DOCUMENT RESUME ED 374 355 CE 067 361 TITLE Literacy across the Curriculum: Connecting Literacy in the Schools, Community and Workplace. Volume 8. INSTITUTION Centre for Literacy, Montreal (Quebec). PUB DATE 92 NOTE 98p. AVAILABLE FROMCentre for Literacy, 3040 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3Z 1A4 (single subscription, $10; back issues--vol. 1-8, $1 each). PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) JOURNAL CIT Literacy across the Curriculum; v8 n1-4 Mar 1992-Win 1993 EDRS PRICE HF01/PC04 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Adult Basic Education; Adult Literacy; Dropout Prevention; Dropouts; Foreign Countries; *High Risk Students; *Literacy Education; Mass Media Use; School Business Relationship; Secondary Education; Television Viewing; Womens Education IDENTIFIERS Canada; *Workplace Literacy ABSTRACT The first of four issues in this volume consists of these articles: "The Fourth 'R'--Relating"; "On Baseball Cards and Literacy"; "On Literacy and Success"; "National Assessments: What They Can and Cannot Do"; and "In the Classroom: The Integrated Journal." It also contains two book reviews and a list of resources on adolescent literacy, at-risk youth, and dropouts. A supplement, Media Focus, contains "Exploding a Myth: TV Watching Is Not Passive" (Emery); "World View on Media Education"; "Commercial Advertising--Does It Have a Place in the Classroom? Two Views on Youth News Network"; and two book reviews. Issue 2 has these articles: "Concerning Literacy and Ethics"; "Ethics and Educators: Traveling in Hope"; "On Bamboo Literacy"; "On the Increasing Importance of Visual Communication"; "Drawing a Link to Literacy"; "Thinking about Writing and Thinking"; "Sponsorship and Education: Asking Some Questions"; and "Business-Education Partnerships that Work." The Media Focus supplement contains the following: "Will the Real Michelangelo Please Stand Up..."; "The Virtual Classroom--A Pilot-Project in Media Education"; "Highlights from 'Constructing Culture: Media Education in the 1990s"; "World View on Media Education"; five book reviews; and a list of conferences and events. Issue 3 contains the following: "Literacy Lessons from History"; "On the Principle (.,f Postmodern Literacy"; "On Pygmalion' as a Literacy Narrative"; "On Values in the Classroom"; "Sculpting Gender: Media, Muscle, and the Construction of Fit' Bodies"; two books reviews; summaries of presentations From the UNESCO conference on urban literacy; "Copyright: Educators Meet the Policymakers"; "Feminist Literacy Workers Network Holds Inaugural Conference"; and a list of resources on volunteers in education. Contents of the Media Focus supplement are as follows: "Mastermind on Media: Montreal May 1992"; highlights of the International Center of Films for Children and Young People conference, Children, Moving Images, and Their Future"; "Children and Critical Viewing: Media Literacy Conference"; "World View on Media Education"; and two book reviews. In Issue 4 are found the following: "Literacy and Human Rights"; "On Connecting Narrative,. Thinking, and Women's Ways of Researching"; "On Something Called Critical Thinking"; "Equity and Diversity--Principles of Good Workplace Education"; "Job Descriptions: Making Expectations Clear to Students"; "Literacy and Street Youth"; two book reviews; and "Beyond the Composition Ghetto." (YLB) Literacy across the Curriculum Connecting Literacy in the Schools, Community and Workplace Volume 8 Nos. 1-4 Centre for Literacy Montreal, Quebec BEST COPY AVAILABLE S,,,,DEZAFloTMERN,,!sT OF EDUCATION Q E CATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMALON "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS CENTER (ERIC) MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED This document has been reproducedas BY received from the person or organi7alion originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality Points of view or opinions statedin this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC1" 2 March 1992 'vol. 8 No. 1 Literacyacross I the curriculum Connecting Literacy in the Schools, Community and Workplace The fourth 'IV relatingEven though some critics claim that the demand for higher and higher To prepare my schoolattending levels of credentials is another form generation of the nineties for its of inflation, there is general productive period in the twenty-first DIOPPIngOut Ar agreement that some minimum century, our educators should have and taken the trouble of rationalizing their DroppingIn level of basic skills is needed for the curriculums so that the elements meshed ...th constant retraining and upgrading and complemented each other...What that will characterize the workplace was missing was the discipline relating (see BOX 2). one body of knowledge to another. I a A never learned how to relate the Research and action: fundamental truths of the various courses I took.It was too late when I The gap discovered that my teachers and Last year I was sitting at a instructors had neglected the fourth "R" roundtable on literacy when one of education - Relating. participant said his board needed Noam Rabinovitch,student. money to do research on the reason for dropout. I suggested that there 'The Fourth `11,'" was written by a was already a substantial body of Montreal college student in 1991 as research. We know all the possible a submission to an essay contest reasons; it is a matter of finding out (see BOX 1). The question was: How continued on page 2 can education in the1990s prepare frequently cancel one another out students for the 21st century? entirely. INSIDE This analysis of his school To ponder experience fit like a piece of the Dropouts This fragmentation can be studied 6 National assessments: what they puzzle into the larger analysis of can and cannot do literacy, schooling and public policy through the issue of dropouts. that is woven into this issue of LAC.Students who drop out are receiving 9 In the classroom: Not only do courses and programs increased attention recently in both The intergrated journal Canada and the U.S. People not relate, but curriculum and 10Reviews assessment do not relate; policy without a high school diploma are disproportionately represented from different branches of the same 12Resources: Adolescent literacy ministry do not relate; and policies among the unemployed and promise from different ministries and to become part of a permanent 13 Announcements different levels of government underclass of the undereducated, 15 Conferences unemployable of the future. The Centre for LitJracy Montreal Quebec 3 2 continued from page 1 Literacy" is examining the of many sources of information and which ones are most relevant to a connection between students' models. particular student population and reading/writing and eventual then implementing policy and dropout. Among their findings is Why, then, is so little research program change, some already the observation that almost all reflected in the government policies tested and known to work. The interventions come far too late. and pilot-projects on dropouts now gentleman ignored the comment Literacy is not necessarily the being funded? The Minister of State and we spent almost an hour primary reason for dropping out, for Youth has undertaken a Stay-in- discussing the matter. but it is a significant contributing continued on page 3 factor. This is an example of too much Literacy Across the Curriculum available information not getting to A large number of dropouts have The Centre for Literacy the people who need it.I can go to such serious difficulties with 3040 Sherbrooke Strcct West my library shelf and find in-depth reading that it influences their Montreal. Quebec. Canada H3Z 1A4 studies on dropouts and on a range eventual decision to leave school. Editor: Linda Shohet of intervention programs that have Many of these stuaents have Layout:PonetuatIon G R A F 1 X been successfully implemented already fallen at least a grade level Depot legalCtrImestre 1991 across the continent. The Center behind by third year elementary, Blbllotheque nationals du Quebec for Early Adolescence (p.12) at the and by the time they enter high University of North Carolina is one school, they are so weak that they of the outstanding centres which have little chance of coping with the has been researching, writing, and new demands. The Center in North testing pilot-projects for almost two Carolina has published decades on issues related to early recommendations for schools and year adolescence, including dropping out parents on many of the factors The Centre gratefully acknowledges the Their project on "Adolescent related to literacy. They are but one support of Dawson College The fourth "R" Mediterranean World, theother poets... I had "relater" with special an excerpt USSR, Society, Macro- memorized enough vital training and competence How would the fourth "R" Economics and statistics about the in two or three of the have helped me? Well, in Computers in the ModernMediterranean World and subjects I took. One my first semester in the World/WordPerfect 5.1. the USSR to earn a relater, for example, Social Sciences program, passing mark, and played would have been specially I registered for seven I passed all of these back my notes on Society qualified to highlight the courses organized in whatcourses individually, but and Macro-Economics parallels between the was called a grid 1-1.1(In't the foggiest idea of with enough accuracy not discipline of team sports arrangement. I had to how one interrelated with to have to repeat them. and the laws governing