Group items tagged

This essay focuses on how video games both highlight our traditional assumptions about reading and writing and suggest alternative paradigms that combine the new and the traditional:Play. Video games reveal how pleasure and desire are inherent to the reading and writing process. This dimension of gaming helps explain why video games can produce resistance in terms of approaches to writing instruction grounded in maintaining the cultural distinction between play and work.Authority. The interactivity of video games complicates questions of who authors and authorizes meaning in a discourse community. Video game players are simultaneously readers and writers whose gaming decisions are inscribed within a certain horizon of possibilities but not predictability. The video game is an inherently dialogic discursive space that problematizes the institutionalized distinction between "reading" and "writing"Return to the visual. The case of video games not only helps restore the understanding of writing as a visual form of communication but also challenges the apparent static quality of the printed text, emphasizing the temporal quality of all communication. In so doing, the study of video games promises to fundamentally rewrite the conceptual binary of process and product in composition pedagogy.

This essay is an overview of the theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, ideological, and power-related issues of world Englishes: varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. The scholars in this field have critically examined theoretical and methodological frameworks of language use based on western, essentially monolingual and monocultural, frameworks of linguistic science and replaced them with frameworks that are faithful to multilingualism and language variation. This conceptual shift affords a "pluricentric" view of English, which represents diverse sociolinguistic histories, multicultural identities, multiple norms of use and acquisition, and distinct contexts of function. The implications of this shift for learning and teaching world Englishes are critically reviewed in the final sections of this essay.

This essay will evaluate the factors that have contributed to the increase in the usage and status of the English language in Mongolia since the country's democratic revolution in 1990. The issue of language spread will first be addressed through a description of the economic, social and educational influences that other foreign languages, particularly Russian, have had in Mongolia in the twentieth century. The reasons for the spread of English will then be displayed by discussing the effects of globalism in the mid-1990s and by analyzing a study on the importance of learning English conducted among university students. The various functions that English now serves among the general population will then be categorized according to Kachru's framework of four linguistic functions (instrumental, regulative, interpersonal, imaginative). Lastly, the issue of nativization will be addressed through a brief examination of the lexical and syntactical modifications propagated by Mongolian English users.

Kozup and Hogarth discuss the necessity of consumer warning labels on financial matters such as credit cards, mortgage, and mutual funds. They successfully make the analogy of indebtedness to obesity, and our financial state, like our health, can be helped by reading the labels on what they are consuming. The authors describe financial literacy partially as an ability to weigh the pros and cons of financial options available to them, as well as familiarity with the macroeconomic conditions of their environment. The authors also talk about third party financial intermediaries, and the role of policy in consumer saving. The authors offer a great variety of solutions to the problem of financial literacy, and the analogies make it very easy for the reader to understand and learn about the responsibility of financial literacy. Also, the rhetorical questioning involves the reader and implores them to form their own opinion.

This study examined the roles of sensation seeking and self-efficacy in explaining extreme and high physical risk taking behavior. Study participants were 20 extreme risk takers chosen from participants in skiing, rock climbing, kayaking, and stunt flying. One control group was comprised of 20 high, but not extreme, risk takers from each of these activities, matched to the participants in skill and experience. A second control group consisted of 20 trained athletes involved in moderate risk sports. Percepts of self-efficacy emerged as the principle variable differentiating the groups. A social cognitive explanation for desire for mastery was used to understand what enables risk takers to overcome the potentially inhibiting influences of anxiety, fear, and the recognition of danger. This conclusion is further reinforced by converging results from interviews with the participants.

This article compares between second-hand effects encountered by people living next to colleges with high levels of binge drinking, and others living next to schools with low levels of binge drinking. It explains that binge drinkers also affect non-binge drinkers and their neighbors. The study is completed using a telephone survey. It shows that as the number of alcohol outlets increases, binge drinking also increases. This also increases the second-hand effects encountered by people living next to colleges. Lastly, it suggests that decreasing the density of alcohol outlets would decrease the consumption of alcohol among college students. This article clearly portrays the second-hand effects of alcohol use. However, it is a limited study since it relies on a telephone survey.

An OhioLINK film from the series "Childhood Development: A Cognitive Approach to Developmental Psychology." Starting right from infancy, this program charts the development of language during childhood. Basic language acquisition, learned from rudimentary and higher-level child/caregiver interactions, is described. Aspects of competence that go beyond the purpose of simple communication are also considered, including the skill of using conversation for establishing and furthering social relationships, the ability to employ language as a part of games, the capacity to understand jokes, and the awareness of what other people know and understand at various stages of maturation. (25 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Communication is at the core of the human experience, even though effective communication takes a lifetime to learn. This program explores how we develop the arts of speech and physical expression to make ourselves understood and to understand others. Visiting a group of 25 three-year-olds, the film observes them learning as many as ten new words a day-some already grasping the first 1,500 components of the 20,000-word vocabulary collected in the average life span. The "nonverbal leakage" or body language that supplements verbal skills is also explored, demonstrating that children with verbal disadvantages can compensate through other techniques. Original BBCW broadcast title: Read My Lips. Part of the BBC series Child of Our Time 2004. (60 minutes)

Over the last seven years, Jessie Little Doe Fermino, a member of the Mashpee tribe on Cape Cod, has been on a single-minded mission to revive the language of her ancestors, Wampanoag, the one that greeted the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth Rock and that gave the state of Massachusetts its name. But when she applied to the National Endowment of the Humanities for a grant to create a Wampanoag dictionary, she was turned down. The apparent reasons: the Wampanoag language has not been used in about 100 years, the known descendants of the original speakers number only 2,500 and Ms. Fermino is trying to make a spoken language out of a language that until recently existed only in documents, many of them from the 17th century.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful for students analyzing the rhetoric of politics. As Maya Angelou points out in The Power of Speech, "If the words and delivery are powerful, they echo down the centuries." To emphasize the point, Angelou and other writers and orators examine the moving oratory of 14th-century tax protester John Ball, 19th-century slave Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each speaker's technique is examined within the context of why the speech is being delivered, and to whom. Examples of how great orators throughout history have used their skills for good and evil drive home the immense power of the spoken word. A BBC Production. (30 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful for students analyzing the rhetoric of politics. As Maya Angelou points out in The Power of Speech, "If the words and delivery are powerful, they echo down the centuries." To emphasize the point, Angelou and other writers and orators examine the moving oratory of 14th-century tax protester John Ball, 19th-century slave Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each speaker's technique is examined within the context of why the speech is being delivered, and to whom. Examples of how great orators throughout history have used their skills for good and evil drive home the immense power of the spoken word. A BBC Production. (30 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. For decades, IQ tests have been the gold standard for measuring intelligence. But is one standardized test really adequate for every taker? This program advocates a different approach, creating an array of unusual challenges to assess brainpower and positing an argument for the interplay of multiple intelligences. Assisted by the insights of Harvard's Howard Gardner and experts using brain scanning technology at UC Davis' M.I.N.D. Institute, the program brings together a group of obviously bright and talented people and presents them with trials of all shapes and sizes. The results establish the validity of measuring not just what people know but also the equally important ways in which they exercise their practical, creative, emotional, and kinesthetic IQs. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

Washington Commentary states that the lowest percentage of young adults (18-29 years of age) participated in the national elections for 2000. Several reasons influence the decisions of these young adults: parental focus and attitude, below proficient levels of understanding, and comprehension in history, social studies, and civics classes, and lack of practice or experience in political engagement. Although the article is informational, the content does not lead itself to the particular point of interest.

A film on OhioLINK. From the beginning of time, women have had the same thirst for knowledge as men, but were denied access to education. This program looks at the religious attitudes that support these age-old convictions, and examines what the world has lost by excluding women from the intellectual loop. Scriptural scholar Elaine Pagels tells about newly discovered documents suggesting that women were equal to men in early Christianity. Historian Ginette Paris looks at the powerful goddesses of the past who were shunted aside in favor of the submissive image of the Virgin Mary. A Bangladeshi writer faces a death decree for writing about Islam's oppression of women. At Wellesley College and the University of Norway, we visit programs devoted exclusively to women's studies. (47 minutes, color) (cc)

A film on OhioLINK. "The world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language." Yet every two weeks, one of the world's approximately 6,500 languages dies out. What is the significance of this loss to those who speak the language as well as for the rest of humankind? Why do some languages become global while others disappear? And how are language and identity connected? In this program, linguists David Crystal, Peter Austin, and Jørgen Rischel search for the answers to those and other pressing questions as they investigate the state-and fate-of Livonian, in Latvia; Dogon, in Mali; Mlabri, in Thailand; Changsha Hua and Naqxi, in China; Pitjantjatjara and Pintupi, in Australia; and Tutunaku, in Mexico. Portions are in other languages with English subtitles. (60 minutes)

The article addresses the idea of "religious illiteracy" in the United States as of early 2007. The author relates the lack of general religious knowledge among his students at Boston University. He believes that religious illiteracy is more dangerous than cultural illiteracy because religion is the "most volatile" constituent of culture. He notes that some knowledge of the world's religions is essential in processing messages from politicians, the media, and education. He believes that, in the interest of civics, all U.S. undergraduate students should be required to take an academic religious studies course. He also acknowledges that religious literacy in the U.S. requires compromise between the secular left and the religious right. (Abstract from EBSCO.)

Could help students develop their methods for observing children. This program asserts that the testing of a causal hypothesis involving cognitive development is best done through a combination of observational and experimentational methods. Kathy Sylva and Peter Bryant, both of the University of Oxford, and other researchers share their insights into categorizing and codifying patterns of play through observation, avoiding common experiment-related pitfalls such as covariation and unintentional bias, and mitigating artificiality, a challenge to practitioners of both approaches. (25 minutes)

Smith discusses how the Davis Bilingual Magnet School is very effective in and out of the classroom. The school that teaches children of many different language backgrounds using Spanish and English is highly successful through standardized test scores, performance, and various other things. Through the different teaching methods and the context of studies, students learn very thuroughly and efficiently. Smith's article states good arguments of why this school is effective and makes one believe that the Davis Bilingual Magnet School shows great importance in the city of Tuscon, Arizona.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. "Amok," "boomerang," "bungalow," "bangle," "dumdum," "plonk," "assassin"?these are some of the many words that have entered English by way of colonial expansion. This enhanced DVD explores how the British Empire in its heyday exported its language around the globe and how different forms of speech and vocabulary, as well as different attitudes to English, developed out of that colonial expansion. Rich variations of dialect, accent, and slang are heard in many samples from India, the Caribbean, and Australia. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)

This article by Margaret Mackney discusses literacy of teenagers based on the television series 'Felicity.' By doing this, she is able to evaluate the complexity of literate behaviors. In addition, she talks about the importance of understanding the values on literacy development and the theoretical and practical implications of understanding the literacy of teenagers.