While previous research has examined outcomes related to academic rigor, mixed findings have resulted from differing conceptualizations of rigor as well as varying methodological approaches. Defining rigor as those in-class practices and assignments that require students to engage in deep learning and demonstrate cognitive complexity, we use…

This study reports the impact of a professional development course on experienced, highly qualified secondary school teachers of English as a foreign language in preparation for their becoming paid assessors of student teachers on practicum. The course concerned a literacy-oriented pedagogy informed by literacy pedagogical content knowledge…

Reflects on the origins and development of the author's thinking about the nature of writing and the relationship between writing and cognition. Recounts efforts to understand the effects of writing on cognition. Revises an earlier contention that literacy represents a form of cultural progress in favor of a more cautious view of writing as an…

The traditional "developmental" lesson in which the teacher tried to develop ideas and insights is impossible because student reading abilitiy has deteriorated. The ability to read is seen as a source of liberation, but it is dependent on the degree of literacy and the quality of what is read. (MLW)

The violence of any literacy acquisition in the contact zone between the powered, the disempowered, and the empowered is never clearcut. But, nevertheless, calls to theory literacy from the late 70s and early 80s have been answered with a rush. Michael Berube writes that "graduate school in English seems to have a very bad effect on people…

Educated persons, it is suggested, must be literate, understand public affairs, develop lifelong learning habits, and may be capable of solving problems through the discipline in which they majored. Faculty are seen as more important than college presidents in the general task of producing educated persons. (MLW)

The paper questions the current mechanistic view in which literacy and numeracy skills are sharply separated, and notes the pervasiveness of mathematical ideas and representations in verbal texts. It suggests that literacy be reconstructed to include a variety of competencies which encompass numeracy. Implications for curriculum change are drawn.…

As the needs of students and the workforce change, professors and business leaders find they have more educational goals in common, including basic quantitative and verbal literacy, intellectual breadth, cultural breadth, and perhaps most surprising, sensitivity to the needs of others. (Author/MSE)