F15: Class 1301
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2015
 Defining Reading Terms [Course Pack pp. 11-18]
o CARS
 Stands for creating a research space
 Simple definition: Creating your intro, the specific topic and narrowed
thesis, of your communication (essay or conversation)
 Establish Territory: Open by generalizing the topic
 Narrow down to you Niche: Transition into your specific focus,
possibly by identifying a gap, posing a question about the previous
research, or countering previous research
 Occupy a niche: present your contribution to the topic—show/state
what your own research proved
 Example: Subject—sports; Focus—football; Thesis—The Cowboys are
not the team they were in the 70’s.
 Example: Subject—discourse community; Focus—madrigal
ensemble; Thesis—Being a part of a small choral ensemble teaches
balance and listen literacies better than participating in a larger
ensemble.
o Audience and Context and Code Switching
 Audience: the assembled spectator/listeners at a public event, such as a
play, movie, concert, or meeting; person/people listening in a conversation;
it is also who you are writing to.
 Example: crowd, spectators, listeners, etc.
 The level and type of knowledge your audience already has
determines how much background need to provide
 In an essay to persuade people to stop smoking around their kids,
what kind of information would you include and omit? How would
you word this to be persuasive and not offend?
 Context: When you are talking with others, your story is context. What
about the location/format of the communication, the people involved in
the communication and their relationships, and the purpose(s) of
conversation?
 If you are sick, depending on context, you speak about your illness
differently—doctor, parent, or friend.
 Example: How would your conversation about your favorite song
change if you were talking to your best friend, a stranger, your math
instructor, a minister, a preschooler, etc.
 Code switching: When you talk with others, you change your way of
speaking depending on the person and situation. It is what happens during
a communication as a speaker alters their communication based on their
audience and context. In linguistics, code switching occurs when a speaker
alternates between two or more languages or language varieties in the
context of a single conversation. What does this mean for other forms of
communication and other contexts?
 Also, it occurs far more often in conversation than in writing. (Really?)
 Example: Translating, speaking different languages in the same
conversation, switching between formal/proper language to
informal/casual speech.
o Discourse Community and Lexis
 Discourse Community: a group of individuals bound by a common interest
who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is
regulated
 A group of people who share a set of understood topics/beliefs
 Examples: religious groups, political parties, sports teams, our English
1301 class
 Lexis: a personalized terminology that only “insiders” would understand
completely
 A language used within a certain group
 Music terms: coda, tempo, dynamics, offbeat, pitch
 Example: Morse code (military), Religious terminology (churches),
Sign language (communication for the deaf); athletes of the same
team; members of a band; track team
o Literacy and Multiliteracies
 Literacy: ability to read/write in at least one language; knowing how to
write a paragraph/paper and read at least one book in a language;
reading/writing but not just to compose academic essays or novels—
everyday literacies like writing a grocery list, making a FB status update, or
sending a text
 Very simple definition: something you can learn to do (Is this too simple or
just right?)
 Examples: reading road signs, music, sign language, football plays
 It is no longer enough for literacy teaching to focus only on the rules of
standard forms (?); rather what is needed is to focus on the business of
communication & representation of meaning today (?)
 Multiliteracies: two major factors of language use—

1) variability of meaning-making in different cultural, social, or
domain-specific contexts;
 2) arises in part from the characteristics of the new information &
communications media
 Extend the range of literacy pedagogy so that it does not privilege
alphabetical representations (written), but brings into the classroom
multimodal representations (oral, visual, gestural, tactile, spatial, audio)
 Examples: If you were writing about being more open minded toward
people who are different from you: Literacies in writing an essay,
writing a text, writing a tweet, writing a YouTube video; writing your
physical reaction, writing a song, etc.
o Literacy Sponsor
 Literacy Sponsor: A person or institution who/which dictates the kinds of
literacies that are essential to the communities operations; from the text,
“Any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support,
teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress or withhold literacy—
and gain advantage by it in some way.”
 Any agents—people, institutions, recognized groups
 Local or distant—here, nearby, far away; physically or digitally
 Concrete—someone/something one can find
 Abstract—recognized as a group but without a location, usually
connected by beliefs/ideologies or shared characteristics (like
political parties, ethnic groups)
 Things these agents might do to people developing/missing/having
certain literacies: enable, support, teach model, recruit, regulate,
suppress, withhold (yes, there are negative and positive)
 AND gain advantage by it in some way—money, power, knowledge,
membership, etc.
 A person/institution that helps you to understand/grasp the "things" you
need "read" to function in a certain area of life
 Examples: General--Parents, teachers, coach teaching a play, mascot,
institutional logo; social based groups, economic based entities, cultural
entities, publishing companies; people who can show you what to add to
your writing to improve it—teacher, writing center tutor, classmate,
roommate, family member, friend, etc.
 Examples: Anti-sponsors--required literacies for voting--Government,
parent telling you not to comment on FB while eating, babysitter using
profane language?, coach telling players to practice more and don't worry
less about schoolwork
 Students in classroom-audience includes instructor:
This class is challenging.
 Students outside of class-just friends or classmates:
This class sucks.
o Critical Pedagogy and Dialogue
 Critical Pedagogy: refers to the art and science of teaching, and the practice
requires that teachers consider the decision they make about teaching and
the theory and context that influence those pedagogical decisions.
 It is a way of teaching students to be prepared for democracy by
thinking critically.
 Critical thinking based on your own perspective and beliefs, like an
instructor using the allegory of the cave or a rap video on FB to teach
concepts in a classroom rather than just lecturing.
 Dialogue: an educational strategy that requires the exchange of ideas of all
people in the classroom, not just teacher lecturing; the teacher is not the
only member of the class making important decisions about the direction of
the class
 It is a conversation
 Example: Any conversation where teachers and students share
conversation and ideas; scholarly conversation; class discussion