are NOT responsible for actual uptake shaped by political/cultural forces

Have made a difference in improving literacy instruction