What is EDUC 140AC?
Education (EDUC) 140AC is "The Art of Making Meaning: Educational Perspectives on Literacy and Learning in a Global World." Taught by Professor Glynda Hull, the Principal Investigator of the ECUC 21st Century CLC program, EDUC 140A provides undergraduate students the opportunity to put their skills to work.
A message from Professor Glynda Hull
What is literacy, and what is the value of becoming and being perceived as literate? How do definitions of what counts as literacy vary—from place to place, context to context, time to time, language to language, and culture to culture? What are the special requirements, affordances, and challenges of becoming literate in our own particular time, a digital and global age? And how is literacy taught, learned, and acquired—in school and outside it, in a first language or a second or third, in global and local contexts, and online and face-to-face?
These are the kinds of questions that we will consider in Education 140AC. This course combines theory and practice in the study of literacy. That is, we will read sociocultural and critical theories and research about how children and youth develop their literate capacities and identities, but we will also work with children and youth in afterschool and school-day programs, juxtaposing the readings to real world experiences: mentoring, tutoring, and hanging out with kids, helping with their homework, and observing and participating with them as they learn, create, and play.
EDUC 140A satisfies the American Cultures requirement by juxtaposing conceptions of literacy teaching and learning with the varied, hybrid cultures that represent schoolaged populations in California and beyond. We ask, then, how culture intersects with learning to read and write, and we will be alert as well to how symbolic systems like written language and image convey cultural meanings and how these meanings and the cultures they represent shift, blend, and hybridize in a global and digital world. EDUC 140A also meets the Social & Behavioral Sciences, an Letters & Sciences (L&S) Breadth.
Official Course Catalog Description
Drawing from both historical and contemporary sociocultural theories on literacy and language as well as recent research from education and new media scholars, we will explore an array of digital and non-digital forms of meaning-making and symbolic creativity, such as meme-generating, video making, micro-blogging, multi-player gaming, and app designing, as well as more traditional and non-digital or pre-digital forms of cultural participation and civic engagement.