CIE 414 - Fall, 2005
Tuesday, 2pm - 5pm

Professor - Dr. Yolanda J. Majors
Office 3216 EDSWP
e-mail: ymajors@uic.edu

Course Description

   In this class we will think of reading and writing across the curriculum as a social process, with the understanding that in addition to the importance of text, the social context and surroundings are just as important. The aim is to help you develop new lenses for looking at the familiar and to offer you encounters with the less familiar. I want to encourage you to become more aware of yourself and of your experiences, commitments, and assumptions to help guide the decisions that you will make as teachers and learners of how you will activate literate practices in your areas of specialization. I aim to help you develop your knowledge and conceptual understanding of literacy instruction, and to explore ways in which you might apply this knowledge to other domains.

   In this course we will investigate the theories, research, practices, pedagogies, issues, perspectives and complexities of teaching and using reading and writing across content areas. In doing so, we will take inquiry stances on the subject and develop personal understandings of the material. Our work together will call upon our personal experience, expectations, research and theories about the subject matter as well as upon the experiences, expectations, research and theories of those working in the field. Our learning together will call upon various vehicles through which we can employ multiple techniques and stances for our inquiry, such as learning by reading, learning by writing, learning by talking, learning by investigating, learning by pursuing personal learning goals and experiences, and learning from each other.