Purpose
The purpose of this course is for students to engage in a critical examination of contemporary literature on fundamental educational concepts, research issues, and curriculum and instruction implications. Discourse may refer to the talk that occurs in classrooms; or it may be theoretical discourse used to make sense of curriculum writ large. Students are to become familiar with at least two major theorists/works, one that will be discussed together, the other one which students research on their own.
Philosophy
Curriculum theorizing, thinking concepts and applying them to curriculum and instruction as any other human practice, cannot be learned by talking or reading about it but requires that we participate in it. Thus, even the slightest description of how to read and think theoretical concepts underdetermines just what you have to do. It is through your own doing, reading, talking about, applying that you find the relevance in and of concepts.
Throughout this course, we engage in two types of activities: (a) reading and talking (about) major concepts and theories and (b) applying these concepts and theories to specific observations in school classrooms.
Process
In this course, we will read and discuss texts in which major theoretical concepts with relevance to curriculum theorizing are featured. We also look at specific educational situations and learn how to make links between theoretical discourses and concepts and concrete classroom situations.
For each meeting, students will read a set of assigned texts. Students are to be prepared to actively contribute to the discussion, by raising questions and providing responses. At the center of the first part of the course will be the reading of Derrida's (1998) Monologingualism of the other; or the prosthesis of origin. At the same time, we read and discuss pertinent articles. During the first part, we will engage in the analysis of a variety of "discourse" forms. The second part of the course will consist in student presentations of the selected authors and trends in (post-modern) discourses.
Tentative Outline
A tentative outline is available online, easily reachable from my home page (webuvic.ca/~mroth). The outline may be modified to meet specific and changing needs of the students and instructor. Specific and detailed lesson outlines and additional information will be made in an ongoing manner. [Tentative and Developing Outline]
Readings
Most readings will be made available in the course outline by means of a link or by an indication where they are available. Ways of accessing these readings are indicated so that students may get these at the appropriate time.
Assignments
There are three types of participation.
1. First, students will actively participate during each class, asking questions, contributing to analyses, etc. There are 4 written, 500-word reflections related to the reading of the main course reading. (Send the reflections to the instructor as WORD or PDF files on the date indicated.)
2. Each student will select from one author/trend from the selected list of topics. Students will use approximately 1 hr 20 minutes to make a presentation of the author/trend and then organize a discussion with the remainder of the course members and instructor. Students may use PowerPoint, activities, video, and other means for their presentation. There should be arrangements made for having a discussion with others. (Submit the PowerPoint and all the materials you use in WORD/pdf format.)
3. Third, students submit a 5,000+-word (review) essay on the author/trend. All assignments are submitted electronically in WORD or PDF format (mroth at uvic dot ca). Fourth, students present the results of their work on the final assignment, which may be at an intermediary or final stage. The paper should be in the format of a scholarly paper. Given the great variety of scholarly forms and ways of structuring a journal article, it is left up to the students how they present their text. Good examples are review texts, of which you will find many examples in the online journal for qualitative research: FQS: Forum Qualitative Social Research/Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung.
You are strongly encouraged to send your essay and presentation in draft form to the instructor, who can provide you with feedback about the appropriateness of your work for the intended task.
Course Grade
The course grade is made up of participation (plus the four 500-word reflections) (20%), presentation and discussion of the author/trend (30%), and essay (50%).
Appointments
For any questions that cannot be dealt with in class and require a special meeting, I have an electronic office: mroth5 (Skype) or wolffmichael.roth (at) gmail (dot) com (Google Appointments are made by special arrangement sufficiently in advance. You may find it more convenient to write an email, which in most cases, deals with many issues. Also email me at least a day or two advance for any special appointment (mroth at uvic dot ca).
In this course, apart from the thorough discussion we will be devoting to Monolingualism of the other (Derrida, 1998), you choose ONE of the following authors/trends. Both of your assignments will be based on the same thematic. You may choose one or both suggested book and then organize your assignment around it. Read additional texts by the author, reception of the work, uses in educational research, biography, etc.
There is a first-come first-serve policy concerning the selection. In the situation that two students would like to collaborate, then an approximate doubling of all parts is expected: the presentation will cover 2.5 hours, the essay is about 2x as long, and there are 2 of the major works to be read.
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to write a scholarly essay, in which you critically review the work chosen, provide a brief overview of the author's work, and show the relevance of the work to education (e.g., look at where the work is cited and how). That is, your text should exhibit that you not only know about the discourse but that you can bring it to bear on education, curriculum, or instruction. The length of your text is upwards of 5,000 words. Your text provides evidence that you have read additional materials, which you reference appropriately in APA 5th style. You are strongly encouraged to look at review essays on the FQS website. There are more traditional forms of essays, but also some more innovative ones (e.g., Grenzgaenger Seeks Reflexive Methodology or The Politics and Rhetoric of Conversation and Discourse Analysis). Please note how many references such review essays have--which shows you that a review essay does not just tell the contents of a book but sets the book into the wider context of a scholarly literature, including other works by the same author.
Evaluation Criteria
Any creative work is inherently difficult to evaluate. I know from the peer review process that an article may be rejected by one (or more) reviewer and be unconditionally accepted or accepted with minor revisions by another (or more) reviewers. Above all, an article has to be convincing and has a logical structure. And please, do not attempt to copy from the writings of others, and when you quote, please do not forget quotation marks (otherwise it will be plagiarism, with dire consequences).
A typical evaluation grid that a journal such as the Canadian Journal of Education would use looks like this:
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1. Structure of the presentation, including abstract |
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2. Cohesion and flow of presentation |
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3. Method |
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a. Summary of key ideas, theory |
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b. Other references and works |
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c. Critical analysis and reception of the work |
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d. Interpretation of readings |
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e. Substantiation of claims made |
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4. Applications in/to education |
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5. Conclusion |
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6. References (APA 5th style) |
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Submission
Your assignment is due December 9, 2013, that is, 1 week after class ends. The assignment is to be submitted electronically to my email (mroth at uvic dot ca) in either PDF or DOC (Word) format.