ATTENTION: WinkWorld Readers RE: BOUNCE-BACKS - Check your "Junk" settings. It is normal for school districts to have internet filters which block unknown messages. In addition, teachers often give us only their .edu email. Because of this, we receive bounce-backs from many teachers, who then wonder why they are not receiving this newsletter. I try to find/contact each person who has a bounce-back, but I have limited success. Please contact news@joanwink.com if you would like to supply a 2nd email address.
WinkWorld July 2009
Hello Friends,
In this edition of WinkWorld, you will find
Websites
A memory of Louise Rosenblatt by Philomena S. Marinaccio Eckel
FVR (Free Voluntary Reading)
FmF Patricia A. Richard-Amato
Notes from the Real World, June family/kids/anniversary
Mallorca
Websites, which have been helpful for me this month:
Remember, Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition 1982 by Steve Krashen? It has stood the test of time and is available free at www.sdkrashen.com/
Steve's one update follows:
Introduction to the 2009 Internet Version:
This is the original version of Principles and Practice, as published
in 1982, with only minor changes. It is gratifying to point out that
many of the predictions made in this book were confirmed by subsequent
research, for example, the superiority of comprehensible-input based
methods and sheltered subject matter teaching (Krashen, 2003), the
inefficacy of error correction (Truscott, 1996, 1999), and the "power
of reading" (Krashen, 2004). Subsequent research has also, in my
opinion, confirmed that in footnote 5, chapter 3, option 3 is the
correct one, that we acquire vocabulary best through comprehensible
input (Krashen, 1989; 2003).
I have changed my position on only one issue: At the end of
Principles and Practice, I suggest the use of a form of deception -
students may think they are acquiring vocabulary or learning subject
matter, but unknown to them, they are acquiring because they are
getting comprehensible input at the same time. I now think it is very
important to make a strong effort to inform students about the process
of language acquisition, so they can continue to improve on their own.
Louise Rosenblatt by Philamena S. Marinaccio Eckel Recently, I have had the opportunity to learn more about one of my all-time heroines, Louise Rosenblatt. I have asked Mena, whom I met through Janet Towell, to share part of her story on WinkWorld. It is my great pleasure to honor the memory of Louise Rosenblatt.
Mena writes:
I am so glad that you enjoyed the online publication (www.education.miami.edu/ep/Rosenblatt/index.html) of my interview with Louise Rosenblatt. I am happy to be able to converse with a kindred spirit who also admires this legendary literacy expert. I am also honored that you invited me to share with fellow literacy educators the thrill of knowing Louis. It was an experience that I will treasure all my life. I have used our online interview and shown the videotape for years with my undergraduate and graduate students.
I have never been able to truly appreciate how lucky I was to be mentored by such an expert in the field of literacy. When I first met Louise, she was 94 years old and spent her winters as a visiting professor at the University of Miami, Florida. Her daily routine included swimming two miles and spending hours at her computer emailing her congressman to safeguard democracy. She said that she was more worried about democracy currently than in the thirties, forties, and fifties. "Then it was threatened more from without and now it is threatened from within." Her advice to combat the current political policies that provide simplistic solutions to problems in literacy and education "that will have undesirable long-term effects" is for educational associations to organize an agency to respond immediately to misinformation in the press.
I am sharing her words in hopes that they may awaken reading teachers to the urgency of teaching for democracy and to provoke an end to the critical and increasing disempowerment of teachers. Hegemony contributes to this critical and continuing disregard for the knowledge of literacy experts and ethnographic experiences of teachers, in deference to scientists and researchers, to influence what is occurring in today's classrooms. Louise also believed that democracy insured diversity within unity, in that, we are able to maintain our own individuality or our ethnic values because we are in a democracy.
Sadly, she lost much of her independence when she broke her hip sometime after 2001. After I graduated we lost contact and I was only provided updates on her condition from her dear friend at UM, Dr. Eugene Provenzo. She spent her remaining years living with her son until her death on February 8, 2005 at age 100. However, her words from the interview often echo in my head and I feel a certain responsibility to share her pedagogic ideals.
Written and contributed by:
Dr. Philamena Marinaccio-Eckel
Florida Atlantic University
Davie, FL 33314
July Mallorca I am teaching a class for a fast 2 weeks in Mallorca, Spain for The College of New Jersey.
The Program Overview
www.tcnj.edu/~graduate/global/europe.html
FmF (Featuring my Friends)
Enjoy Patricia A Richard-Amato's new 4th edition of: Making It Happen: From Interactive to Participatory Language Teaching
FVR (Free Voluntary Reading) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian By Sherman Alexie
Notes from the Real World At the end of May, I drove to Santa Fe to spend time with Dawn and the grands. Wyatt and Wynn came back to the ranch with me; it was a great trip.
Dawn and Kids