LIS 450LR: LITERACY, READING, AND READERS (1.0 Unit) FALL 2003

Class meetings: DAY / TIME / LOCATION

TUESDAY / 1:00 - 3:50 p.m. / 131 LIS Building

Instructor: Christine Jenkins

Office: Room 220, LIS Building

Phone: 217 244-7452

Email: jenkins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu

Instructor: Joan Bessman

Office: Room 209, LIS Building

Phone: 217 244-0197

Email: bessman@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu

Syllabus | Assignments | Texts

Reading and literacy play a central role in all areas of LIS, as well as in its cognate fields, yet they are a largely invisible part of our professional infrastructure. This course will address this oversight through sustained multidisciplinary investigation and examination of the various activities, processes, and means of acquisition associated with the act and study of reading. It will analyze the range and diversity of definitions and theoretical approaches applied to literacy and reading as physical, social, educational and cultural activities; and investigate the contexts, consequences, currencies, and applications for pedagogy, library service, and other aspects of human experience, both past and present.? Drawing upon the fields of education, literature and literary criticism, history, sociology, educational psychology, anthropology, and library and information science, and with consideration given to the dimensions of age, gender, class, religion, race and ethnicity, we will expand upon traditional notions of literacy and explore the notion of multiple literacies. Attention will also be given to the ways in which the act of reading is and is not affected by the spread and use of technology. Students will be encouraged to focus on an aspect of reading closely related to their own research interests and/or experiences.