Anne Haas Dyson - Böcker

Here, Anne Dyson traces the influence of a wide-ranging set of ""textual toys"" from children's lives - church and hip-hop songs, rap music, movies, TV, traditional jump-rope rhymes, the words of professional sports announcers and radio deejays - upon school learning and writing.

In this seminal book on the construction of case studies in the field of language and literacy, the authors consider in detail what it means to be ""on the case."" They evaluate the basic assumptions that ground a qualitative approach to case study methodology, the decisions entailed in designing a case study, and the possibilities and challenges of data collection and analysis. For the novice researcher, this book is an essential manual on how to design and carry out a case study. For the experienced researcher, this book offers fresh insights into the theoretical issues that underpin qualitative case study research.

In their new collaboration, Celia Genishi and Anne Haas Dyson celebrate the genius of young children as they learn language and literacy in the diverse contexts that surround them. Despite burgeoning sociocultural diversity, many early childhood classrooms (pre-K to grade 2) offer a 'one-size-fits-all' curriculum, too often assessed by standardized tests. In contrast, the authors propose diversity as the new norm. They feature stories of children whose language learning is impossible to standardize, and they introduce teachers who do not follow scripts but observe, assess informally, respond to, and grow with their children. Among these children are rapid language learners and those who take their time to become speakers, readers, and writers at 'child speed.' All these learners, regardless of tempo, are often found within the language-rich contexts of play.

What are the real “basics” of writing, how should they be taught, and what do they look like in children’s worlds?  In her new book, Anne Haas Dyson shows how highly scripted writing curricula and regimented class routines work against young children’s natural social learning processes.Readers will have a front-row seat in Mrs. Bee’s kindergarten and Mrs. Kay’s 1st-grade class, where these dedicated teachers taught writing basics in schools serving predominately low-income children of colour. The children, it turns out, had their own expectations for one another’s actions during writing time. Driven by desires for companionship and meaning, they used available linguistic and multimodal resources to construct their shared lives. In so doing, they stretch, enrich, and ultimately transform our own understandings of the basics.ReWRITING the Basics goes beyond critiquing traditional writing basics to place them in the linguistic diversity and multimodal texts of children's everyday worlds. This engaging work: illustrates how scripted, uniform curricula can reduce the resources of so-called ""at-risk"" children, provides insight into how children may situate writing within the relational ethics and social structures of childhood cultures, offers guiding principles for creating a programme that will expand children's possibilities in ways that are compatible with human sociability, includes examples of children's writing, reflections on research methods, and demographic tables.

What are the real “basics” of writing, how should they be taught, and what do they look like in children’s worlds?  In her new book, Anne Haas Dyson shows how highly scripted writing curricula and regimented class routines work against young children’s natural social learning processes.Readers will have a front-row seat in Mrs. Bee’s kindergarten and Mrs. Kay’s 1st-grade class, where these dedicated teachers taught writing basics in schools serving predominately low-income children of colour. The children, it turns out, had their own expectations for one another’s actions during writing time. Driven by desires for companionship and meaning, they used available linguistic and multimodal resources to construct their shared lives. In so doing, they stretch, enrich, and ultimately transform our own understandings of the basics.ReWRITING the Basics goes beyond critiquing traditional writing basics to place them in the linguistic diversity and multimodal texts of children's everyday worlds. This engaging work: illustrates how scripted, uniform curricula can reduce the resources of so-called ""at-risk"" children, provides insight into how children may situate writing within the relational ethics and social structures of childhood cultures, offers guiding principles for creating a programme that will expand children's possibilities in ways that are compatible with human sociability, includes examples of children's writing, reflections on research methods, and demographic tables.

Anne Dyson confronts race and racism head-on with this ethnographic study of a child's efforts to belong-to be a child among children. Follow the journey of a small Black child, Ta'Von, as he moves from a culturally inclusive preschool through the early grades in a school located in a majority white neighborhood. Readers will see Ta'Von encountering obstacles but finding agency and joy through writing and music-making, especially his love of the blues. Most attempts at desegregating schools are studied by reducing individual children to demographic statistics and test scores. This book, instead, provides a child's perspective on challenges to classroom inclusion. Ta'Von's journey demonstrates that it is within children's peer worlds-formed in response to institutional policies and practices like desegregation initiatives, standardized testing, and a curricular focus on so-called "basic literacy skills"-that inequity becomes part of the experience of childhood. This book examines policies about literacy testing and teaching, including the potential power of the written word and of the arts.Book Features:A fresh approach to issues of inclusion, equity, and learning opportunities as seen through a child's eye.Narrative vignettes that bring to life the equity issues of everyday school experiences. An overview of the kinds of challenges to inclusion that may be faced by minoritized children in majority-dominated schools.Details about changing institutional literacy policies and practices over time and grade level, emphasizing their impact on relationships and learning.Examples of teachers and children enacting inclusive communities.

Anne Dyson confronts race and racism head-on with this ethnographic study of a child's efforts to belong-to be a child among children. Follow the journey of a small Black child, Ta'Von, as he moves from a culturally inclusive preschool through the early grades in a school located in a majority white neighborhood. Readers will see Ta'Von encountering obstacles but finding agency and joy through writing and music-making, especially his love of the blues. Most attempts at desegregating schools are studied by reducing individual children to demographic statistics and test scores. This book, instead, provides a child's perspective on challenges to classroom inclusion. Ta'Von's journey demonstrates that it is within children's peer worlds-formed in response to institutional policies and practices like desegregation initiatives, standardized testing, and a curricular focus on so-called "basic literacy skills"-that inequity becomes part of the experience of childhood. This book examines policies about literacy testing and teaching, including the potential power of the written word and of the arts.Book Features:A fresh approach to issues of inclusion, equity, and learning opportunities as seen through a child's eye.Narrative vignettes that bring to life the equity issues of everyday school experiences. An overview of the kinds of challenges to inclusion that may be faced by minoritized children in majority-dominated schools.Details about changing institutional literacy policies and practices over time and grade level, emphasizing their impact on relationships and learning.Examples of teachers and children enacting inclusive communities.

Through analysis of case studies of young children (ages 3 to 8 years), situated in different geographic, cultural, linguistic, political, and socioeconomic sites on six continents, this book examines the interplay of childhoods, schooling, and, literacies. Written language is situated within particular childhoods as they unfold in school. A key focus is on children’s agency in the construction of their own childhoods. The book generates diverse perspectives on what written language may mean for childhoods. Looking at variations in the complex relationships between official (curricular) visions and unofficial (child-initiated) visions of relevant composing practices and appropriate cultural resources, it offers, first, insight into how those relationships may change over time and space as children move through early schooling, and, second, understanding of the dynamics of schools and the experience of childhoods through which the local meaning of school literacy is formulated. Each case—each child in a particular sociocultural site—does not represent an essentialized nation or a people but, rather, a rich, processual depiction of childhood being constructed in particular local contexts and the role, if any, for composing.

Through analysis of case studies of young children (ages 3 to 8 years), situated in different geographic, cultural, linguistic, political, and socioeconomic sites on six continents, this book examines the interplay of childhoods, schooling, and, literacies. Written language is situated within particular childhoods as they unfold in school. A key focus is on children’s agency in the construction of their own childhoods. The book generates diverse perspectives on what written language may mean for childhoods. Looking at variations in the complex relationships between official (curricular) visions and unofficial (child-initiated) visions of relevant composing practices and appropriate cultural resources, it offers, first, insight into how those relationships may change over time and space as children move through early schooling, and, second, understanding of the dynamics of schools and the experience of childhoods through which the local meaning of school literacy is formulated. Each case—each child in a particular sociocultural site—does not represent an essentialized nation or a people but, rather, a rich, processual depiction of childhood being constructed in particular local contexts and the role, if any, for composing.