Product Description: Through analysis of case studies of young children (ages 3 to 8 years), situated in different geographic, cultural, linguistic, political, and socioeconomic sites on six continents, this book examines the interplay of childhoods, schooling, and, literacies...read more

''Dyson's ethnographies offer new ways of thinking about writing time and remind us of the importance of play, talk, and social relationships in children's literacy learning. If every literacy researcher could write like Dyson, teachers would want to read about research! If policymakers took her insights on board, classrooms might become more respectful and enjoyable spaces for literacy teaching and learning that soar way above the basics.'' -- Barbara Comber, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, AustraliaWhat are the real ''basics'' of writing, how should they be taught, and what do they look like in children's worlds? In her new book, Anne Haas Dyson shows how highly scripted writing curricula and regimented class routines work against young children's natural social learning processes. Readers will have a front-row seat in Mrs. Bee's kindergarten and Mrs. Kay's 1st-grade class, where these dedicated teachers taught writing basics in schools serving predominately low-income children of color. The children, it turns out, had their own expectations for one another's actions during writing time. Driven by desires for companionship and meaning, they used available linguistic and multimodal resources to construct their shared lives. In so doing, they stretch, enrich, and ultimately transform our own understandings of the basics. ReWRITING the Basics goes beyond critiquing traditional writing basics to place them in the linguistic diversity and multimodal texts of children's everyday worlds. This engaging work:* Illustrates how scripted, uniform curricula can reduce the resources of so-called ''at-risk'' children.* Provides insight into how children may situate writing within the relational ethics and social structures of childhood cultures.* Offers guiding principles for creating a program that will expand children's possibilities in ways that are compatible with human sociability. * Includes examples of children's writing, reflections on research methods, and demographic tables.

''Contemporary early childhood educators find themselves in contexts that are fundamentally inimical to the time-honored wisdom in our field. Children, Language, and Literacy speaks to all of us with a commitment to the very young and strengthens our collective resolve to work in increasingly more effective ways with children, families, and the next generation of teachers.'' -- Mary Renck Jalongo, Editor, Early Childhood Education Journal ''Genishi and Dyson animate sociocultural theories of language learning by inviting us into the intimacy of children's worlds. This book will become a treasure on the required reading lists for early childhood, ESOL, and language arts courses.'' -- JoBeth Allen, University of Georgia, Athens ''If our standards-based economy requires us to make all children the same, to drain the joy out of learning, and to move lockstep through a set curriculum, we have forgotten what early childhood classrooms are all about. Genishi and Dyson remind us.'' -- Beth Graue, Interim Director, Wisconsin Center for Education Research ''Celia Genishi and Anne Haas Dyson call on us to rethink children's language and literacy instruction in the changing and diverse landscape of U.S. education. That call must be answered, and they help us immensely understand how to do so.'' -- Eugene Garcia, Vice President, Education Partnerships, Arizona State University In their new collaboration, Celia Genishi and Anne Haas Dyson celebrate the genius of young children who are learning language and literacy in our diverse times. Despite burgeoning sociocultural diversity, many early childhood classrooms (pre-K to grade 2) offer a one-size-fits-all curriculum in which learning is too often assessed by standardized tests. In contrast, Genishi and Dyson proclaim diversity as the new norm. They feature stories of children whose language learning is impossible to standardize and teachers who do not follow scripts. These master teachers observe, informally assess, respond to, and grow with their students -- some of whom are rapid language learners and some of whom become speakers, readers, and writers at ''child speed.'' Much of this learning, regardless of tempo, is found within the language-rich contexts of play. Chapters focus on children's ways of communicating through varied modes, including the use of nonverbal expression; languages such as Spanish, English, and the variant of English known as African American Language; and multiple media. Throughout the text there is a resistance to labels such as ''at risk'' and a much-needed advocacy for child-sensible practices in a world where diversity is indeed the ''new norm.''

Product Description: In this seminal book on the construction of case studies in the field of language and literacy, the authors consider in detail what it means to be “on the case.” They evaluate the basic assumptions that ground a qualitative approach to case study methodology, the decisions entailed in designing a case study, and the possibilities and challenges of data collection and analysis...read more

Product Description: Here, Anne Dyson traces the influence of a wide-ranging set of "textual toys" from children's lives - church and hip-hop songs, rap music, movies, TV, traditional jump-rope rhymes, the words of professional sports announcers and radio deejays - upon school learning and writing. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Based on an ethnographic study in an urban classroom of seven to nine-year-olds, this work examines how young school children use popular culture, especially superhero stories, in the unofficial peer social world and in the official school literary curriculum...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This volume explores the nature of story - the basic function it serves, its connections to the diverse sociocultural landscape of our society, and its power in the classroom. The work explores how to effectively serve a diverse student population, through stories by children and teachers.

Product Description: Presents the results of a two-year ethnographic study of K-3 children who do not tell stories in the written language format valued by most early literacy educators. Their literacy learning, particularly their writing development, is portrayed as a social process in a complex social world...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Book by Genishi, Celia, Dyson, Anne Haas