Theresa+Pinch

__**Response to Week #1 reading regarding the power of questions.**__

While intrigued by the idea of "questioning as a systematic inquiry process" and answering questions with other questions (p. 281), I thought this article looked at questions in a vacuum and did not allow for the information to be gained from actual answers. The method of inquiry as proposed by the author seems to envision a dialogue made up entirely of question, which is not necessarily a meaningful exchange. It reminded me of a skit from a show that used to be on t.v. called "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on which the performers engaged in improvisational scenes. One of the premises was a conversation between two or more actors in which every line spoken had to be a question. While the scenes always began with some sort of coherent dialogue, they quickly lost meaning as the actors became more focussed on phrasing the question than on what was being communicated. Similarly, I suspect it would be very easy for the author's suggested form of inquiry to lead to situations in which the teacher is more concerned with the questioning that with the information sought to be obtained through the questioning. In short, while I agree with the premise that certain questions have power and questioning, in general, is beneficial, I would caution about being too concerned with the format of the dialogue than what information can be obtained through the questioning and how we can use that information to help our students become stronger readers and writers.

I was also intrigued by the case study of "Amanda" and concerned that while the author presented Amanda's evolution as a reader as very positive,I found Amanda's outcome as a whole to be less than positive. Here, the author started this case study with someone who seemed to be an atypical high school freshman. Amanda is described as having a passion for reading. She was articulate as evidenced by the stories she told the author about the books she was reading. She was able to simultaneously recognize that books could show her individuals like herself in similar situations or individuals unlike herself, responding differently to the same catalysts. She was able to "use reading as a multi-purpose tool" and was "strategic about her reading choices." These descriptions are indicative of a more mature reader than the usual high school freshman. However, despite this apparent maturity, Amanda never really became what I would call a "voluntary reader". She read because she had to and because the circumstances were right with the author providing her a broad selection of books, the reality is that when she moved away, she stopped reading and dropped out of high school. I would argue that if she truly had developed a passion for reading and the ability to use reading as a multi-purpose tool,she would have continued in her reading and her education. Surely she still had access to books at her school or public library. Instead, she never reached the level of being a voluntary reader, one who reads because he or she WANTS to read.

My final thoughts on the first week's reading relate to a "chicken vs. the egg" question. The author wrote at page 285 that we should question "the meaning of reading in people's everyday lives and the relevance of high school English classes to thie personal kind of reading." She also wrote that the English class must "find books that resonate with them." While I agree with this to a certain extent,I think it is limiting to our students. Instead, while more contemporary texts may be more appealing to our students, I believe it is equally important to expose our students to books they would NOT voluntarily choose to read, which do not already "resonate with them" and be able to explain/demonstrate how the seemingly irrelevant books are, indeed, relevant to them. To do otherwise is to do them a disservice. This exposure to different subjects, time periods, authors,and genres is how the student will grow as both a well-rounded reader, as well as a reader with a far broader range of interests. This is where the teaching of the classics come into play. Realistically, few high school students would voluntarily opt to read Beowulf, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, or The Grapes of Wrath. Nevertheless, each of these books is in some way reflective of the human experience and their experience as well. The key to teaching these books is to find the commonality, the morality, the literary archetypes, then show those to the students to allow them to find the similarities between those books and the more contemporary young adult novels they are more likely to choose to read.

After reading the week #2 articles, I was surprised to find that it was the one written in 1901 that I found to be the most pragmatic, despite its age and some outdated notions (//found the references to "boys" rather than "students" throughout to be amusing//). Despite those characteristics, I found it to be the most practical of the three non-text articles assigned for this week.
 * __Week #2 Blog entry--reading commentary and newspaper article commentary.__**

In contrast, the CEE Position Statement "What is English Education" struck me as a series of lists. Helpful lists? Perhaps. Insightful lists? Not particularly. Somewhat vague as to their intent and practical applications lists? Most definitely. While this article was interesting in terms of what it identified as the theoretical associated core values under each of the three dimensions of the belief statement, it did not set forth the manner by which the theoretical can be transformed to the practical. While the authors briefly hinted at applications of the associated core values when defining the concepts of personal, civic, and cultural literacies on page 1, similar hints were not provided for the far more esoteric concepts such as "contributing to the making of knowledge about English language arts learning and teaching....to develop generative intellectual, moral, and aesthetic theories of literacy and language teaching, learning, and development." (P. 3).

Similarly, I found Mayher’s speech/article to be aggressive in putting forth the argument that changes are required, but lacking in terms of substantive recommendations for how to effectuate that change. I appreciated the comment attributed to Mayher’s friend that English Ed incorporates all human knowledge because where language goes, so goes our role in facilitating its learning and development. When I was first taking my education classes in the 1980s, I always believed English was the most important subject to teach because with the ability to read, write, and communicate effectively, both in writing and verbally, one cannot succeed in any other scholastic endeavor.

However, I found there to be a significant internal inconsistency with Mayher’s analysis. Throughout the article, Mayher refers to the necessity to be more inclusive and to a need for greater integration within the teacher education fields. However, the article starts early on at page 2 with a definite "us vs them" attitude. I found this to be almost daring anyone outside the area of teacher education to challenge him, as if to do so would show disrespect toward all educators. To be accepted and adopted into teacher education, his recommendations must be able to withstand scrutiny not only from those in education, but also by those not directly involved in education. Contrary to Mayher’s defensiveness, sometimes an outsider can bring a certain level of objectivity that is lacking among those in the profession.

Lastly, the Abbott 1901 article offered practical suggestions, some of which I found paralleled Buehler’s suggestions from the week 1 reading. Abbott advocated that "literature work should be founded on interest" (p. 395) and defined interest as dependent on "ability to connect the new object with something interesting alreaady in the mind, and to hold the interest of pupils, we must discover what resident or natural interests they have...". (p. 395). This is precisely the argument made by Buehler in her case study in which she provided a library of book choices from which her students could select books that were of interest to them. Abbott took this analysis one step further than Buehler, concluding that the best way to improve writing is through practice, and that the writing subjects should ideally be "specific, definite, and interesting to the pupil; a subject on which he has something to say." (p. 400). In other words, to improve reading, have students read about subjects that interest them; to improve writing, have students write about subjects that interest them.

Abbott’s five classifications of what branches of English work are "desirable" in high school were interesting and seemed to simplify and set forth as a practical matter the associated core values articulated in the CEE Position Statement "What is English Education". Ultimately, Abbott’s recommendation for addressing this problem is that we "devote ourselves strictly to developing ordinary accuracy and simplicity of expression and a hearty love for good literature with the training of imagination and of the moral sense that must unconsciously flow from it." (P. 393).

Lastly, I found it rather telling how the results of the writing examination of sub-freshmen set forth in the paper by "Ms. Withey" were unfortunately similar to the recent U.S. writing test results published this past week. Miss Withey reviewed writing books submitted by 894 candidates for admission to Harvard and found that only 16.8% received a mark above a C. (P. 390). In addition to the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, it was noted that "the books show utter disregard of the principle of unity, in paragraphs and in whole compositions." (P. 391).

On September 14, 2012 the Associated Press published an article entitled "Test Scores: Most U.S. Students Not Proficient in Writing." The article can be found at www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/54897506-68/students-grade-writing-test.htl.csp. Per this article, "only 24% of 8th and 12th grade students in the United States have solid writing skills, even when allowed to use spell-check and other computer word processing tools." More specifically, only those 24% were "able to write essays that were well-developed, organized, and had proper language and grammar." I find it appalling that three-quarters of our high school students cannot write well enough to pass a writing proficiency test.

The article explained (not entirely surprisingly) that the test scores showed certain gaps seemingly related to ethnicity, gender, and family wealth. According to the article, using a 300 point scale, in 8th grade, Asian students had scores that were on average 33 points higher than the African American counterparts while in 12th grade, Caucasian students’ scores were on average 27 points over the scores of the African American students. Girls outscored boys in both the 8th grade and 12th grade assessments and students who received free or reduced lunch (an indicator of family economics) scored on average 27 points less than the other students in 8th grade.

One final scoring gap was found between those students who wrote regularly and those who did not. Abbott (supra) wrote that "simple, accurate writing is to be achieved in only one way; and that way is constant practice." (P. 394). Abbott’s conclusion is supported today by the most recent U.S. writing test scores referenced above that showed that 12th grade students who wrote four or five pages a week as English homework did better on the 2011 writing tests than their counterparts who did less.

What disturbs me more than the overall results and more than the gaps described are the rationales/justifications/excuses offered by some educators. Cornelia Orr, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board was reported as saying that "it is important to remember that this is first draft writing" and "they did have some time to edit, but it wasn’t extensive editing." While a first draft is rarely perfect, if a student has been taught how to write properly, even a first draft should be sufficiently well-developed, organized, and have proper language and grammar to pass a writing proficiency test. Elsewhere in the same article Kathleen Blake Yancey, a professor at Florida State University who served on the advisory panel for the test tried to attribute the poor scores to the use of the computers for testing, stating "research shows most students in the U.S. don’t compose at the keyboard." She continued "what they do is sort of type already written documents into the machine, much as we used to do with typerwriters four decades ago." Yancey’s tactic of blaming the computers is negated by the report in the article that students who used the computer features of spell-check and who showed more frequent backspacing (presumably to make corrections), tended to have higher scores than those who did not.

The unfortunate reality is that despite all our advances in technology and new approaches to teaching writing, we really have not made much progress since 1896, when only 16.8% of the students tested scored better than a C on a writing proficiency test.

__**Week #3 blog entry**__

Before getting to my thoughts about this week’s specific readings, I have to comment on something that was a recurrent reference throughout several articles and that is the idea of there being some "real world", separate from the world of academia. I have always taken umbrage with that phrase and the implication that one’s present situation or "world" is somehow not real but that somewhere, just around the bend in the road, lies the "real world". The world of a child, that point in space and time in which a child exists, functions, and grows is that child’s real world, just as in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the cavedwellers’ world of shadows and darkness was their only reality. Similarly, as secondary school teachers, the reality in which our students live is their "real world" and to consider it anything less than real is to diminish its importance and insult our students.

If secondary and post-secondary education are not deemed to be real worlds, where is the line drawn between these un-real worlds and the real ones? Is it when one has completed one’s education? If so, that runs contrary to the belief that we continue to grow and gain knowledge and wisdom throughout life, long after the final notes of Pomp & Circumstance have faded into mere memories. Maybe the real world is the one in which we get our first "real" job (whatever that means); have a mortgage; children (or pets!); or credit card debt? While those may be some characteristics of life in the adult world, those characteristics are no more real than mid-term exams; homecoming dances; "friending" on Facebook; or first jobs are to our students. Their world is just as real to them as ours is to us and deserves the same amount of respect.

Now, moving on to the articles for this week...

//**"WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT ADOLESCENT LITERACY?"**// In the Snow article, I was intrigued by the concept of the "inoculation fallacy" (p. 66) that an early vaccination of reading instruction protected permanently against reading failure. Along those same lines, I was surprised by the statement that there was once an assumption that reading instruction was finished by the end of 3rd grade. I can see why early reading instruction up to the end of grade three would be extremely important as the foundation for future learning, I found it hard to believe that there was a time when educators seriously believed that was all that was necessary. Apparently the assumption at the time was that from that point, those students who wanted to accomplish more would be able to do it on their own.

I thought how funny it would be if this same theory had been applied to other areas, both academic and extracurricular. Imagine the same theory in mathematics: "you have been taught how to add, subtract, and do some multiplication and division. You should be able to handle algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry on your own." How about in sports: "alright little league football players; we taught you how to throw and catch the football, how to tackle, and which direction to run on the field. Good luck with that pro football career!" This idea, ludicrous in almost any setting, seems particularly so in the field of literacy, where it is not sufficient to simply be able to read words; rather one must learn how to understand, interpret, and most effectively use those words in written and verbal communication–something few have mastered by the end of third grade!

I also found it interesting how the Snow article and the Petrone article were somewhat at cross-purposes. Snow set forth at page 66 a very broad definition of ‘adolescent" within the concept of "adolescent literacy programs" as encompassing students from fourth grade through at least the first year of post-secondary education, whereas Petrone seemed to suggest that there really is no such thing as "adolescence" as a group identifier with any commonality between the members of that age group. Snow’s definition struck me as overbroad and Petrone’s struck me as extremist; that is, there is no basis for categorizing "adolescent literature" or "adolescent readers" if one truly believes there is not commonality between the members of the group.

Snow pointed out on page 67 that sometimes proficient readers automatically use the comprehension strategies listed earlier in the text and that making them aware of those strategies or ones they don’t need can interfere with comprehension. I appreciated this distinction and the implication that not every tool has to be used to help every student. By way of analogy, when I was in high school, sewing class was required as part of the "home ec" set of classes. I had been taught by my mom how to sew when I was much younger, so I came to the class with certain skills. The problem was when I had to break down what I had been taught to do (and already knew how to do), into separate discreet steps and dissect the process, the strategies stumped me! I knew how to put in a zipper the way I had been taught, but when asked to break that procedure down into steps, I got caught up in the thinking about how I was doing it instead of just doing it. Just as sewing is a learned skill, so is reading. So it makes sense to me that asking a proficient reader to focus on the tools or strategies used in reading instead of on the actual practice of reading can make the proficient appear unskilled and increase their doubt in themselves.

One last comment on the Snow article: First, the statement on page 68 that "adolescents who struggle with literacy typically aren’t motivated to engage in academic reading" struck me as blatantly obvious. Reading further, the author wrote "frequent reading is one attribute of a skilled reader, in part because it expands world and word knowledge." For me, this became a chicken-or-the-egg question–which came first, the frequent reading or the reading proficiency? Does one become a skilled reader because one reads frequently, or does one read frequently because one already has the skills that allow one to read with greater satisfaction? Perhaps the relationship is cyclical: more reading leads to more proficiency which in turn, leads to even more reading and greater proficiency, infinitely.

//**"DEFICITS, THERAPISTS, AND A DESIRE TO DISTANCE:..."**//

Certain aspects of this study were dissonant to me and created certain logical flaws within the analysis. The most fundamental flaw for me is that the entire study seems to argue against identifying or relying upon generalizations about or commonalities within that group referred to as "adolescents", while continuing to speak of the group in the collective. This is equally true if one is to recognize the entire genre of "adolescent literature" or ascribe to the belief that reading adolescent or young adult literature helps our students find characters and situations with which they can identify and draw parallels to their own lives. All of this assumes there is some collective understanding or concept of adolescence, the very concept against which Petrone and Lewis seem to be arguing.

Even the questions that Petrone and Lewis posed to the preservice teachers were phrased so as to suggest a commonality amongst the group, with references to "this population of people" (p. 263), again seeming to suggest a commonality amongst that population.

Maybe it is because I was a junior in college working toward my teaching career when the movie The Breakfast Club came out, but whatever the reason, I agree with the idea that the teachers’ perceptions of adolescents are often dispositive on a great deal of what happens in the classroom. For those too young to remember the movie, dialogue in the final scene went as follows:

Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete... Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case... Claire Standish:...a princess... John Bender: ...and a criminal. Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club

//"You see us as you want to see us..//.". I later discovered just how accurate this dialogue was at my second teaching job. When I graduated from EMU, I was hired to teach English at Marian High School in Birmingham while the regular teacher was on leave. When she returned halfway through the year, I was offered a position mid-year at Benedictine High School in Detroit. After accepting the job, the principal suggested I meet with the gentleman I would be replacing after the Christmas break; the students had no idea he was leaving. After classes ended, I went to his classroom where the very first thing he said to me was "I hate them; they hate me; I’m getting out." Needless to say, the students reflected his opinions when I first met them, but as I made it clear to them that I knew nothing specific about their relationship with him and that his opinions had no sway over me, the entire atmosphere changed.

Lastly, at page 274, Petrone and Lewis in describing "othering" set up a dichotomy between adolescents and adults in which adolescents are characterized as forming their identities; developing analytical thinking; and replete with "danger and conflict." In contrast, adulthood is characterized as "a harmonious time" with adults being level-headed; able to converse and interact intelligently; having concretized habits and ways of being; analytical and critical thinkers; and having a stable and completely formed identity. I confess I laughed out loud when I read this highly idealized conceptualization of what it means to be an adult. Those may be the characteristics we all strive for throughout adulthood, but I am absolutely certain that back when I started teaching at age 22, a mere four to six years older than most of my students, I too was still forming my identity and developing analytical thinking. While I may have been level-headed and able to converse and interact intelligently, the rest of those so-called adult characteristics are ever-changing, as I believe they are for most people. Ideally, one does not stop forming an identity and one does not stop developing analytical thinking just because one has attained adulthood.


 * Week #4 Blog:**

Because we had so many options to select from this week about which to write, I have narrowed my focus to two of the weeks’ readings.

//**1. Supporting Linguistically & Culturally Diverse Learners in English Education.**// While I agree conceptually with the basic premise of this article that we as English teachers must recognize and acknowledge the distinct cultural identities of our students, I am concerned that the writers’ recommendations may go too far in emphasizing the different-ness of some students; drawing unwanted attention to their differences; and fostering ostracization. As much as we all want to be individuals, it is also part of human nature to want to fit in with our peers. If we demand that students emphasize and publicly celebrate that which makes them different from their peers, be it racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, or cultural diversity, we are asking them to focus on at least one way in which they are separate from their peers. While some students may thrive on that opportunity, others may prefer to blend in, to assimilate, and be perceived as having more in common with their peers. Of course, ideally, our classrooms would be an environment in which every student is comfortable in his or her own skin and everyone is accepting of those differences, but the reality is that such an environment is very difficult to create and maintain. While that doesn’t mean that we should not strive for such an environment, it does mean we should not expect our students to be comfortable enough from day one to engage in such a way, until they are comfortable enough to do so.

There is also the risk of doing a disservice to our students by not expecting them to function (e.g., read and write) within the “boundaries of mainstream power codes”, to use the authors’ phraseology. If our ultimate goal is to ensure that our students can read, write, and function successfully in the world beyond academia, are we working toward that goal if we essentially tell students they are not expected to work within those “boundaries”? Does it help a student to say that in our classrooms, he does not have to satisfy the “mainstream power codes” if we expect him to later be able to function in a world that is run by those power codes and not by individual “home and street codes”? The writers note in Belief #6 that students must be exposed to “the dialect of the dominant culture” while honoring home and street codes. Theoretically that is sound, but in doing so, are we preparing students for careers and professions in which home and street codes are perceived as inappropriate and “the dialect of the dominant culture” is what is expected? Similarly, are we setting our students up for failure if we foster the belief that these various “codes” are of equal import or value when our society does not share that belief?

I//**I. Vernacular Eloquence--Chapter 4.**//

My initial reaction was that the author was deliberately trying to confuse his readers by referring to “written” and “spoken” language, each of which may or may not be literally written or spoken. Simply changing these terms to “deliberate” or “formal” for “written” (referring to communication that is planned, thought out, perhaps revised and polished for the audience) and “spontaneous” or “casual/informal” for “speech”( referring to communication that is unplanned and unpolished) would have made this a much clearer text.

As one who was involved in debate and forensics for many, many years as a participant, coach, and judge, I found myself disagreeing with many of the author’s assertions that favored “spoken/spontaneous/unplanned” language. A well-crafted, deliberately thought out speech or written statement can be as effective in connecting with an audience as Elbow’s “spoken language”. One of the most fundamental theories of rhetorical criticism advocates that we connect with an audience when we identify with it by emphasizing the things we have in common and that commonality provides a springboard for understanding and empathy. Rarely can a speaker or writer identify with an audience when speaking or writing extemporaneously. Rather, such communication must be carefully thought out and directed toward the goal of creating a common identity. Similarly, I have to disagree with Elbow’s statement on page 30 that when a sentence…sorry “clause complex” begins, “the speaker has no idea where, when (or even whether ) it is gong to end.” This statement suggests that the speaker has put absolutely no thought into what he is going to say before opening his mouth or putting pen to paper. I cannot accept the idea that we, as communicators, do not know what is going to come forth from our speaking/writing until it is actually out there. Communication, written or spoken, even if spontaneous, requires some degree of thought in advance. One cannot effectively communicate without some idea of what is going to come out of them before it actually appears. One should not be surprised by one’s own statements at the time they are made.

For example, I do not revise/rewrite/edit my blog entries (//okay, I do correct typographical errors as they occur//); otherwise, they are what they are as they come forth on the computer screen, in all their spontaneous, unplanned glory. Does that mean that when I open my word processor that I have no idea what might come forth from my fingertips as I type? Of course not. Without planning what I am going to write, I know that what I write will be either initiated by or a response to something I have read. I have yet to be surprised by something I have written!

I also think that Elbow’s preference for unplanned/unrevised “speech” may contribute to the sort of errors such as the one found under Section 5 regarding Parataxis and Hypotaxis. He wrote at the bottom of the first page “As children get older, parataxis turns up more frequently in their writing.” Three paragraphs later he wrote “I think this helps explain why there is more hypotaxis in children’s writing as they get older.” Clearly, there is some value to proofreading/editing/revising to communicate effectively.

Admittedly, some of these issues were dissipated by the explanation that Elbow was not really advocating unplanned, spontaneous discourse, but rather was advocating for deliberate, planned, thought out language that was then made to appear to be spontaneous, unplanned, or unpolished as some sort of pseudo-spontaneous hybrid language. Elbow further recognized at the end of the chapter that “speaking” and “writing” (as he used those terms) are actually complementary and both are necessary for the best writing. This seemed like back-pedaling, after spending 21 pages and nine subpoints expounding on the virtues of unplanned, unedited, spontaneous “speaking” over “writing.”

My final comment: I highly recommend the movie “Won’t Back Down”. Regardless of your thoughts about teachers’ unions, it is a powerful and inspiring movie!

//**A. Engaged academic literacy articles**//
 * __Week # 5 Blog–Readings about how we read, interpret, and respond to texts.__**

I sometimes wonder if my thoughts and reactions to the weekly readings would vary had I read the articles in a different order. For no explicable reason, I read the Rex & McEachen article first ("If Anything is Odd, Inappropriate, Confusing, etc"), then later read the Schoenbach & Greenleaf chapter. Although both articles espouse the same approach to engaged academic literature, I found Schoenbach’s examples of the Introduction to Chemistry and Honors U.S. History and the related conclusions more legitimate than Rex & McEachen’s. Schoenbach offered two concrete examples of engaged academic literacy in action in two very different academic arenas and with two dissimilar groups of students. Despite these differences, the methods and outcomes were quite similar. Back in my high school days, I was one of those students who avoided science like the plague and successfully dodged the chemistry bullet, so I was intrigued by Brown’s techniques. One concept that struck me as significant was the idea expressed on page 105 that "a critical and unacknowledged part of some adolescent’s literacy development involves helping them transform the identities of nonreader and nonlearner . . . into new identities as capable readers and learners." While I would not characterize myself at a "nonreader" or a "nonlearner" (//I, who read voraciously back when there was time to read for fun and who actually looked forward to standardized test time)//, I would absolutely describe myself as "nonscientific". Only much later, when my job as an attorney required extensive reading of and summarizing voluminous medical records; working familiarity with medical terminology; and frequent depositions of physicians, did it occur to me that I probably would have really enjoyed some parts of science, had anyone tried to transform my identity from "nonscientific" to "scientific." Although the Rex & McEachen article set forth an example of a similar classroom dynamic to that found in Will Brown’s and Gayle Cribbs’ classrooms as described in the Schoenbach chapter, Rex seemed to force itself into an artificial construct. Without in any way discrediting or disparaging McEachen’s classroom methods, I can’t help but be critical of the study itself. The focus of Rex seemed to be on this dynamic classroom environment where gifted and non-gifted students can co-exist and learn together by coalescing the two distinct groups into one classroom through inclusion. The article was initially limited by focusing on essentially the first month of classroom interactions. Additionally, the reliance on Maralyn and Kora as "the embodiment of different identity kits" (p. 72) seemed invalid without further explanation as to whether each really was a typical representative of her respective group. Lastly, in terms of artificiality, the fact that Rex was present in the classroom as both an observer and participant, along with all the video equipment, cameras, recording, and interviewing of the students may have interfered with students’ behavior and reactions to the classroom experiment itself. The ultimate analysis seemed flawed where the authors stated "That both GATE and nonGATE students learned to be more academically sophisticated readers and writers and that they did so together in this classroom makes it an appropriate context for exploring how these transformations occurred." (P. 73). The flaw with this conclusion is that the GATE students, as gifted and talented and as was described elsewhere in the article, came to the classroom as "more academically sophisticated readers and writers", leading to the question of whether both groups improved or whether the nonGATE students simply "caught up" to their gifted counterparts. Similarly, the authors state at page 78 "by the first grading period all students’ reading and writing was within the range that counted at that time as competent." One would expect that the GATE students, by virtue of being GATE students, would have been reading and writing at the "competent" level when they came to the class. The classroom study also would have been more valid if there had been a more even division between GATE and nonGATE students. Here, seventeen of the twenty-seven students were already GATE students, with all the academic advantages that designation implies. With nearly two-thirds of the class in the advanced level, it is more difficult to confirm the validity of the comparisons. The implied and expressed oft-repeated theme of inclusion without risk of ridicule seemed false as well. Although the authors seem to emphasize that in this classroom, all students, all ideas, and all questions are respected equally and none are ridiculed, the reality is that the author found two examples in twenty-one days in which students were openly mocked by their classmates for their contributions. On pages 108-109, Kora was mocked and ridiculed by her classmates for her comments regarding a herd of sheep rather than a flock of sheep and the character’s financial resources. Although Rex writes "the students’ mocking actions (which did not reappear during the remainder of the first thirty days) were a direct contraction of the expectations for the culture of the classroom . . .", Rex later points out that Patricia was also laughed at by her classmates when she struggled to recall the Lord’s Prayer and commingled it with the Hail Mary. (P. 115). Thus, despite the attempts to portray this classroom as one of inclusion where all thoughts are equally valid and worthy of respect, the spirit of inclusion did not stop the students from occasionally ridiculing each other when mistakes were made. In short, although Schoenbach and Rex were attempting to set forth somewhat comparable examples of dynamic, engaged academic literacy, Schoenbach’s chapter accomplished this goal with two strong, seemingly legitimate examples, compared to Rex’s analysis which, while a valid classroom concept, simply struggled to create a false environment and assuming success relative to standards of competence that at least two-thirds of the group should have had before even entering the class. I may be being a bit persnickety here, but I found the classroom motto to be less that universal given the dichotomy of students in the class. "If anything is odd, inappropriate, confusing, or boring, it’s probably important" is not a universal standard nor is it objective. The unfortunate reality set forth elsewhere in the article is that the GATE students had educational and social backgrounds that differed from their nonGATE counterparts. Based on their different exposures to different concepts and life experiences, one would anticipate that the GATE students would find fewer things that were odd, inappropriate, confusing or boring than the less exposed, less experienced nonGATE students. Concepts and vocabulary that might be odd, inappropriate, confusing or boring to the nonGATE students who had not previously encountered such things would not be similarly characterized by GATE students who may already have had a working familiarity with the same concepts or words. **//B. Literacy in our Lives: Con//**tradiction **and Possibility** So many things about this chapter appealed to me. The writer’s initial comparison to his brother who excelled in sports while he excelled academically and the way in which each was expected to be more like the other reminded me somewhat of a student I had when I taught at Benedictine High School. Jeff was in my basic ninth grade English class and struggled daily. Although not formally tested (at least not that we were ever told by his parents), I suspected he had some sort of learning disability. Jeff played on the basketball team and even there, seemed to struggle, always just a bit behind his teammates. I have no doubt, even today, that Jeff needed resources beyond what was available to him at "Benny". Meanwhile, his brother Chris, older by two years, attended Detroit Country Day School in Birmingham/Bloomfield Hills on athletic scholarship. I have no doubt that Country Day had the resources that could help Jeff, but that was not to be his school. His brother, Chris, a far superior athlete who went on to excel at U-M in basketball was given all the academic and athletic opportunities he could ask for, while his younger brother, who could have benefitted greatly from those same opportunities, was left to languish at the much, much less expensive school with fewer opportunities for him to grow. I was also intrigued by the concept of how in some families, furthering one’s education, however positive that is looked upon, can be divisive in the family. My parents never had the opportunity to attend college, nor did their parents or siblings, except for one uncle who achieved his PhD in thermonuclear dynamics (oddball of the family!) I have five siblings and despite being the youngest, I was the first to go to college. Later, two of my brothers also attended and graduated from college, but I was the pioneer; the first to encounter college applications, financial aid forms, and dorm life! While my education was never a dividing factor between myself and my parents, it was and still is a bone of contention with my oldest siblings. While only occasionally saying it directly, my older sister and oldest brother sincerely believed a college education was just a waste of time and money (particularly for a woman!) and something one did only to avoid growing up, getting a job or a husband, and becoming a responsible adult. Clearly, as the writer points out, this is an all too familiar scenario when one child in a family has the skills, knowledge, and ability to advance into an area that is both unfamiliar and inaccessible to the student’s parents and siblings. That struggle, even if unarticulated, is ever-present in the student’s interactions with the family and can subtly impinge on the student academically. I also appreciated the writer’s analysis regarding literacy and individuality and self-reliance, set forth starting at page 37 and described through Hannah’s situation. Perhaps this is because Hannah’s opinions about opportunity, self-reliance, and self-determination mirror my own. I don’t believe that Hannah’s opinions are as typical as they once may have been in light of our society’s trend to go the opposite way and blame everyone but ourselves for what befalls us. Lastly, the section of this chapter on "The Ambiguity of Literacy" was particularly poignant where the writer discussed his interactions with prisoners and the concept of literacy in their lives. I have a nephew in prison; he graduated from high school with honors; attended a two year college; held a managerial job for many years; and served in the U.S. Army. He loves to read and has a footlocker full of books we send him. As an educated, literate man, he is in the minority in prison. He has told me of spending hours in the prison library, trying to help other inmates read law books and write their own court pleadings when they can barely write a coherent sentence. He has told me about writing letters for his friends who cannot write and reading to them the responses they get from their families because they cannot read the letters themselves. He has asked me to order children’s books for him that he can use to try to help tutor other inmates in reading although he has no training as a teacher or a tutor. While one cannot say it is illiteracy that made these men into criminals, one has to question how their lives would be different were they not illiterate? The purpose behind a prisoner’s reading and writing is very different from the purpose behind a high school student’s reading and writing; does this mean the definition of literacy for them should also be different? The high school student’s literacy is aimed at furthering his or her education, meeting career goals, and functioning in an ever-changing world that demands certain reading and writing proficiencies. Often the prisoner’s literacy is aimed at trying to maintain contact with an outside world they might not see again for many, many years. The prisoner’s goals are to maintain communication through the written word with limited resources where reading and writing proficiencies are minimal. Even though some prisoners may be looking toward their futures outside of prison and the need for literacy once that time comes, often the short term goal of simply making human contact becomes the preoccupying factor. If the goals of reading and writing are that disparate, should the definition of literacy be varied depending on the circumstances of the reader/writer and the purposed behind the literacy?

Week #6 Response to Readings. The reading that interested me the most this week was Thein, Beach & Parks’ article, "Perspective-Taking as Transformative Practice in Teaching Multicultural Literature to White Students". One reason for my interest may be that in nine years of teaching, I only taught "white students" for one year; the other years were in parochial schools in Detroit that had 99% African-American student enrollment. As a side note, my first year of teaching at Benedictine High School, I wanted to revive the drama program and direct a play. Because the entire school read __A Raisin in the Sun__ in sophomore English, I thought it would be an easy choice to work with since everyone was already familiar with it. After getting the school’s approval and holding auditions, I was actually approached by the principal (a nun in her 60's) who was concerned about whether it was appropriate for me to direct the play because of my race. Let it suffice to say that the show went on! Although I agree with the fundamental premise that when students are trying to understand literature from a culture that is notably different from their own, they need to be in a position to be able to empathize with the other culture and I found the authors’ methods for doing that to be interesting and even laudable. Nonetheless, I was uncomfortable with the authors’ decision to write the article from the perspective of how to teach white students. This approach seems to draw cultural lines along the same lines as race, when there can be multiple cultures within the same race and there can be multiple races included within one "culture." By way of example, the background and experiences of an upper middle class white student growing up in certain affluent suburbs of the Northeast is a completely different culture from a far less privileged white student in an economically strained area of the South. Are we to treat these students as being from the same culture just by the color of their skin? Similarly, a middle class African American student whose family has lived in the United States for many generations may have many cultural similarities with a middle white class student whose family emigrated to the U.S. several generations ago. Will one student understand the plays of August Wilson better than the other just by sharing in his ethnicity? While the authors seem to recognize this when they recognize the novel, //Bastard out of Carolina// as a multicultural text despite being written by a white author about white characters, they do not similarly recognize that they used the same approach in teaching not only their eight white students, but also the Asian American, the African, and the Latino students. Every time a student of __any__ ethnicity is asked to read and understand //Beowulf//, //Crime & Punishment//, //Macbeth//, //The Rubaiyat//, //The Scarlet Letter//, or //A Raisin in the Sun//, that student is being asked to read, analyze, and understand the writings of a culture that is different from their own. This analysis is not race-dependent which is why I believe the article could have offered the same suggestions and the same analysis without taking the authors’ distinction about teaching to white students, as opposed to any students. Discrimination, oppression, and even slavery are not unique to any one race or ethnicity. I also disagreed with the authors’ implied analysis that one cannot fully understand and appreciate multicultural writing without going through some sort of activity to change one’s perspective, when some events are simply so universal that they cross cultural lines. In the article "Literacy and Literature"1, Howe wrote about a letter her colleague found in a 1911 magazine about the impact of books on their readers. (Howe 439). In the letter, a Jewish factory girl wrote that the magazine’s stories did not connect with the Jewish girls, but that the girls were deeply affected when she told them the story of Jean Valjean. (Howe 440). The "story of Jean Valjean" is a reference to Victor Hugo’s //Les Miserables//, clearly of multicultural literature. The Jewish girls didn’t need to go through perspective taking to be able to empathize with and find meaning from the characters’s struggles from a different time (1815-1832), a different culture, a different place (France), a different language, in part because of the universality of the themes in the literature. Similarly, I think we discredit our students when we assume that they are incapable of identifying or empathizing with characters from a different culture, solely because they are from a different culture. Week #7 Blog Each of this week’s four assigned readings addressing the issue of how we compose texts raised various concerns, but the most significant ones were in relation to the articles by Smith and Applebee. 1. The Smith article, "Wise Eyes" was generally helpful in identifying the key components of developing successful writing prompts, particularly by emphasizing the elements of choice/focus, audience, and purpose. Along those lines, the different roles played by those elements in personal or narrative writing versus persuasive writing were also interesting. In addressing these issues, the article was clear, direct, and well-written and the examples presented made the concepts notably clearer. Despite the positive aspects of the article, two issues concerned me. The first issue, admittedly the lesser of the two concerns, was in Smith’s recommendation to write prompts that promote the use of personal experiences in both narrative and persuasive texts. While personal experiences may offer student writers a familiar starting point and may make for interesting reading in a narrative context, they are seldom the basis of a sound argument for persuasive writing. I still recall from my high school debate years when the national topic had to do with government regulation of certain safety issues and one of the "hot topics" was seat belt use—this was long before seat belt use was mandated by law. Study after study supported the use of seat belts as a simple lifesaving device. In the face of all these studies, at one tournament a student argued against seat belt use because he knew one person who was in an accident while not wearing a seat belt and reportedly would have been killed if he had been wearing his seat belt (claiming that because he was unbelted, the impact threw him clear of the tree that went through the windshield). Interesting personal narrative? Yes. Something the speaker/writer knew well enough to recount with accuracy and enthusiasm? Yes. A sound argument against the use of seat belts and government involvement in such regulation. No. (//As an aside, the irony of using a personal example to illustrate how personal examples are not a basis for sound argumentation has not escaped me//). The fact remains that no matter how interesting a story or example from personal experience may be, such personal experiences are seldom sufficiently persuasive in contrast to more empirical data. My second concern with this article arose out of the suggestions of things to avoid in formulating writing prompts. In recommending that teachers avoid hypothetical prompts because they can be confusing or challenging to answer in correct verb form; avoid overcuing and undercuing; avoid unnecessarily complex language and unnecessarily complex goals, the writers seem to be "dumbing down" writing prompts. While these traits may make a prompt more challenging to the student writer, is it really our purpose to intentionally avoid things that might challenge our students or make them attentively think about what it is they are being asked to do? I am concerned that by watering down our prompts to the most simple form possible, we may be setting up an expectation that our students cannot comprehend more complex prompts or instructions and that expectation may not serve them well beyond our classrooms. 2. Applebee’s article that focused on the comparison between 2002 and 2007 writing scores also raised several concerns. Myfirst concerns arose with regard to the statistics on page 19 that indicated from 2002 to 2007, there were "relatively modest gains for students on a whole, but significant improvement for historically underachieving subgroups". This suggested that the advances in teaching writing had served to bring up the lowest levels of writers to a middle ground, without pushing the middle levels to become any more proficient at writing. This was similar to a concern raised in the Week #5 reading by Rex & McEachen in which the non-gifted students improved their critical reading in the mixed classroom, while the gifted students made little comparable improvements in critical reading. A system that is truly aimed at improving all writers (or readers) ideally should not only improve the less successful students, but should improve the higher performing students as well by comparable measure. Unfortunately, the statistics provided by Applebee do not suggest this kind of improvement. A second concern with Applebee’s article relates to the findings with regard to the amount of writing students do, quantified by both the quantity and length of writing assignments. The amounts of time being reported as spent on writing for each grade level were ridiculously low as were the page lengths of the assigned papers—since when is a "longer paper" one that is one to two pages or even "three or more" pages?. What is most disturbing about these statistics is that it has been emphasized throughout the readings all semester that one of the most effective ways to improve writing is through practice, but the statistics presented demonstrate minimal practice is happening. It is a sad commentary that while the research clearly demonstrates a relationship between practice or the amount of writing a student does and his or her reading and writing improvement, the amount of writing expected of students is still so low, despite this being a relatively easy variable to alter. My greatest concern from the Applebee article is found in its conclusion which seems to be sriving to present mediocrity as a laudable achievement. The conclusion noted "remarkable stability in levels of achievement across time" and "student writing proficiency has remained steady". (Applebee, 26). Given the scores that were reported earlier in the article, stability and steadiness in scores should not be acceptable results, particularly when there is so much room for improvement.

Week #8 Blog entry. 1. __Lewis & Chandler-Olcott__ For some inexplicable reason, it was not readily apparent how this week’s readings worked cohesively toward a common purpose. As I look at these articles collectively, it occurs to me that may be because that which they most had in common was the concept of "new media" or "new literacy" and, much like study participant Ginny in the Lewis & Chandler-Olcott article, I am also concerned about my own technological skills in eventually returning to the classroom. The last time I taught, the big battle was over students bringing pagers to school and into the classroom instead of leaving them in their lockers; cellphones were unheard of and text messaging did not exist. I have never taught where I had a computer in my classroom and the last school where I taught did not have computers at all, other than in the administrative offices. This was not a function of teaching in the dark ages, but rather of teaching in one of the most financially-challenged parochial schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit, one that was funded solely by tuition and a five year subsidy under which the school would either succeed and become self-sustaining or be closed. Ultimately, the school closed. As long as I am discussing the Lewis & Chandler-Olcott article, two other comments come to mind. First, the article was somewhat disappointing in that it seemed to be setting itself up to go in one direction, then changed its purpose entirely. The article begins by referencing the authors’ study "to explore how the term ‘new literacies’ was understood—how it was embraced, resisted, adapted, and so forth- by participants" (197). It also explained that the authors "wanted to know more about what ideas new literacies and their potential impact on pedagogy were filtering down to typical secondary teachers. . . ". (197). THAT was the article I was looking forward to reading, but that was not the article that was written. Instead, the authors focussed on how they did their research and validating their choices. As someone who shares the study participants’ concerns about the "new literacies" and their development and use in the classroom, the article I anticipated would have been more beneficial to me as a practical matter than the article I was given. Second, although it is a minor detail, I was surprised when the authors reported that once they selected the text for the study, it was mailed to all participants two weeks prior to the individual interviews; they were all encouraged to read it beforehand; but 14 out of 16 participants (87.5%) did __not__ read the excerpt prior to the interview. (201). Of all professions, I would have expected that teachers, more than anyone else, would read the materials beforehand to prepare for an interview, thus it was surprising that so many teachers would not even bother to prepare for it. 2. __Cheryl H. Almeda__ The article I found most intriguing was Cheryl Almeda’s "Dismantling Bullying with a Class Magazine: Creating Connections and Community." The irony is that this article’s title was the most off-putting to me, as my first reaction was "what does bullying have to do with literacy?" Without in anyway diminishing the seriousness of bullying, I believe to some degree that the term "bullying" has been overly-broadened to include instances of students who simply do not like each other or do not get along. So, when I saw the topic in the article title, I initially found myself reacting to that concept, before I even read the article. I was pleasantly surprised to find Almeda presented in a clear, easily replicated manner a classroom project that was interesting, creative, realistically manageable, and which was really only tangentially related to bullying. That is, the project seems to have significant merit regardless of the bullying rationale. In short, Almeda really made me want to return to the classroom with this project. 3. __Hicks, Young, Kajder, & Hunt.__ Two segments of this article jumped out as the most relevant statements. The first such statement was the authors’ quoting of Carol A. Pope to identify "five areas of proficiency that those who join the world of work will need in the 21st century." (70). Pope’s areas were: "The ability to communicate and work collaboratively"; "The ability to work effectively in a multicultural society and work force"; "The ability to adapt"; "The ability to think critically"; and "The ability to use available technology" Later though, the authors wrote about the evolving technology, stating first that it is signifiant; then that "it //feels// significant"; and finally, " or perhaps we want to make it significant because that is where, and when, we are looking ahead to the next future." (72). Again, I found myself looking back and contrasting this statement to one in Lewis & Chandler-Olcott ‘s article when Ginny stated "by teaching a student to read, we change the world that is, 30, whatever, we still have to read. If they can’t read, they still cannot succeed." (203). Ginny deftly distilled the 5-part necessities for success to one significant, vital,overriding principal: the necessity to be able to read.

Week #9 reflections.

The issue of writing assessment intrigues me in part because of its carry-over beyond the realm of academia. While our focus as educators is on the assessment and evaluation of student writing, writing assessment continues long after graduation from high school and even beyond college. To be blunt, everyone who does ANY sort of reading is simultaneously assessing and evaluating what is being read.

We choose the books we read (or at least the ones we continue to read beyond the first chapter) and the authors we enjoy based on our assessment of the writing. We evaluate the opinions of journalists, politicians, and rhetoricians based on an assessment of their writing, be it a conscious or subconscious assessment. Obviously, the average person doesn’t sit down to read the Sunday paper with Swain, Graves & Morse’s checklist of 32 features at hand, but we seem to be drawn to those stories, fact or fiction, that are rich in details, sensory language, coherence, and which address the reader. Similarly, I tend to quickly reject books and articles that are replete with usage problems, redundancy, shifting point of view, or any of the other negative features identified by Swain, Graves & Morse; I assume I am not alone in this rejection. Whether legitimately or not, for me, those negative features reflect poorly on the writer, such that I question the author’s competence and credibility and the validity of his or her opinions when the negative features distract from the text.

The problem for some is how to juxtapose Swain, Graves & Morse’s prominent features analysis framework with Yancey’s position that writing assessment should be "both humane and ethical." (485). Swain, Graves & Morse provide a clear, objective framework for analysis and writing assessment, but the qualities of being humane and ethical require a more subjective approach. To apply Swain, Graves & Morse’s framework in a humane and ethical manner requires a very delicate balancing in the writing assessment. At the very least, Swain, Graves & Morse’s framework is contrary to Yancey’s description of Daniel Fader’s suggestion that "writing assessment is to be taken seriously because its first purpose is to determine quality of thought rather than precision of form." (496).

Yancey’s explanation of the three waves of writing assessment suggested that perhaps in some ways, writing assessment has become the multi-headed hydra of mythology. Yancey wrote "the ‘one essay’ model is soon replaced by a set of texts, so that: a single draft becomes two drafts; two drafts become two drafts accompanied by some authorial commentary; two drafts plus commentary become an undetermined number of multiple final drafts accompanied by ‘reflection,’ and the set of texts becomes the new: portfolio assessment." (486). My first thought upon reading this was "where does it stop?" At what point do we decide we have accumulated a sufficient sampling of student writing to complete a valid assessment?

Yancey, Fader (as quoted by Yancey) and many others whose work we have read have taken a position advocating multiple writings, starting from initial drafts where the focus is on what Fader called "quality of thought", through a multi-step editing process leading to a final polished product. These same authors tend to be critical of testing in which students are required to write a coherent essay in one draft. While the multi-step approach makes sense in teaching and in the classroom while students are learning to write effectively, the unfortunate reality is that once those students graduate from high school and college, the one-draft writing assignment is more prevalent.

Students who graduate into professional careers that require regular writing rarely have the luxury of writing multiple drafts leading up to a final finished project. My job requires that I write and I write a lot, doing most of the research and writing for our firm. It is not uncommon to have days where I am a "writing machine", researching and writing two, sometimes three legal briefs in one day or multiple in-depth client letters explaining the factual and legal merits and deficiencies of a client’s legal position. Even when I have the time to write multiple drafts (//which is nearly never//), the economic reality is that clients are not willing to pay for that kind of time to go into a brief or a letter. Thus, the reality is that much of what is produced in my world is more akin to the one-draft essay writing of academic testing than the multi-draft writing of the classroom. Are our students being prepared for that kind of writing that requires them to be not only good writers, but efficient writers? At some point, we have to be able to teach our students not only the process they should use in an ideal situation of unlimited time and drafting opportunities but also the ways they can make that process more streamlined and efficient for use beyond the classroom.

Week #10 reflections: I found this week’s readings more interesting than I had expected them to be when I read the titles. On a personal note, I read three of the articles during breaks in judging a law school regional Moot Court competition this weekend and for the first time, felt like I had my feet in two different worlds at the same time and recognized that within the six months to a year, I will have to make a decision and commit to which world I want to live in; it’s not an easy choice. On to the readings... I decided to read Nizol’s paper first, before reading her explanation of her research process and product. I was surprised when I read on page three that she was teaching in a diverse suburban high school and actually had to go back and re-read the first two pages. For some reason, the image I had based on Nizol’s description of Rielle doing her project spread out on the floor was of a much younger student, perhaps 4th or 5th grade. On further review, I had obviously missed the details in the first sentence referring to "my freshmen" and "My English classroom". Nevertheless, the image of a girl sitting on the floor using scrapbooking supplies to make a creative, visual presentation of her writing implied a younger girl. Similarly, the description of a girl who did not like the idea of being recorded, who "didn’t know" if she was proud of her work, and who wanted "to show my mom and dad my beautiful work" seemed to be describing a shy, younger girl as opposed to a high school freshmen. The more I thought about my first impressions of Rielle, the brighter the light bulb became as I came to realize that creativity on the part of the students and the teacher is far more important than I had recognized when was a teacher. As I continued reading, Nizol’s explanation that a successful intervention strategy for motivating students must be "empowering, sustainable and enduring" struck a chord with me (4). While the concept of "empowering" seemed relatively straightforward, the distinction between "sustainable" and "enduring" is less clear cut. To distinguish these terms, "sustainable" has multiple definitions, including "to strengthen or support physically or mentally; to bear (the weight of an object); to suffer (something unpleasant); to keep (something) going over time or continuously; or to confirm that (something) is just or valid." In contrast, "enduring" in this context means "to remain in existence." Whether intended by Nizol or not, I take her three elements as meaning the successful strategy must be give strength and confidence to the student (empowerment); must strengthen or support the student mentally or confirm that the students’ abilities are valid (sustainable); and must remain in existence beyond the duration of the exercise. These are challenging goals, but certainly worthy ones. When finished with Nizol’s paper, I found myself wanting more explanations. I wanted to know more about the various genres of writing that she offered her students. Along that same line of thought, I wanted more explanation as to how Rielle’s party invitation and a party menu were "genre pieces" for writing (15). Nizol’s explanation of her research process and product also generated some questions for me. Nizol explained that prior to teaching this class, she had assumed that her students were struggling due to lack of ability but later learned that they were struggling because "they were not engaged in the curriculum." This generalization is oversimplifying the problems of some students because it belies that fact that or at least some students, at least one of their problems was related to ability, but nothing is offered to explain how to best help the students for whom lack of ability IS part of the problem. More explanation also would have been helpful when Nizol stated "inquiry-based interventions are effective with minority students, in particular" (4). Is she saying inquiry-based interventions are more effective with minority students than other types of interventions or that inquiry-based interventions are more effective with minority students than with non-minority students (or both)? Whichever position she is espousing, why is one strategy more effective with minority students than other types of interventions? Looking at Nizol’s paper and project together as a whole, it would be easier to evaluate her methods and outcomes if these questions had also been answered. Moving on to Stotsky’s chapter, this reading would have been helpful to read before doing the research paper for this class. One of the issues raised in the criticisms of the topic of my paper (sorry to be obtuse, but I have to keep something for the presentation) is that the majority of the studies show only a correlation instead of a causal relationship between the phenomena being studied and literacy levels. Those same critics call for more quantitative studies to validate the qualitative studies to try to prove causation. Unfortunately, the nature of the phenomena makes it nearly impossible to establish control groups or study the factors at work in a vacuum. Stotsky’s chapter ultimately recognizes that there is value to both quantitative and qualitative educational research. This was particularly interesting because research in non-educational fields often tends to significantly favor quantitative (e.g., "objective") studies over qualitative (e.g. "subjective" ) studies. One aspect of this chapter that I found strange was where the authors tried to incorporate the various terms used by researchers to reference "qualitative" studies, only to conclude that the listed terms "are often used interchangeably, even though some researchers do not see them as all interchangeable" adding that "no clear definitions can be found that distinguish among all these various terms." (6). Is is appropriate to treat research terms as synonymous if there is no agreement as to the definitions of the research terms or that they are indeed, synonymous? Lastly, the Stotsky chapter summarized the problem with empirical studies in one sentence: "Studies whose findings clearly validate an articulated theory about a particular phenomenon should probably carry more weight than pre-theoretical studies about that phenomenon, all other things being equal" (13). One problem with all educational research is that studies cannot be conducted in a vacuum and what is shown in a test, writing task, or even in classroom behavior is never a function of one variable, but is rather related to a constellation of variables for each student that are beyond the control of or even the knowledge of the researcher. In other words, there is never truly a situation in which "all other things are equal".