History of Reading News. Vol.XXV No.2 (2002:Spring)

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education, writes: “The year 2001 was a busy one for me. I traveled over 80,000 miles giving speeches or participating in advisory meetings on adult literacy education in the United Kingdom (2 trips), Canada (2 trips), New Zealand, France, and the United States (Ohio, Washington D.C., Idaho, Tennessee, Florida and New York). I had one book chapter published, finished writing one book chapter that is in press, and got another one in first draft. I wrote two articles that were published in professional journals in Canada and the United Kingdom; I was interviewed about adult basic skills education in three newspapers, one TV and one radio show. Finally, I turned 65 and have officially retired. The year 2002 should be much less hectic.”

Harvey J. Graff, University of Texas at San Antonio, was recently awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the University of Linkoping, Sweden, for scholarly contributions. He is author of the book Alfabetismo di massa: mito storia realta (an Italian translation) in a series on the history of literacy. Graff has also recently published several articles including “The Shock of the ‘New Histories’: Social Science Histories and Historical Literacies”; “Literacy’s Myths and Legacies,” in Anarcho-Modernism: Toward a New Critical Theory. In Honour of Jer Zaslove; “Literacy,” in The Oxford Companion to United States History; and “Literacy’s Myths and Legacies: From Lessons from the History of Literacy, to the Question of Critical Literacy,” in Difference, Silence and Textual Practice: Studies in Critical Literacy. [For bibliographical information contact Graff at hgraff@utsa.edu.] Graff is also coordinator of “Literacy, Religion, Gender, and Social History: A Socio-Cultural History for the 21st Century, an International Conference for Egil Johansson,” to be held in Vadstena, Sweden, in May 2002.

P. David Pearson recently assumed the position of dean of the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley. He reports that, with Bob Calfee serving as dean at UC Riverside, 40 percent of the education deans in the UC system are members of the Reading Hall of Fame.

Grace Vyduna Haskins reports that in October 2001 she did a presentation on spelling for the Illinois Branch of the International Dyslexia Association and in February of 2002 gave three presentations on spelling for the Wisconsin Association of Christian Schools Convention. Grace and her daughter, Judy Krueger, have just completed a notebook of 84 blackline masters entitled “Creative Coloring Concepts,” which encompass a variety of goals and purposes for first-grade teachers and learners.

Lucille Schultz, University of Cincinnati, with Jean Ferguson Carr and Steve Carr, is working on a book-length project called Rereading 19th-Century Schoolbooks: Rhetorics, Readers, and Composition Books. They have signed an advance contract with Southern Illinois University Press.

Norman A. Stahl, Northern Illinois University, as Historian for NRC, coordinated a poster session of oral histories of notable members of the profession at the National Reading Conference in San Antonio, Texas, during December. The presentation continues the efforts of the NRC Oral History Project.

Elizabeth U. Patterson, University of Texas at Austin, reports she is currently working with Jim Hoffman, her mentor from graduate school, in a Reading Specialization program at UT. She is supervising student teachers and creating a networking system for the student teachers and cooperating teachers across Austin. Her profile on Bill Martin, Jr., is to be published in Language Arts in 2002.

Joseph Zimmer, St. Bonaventure University, writes: “This past year I was appointed to the position of Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Education at St. Bonaventure University. In that role, I supervise the delivery of nine graduate programs to our students. I had a book review of Deborah Brandt's book, Literacy in American Lives, published in the February 2002 issue of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and I am working on a article dealing with how reading professionals can interpret articles about reading that appear in popular magazines in an historical context.” Also, Joe will begin coediting the History of Reading News beginning in the fall.

Phyllis Schantz, University of Texas at Austin, will be defending her dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin in April. The title is “The First Grade Studies in Retrospect,” and it contextualizes the studies through a review of the literature, presents the memories and retrospective views of the living primary researchers, and relates the findings to the current controversies about beginning reading instruction.

Ollievita Williams writes: “I am a doctoral student who is interested in preserving the history of literacy. I am proposing doing this via a Virtual Literacy Museum. A virtual museum is an electronic museum you find on the web and is an organized collection of electronic artifacts and information resources. The collection can include paintings, drawings, photographs, diagrams, graphs, recordings, video segments, newspaper articles, transcripts of interviews, numerical data bases, and a host of other items that can be saved on the virtual museum’s file saver. The Virtual Literacy Museum would allow world-wide access to research and best practices in literacy. We could see and hear scholars in the field discuss their research, we could view quilts used during the time of slavery that were read by runaway slaves directing them to freedom, we could visit a balanced literacy classroom. I am interested in whether readers feel this is a worthwhile project and what research, artifacts, people and ideas should be included in it. I value your input and invite you to contact me at williamso@rowan.edu.”

Charles Monaghan, Brooklyn, has received a Gilder Lehrman fellowship to study literacy textbooks of the Early Republic at the George A. Plimpton Textbook Collection of Columbia University. Monaghan presented two papers on the 19th-century textbook author Lyman Cobb. “Cobb as Entrepreneur” was given to the Economic and Business History Society in Albany, New York, in April. The paper dealt with Cobb’s attempt to regain the copyrights of his books. “From the Eighteenth-Century London Stage to the Nineteenth-Century American Classroom: The Rise and Fall of Elocution” was delivered to the Society for Historians of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) in Williamsburg, Virginia, in July. The paper dealt with the influence of the British elocutionist John Walker on Cobb.

E. Jennifer Monaghan, Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College of CUNY, reports that she has just completed entries on Jeanne S. Chall and Noah Webster for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Education (forthcoming). She has also completed a chapter on how girls used their literacy in the colonial period; it will be the first chapter of Girls and Literacy, a work for undergraduates with primary source material being edited by Jane Greer and published by ABC-CLIO. Jennifer, Doug Hartman, and Charles Monaghan have an article titled “History of Reading Instruction” in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Literacy edited by Barbara Guzzetti. Jennifer’s article, “Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial New England” has been reprinted in The Book History Reader, edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery (Routledge, 2001). Thanks to Arlene Barry, University of Kansas, and Arlene’s chairperson Philip McKnight, Jennifer will be teaching a graduate course on literacy and culture this June at the University of Kansas.

Sarah Wadsworth, Carleton College, reports that her “Reading the Marketplace: The Culture of the Book in Nineteenth-Century America” has been accepted by University of Massachusetts Press for inclusion in its Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book. Her next project, coauthored with Wayne Wiegand of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and tentatively called “Right Here I See My Own Books” is a history and analysis of the Woman Building Library of the 1893 World‚ Columbian Exposition. Sarah’s essay, “Reading the Marketplace: The Biography of a Book-Length Study in the History of Reading,” will appear in the fall 2002 issue of the History of Reading News.

Steven Lynch, Pontiac Junior High School, is currently writing his doctoral dissertation, “Reading in the One- Room Schoolhouses of Livingston County, Illinois: 1830-1945.” His review of Country School Memories: An Oral History of One-Room Schooling by Robert L. Leight and Alice Duffy Rinehart (1999) will appear in the fall 2002 issue of the History of Reading News.

Jim King, University of South Florida, reports that he recently completed an advanced graduate course in oral history (as a student) where, as a group, the class conducted an oral history of the Anthropology Department at USF. He also completed an oral history of Dr. Al Lowe, USF retired, which he presented at NRC. Plus, Jim has completed the first draft of a web page for the National Oral History in Literacy Project (www.coedu.usf.edu/clar/king).

Richard Robinson, University of Missouri-Columbia, has recently had published by IRA the book, Classics in Literacy Education: Historical Perspectives for Today’s Teachers (2002). The book presents the literacy views of several important past teachers of reading on current topics of interest to practicing classroom teachers. He also has appearing in an upcoming issue of The Reading Teacher a short test titled, “Do You Know Your Literacy History?” Additionally, Dick is teaching for the first time a graduate seminar in the History of Reading.

Avon Crismore, Indiana University-Purdue University, is continuing her research on the effects of metadiscourse use on students’ and adults’ reading comprehension, attitudes, and reader-based writing. She is conducting research on the effects of visuals in biology classrooms on students in scholarly journals and conferences on scholars. Avon is writing a research report on teaching oral and written English over the years and today in Burma (Myanmar).

James R. Squire, Xerox and Harvard Graduate School (retired), is working as a consultant on reading and language arts instruction and curriculum for grade levels K-College.

Luther B. Clegg, Texas Christian University, has been invited to join the review staff of The Horn Book Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Books, published twice a year by The Horn Book Magazine.