Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing

This article explores what teachers and students can learn about contemporary story‐telling from a study of fan fiction – that is, stories created by readers and viewers out of the canonical material of previously published fictions. Drawing on the example of Pirates of the Caribbean, it investigates ways in which fan fiction writers develop codes and conventions to govern themselves. For example, online litmus tests establish when a writer is self‐indulgently writing ‘Mary Sue’ characters into a story; the self‐styled Protectors of the Plot Continuum patrol the fictional limits of an imagined world to make sure that canonical information is not violated by fan fiction writers. This article makes use of such examples to investigate how quality control in fan fiction is codified, and to explore what teachers can learn from such enterprises about contemporary writing, reading and viewing. It compares these possibilities with issues of online literacy outlined by Henry Jenkins under three headings: the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge.     

Untangling the effects of shared book reading: Multiple factors and their associations with preschool literacy outcomes

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood. One hundred and thirty children participating in a longitudinal investigation of literacy development were videotaped reading a storybook with a parent. Children were also videotaped in their 33 preschool classrooms during the instructional book-reading portion of the day. Readings were coded for adult and child contextualized and decontextualized language relating to both decoding and meaning-making skills, and relations between this talk and emergent literacy outcomes were analyzed. Results demonstrate that parents and teachers overwhelmingly focus their book-related talk on meaning-related rather than code-related information, and that the relations between outcomes and talk depend in part on children's initial levels of vocabulary skills. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Contextual effects on predicting risk for reading difficulties in first and second grade

This study utilized early reading assessment data from a randomized trial of 210 urban and rural schools in Texas to examine contextual effects on risk prediction in first and second grade. The primary objective was to examine the roles of (a) individual differences, (b) the grade 1 classroom, and (c) the pairing of first and second grade teachers in determining grade 2 outcomes in word reading and fluency. A second objective was to investigate whether the administration format of the assessment (paper, paper plus desktop, handheld plus desktop) or the level of teacher support (web mentoring, no mentoring) moderated the prediction. These moderator variables proved not to be significant. Subsequent analyses found that a combination of student pretest and mean of pretest classroom was a better predictor than student pretest alone. Additionally, the effect of student scores varied by teacher-pair. On average, intraclass correlations (ICCs) ranged from 6% to 17%. Differences in ICCs at the classroom level were much greater than at the school level, and differences in urban schools were twice that of rural schools.     

动画呈现方式对小学四年级学生古诗学习的影响

在语文教学中,多媒体教学是否比传统教学更加有利于学生的学习?教育界对此存在不同看法。对60名小学四年级学生在不同教学条件下的古诗学习效果的实验研究发现:1.相对于文本呈现方式,动画呈现方式可以使低语文阅读能力组的学生更好地体会作者的思想感情;2.无论是高阅读能力组还是低阅读能力组,动画呈现方式都比文本呈现方式更有利于学生对古诗意境的理解,而且这种效应对低阅读能力的学生更为显著;3.不同呈现方式对古诗含义理解和写作方式把握的影响没有显著差异。这一结论为语文教学提供了有益的启示。     

浅谈合作学习在生物教学中的运用

合作学习是针对传统班级教学存在的弊端,从学习的组织形式及评价方式的改革的角度出发,研究并实践的一种发展性教学策略．通过合作学习特点的研究,提出合作学习过程应采取的教学策略及操作程序,培养学生的合作精神,构建学生的良好个性品质,从而提高课堂教学质量,促进学生全面发展．     

师范教育免费政策的合理性、政策目标及制度设计

教育部在2007年工作要点中明确提出了开展师范生免费教育的试点;国务院总理温家宝在政府工作报告中指出,在6所教育部直属师范大学实行师范生免费教育,并在取得成功经验的基础上逐步向全国推广。由此,免费师范教育的帷幕又徐徐拉开。然而,中央只是明确了师范教育免费这一政策方向,关于实现这一政策所需要的相应的制度还尚未完备。我们需要在充分理解免费师范教育政策合理性的基础上明确免费师范教育所包含的政策目标并进行科学合理的制度设计。     

救人和自救--对《废都》的症候式阅读

本论文运用本文人类学方法,对出版于10多年前的《废都》进行症候式阅读.通过对民俗文化世界、当下生活世界及动物人化世界三个窗口的透视,以期对“此作家”庄之蝶心路历程重新作出解读,并反思包括“彼作家”贾平凹在内中国知识分子的精神镜城.     

The role of output speech in literacy acquisition: Evidence from congenital anarthria

A case study of literacy acquisition in acongenitally speechless child (SM) isreported. In spite of a complete oral apraxia(due to bilateral focal brain damage), SMdeveloped normal intelligence and acquired complete mastery of reading and writing skills.Furthermore, both his verbal memory andmetaphonological skills were surprisinglypreserved. However, he showed a relativeimpairment in writing non-words. Theimplications of these findings for thedevelopmental interactions between language andliteracy are discussed.     

The development of analogical reading in Spanish

The use and development of analogical processes in learning to read in Spanish are presented. In the first experiment, the results show that children of 6 years old show analogical effects in reading pseudowords and that the magnitude of this effect is the same as with 10 years old children. However, it is found that children of 10 years old make many lexicalizations when reading pseudowords (about 50% of the items). In experiment 2 this finding is further analyzed. The results show that 9 years old children make more lexicalizations than adult control subjects do. It is suggested that the development of analogical procedures is a fast process (6 years old children already have done it), but that the precise control of lexical information over perceptual one is a later process.