Inspiration for this Week

... knowledge, being a state of understanding achieved through constructive mental effort, requires the individual to engage with the relevant texts in a critical and creative manner in an attempt to bring about a correspondence between the meaning represented in the text and the meaning represented in the mind (Flower, 1987). And it is this latter function of written language - as a medium through which individuals, through the interrogation of their own or others' texts, can extend their own thinking and understanding - that led Bruner, speaking at a recent conference on orality and literacy, to characterize literacy as "a technology for the empowerment of mind."

Wells, G. (1990). Talk about Text: Where Literacy is Learned and Taught. Curriculum Inquiry, 20(4), 369-405.

This passage is going to provide the necessary direction for this week. I will be working with thirteen-year-olds on using their voices and their blogs to "interrogate" texts. Can't wait!