If you happened to have read my other blog on this same paper, you know I was reacting pretty emotionally. Here, I'll speak to the Blog #4 assignment more fully.
Essentially, it's an overview of five schools of literary research, from 1950 to the present. Conditioned Learning corresponds to Skinner's theory of conditioned response. Reading was to be broken down into its basic elements; thus, phonics were taught to help students "sound out" words. Natural Learning said language acquisition is a natural act, and should be integrated with other language teaching, that is, listening and speech. Additionally, learning, they said, must be taught in meaningful context, not drills, such as phonics was often taught. Information Processing gave credence to the reader's prior knowledge, and said learning was only a question of modifying what the learner already knew. In reading this was promoted via summarization, mapping, self-questioning and predicting. The Sociocultural movement emphasized that learning was not an individual process, but depended heavily on context. Reading, then, was most effective when taught in "cooperative" environments such as small groups. The current, most predominant school, called Engaged Learning, purports to wed Information Processing with the Sociocultural camp. Here, the locus of learning is the individual and that individual in the context of the group.
Reading this paper led to great disappointment (see my other blog "Head Scratching"). In hindsight, this was because I assumed that, since I'm in a teacher training program, the text we were given was intended as some kind of practical manual. Upon reflection, my assumption was wrong; it now seems intended as a way to help us experience what our challenged students must sometimes feel like when reading (unduly) difficult material.
The background knowledge I brought to this effort consists of a course in Psych 101 (summer 2011), which I dimly recall as presenting an introduction to psychology, including a delineation between cognitive, neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic. Of course, I've been a reader myself for years now, and I was somewhat able to draw from my own reading experience to consider to what extent this text made sense, or resonated with me as a reader. (Not a lot.)
On the first pass of this article, I began eagerly, but soon found myself wading waste-deep through thick, muddy waters. Aside from the very clear summary, "Emergent Premises," (p. 55-9), which, I believe, the common man (or woman) could understand, the body of the paper is so full of dense, barely defined vocabulary, it would appear the target audience is anyone except the common man (or woman). On one hand, I find it flattering that the authors presume I'm privy to their body of knowledge; on the other hand, because I'm not, and because they make little effort to assist, frustration ensues. I know that, to excel in a course, I need to be passionate about it, and to be passionate, I need to, first, understand it. As I read, I kept hoping the vocabulary would be explained more clearly. My confusion gave way to self-criticism, alienation, fear of failure and an accompanying anxiety. It occurred to me that, if this was any indication of my capacity for success in this program, I might need to reconsider my career direction.
Continuing, I was amazed and baffled that difficult terms were only superficially clarified, and were soon supplanted by more and more difficult terms. It became clear that I'd need to come back and read it a second time (which helped enormously), so I underlined phrases that seemed important and wrote questions in the margins. For example, on pp. 34-5, when the authors speak about a reading process that tries to emulate Skinner's "analysis that explained and controlled the behavior of animals," in the margin, I wrote, FOR EXAMPLE? Proceeding through the text, I became aware that the writers' intent was a cursory review of the competing schools of literary research, not a more typical work where the reader is treated to examples and details. In order to try to keep track of these vaguely outlined "camps," I wrote notes in the margins, for example, on p. 37: BEHAVIORISTS VS. MENTALISTS and TOP-DOWN VS. BOTTOM-UP. These helped me keep in mind key points when I read the piece again. Again, completing the graphic organizer, courtesy of Mark, made everything much clearer and much more meaningful.
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