Class will start at 9:45 today

Hello TTH group,
   Due to unforeseen circumstances, I cannot make it to campus until 9:40. So, we will begin class at 9:45 this morning. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The Steele & Aronson (2004) article that is we are covering this week is in the dropbox

Remember, class begins at 9:30 today.

Hello all,
    As we discussed on Monday, we will begin class at 9:30 today instead of 9:10. See you soon.

Remaining readings for this course and reading assignments for MWF group:

Gates, Jr.,: Ruby & Sarah

Douglass: Anna & Edwen

Mendoza-Denton: Lauchlin & Daniel

Steele: Sequoia & Arno

Lee: Michelle & Leshee

Tatum: Mary & Eileen

WEEK 5

Race & power

Gates, Jr., H.L. (1986). 'Race' as the trope of the world. In "Race," writing, and difference (pp. 590-597). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gates challenges the careless use of "race" as the ultimate trope for irreducible difference between cultures; gives an account of Phyllis Wheatley's "oral examination" to prove that she, as an African girl, was capable of having written a set of poems; rehearses and refutes the European assumption, existing since the 1600's, that Africans were incapable of creating formal literature.

Douglass, F. (1987). Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. In H.L. Gates, Jr. (Ed.), The Classic Slave Narratives (pp. 273-281). New York: Penguin.

This section of Douglass's autobiography gives an account of his learning to read and write, despite the fact that, from the perspective of Douglass's slave owners, "it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read."

Mendoza-Denton, R. (2010). Are we born racist? New insights from neuroscience and positive psychology. Framed! Understanding achievement gaps.

In this chapter Mendoza-Denton chronicles the erroneous assumptions, which later became aphorisms, regarding what was perceived as an inherent cognitive deficiency in African Americans; and, how these erroneous assumptions have informed rhetoric around the achievement gap.

Steele, C. & Aronson, J. (2004). Stereotype threat and intellectual performance of African Americans.

In this essay the authors discuss the ill effects of stereotype cues and stereotype threat both psychologically, and to a lesser degree, psychosomatically.

Lee, S.J. (1994).  Beyond the model-minority stereotype: Voices of high- and low-achieving Asian-American students.  Anthropology & Education Quarterly 25: 413-429.   

This article examines the complex relationship between Asian American student identities and perceptions regarding future opportunities and attitudes towards schooling.  

Tatum, B. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race (93-113).New York:  Basic Books.

Tatum writes in this chapter about how white people can develop identities both as white and as anti-racist.

WEEK 6

Final in-class presentations

Multiliteracies

Boal, A. (1979). Poetics of the oppressed (selections). In Theater of the oppressed (120-126; 142-156). New York: Theatre Communications Group.

Boal uses theatre to enact Freirean pedagogical theories that intertwine literacy and democracy, and that result in personal and collective revolution.

Movie in class: Shakespeare’s Children.

This documentary highlights a drama project carried out with kids in a Berkeley school.

Hull, G.A., Kenney, N.L., Marple, S. and Forsman-Schneider, A. (2006). Many versions of masculine : an exploration of boys' identity formation through digital storytelling in an afterschool program, The Robert Bowne Foundation: Occasional paper series, vol. 6, Spring, pp. 1-42.

This monograph examines how young male students of color use digital storytelling to realize complex masculinities for themselves, masculinities that defy limited (and limiting) perspectives on male childhood and adolescence.

Parker, J.K. (2010). Preface and Chapter one: Understanding youth and digital media (xi-xiv; 1-14). In J.K. Parker (Ed.), Teaching tech-savvy kids: Bringing digital media into the classroom, grades 5-12. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This chapter calls educators to examine and capture the power of digital media, with specific examples from classroom teacher-researchers throughout the book.

Gee, J. P. (2005). Learning by design: Good video games as learning machines. E- Learning, 2(1), 5-16.

Gee connects video game design with effective teaching and learning principles.

Finnegan, Ruth.  (2002). A mix of arts. In Communicating:  The multiple modes of human interconnection (pp. 223-243). London: Routledge.

This chapter, which comes toward the end of Finnegan’s book, celebrates the creative and diverse means that human beings have invented to make meaning and interconnect.  How can we use Finnegan’s insights to rethink literacy?

Lee, C. (2009). Culture, Literacy and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind. Teachers College Press: New York. [pp. TBD]

This chapter articulates the potential for out-school knowledge in learning advanced literacy skills.

Hull, G.A. & Schultz, K. (2002). Connecting schools with out-of-school worlds: Insights from recent research on literacy in non-school settings. In G. Hull & K. Schultz (Eds.), School’s out: Bridging out-of-school literacies with classroom practice (32-57).

CASE STUDIES DUE MONDAY AUGUST 15

Class schedules

MWF Class 1: Wed 7/06 Class 2: Fri 7/08 Class 3: Mon 7/11 Class 4: Wed 7/13 Class 5: Fri 7/15 Class 6: Mon 7/18 Class 7: Wed 7/20 Class 8: Fri 7/22 Class 9: Mon 7/25 Class 10: Wed 7/27 Class 11: Fri 7/29 Class 12: Mon 8/01 Class 13: Wed 8/03 Class 14: Fri 8/05 Class 15: Mon 8/08 Class 16: Wed 8/10 Class 17: Fri 8/12

TTh Class 1: Tue 7/05 Class 2: Th 7/07 Class 3: Tue 7/12 Class 4: Th 7/14 Class 5: Tue 7/19 Class 6: Th 7/21 Class 7: Tue 7/26 Class 8: Th 7/28 Class 9: Tue 8/02 Class 10: Th 8/04 Class 11: Tue 8/09 Class 12: Th 8/11

Running late...

Hello all,
   I will be in class by 9:25. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The Mendoza-Denton article is in the dropbox.

Hello again,
   For those of you that have been assigned the Mendoza-Denton article, you will soon find out, if you haven't already, that it is not in the reader. Instead, you will find it in the dropbox, ready to be downloaded.

IMPORTANT: Clarification on remaining blog entry

Hello all,
   I just want to provide some clarity regarding the final blog entry. You are supposed to complete five blog entries for this course. The syllabus asks for six entries; that is my mistake. We did not require an entry the first week (because you had yet to read any of the course material). So, then, at a rate of one entry per week, we are limited to five total entries.

Now on to the final blog assignment: we really wanted to give you all a "break" since you had so much going on last week. So, we decided to forego the blog entry assignment for this week. As a result, there can only be a maximum of four entries total. Enter the final blog question: this particular question is intended to elicit a more substantial, substantive response than the questions that were based on course readings, precisely because it asks you to critically reflect on your time at your field site by centering race and, subsequently, discussing the dynamic/s that were informed by it. Consequently, the minimum word length is doubled. This question, then, constitutes (i.e., counts as) two entries.

Here's how the math works:

Initially there were five entries required, each one worth up to four points. However, because we skipped a week there are three, each worth up to four points for a total of twelve possible points. Thus, in order to get to twenty total points, the final blog entry will be worth up to eight points (not six, as I'd previously posted).

The response to this question is due by August 10th, by 5:00pm; however, please feel free to turn it in anytime prior to the due date.

Please let me know if there are still lingering questions.