Teaching Literature to Adolescents

Who's creating the Common Core Standards to be used by 49 states

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) are in working in partnership with Achieve, Inc, ACT and the College Board.to develop college preparation Common Core standards in literacy and math to be used by 49 states and territories as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

This initiative raises a lot of questions relative to how these standards are being formulated:

1. Why is it that The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) are leading this effort? 

2. Why is it that the Standards Development Work Group writing the current college preparation standards consist primarily of “content experts from Achieve, Inc., ACT, and the College Board”—corporate/testing organizations, while nationally-known members of the “English-language Arts Feedback Group” are positioned primary to give feedback, as opposed to writing the standards?

3. Why are the IRA, NCTE, NRC, ASCD, etc., as well as other professional groups such as the NEA not assuming a central role as subject-matter/content experts in framing these standards?  While “states and national education organizations will have an opportunity to review and provide evidence-based feedback on the draft documents throughout the process,” as Kyleen Beers’s letter asks, when and how will that process occur? 

4. How are groups be framing the organizational structure of the Common Core Standards?

            The draft standards continues to draw on a traditional framework that divides literacy instruction into “reading,” “writing,” and “speaking/listening,” with some references to digital text processing and production.  This framework assumes that literacy learning consists of separate sets of strategies or skills associated with these different categories, failing to foster the integration of literacy practices.  As an NCTE (2007) statement on writing instruction noted:

Writing and reading are related. People who read a lot have a much easier time getting better at writing. In order to write a particular kind of text, it helps if the writer has read that kind of text. In order to take on a particular style of language, the writer needs to have read that language, to have heard it in her mind, so that she can hear it again in order to compose it…From its beginnings in early childhood through the most complex setting imaginable, writing exists in a nest of talk. Conversely, speakers usually write notes and, regularly, scripts, and they often prepare visual materials that include texts and images. Writers often talk in order to rehearse the language and content that will go into what they write, and conversation often provides an impetus or occasion for writing.

And, one of the “guidelines” for the South Carolina language arts standards document (South Carolina Department of Education (2007) notes:

Reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and researching are not discrete skills: each literacy strand intertwines with and supports the others, creating a tapestry of language.

            My own belief is that what is needed is a framework with categories in which the primary unit of analysis are the activities or purposes involved in using reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing as literacy tools designed to achieve certain purposes involved in the processes of creating, performing, and responding, for example 1) engaging with/inquiring/searching, 2) comprehending/interpreting/connecting/critiquing, 3) organizing/producing/performing/sharing

5.  To what degree will groups be including digital literacy standards? 

            While the proposed college preparation standards and the benchmark examples of the American Diploma Standards certainly include standards related to digital literacies, to what degree with these standards recognize the equal importance of both print and digital literacies.  A recent survey of 900 language arts teachers conducted by the National Council of Teachers of English (2009) found that the top three abilities for student success in their classes were that students be able to:

- seek information and make critical judgments about the veracity of sources.

- read and interpret many different kinds of texts, both in print and online.

- innovate and apply knowledge creatively.

            Almost two-thirds indicated that given new notions of literacy, that their teaching has undergone marked changes.  62% rejected the notion that basic language, reading, and writing skills must be mastered before critical 21^st century literacy abilities can be cultivated.  They perceived the methods associated with 21^st century literacies as involving “(1) learning through

cross-disciplinary projects/project-based learning; (2) inquiry-based learning; and (3) incorporating student choices as a significant part of instruction.” The approaches least likely to be related to 21^st century literacies involve “(1) preparing students for success on high-stakes tests; (2) helping students retain information so that they can deliver it on demand; and (3) direct instruction methods.”  More than half believed that these literacies are more likely to be acquired outside of school than in school, in which there is a predominate focus on “reading nonfiction, conducting research using print texts, writing expository or narrative texts, and writing a letter, journal, or diary (on paper).”

6. What are the assumptions about assessment methods underlying standards development?  Does the criteria of “measurable” as shaping standards construction imply a continued reliance on standardized testing focused primarily on print-based literacies?  A recently crafted report issued by Joint Task Force on Assessment of the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English (2009) chaired by Peter Johnston noted the following problems with standards formulation driven by limited assessments:

         Two major problems beset efforts to inquire into curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The first is that reading and writing standards guiding curricula in various states and districts often fragment literacy rather than represent its complexity. They also frequently omit important aspects of literacy such as self-initiated learning, questioning author’s bias, perspective taking, multiple literacies, social interactions around literacy, metacognitive strategies, and literacy dispositions.  Furthermore, even when the standards come closer to representing these features of complex literacy, most high-stakes assessments rarely include the “difficult to measure” standards, opting instead to assess content that is easier and more expedient to assess using inexpensive test formats.  For example, teachers who emphasize clarity of writing, attention to audience, vibrant language, revision, and sound support of assertions advocated in many content standards rarely find such qualities fully reflected in high-stakes tests, or find them assessed through items that focus on mechanics or conventions. Similarly, students who are urged to form opinions and back them up need to be assessed accordingly, instead of with tests that do not allow for creative or divergent thinking…

            Policy makers and administrators, no less than teachers and students, must understand the complexities and importance of a full and critical literacy and the nature of instruction that will foster it. They must recognize that tests, although sometimes necessary, are often not the best assessment procedures for capturing the subtleties of teaching and learning. They must recognize test results for what they obscure or fail to assess as well as for what they reveal.  In the public interest, they must not endow test scores with the power to tell more than they are able. Hundreds of studies have shown that nonschool factors, such as parent education level or socioeconomic status, have a greater effect on student achievement than school factors. Tests that do not adequately reflect a complex model of literacy send a misleading message to teachers and students about the kinds of reading and writing that are valued by society.  In sum, without critical inquiry into the link between specific assessments and curricula, it is difficult to know whether an assessment provides a full representation of literacy or even represents a valid measure of the standards it is intended to represent.

 

Only some aspects of reading and writing will be captured in any given assessment situation. Formal tests need to be considerably more complex than is generally true today. Tests that accommodate multiple responses, different types of texts and tasks, and indicators of attitude and motivation are all essential to a comprehensive view of literacy achievement. Wherever possible, assessments must specify the types of texts, tasks, and situations used for assessment purposes and note whether and when students’ performance was improved by variations in text quality, type of task, or situation.

In order to meet this standard, we must depend less on one-shot assessment practices and place more value on ongoing classroom performance, assuming that classroom curricula develop the full complexity of literate learning. Finally, when assessment information is interpreted and reported, descriptive information about the assessment tasks and texts and the instructional situation should be included. Given the complexity of the tasks involved, reducing reading and writing performance to a letter or number grade is unacceptable.

 

            The Task Force noted the limitations of an instructional/assessment focus only on print literacies, particularly in terms of differences involved in writing and/or comprehending print versus online texts, as well as the need to develop more sophisticated assessment tools:

Reading and writing online change what it means to read, write, and comprehend. Literacy practices now involve both the creation and use of multimodal “texts” (broadly defined). Creating multimodal texts requires knowing the properties and limitations of different digital tools so that decisions can be made about how best to serve one’s intentions.  Participating in social networking sites requires new literacy practices; new literacy practices shape how users are perceived and how they construct identities.  This leads to new areas needing to be assessed, including how youth create and enhance multiple identities using digital tools and virtual spaces.  We will now need to be concerned with teaching and assessing how students take an idea in print and re-represent it, for example, with video clips for other audiences.   Similarly, we will be concerned about the stances and practices involved in being able to take an idea presented in one modality (e.g., print) and transcribing (transmediating) it into another; what possibilities and limitations does a particular mode offer and how does that relate to its desirability over other modes for particular purposes and situations?   Children use different comprehension strategies online and offline, and assessments of the two show different pictures of their literacy development.  Online readers, by choosing hypertext and intertext links actually construct the texts that they read as well as the meanings they make. These new literacies also require new critical media literacies, linked to classical critical literacy notions of how “media culture” is created, appropriated, and subsequently colonizes the broader notions of culture—e.g., how youth culture is defined by and used to define what youth do, buy, and with whom they hang out.

                        The definitions of literacy that have dominated schooling, and are insisted on by most current testing systems, are inadequate for a new highly networked information age. New technologies such as search engines, social networking sites and video technologies, require new literacies to engage their potential, and failure to help all students acquire these literacies will not serve them or the society well.  Not to teach the necessary skills, strategies, dispositions and social practices is to deny children full access to economic, social and political participation in the new global society

 

 

 

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy : March 2009

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy : March 2009.

Commentary Learning Argument Practices Through Online Role-Play: Toward a Rhetoric of Significance and Transformation Richard Beach Candance Doerr-Stevens

One important literacy practice is the ability to formulate effective arguments to convince others of the validity of one's position. In this commentary, we discuss the literacy practices involved in formulating arguments as well as the challenges involved in helping students acquire these practices.

In contrast to more traditional approaches to teaching argument, we propose that students can learn these practices through participation in online role-play activities. We also argue that students will be more motivated to engage in online role-play if they are debating an issue or problem that affects their everyday lives and that will lead to change, an approach driven by what we describe as a rhetoric of significance and transformation.

 We believe that it is important that students learn how to engage in these collaborative arguments with others to address and solve problems in their everyday lives. In this commentary, we propose some activities designed to foster use of collaborative arguments in the classroom through the use of online role-play.

Learning to Engage in Written Arguments

Students typically engage in arguments in schools through writing persuasive essays in which they voice opinions on an issue, but they generally provide little support for those opinions (Felton & Herko, 2004). These formalized approaches to teaching arguments are often divorced from students' uses of arguing in everyday conversations in which they are more likely to employ counter-claims, rebuttals, and qualifications than in formal persuasive essays (Felton & Herko, 2004). Their persuasive essay tasks also occur in a rhetorical vacuum.

 One possible explanation for students' poor performance on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) persuasive writing assessments (Greenwald, Persky, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999) has to do with the authenticity of test-taking rhetorical context in which students are writing for no authentic purpose and audience, a limitation that the new NAEP composition assessments are addressing. When students have a specific purpose and audience for their written arguments, they are more likely to consider counter-arguments and rebuttals (Midgette, Haria, & MacArthur, 2008). Moreover, in writing persuasive essays, students may have little ownership of or conviction about the position they are adopting, resulting in writing as no more than an exercise in “knowledge telling” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1984).

 Instruction in argument is further limited by a focus on adopting a competitive, confrontational stance, particularly in oral debates in which the goal is to win over audiences and defeat opponents. This competitive approach differs from a more collaborative perspective in which people collectively posit, test out, and revise alternative positions within a larger context of engaging in community rhetorical action leading to change (Flower, 2008).

 Students' notions of argument are also shaped by their experience with portrayals of argument in the media designed to influence audience beliefs. Unfortunately, students often find that the media appeals to the beliefs of certain niche audiences who gravitate to those outlets reporting news consistent with their beliefs. While U.S. audiences largely acquired their news from the same outlets up until the 1970s—CBS, NBC, ABC, the AP, and major newspapers—since the 1980s, the news has increasingly been channeled and filtered by outlets such as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNN, or the Huffington Post, targeted to certain niche audiences who then adopt the beliefs espoused by these outlets (Manjoo, 2008).

Audiences therefore construct their beliefs about information on issues according to their identification with their particular values groups—“conservative Republicans,” “environmentalists,” “libertarians,” “liberal Democrats,” and the like—associated with and constructed by specific media outlets. An analysis of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the Wall Street Journal characterized these outlets as “echo chambers” in that these outlets restrict access to alternative, competing news sources and negatively portray political opponents (Jamieson & Cappella, 2008).

Click on above link for rest of article

Get Lit Players bring poetry's emotions to other L.A. teenagers - Los Angeles Times

Get Lit Players bring poetry's emotions to other L.A. teenagers - Los Angeles Times.

Scott Gold -- For as long as he can remember, Dario Serrano's life was all screeching tires and echoing gunshots, babies' cries and barking dogs, a symphony, as he puts it, of "hood rats and gangsters," of "vatos vatos and payasos" -- dudes and numskulls, loosely translated. By high school, he'd pretty much given up on himself. He bounced around between three schools. He started selling pot, though he always seemed to smoke more than he sold. His GPA fell to 0.67, which is about as bad as you can get and still be showing up. * Audio slide show: Poetry emotions Audio slide show: Poetry emotions Literature, it is fair to say, was not resonating. "I mean, 'The Great Gatsby'?" he says incredulously, and when he puts it like that, Lincoln Heights does feel pretty far from Long Island. When a friend suggested that poetry might be his thing, Serrano scoffed. Grudgingly, he started tagging along to a poetry club, and one day last year he took his lunch break in a classroom where a teen troupe called Get Lit was holding auditions. Get Lit's artistic director, an African American artist named Azure Antoinette, performed an original composition called "Box," a denunciation of anyone who would define her by the color of her skin, who would lump together, thoughtlessly, faces of color:

 "The general population has come to a consensus that we don't have a prayer," she said, her voice filling the room. "All we have is prayer. . . . We are not victims." This, Serrano thought, was something he could get behind. Today the nonprofit Get Lit Players are barnstorming Los Angeles, kids performing for kids, thousands of them over the course of a dozen school performances this winter and spring. Some of their readings are of the classic variety -- Ezra Pound; Langston Hughes; "The Boy Died in My Alley" by the great Gwendolyn Brooks, written in the voice of a girl who confesses that she heard the gunshot but didn't think much of it because she'd also heard "the thousand shots before."

But much of their material consists of in-your-face original compositions -- about teenage mothers and mixed-race children, about gang violence and immigrant pride -- that are performed in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Bengali, like a soundtrack to a modern, messy L.A. Serrano, now 18, has become a troupe leader. Poetry, he says, saved his life. He graduated last year from Marshall High School, earning straight A's in the homestretch, he said, and now attends East Los Angeles College, where he is considering a career in education. One of his compositions, "Home Is," is an anchor of the Get Lit shows. Like many poets before him, Serrano has discovered that unvarnished autobiography often makes for the strongest material: You can say it to my face; I ain't afraid to admit I was other stereotypes: A joker, a drug broker, a known toker, a first day of school loner A drug abuser, a street cruiser But I guess you can say I'm a geek, incognito

 It is a rainy afternoon in West Hollywood, and Diane Luby Lane is insisting that she is not a crier, though this is the third time she has cried before finishing a bowl of soup. They are not tears of sadness, nor joy, but rather a passion for the written word that feels disarming in a busy, digital world. "Listen to this," Lane says, and from her purse, she produces a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" that has very nearly been loved to death. She reads from Whitman's "Song of Myself": "I will not have a single person slighted or left away." "He's saying: 'I'm for you,' " Lane says; literature, in other words, is for everyone.

NCTE Inbox Blog: What Does It Mean to be Literate?

NCTE Inbox Blog: What Does It Mean to be Literate?.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 What Does It Mean to be Literate?

This week the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reported the first rise in the number of adults reading literature since they began their survey in 1982. In fact, 16.6 million more adults reported reading literature (novels and short stories, plays, or poems) in 2008. And, the most rapid increase was in literature reading by young adults aged 18-24.

This same week the National Center for Educational Statistics finally released its 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, reporting that roughly 32 million U.S. adults (nearly one in seven) lack Basic Prose Literacy Skills and aren’t able to read at all or can read only the simplest of messages. What does this mean? How can more people be reading literature while so many other people are “functionally illiterate”?

 It seems to me—and it’s spelled out in the NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts and in NCTE’s Definition of 21st Century Literacies —that reading is just one part of literacy. In fact, to be literate today one must read and write; speak, listen, and view; think critically, act creatively and collaboratively; and manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information.

 When I look at the criteria for the National Endowment for the Arts study, I’m delighted that adults are reading “literature,” but I can’t help but wonder how many more adults might be reading nonfiction, reading webpages, reading images, doing important reading that doesn’t fit under the NEA definition of literature.

Then I think about those many adults who can’t read in English or who can only “locate easily identifiable information in short, commonplace prose text.” What will become of them? How will they function in a fast-moving world that relies on printed and graphic texts?/p> And adults aren’t our only concern. In "Training Focuses on Improving Literacy,” NCTE president Kylene Beers says, “Our kids just aren't as literate as they need to be." I have to agree.

 With all they see and hear around them, many kids still have difficulty digging below the surface—deeply “reading” what the world has to offer them. One way we can help is by gearing what and how we teach in class toward helping our students develop high level literacy skills that will serve them now and in the future.

NCTE’s 21st NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment serves as a good guideline for how we might do this.

NEA: Reading is on the rise

More American Adults Read Literature According to New
NEA Study

		Contact: Sally Gifford 202.682.5606 giffords@arts.gov

Literary reading on the rise for first time in history of Arts Endowment survey

January 12, 2009

Washington, D.C. -- For the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise documents a definitive increase in rates and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest increases among young adults, ages 18-24. This new growth reverses two decades of downward trends cited previously in NEA reports such as Reading at Risk and To Read or Not To Read.

"At a time of immense cultural pessimism, the NEA is pleased to announce some important good news. Literary reading has risen in the U.S. for the first time in a quarter century," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "This dramatic turnaround shows that the many programs now focused on reading, including our own Big Read, are working. Cultural decline is not inevitable."

Among the key findings:

Literary reading increases

• For the first time in the history of the survey - conducted five times since 1982 - the overall rate at which adults read literature (novels and short stories, plays, or poems) rose by seven percent.
• The absolute number of literary readers has grown significantly. There were 16.6 million more adult readers of literature in 2008. The growth in new readers reflects higher adult reading rates combined with overall population growth.
• The 2008 increases followed significant declines in reading rates for the two most recent ten-year survey periods (1982-1992 and 1992-2002).

Demographics of literature readers

• Young adults show the most rapid increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18-24 year olds have seen the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the most rapid rate of increase (21 percent). This jump reversed a 20 percent rate of decline in the 2002 survey, the steepest rate of decline since the NEA survey began.
• Since 2002, reading has increased at the sharpest rate (+20 percent) among Hispanic Americans, Reading rates have increased among African Americans by 15 percent, and among Whites at an eight percent rate of increase.
• For the first time in the survey's history, literary reading has increased among both men and women. Literary reading rates have grown or held steady for adults of all education levels.

Trends in media and literary preferences

• Fiction (novels and short stories) accounts for the new growth in adult literary readers.
• Reading poetry and drama continues to decline, especially poetry-reading among women.
• Online readers also report reading books. Eighty-four percent of adults who read literature (fiction, poetry, or drama) on or downloaded from the Internet also read books, whether print or online.
• Nearly 15 percent of all U.S. adults read literature online in 2008.

A tale of two Americas

• The U.S. population now breaks into two almost equally sized groups – readers and non-readers.
• A slight majority of American adults now read literature (113 million) or books (119 million) in any format.
• Reading is an important indicator of positive individual and social behavior patterns. Previous NEA research has shown that literary readers volunteer, attend arts and sports events, do outdoor activities, and exercise at higher rates than non-readers.

The NEA research brochure Reading on the Rise is based on early results from the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). SPPA is a periodic survey that has been conducted five times since 1982 using data obtained in partnership with the United States Census Bureau. Detailed results from the 2008 survey will be available in 2009. The 2008 SPPA survey has a sample size of more than 18,000 adults. The 2008 survey's literary reading questions - which form the focus of Reading on the Rise - were the same as in previous years: "During the last 12 months, did you read any a) novels or short stories; b) poetry; or c) plays?" Since 1992, the survey also has asked about book-reading. In 2008, the survey introduced new questions about reading preferences and reading on the Internet.

NEA literature initiatives

The issue of declining reading rates has been addressed by a number of public and private initiatives. The Arts Endowment has embraced the challenge with a range of programs to promote reading among young audiences. In 2003, the NEA launched Shakespeare in American Communities, the largest tour of Shakespeare in American history, reaching more than 21 million students through performances and educational resources. The Big Read, a partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, encourages communities to read, discuss, and celebrate selections from American and world literature. Poetry Out Loud: National Poetry Recitation Contest has introduced thousands of high school students nationwide to classic and contemporary poetry through this dynamic recitation competition.

NEA research resources

Since 1976, the NEA Office of Research & Analysis has issued periodic research reports, brochures, and notes on topics affecting arts and cultural policy and matters of vital interest to artists and arts organizations. Most recently, the NEA has produced reports on nonprofit theater, artist employment trends, and the arts and civic engagement. Reading on the Rise, along with other NEA research, is available for download at www.nea.gov/research.

About the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the largest annual national funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases.

ReadWriteThink: Student Materials: Literary Graffiti

ReadWriteThink: Student Materials: Literary Graffiti.

Literary Graffiti

Teaching high school students to visualize what they are reading and to create graphic symbols helps them develop as readers.

 The Literary Graffiti interactive combines the process of drawing with analytical thinking about a text by pairing an online drawing space with writing prompts (shown at left) that encourage students to make connections between their visual designs and the text. The tool can be used for whole-class discussion of a text, small-group work, or individually, where students use "graffiti," symbols, drawings, shapes, and colors to construct a graphic of the text they are reading. After completing their individual or group images, students have the ability to print out their final versions for feedback and assessment.

Balancing act with books -- chicagotribune.com

Balancing act with books -- chicagotribune.com.

Balancing act with books Schools try to find right mix to keep students interested By Tara Malone | Chicago Tribune reporter

October 19, 2008 English teacher Jason Baker tries to hook his students on such giants of American literature as Hawthorne and Hemingway by conjuring the authors' timeless images of a scorned single mother or a love-struck soldier.

But the portrayals end decades before his students were born—a gap he and other teachers hope to narrow by rethinking their reading lists. "Macbeth" isn't going anywhere. Nor are literary staples like "The Great Gatsby" and "Lord of the Flies." But more contemporary works such as Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club" or David Guterson's "Snow Falling on Cedars" are edging into classrooms as educators try to balance the classics with works whose tone and theme are more accessible to today's teenagers.

The push has become more urgent because research shows many students are shelving books altogether. The percent of 17-year-olds who do not read for pleasure has doubled in the past 20 years, according to a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Just 43 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said they read literature in 2002, continuing a decline that began two decades earlier. "We're talking [about reading] a play, short story, novel or poem in the last 12 months. . . . It's a low bar. We're not even saying you had to complete the book," said Sunil Iyengar, the group's director of research and analysis.

The drop in how much teens read outside of class has spurred changes in what they read inside it, teachers say. Many educators pair old novels with newer books or media—comparing "Romeo and Juliet" with a hip-hop song about unrequited love, for example. "There's always a conflict between what kids want to read and what they read in school," said Alleen Nilsen, an Arizona State University English professor and textbook author. "My philosophy . . . is that those lists in high school were made in my parents' generation, when only 10 to 20 percent of kids when to college."

Lit2Go: Download audio literature files

Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse has created another useful service, Lit2Go

This is one more step towards emphasizing the audio/performance aspect of literature where students listen to or perform literature.

You and your students can download Mp3 file from their free online collection of literary passages.  You and your students can search this collection by author, title, keywords, or reading level.  Each passage has an abstract, citation, playing time, and word count.  You can also download PDF files of the passages, something that would be useful to provide students with material for writing papers about particular authors, topics, themes, or literary periods.

The fact that these passages can be downloaded to iTunes means that students can listen to these passages on their iPod/Mp3 players.  They could also incorporate clips of these files (under fair-use) into podcasts about certain texts, authors, topics, or themes using podcasting editing programs like Audacity or Garageband. 

Poetry International Web - Introduction to PIW

Poetry International Web - Introduction to PIW.

Welcome to Poetry International Web, a worldwide forum for poetry on the internet.

PIW brings you news, essays, interviews and discussion, but, first and foremost, hundreds of poems by acclaimed modern poets from all around the world, both in the original language and in English translation.

In keeping with the spirit of the web, it is a truly international collaboration of at present more than twenty editors in more than twenty different countries – you will find them in the drop-down menu to the left. Each of these countries maintains its own national domain within PIW, with its chosen “Poet(s) of the Quarter”, interviews and other relevant articles.

The Poetry International Foundation in Rotterdam has provided a substantial amount of the poems from its archive, as well as an interesting collection of video material, Camera Poetica. The Defence of Poetry lecture series, given and simultaneously published on-line during the annual Poetry International Festival, invites poets of world-renown to defend their discipline. We hope that you’ll accept our invitation au voyage, have a long and enjoyable journey, and will bring some new acquaintances home with you.

TheStar.com | News | Read novels, be smarter

TheStar.com | News | Read novels, be smarter.

Read novels, be smarter

 Fiction appears to stimulate something in your brain that improves `social intelligence' Aug 10, 2008 Sam Kornell Special to the Star

Gurov is a failed opera singer who lives in Moscow and works in a bank. He dislikes and fears his wife, and is a practised philanderer. Alone in Yalta on vacation, he meets Anna, a young woman. Anna is also alone on vacation, and like Gurov is unhappy with her spouse, whom she considers a flunky. The two begin an affair. The affair lasts longer, and acquires more complexity, than either anticipated. That, in a nutshell, is "The Lady With The Dog," a 27-page short story written by the Russian author Anton Chekhov in 1899.

Knowing it, do feel any smarter? No? According to researchers at the University of Toronto, that's because you didn't get to read the actual text. Had you done that, they say, your "social intelligence" would have been measurably elevated. In fact, they contend that reading fiction – of any sort – will make you smarter. "For the first time in history there is now scientific evidence that reading fiction has psychological benefits," writes Keith Oatley in New Scientist.

Oatley is a professor of psychology and the leader of the Toronto team. He is also an award-winning novelist (The Case of Emily V.). On the phone from the University of Toronto, he explains that reading fiction appears to stimulate parts of the brain that govern empathy. "What you're doing when you're reading fiction is you're allowing yourself to become another person for a short period of time ... It loosens up your personality, your rigidities."

Oatley and his team ran a combination of experiments to arrive at this conclusion. First, they assembled a sample group split evenly between people who like and dislike fiction. Both groups took a series of diagnostic tests to determine their social acumen; the fiction readers, they found, demonstrated "substantially greater empathy" than their counterparts. But which came first, the chicken or the egg? Could it be that people who are naturally more socially intelligent gravitate toward fiction, that their affinity for novels is an expression, not a cause, of their talent for empathy?

To answer, the researchers came up with another experiment, this one involving Chekhov. First, researcher Maja Djikic wrote a "control" version of "The Lady With The Dog." Written in a documentary style, it was the same length as the original, described the same events and, crucially, was rated just as interesting by Group A, which read the control version, as Group B's rating of the actual text. Before and after the reading, both groups filled out questionnaires that evaluated their personality traits and emotions. "We found that people who read the Chekhov story underwent larger changes in personality than those who read the control text – although the types of changes varied from person to person," Oatley wrote in New Scientist. "We think that readers found it easier to identify with the characters in the literary story than in the documentary version. By empathizing with these characters, they became a bit more like them – but each in their own way." Oatley declined to speculate much further. He pointed out that similar experiments using video games or movies instead of Russian literature could very well produce comparable results. And he freely admitted to the many questions his findings do not resolve.

Will a short story by Chekhov produce the same result as a Tom Clancy airport thriller? In which is one more likely to gather knowledge about people: a pop novel or a literary memoir? And what about a piece of writing that purports to be non-fiction but is actually in large part made up – � la James Frey – or a piece of fiction that is actually a barely concealed recitation of things actual people actually did?