Making Literacy Real: Theories and Practices for Learning and Teaching

Larson, Joanne; Marsh, Jackie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1412903300 ISBN 13: 9781412903301

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2005

`Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh's Literacy Learning is easily the most theoretically sophisticated and practically useful discussion of sociocultural and critical approaches to literacy learning that has appeared to date' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Making Literacy Real is the essential reference text for primary education students at undergraduate and graduate level who want to understand literacy theory and successfully apply it in the classroom. Doctoral students will find this a useful resource in understanding the relationship of theory to practice.

The authors explore the breadth of this complex and important field, orientating literacy as a social practice, grounded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts of use. They also present a detailed and accessible discussion of the theory and its application in the primary classroom.

The book covers:

o Defining literacy: multimodalities and new literacies

o Digital literacies

o New literacy studies

o Critical literacy

o Sociocultural-historical theory

o Connecting theoretical frameworks

o Implications for teacher education and literacy research

Each chapter examines a theoretical model, accompanied by a discussion of case study material with a leading proponent of the field, including Barbara Comber, Michele Knobel, Colin Lankshear, Barbara Rogoff and Brian Street.

Review:

`Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh's Literacy Learning is easily the most theoretically sophisticated and practically useful discussion of sociocultural and critical approaches to literacy learning that has appeared to date' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgidge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Taking the position that literacy is grounded in social, cultural, and historical practices, researchers Larson and March present four alternative theoretical frameworks that offer teachers and teacher-researchers the opportunity to expand the relationship of theory to classroom practice. . . . The novelty of this book is linked to the multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks by way of case studies approach. . . .This book is highly recommended for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in teacher education. (CHOICE 2006-05-09)

About the Author:

Joanne Larson is Michael W. Scandling Professor of Education and Chair of the Teaching and Curriculum program at the University of Rochester’s Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, USA. She received her PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995. Larson’s ethnographic research examines how language and literacy practices mediate social and power relations in literacy events in schools and communities. She is currently collaborating with Rochester community residents on a participatory action research project examining changes associated with transforming a local corner store into a cornerstone of healthy living. Her book Radical Equality in Education: Starting Over in US Schooling (Routledge, 2014) makes the case for beginning with assumptions of equality instead of inequality in education. She is the editor of Literacy as Snake Oil: Beyond the Quick Fix, Second Edition (Lang, 2007) and co-editor with Jackie Marsh of Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy (Sage, 2013). Larson's journal publications include research articles in Research in the Teaching of English; Written Communication: Linguistics and Education; Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, and Discourse and Society.