Remembering rhetoric: recalling a tradition of explicit instruction in writing

Modern secondary courses in English differ from classical tradition in their tendency to avoid direct instruction in the content and style of writing. Such avoidance is partly a function of anxieties about the role of English in students\u27 personal development and a fear of limiting their self expression. Neither of the dominant writing pedagogies from the last 50 years wholly escapes this problem. A historical consideration of the issue suggests that fears surrounding explicit instruction arise from a range of misperceptions about writing and English. Modern writing pedagogy may therefore be improved by an acquaintance with traditions of explicit instruction, as found in classical training regimes. Such knowledge would furnish teachers with an additional array of instructional techniques

A large discourse concerning algebra: John Wallis's 1685 <i>Treatise of algebra</i>

A treatise of algebra historical and practical (London 1685) by John Wallis (1616-1703) was the first full length history of algebra. In four hundred pages Wallis explored the development of algebra from its appearances in Classical, Islamic and medieval cultures to the modern forms that had evolved by the end of the seventeenth century. Wallis dwelt especially on the work of his countrymen and contemporaries, Oughtred, Harriot, Pell, Brouncker and Newton, and on his own contribution to the emergence of algebra as the common language of mathematics. This thesis explores why and how A treatise of algebra was written, and the sources Wallis used. It begins by analysing Wallis's account of mathematical learning in medieval England, never previously investigated. In his researches on the origins and spread of the numeral system Wallis was at his best as a historian, and initiated many modern historiographical techniques. His summary of algebra in Renaissance Europe was less detailed, but for Wallis this part of the story set the scene for the English flowering that was to be his main theme. The influence of Oughtred's Clavis on Wallis and his contemporaries, and Wallis's efforts to promote the book, are explored in detail. Wallis's controversial account of Harriot's algebra is also examined and it is argued that it was better founded than has sometimes been supposed and that Wallis had direct access to Harriot's algebra through Pell. Many other chapters of A treatise of algebra contain mathematics that can be linked or traced to Pell, a hitherto unsuspected secret of the book. The later chapters of the thesis, like the final part of A treatise of algebra, explore Wallis's Arithmetica infinitorum and the work which arose from it up to Newton's foundation of modern analysis, and include a discussion of Brouncker's treatment of the number challenges set by Fermat. The thesis ends with a summary of contemporary and later reactions to A treatise of algebra and an assessment of Wallis's view of algebra and its history

Free Culture and the Digital Library Symposium Proceedings 2005: Proceedings of a Symposium held on October 14, 2005 at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Outlines the themes and contributions of the Free Culture and the Digital Library Symposium.The article provides a summary of the conflict of interests between those who seek to preserve ashared commons of information for society and those who seek to commodify information. Iintroduce a theoretical framework called Transmediation to help explain the changes in mediathat society is currently experiencing

Culture, worldview and transformative philosophy of mathematics education in Nepal: a cultural-philosophical inquiry

This thesis portrays my multifaceted and emergent inquiry into the protracted problem of culturally decontextualised mathematics education faced by students of Nepal, a culturally diverse country of south Asia with more than 90 language groups. I generated initial research questions on the basis of my history as a student of primary, secondary and university levels of education in Nepal, my Master’s research project, and my professional experiences as a teacher educator working in a university of Nepal between 2004 and 2006. Through an autobiographical excavation of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education, I came up with several emergent research questions, leading to six key themes of this inquiry: (i) hegemony of the unidimensional nature of mathematics as a body of pure knowledge, (ii) unhelpful dualisms in mathematics education, (iii) disempowering reductionisms in curricular and pedagogical aspects, (iv) narrowly conceived ‘logics’ that do not account for meaningful lifeworld-oriented thinking in mathematics teaching and learning, (v) uncritical attitudes towards the image of curriculum as a thing or object, and (vi) narrowly conceived notions of globalisation, foundationalism and mathematical language that give rise to a decontextualised mathematics teacher education program.With these research themes at my disposal my aim in this research was twofold. Primarily, I intended to explore, explain and interpret problems, issues and dilemmas arising from and embedded in the research questions. Such an epistemic activity of articulation was followed by envisioning, an act of imagining futures together with reflexivity, perspectival language and inclusive vision logics.In order to carry out both epistemic activities – articulating and envisioning – I employed a multi-paradigmatic research design space, taking on board mainly the paradigms of criticalism, postmodernism, interpretivism and integralism. The critical paradigm offered a critical outlook needed to identify the research problem, to reflect upon my experiences as a mathematics teacher and teacher educator, and to make my lifetime’s subjectivities transparent to readers, whereas the paradigm of postmodernism enabled me to construct multiple genres for cultivating different aspects of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education. The paradigm of interpretivism enabled me to employ emergence as the hallmark of my inquiry, and the paradigm of integralism acted as an inclusive meta-theory of the multi-paradigmatic design space for portraying my vision of an inclusive mathematics education in Nepal.Within this multi-paradigmatic design space, I chose autoethnography and small p philosophical inquiry as my methodological referents. Autoethnography helped generate the research text of my cultural-professional contexts, whereas small p philosophical inquiry enabled me to generate new knowledge via a host of innovative epistemologies that have the goal of deepening understanding of normal educational practices by examining them critically, identifying underpinning assumptions, and reconstructing them through scholarly interpretations and envisioning. Visions cultivated through this research include: (i) an inclusive and multidimensional image of the nature of mathematics as an im/pure knowledge system, (ii) the metaphors of thirdspace and dissolution for conceiving an inclusive mathematics education, (iii) a multilogical perspective for morphing the hegemony of reductionism-inspired mathematics education, (iv) an inclusive image of mathematics curriculum as montage that provides a basis for incorporating different knowledge systems in mathematics education, and (v) perspectives of glocalisation, healthy scepticism and multilevel contextualisation for constructing an inclusive mathematics teacher education program