Undergraduate Courses
E 406 A-D: Topics in Literacy
Maximum of 6 credits allowed in course.
E 406A: Literacy and Culture
E 406A examines the connections between the cultures we participate in and how we read and write. Taking a cultural studies approach, the course will contrast public (e.g., media and school definitions of literacy) to the kinds of literacy people practice in the diverse communities of the U.S., looking at sites ranging from North Carolina textile mills to African American churches and reservation schools. The focus of the course is on how literacy practice interacts with cultural identity and, thus, how literacy practice is implicated in power relations and identity politics. Research in the course will largely be qualitative; students will analyze the media and observe literate practices in local communities rather than conducting library research. This course is designed primarily for students interested in popular culture and/or cultural theory as well as those who intend to teach.
E 406B: Literacy and Gender
Do men and women write differently? Do they read different kinds of texts? Are they socialized as children to engage in different kinds of literate acts? These are some of the questions this course takes up by looking at theories of literacy and gender, and research on children’s and adult literacy practices both in school and in more public contexts. As a result, the course defines literacy broadly, using a cultural studies approach, to include a wide range of texts from diary writing to video games to published work. Definitions of gender are also explored by examining differing feminist theories. Through such theories and research, the course attempts to explain how literacy practices influence gender identity-formation, and how certain literacy practices contribute to gender inequities and/or open up new avenues for women and men. This course is designed for both future teachers and students interested in women studies and/or cultural theory.
A 406C: Literacy and Technology
This course explores the effect of changing technologies on the nature of literacy. In particular, we will examine how writing technologies affect the nature of text, writer, reader, and discourse. The course first considers print or the scribal act of writing as a technology in order to set a context that highlights both the effect of our first major “technological” change on the nature of literacy and how literacy has come to be constituted in the print world. Once the foundation is established, the course examines how the new technologies—e-mail, synchronous and a-synchronous conferencing, hypertext and hypermedia (specifically the World Wide Web), and interactive fiction—affect and seek to change this definition of literacy emerging from print. The primary goal of the course is to develop a definition of literacy that takes into account recent technological developments and examine the effects of this definition on the teaching and acts of reading and writing. To do so, we will not only read about the new technologies but work with them in class as well.
E 406D: Literacy and Education
E 406D explores connections between literacy and education, focusing in particular on how particular educational practices promote specific kinds of literacy and how literacy shapes our attitudes and experience with education. To explore these connections, the course draws on scholarly work in education, literacy studies, cultural studies, and rhetoric. Students in the course will consider connections between literacy and education in both historical context and contemporary contexts. Course activities will include reading and discussion of key texts in the area, field research, and writing about literacy and education. The course is designed to appeal to all students in English studies, rather than solely to students in English education.
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