Literacy as Snake Oil

The Editor: Joanne Larson is Michael W. Scandling Professor of Education and Chair of the Teaching and Curriculum program at the University of Rochester’s Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Her recent book, Making Literacy Real: Theories and Practices in Learning and Teaching (2005), co-authored with Jackie Marsh, explores the breadth of the complex field of literacy studies, orientating literacy as a social practice grounded in social, cultural, historical, and political contexts.

«This book is a cogent reminder of what we’ve known for the past eighty years but somehow keep managing to forget: that despite all the cyclical rhetoric about the one true method-science, pseudo-science, and evidence-based policy-literacy education is big business, with overt and obvious vested economic and corporate interests.» (Allan Luke, Professor and Head, Graduate School of Education, University of Queensland)

• Contents: Joanne Larson: In Sheep’s Clothing: Uncovering the Wolf – James Paul Gee: Reading and Language Development: Beyond Limited Perspectives – Gerald Coles: Forging «Facts» to Fit an Explanation: How to make Reading Research Support Skills-Emphasis Instruction – Patricia D. Irvine/Joanne Larson: Literacy Packages in Practice: Constructing Academic Disadvantage – Lynn Asterita Gatto: Success Guaranteed Literacy Programs: I Don’t Buy It! – Patrick Shannon: Fattening Frogs for Snakes: Virtues for Sale – Kris D. Gutiérrez: «Sameness as Fairness»: The New Tonic of Equality and Opportunity – Brian Street/Adam Lefstein/Kate Pahl: The National Literacy Strategy in England: Contradictions of Control and Creativity – Nancy Ares/Edward Buendía: Complex Literacy Landscapes: Veiled Meanings and Contested Identities – Dan Osborn: Digging Up the Family Tree: America’s Forced Choice.