Sunday, December 22, 2013

Responding to Armstrong & Newman

I’m beginning to worry because I feel like I not as engaged with the text as I should be because every time a scholar defines what successful readers do, I feel like I don't actually do that when I read. It could be that I am just unaware of the specific strategies I use.
I know I run the risk of sounding a bit pretentious--and I'm trying not to--but I wasn't entirely sure if Armstrong & Newman were bringing up any new ideas. Their notion of intertextuality seemed to overlap with Schoenbach's knowledge building dimension. Although I do think Armstrong & Newman specifically focuses on bringing in a variety of outside text to help build students' schema.
I did find myself wondering how a curriculum based on intertextuality would address difficulty or engagement. It seemed like something was missing. I got the sense that the approach is meant to build students' schema through supplemental texts, but I couldn't pinpoint how instructors were supposed to help students learn the kind of reading discussed in the article. They address misconception and the flaws of skill-based teaching but don't demonstrate how the use of intertextuality fosters student growth in other areas.

The longitudinal study mentioned in the closing paragraph was rather intriguing. This is the kind of research project I've been interested in conducting but I haven't been able to find the right focus.  

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