Real Book Research Articles

Better books! Better readers!: how to choose, use and level books for children in the primary grades

This comprehensive resource shows you how to develop a classroom where reading time is more popular than recess. Based on the authors' belief that using real books and real writing experiences help children not only become literate but also lovers of reading, Books! Better Readers! offers practical guidelines for creating classrooms that foster language learning.Organized around three evolving categoriesBeginning Readers and Writers, Developing Readers and Writers, and Fluent Independent Readers and WritersBetter Books! Better Readers! suggests detailed ideas for: choosing and leveling books; selecting specific books to meet the needs of children; creating reading and writing activities; organizing time and space in the classroom. An extensive bibliography featuring the best and newest children's books will make leveling easier than ever for teachers. Books! Better Readers! is an invaluable guide that no teacher with an interest in children and reading will want to be without.

The Fiction of Copyright

The Fiction of Copyright

An Unfortunate Distraction: the real books debate, 10 years on

Summary This paper re‐examines some aspects of the ‘real books‐reading scheme books’ debate which erupted into the British literacy education field a decade ago. It argues that the debate was not only over‐polarised but that it did not take appropriate account of a scholarly review of related research by Professor Jeanne Chall which had been published a few years earlier. Subsequent research has further supported Chall's arguments. The paper indicates how the use of reading scheme and real books can be reconciled in curriculum programmes which are sensitive to how learning needs change in the course of early literacy development. It also notes the related significance of some current developments in the field, such as the National Literacy Project and the Literacy Task Force.

The Uses of Anachronism

Even the history of philosophy is completely without interest if it does not undertake to awaken a dormant concept and to play it again on a new stage, even if this comes at the price of turning it against itself.1 History of Philosophy: Recounting Imaginary Books Gilles Deleuze observes a distinction between writing history of philosophy and philosophy. We are interested here in how this distinction is set up. How does Deleuze conceive of the relation between history of philosophy and doing philosophy? What is the use of historiography and how can it be brought to bear on the present? In the preface to the English edition of Difference and Repetition Deleuze writes this: There is a great difference between writing history of philosophy and writing philosophy. In the one case we study the arrows or the tools of a great thinker, the trophies and the prey, the continents discovered. In the other case we trim our own arrows, or gather those which seem to us the finest in order to try and send them in other directions, even if the distance covered is not astronomical but relatively small. We try to speak in our own name only to learn that a proper name designates no more than the outcome of a body of work-in other words the concepts discovered, on condition that we were able to express and imbue them with life using all the possibilities of language.2 This metaphor of the arrow is instructive. Deleuze says that After I had studied Hume, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Proust, all of whom fired me with enthusiasm, Difference and Repetition was the first book in which I tried to `do philosophy.' Deleuze distinguishes here between his earlier texts on the history of philosophy and his first text which does philosophy-on the one hand, the selection of some arrows and tools, the tensioning of a bow, and, on the other, their deployment in a new direction. Following Nietzsche, Deleuze wants to be an untimely philosopher-he desires a philosophy that is not a philosophy of history, nor a philosophy of the universal, but untimely. That is to say-and these words are Nietzsche'sacting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come. Deleuze anticipates a time when it will no longer be possible to write philosophy books as they have been traditionally produced. The search for new means of philosophical expression was begun by Nietzsche, and Deleuze hints here that his own work on cinema, theatre, and the visual arts is animated by this need for new modes of philosophical expression. At any rate it is in this context that Deleuze raises the question of the history of philosophy. He says that the history of philosophy should play a role roughly analogous to collage in painting. This means that elements, or more precisely concepts, are lifted from the textual context in which they were created and juxtaposed with concepts from other places in ways that make familiar concepts strange and imbue them with new powers. A commentary reproduces a concept but it is reproduced in a new context-or rather, on a different plane-and for Deleuze commentary must be conscious of the mutations that occur when historical concepts are reproduced in the present. In fact it is the field of possible mutations which constitute commentary's possibilities. The history of philosophy is the reproduction of philosophy itself. In the history of philosophy a commentary should act as a veritable double and bear the maximum modification appropriate to a double.3 Even more provocatively, Deleuze suggests that it should be possible to recount a real book of past philosophy as if it were an imaginary and feigned book. And here, by way of explanation, he mentions a story by Borges. The story is Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.4 As a guide to what Deleuze might mean here it is quite illuminating. Borges had an extraordinary talent for the invention of imaginary texts. …

Shape from Shading with Interreflections Under a Proximal Light Source: Distortion-Free Copying of an UnfoldedBook

We address the problem of recovering the 3D shape of an unfolded book surface from the shading information in a scanner image. This shape-from-shading problem in a real world environment is made difficult by a proximal, moving light source, interreflections, specular reflections, and a nonuniform albedo distribution. Taking all these factors into account, we formulate the problem as an iterative, non-linear optimization problem. Piecewise polynomial models of the 3D shape and albedo distribution are introduced to efficiently and stably compute the shape in practice. Finally, we propose a method to restore the distorted scanner image based on the reconstructed 3D shape. The image restoration experiments for real book surfaces demonstrate that much of the geometric and photometric distortions are removed by our method.

Keywords in Language and Literacy

Just what is Standard English? Is it correct English? Should grammar be taught? The answers to such questions invariably provoke controversy. In this handy A to Z guide to language and literacy, Ronald Carter unpicks the meaning of key terms like 'proper English', 'real books', 'text', and 'discourse', and the ways in which concepts are used - and abused - by teachers, politicians, linguists, journalists and employers. Each concise definition is cross-referenced, and supported by extensive examples and by references to further reading. Designed as a dictionary, but possessing an encyclopedic range, Keywords in Language and Literacy, provides an invaluable guide to the debates surrounding language and literacy. An indispensible book for all teachers and students of language and education, and anyone interested in the place of language in schools.

Versions of Literacy? Re‐thinking reading research

Abstract There tends to be a division in the approaches taken by research into the process of learning to read. Psychometric approaches associated with functional literacy tend to be opposed to more broadly ethnomethodological approaches associated with ‘real books’ and with claims to more emancipatory status. In this article it is argued that this opposition is counterproductive and that we may need both to re‐evaluate the notion of functional literacy itself and to explore with more care the emancipatory claims made for ‘real books’ approaches. It is suggested, further, that a more multivalent approach to reading research is needed that accounts for the variety of literacy practices at home and in school and explores the cultural and ideological contexts of those practices and the values inherent in them

Reviews

Book review in this article:Pirrie, Jill (ed). Apple Fire: The Halesworth Middle School Anthology (1993).Parker, Stephen The Craft of Writing (1993).University of Brighton, Creating a Community of Readers (1993).Campbell, Robin. Reading Real Books (1992).Harrison, Colin & Coles, Martin (eds) The Reading for Real Handbook (1992).

The Initial Teaching of Reading: what do teachers think?

In Britain claims that reading standards in young children have declined have led to further claims that this is attributable to the use of particular methods of reading teaching. A problem with much comment and research has been the description of reading teaching in terms of two or three preselected categories ( ‘real books’ versus ‘phonies'; ‘meaning’ versus ‘code’ emphases). In this paper London class teachers’ approaches to the teaching of reading are described, based on a method using teachers’ own words and practice. Results show a general tendency to conceive of the teaching of reading in the ‘indirect’ sense of encouraging a positive response in pupils, and positive qualities of the teacher, rather than teaching or instruction in any ‘direct’ sense. Four possible explanations for this predominant view are examined: the effect of influential theories of learning to read; constraints of the classroom environment; teachers’ assumptions about the role of direct teaching; and teachers’ lack of clarity...

The charisma of the critical other: Enhancing the role of the teacher

From time to time, education is marked by critical events. These bring radical change in both pupils and teachers. At their centre, these events have a critical agent, who conceives and coordinates the work. They also have “critical others” who also make a significant input, but who have no formal role within the institution. Their function is to enhance the role of the teacher, basically through the provision of a charismatic quality. This derives from three main attributes, namely: (1) models for students; (2) personal qualities emerging from “self”, providing trust, faith, and inspiration, contributing to the generation of communitas among groups and the motivation of individuals; (3) qualities emerging from “profession”. Critical others contribute towards the authenticity of teachers' work. They do this by the provision of verisimilitude (“living history”, a real book, etc.); by contributing to the integrity of knowledge both within itself and with the learner's self; by fostering information and communication skills; and by validating teachers' and pupils' work as genuine endeavours within their field of discipline. Teachers and others are role-partners sharing a role. Each helps the other to extend as professionals. If the conditions for effective role-enhancement are met, critical others present one means by which teachers can ease any constraining strictures of their role, and reinforce its professional base.

Textbooks, Technologies, and Tocqueville: Alternatives for Introductory American Government

In a typical year of this decade, some 14 million students will occupy space in American colleges and universities. They will produce nearly 2 million degrees, three-quarters of them associates and bachelors.' Only a small fraction of the latter output-well under 50,000-will be political science degrees per se. Yet when it comes time to schedule the introductory courses, particularly the American government survey, it sometimes seems the whole world doth contemplate a major in poli sci. Drawing on some combination of interest (arguably healthy in a democratic citizenry) and distributional requirements (as an ever-popular part of the curricular core), poli sci survey offerings are often filled to bursting. A glance at the APSA want ads shows that anyone who wants an academic slot must contemplate such teaching. Anyone who is remotely an Americanist (and many who are not) must contemplate teaching in particular. Based on publishers' estimates, in a typical year as many as 500,000 students may be exposed to fundamentals of the American system in a higher education setting.2 Students' expectations for this exposure are often not very high, since their prejudice is that the course only revisits what they learned in high school civics a year or two before. (Usually true; of course, most of them have forgotten most of what they learned then.) It doesn't tend to be an inspiring prospect for instructors either, who face teaching the same basic material, with minor variations, year after year. The only consistent excitement may come to department heads, who better stand to justify budget and position requests with the volume of credit hours so generated. (Not to mention that, under certain capitated reimbursement schemes, departments can make a fortune on these classes in their own right.) Worthwhile or not, inspiring or not, the mass demand for surveys like Intro AG remains. Under current production technologies, that demand is most likely to be met in the large lecture class, typically in conjunction with large, fact-filled textbooks. New tools, like computerbased interactive media, may well point to a better way of learning for the future; for now, though, their price is well beyond most budgets. Lesser revitalization, within the constraints of the lecture hall, may also be provided on the cheap: using now-mundane technologies like overheads, slides, and videotapes. Even cheaper, but rather more perilous, is occasionally to remove the expensive textbook itself as the centerpiece of the class, and supplant it with a real book or two. Textbook publisher representatives, as well as a few senior colleagues, may in fits of candor say that only new, naive professors will consider this seriously-attempting graduate-school teaching methods entirely inappropriate to younger and blanker minds. But after a year and a half of experimentation with Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America as my main text for Intro AG, I am not yet convinced such ventures are mistakes. Tocqueville's Perspective

Reviews

AbstractAbstractBook reviewed in this article:ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL: Genderwatch! After the Education Reform Act, devised and edited by Kate MyersIDEOLOGY AND CHILDREN’S FICTION: Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (Language in Social Life series), John StephensTHE TELLER OF THE TALE: Shapers and Polishers: Teachers as Storytellers Betty Rosen Mary GlasgowReading Real Books, Robin CampbellTelling the Whole Story, McGregor and Meiers

Reading, Writing, Thinking, and Change

This does not mean that the changes made were easy, for as we all know, changes seldom are. In fact, the process was, at best, unsettling, if not downright painful at times. The old adage no pain—no gain definitely applies to educational change. As we found out, the more substantial the change, the greater the potential for discomfort. In retrospect, we can identify one major reason why this seems to be true. When master teachers such as Judy are involved in major instructional change efforts, they become, in effect, novice teachers all over again. Teachers across the United States are finding themselves in similar situations as they attempt to move from a textbook driven, subskills approach to the teaching of reading and arts, to what has come to be known as a whole language approach to teaching (Goodman, 1986; Holdaway, 1984; Weaver, 1988). Reutzel and Cooter (1992) describe this transition, Whole advocates...feel that their perspective does a better job of 'empowering' students and teachers. This is accomplished in part through the integration of such activities as reading in real books, the writing process, and speaking and listening experiences (p. 4). Such a move involves a close examination of one's beliefs about how learning best takes place, in addition to a new look at the roles of both teachers and

Torah and the Chronicler's History Work: An Inquiry in the Chronicler's References to Laws, Festivals, and Cultic Institutions in Relationship to Pentateuchal Legislation (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 195 Reviews tute a coherent thematic composition that has been rhetorically shaped by a single author (rhetorical analysis). Further, by regarding the prophet as a creative orator, rhetorical analysis emphasizes the prophetic personality. Form criticism, however, does not consider the prophetic material as a literary work in itself, nor does it see oracles as the creative product of certain individuals; rather, it looks for single traditions that might continue to grow until their development is sealed by the canonical process. Thus for form criticism there is no book such as First Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah, but only earlier traditions that inspired the emergence of later traditions. It is therefore preferable-in form critical terms-to speak about ProtoIsaiah rather than a real book called First-Isaiah, since First Isaiah does not, in fact, exist as a book. However, rhetorical analysis, which evaluates the literary creativity of the prophets, reads First- and then Deutero-Isaiah as two separate literary works. Now, the combination of these independent literary compositions itself invites comparisons and creates internal textual relationships and thereby new, synchronic discourse. This implication of combining autonomous pieces into a whole is not seriously appreciated by Seitz, who prefers-without justification-to dismiss alternative methods of approaching the question of the book's composition as ignoring the historical dimension of the prophetic office. Zion's Final Destiny is an inspiring book for readers who are not interested in further methodological considerations beyond form criticism. Seitz may make sense of such individuals' reading of the material by providing the book of Isaiah as a whole with a coherent theological meaning: the fulfillment of Zion's destiny. Yehoshua Gitay University of Cape Town Rondebosch 7700 South Africa TORAH AND THE CHRONICLER'S HISTORY WORK: AN INQUIRY IN THE CHRONICLER'S REFERENCES TO LAWS, FESTIVALS, AND CULTIC INSTITUTIONS IN RELATIONSHIP TO PENTATEUCHAL LEGISLATION. By Judson R. Shaver. Brown Judaic Studies 196. Pp. xi + 160. Atlanta: Scholars, 1989. Cloth. Shaver's work represents a revised version of his 1983 Notre Dame dissertation done under the direction of Joseph Blenkinsopp. In his intro- Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 196 Reviews duction, Shaver is admirably direct in defining his goal as seeking "to clarify one facet of the larger problem of reconstructing the historical events and editorial activities that produced the final stages of the Torah canon" (p. 2). He proposes to accomplish this by considering the use of Pentateuchal narratives and legal materials in those texts that originated in the Second Temple period. The flaw here is his assumption that if such materials were available in some form, the author(s) of Second Temple period texts would necessarily have utilized them. Another problem is ascertaining what date to assign various portions of texts from the Second Temple period, themselves subject to refinement and revision in the light of the community's experiences and needs. Nearly one-half of the volume is devoted to the intricacies of tracing the historical events of the period of Persian domination and defining what the author means by the "Chronicler's History Work." In his historical reconstruction , Shaver relies on secondary studies much to his detriment. Thus he notes that the Gadatas inscription, in which Darius purportedly grants favors to a local temple cultus and its personnel, is extant only in a Roman period copy, though "it is based on an authentic original" (p. 18). No documentation is offered for this assertion which has been closely questioned by a number of Classicists. The inscription is not even referred to by Shaver in an original language publication. Instead, the reader is referred to how Olmstead, Ackroyd, and Noth viewed the inscription. Similarly, Shaver states that the "imposition of a new law on a subject people" was contrary to "Persian strategy" (p. 36), but offers no references to back this claim. If this were true, then why do contemporary Mesopotamian sources refer to new royal laws during the reign of Darius (see VET 4.101)? In the end Shaver accepts the traditional dating of Nehemiah's mission as 445 B.C.E. and very tentatively places Ezra at 398 B.C.E., seeing both as resulting in a "destabilized Judah" due...

Real Books in the Primary Classroom

Real Books in the Primary Classroom

Real Books of Recent Issue

Real Books of Recent Issue

The‘Real Books’Approach: Is Apprenticeship a Weak Analogy?

SummaryIf, when considering reading, we treat apprenticeship as a suggestive, rather than exact, analogy, there are useful insights to be drawn from traditional apprenticeship. Two features particularly hold messages for how we help children learn to read.First, the movement in traditional apprenticeship from observation, through coaching, to practice can act as a model for reading instruction. It highlights, for instance, that a‘real books’approach is not laissez‐faire, that coaching is required and that, in a cognitive area, part of this coaching involves making explicit to the learner processes which are usually internalised in skilled performance. The implications for teachers are radical. A number of traditional practices, such as hearing children read as a kind of ritual, almost a magical laying on of hands, require major revision.Second, a close look at traditional apprenticeship provides evidence for the importance of the social context in which learning takes place. Again teachers of beginning readers can use the model of traditional apprenticeship to reflect on their own school/classroom practices, to see whether they help create a culture of expert practice for instance, and offer the opportunity for learners to realise the value of their increasing skills. Practices such as peer‐tutor schemes and the increasing involvement of parents in reading teaching illustrate that many schools are already working out the implications of this understanding.If teachers are more aware of those areas of relative weakness and strength in the apprenticeship analogy they will have a more principled basis for using the approach in their teaching and a more stout defence against those who might argue that if the analogy is weak, a‘real books’approach is to be avoided.

Impressions of a Library – The Child’s Viewpoint

Questions why no research has been done into libraries and librarians, either school or public, from the child′s viewpoint. Notes results of a project where children were asked to draw their impressions of a library and discusses the results. Concludes by asking what is the future of the “real books” approach by teachers and educationalists if libraries are to be perceived as so much “spare capacity” within the school building.

Computer-Assisted Learning using dynamic electronic books

While lectures and discussions provide a means of introducing a subject and inspiring further work, traditionally it has been the book that reinforces and expands that knowledge. This paper argues the case for the provision of a book-like presentation computer-assisted learning (CAL) system, manipulated with much the same ease as a real book. with built-in video/animation facilities, that might provide a more suitable environment, particularly in tertiary education, than that provided by conventional CAL systems. This paper describes a general piece of software called a book emulator that has been modified for, and applied to CAL in an attempt to reflect these attributes.

Literature and Medicine

Literature's power lies in its ability to call up and articulate feeling. Medicine teaches mistrust of feeling. And who would dispute that skep- ticism toward the wash of feelings is well advised for medical people? But feeling, given form, can instruct medical sensibility. Literature can show how human experience can be molded without being manhandled. It was, I think, W. H. Auden who said, A real book reads us. Literature can provide students precious insights into themselves, pre- cious because introspection is alien to professional education and be- cause knowing oneself—one's limits, one's strengths, one's feelings about misery and death—is essential to healing. Literature is not only reflexive. It can also teach care. Not, obvi- ously, in any skill-related sense, but rather care learned from close and patient reading—from what John Passmore has called apprenticeship in being careful.1 And who is to say whether there may not be some salubrious spillover from caring about characters to caring for patients. Carefully reading James Dickey's Cancer Match instructs more than a score of pious treatises on hope. Katherine Anne Porter's He tells the perceptive reader volumes about the fierce pride of poor country folk. Chekhov's cameo of the griever in Misery impresses as no clinical description could. And so on. What are the tasks of teachers of literature in medical settings? They are very like the tasks of teaching literature to intelligent nonspe- cialist students anywhere. But there are a few distinctive challenges and dangers. Teachers of literature in medical settings function best as educated amateurs. They should love the material they choose, know it, and adeptly find ways to let the texts speak to the students—to move, to touch, to evoke and provoke. Such an eclectic approach to selecting materials sacrifices breadth, but that is legitimate. These are not con- summate critics-to-be, but doctors-in-training. What one may not com- promise is depth of perception, intellectual rigor, acuity of perception. Literary professionals in medical settings forget, at their peril, that