“Only connect!”: creating connections when reading fiction and digital texts

The paper draws on work within neuroscience as well as literacy education and cognitive literary studies to examine differences between the deep reading of traditional narratives and the reading of digital media. Since game-playing, hyper-links and extended novel reading can affect how the brain develops, teachers need to understand how they can enable their pupils to develop the neural pathways that make flexibility of reading style possible. This means engaging with the impressive array of research available within the neurosciences on learning to read. The particular capacity examined is connectivity. The nature of instant access to anyone who is on-line and the use of hyperlinks are contrasted with the connectivity with fictional others proffered by the deep reading of novels, specifically fantasy series. The article concludes by calling for more sustained classroom reading as well as support for digital literacies.Este artículo se basa en el trabajo dentro de la neurociencia, así como la alfabetización y estudios literarios cognitivos para examinar las diferencias entre la profunda lectura de narrativas tradicionales y la lectura de los medios digitales. Puesto que el juego, los hipervínculos y la lectura extensiva de novelas pueden afectar el desarrollo del cerebro, los maestros necesitan entender cómo lograr que sus alumnos desarrollen las vías neurales que hagan posibles estilos flexibles de lectura. Esto significa familiarizarse con el impresionante conjunto de investigaciones disponibles dentro de las neurociencias en relación con la lectura. Más en concreto, este artículo estudia la habilidad de la conectividad. La naturaleza del acceso instantáneo a cualquier persona que esté en línea y el uso de los hipervínculos se contrastan con la conectividad con otros ficticios que nos brinda la lectura profunda de novelas, sobre todo de series de novelas de fantasía. El artículo concluye haciendo un llamamiento para una lectura más sostenida en el aula, así como para el apoyo a las alfabetizaciones digitales

Plagio mal comunicado en las escuelas suecas

Aunque el plagio tiene una historia mucho más larga, muchos profesores de inglés han observado que la cantidad de plagio ha aumentado ligado al uso de Internet. El artículo comienza con una revisión de la literatura que demuestra que, aunque se ha prestado mucha atención a los estudiantes universitarios en entornos académicos, se ha prestado poca atención al plagio en las escuelas. Otros estudios indican que el plagio es más frecuente cuando las personas escriben en su L2 y cuando trabajan con fuentes en línea. En conjunto, la revisión sugiere que es necesario realizar estudios sobre el plagio en L2 en los centros escolares, en particular estudios en los que los alumnos trabajen con fuentes en línea en lengua inglesa. El artículo presenta un estudio en el que se entrevistó a alumnos de 14 a 17 años de centros de secundaria suecos sobre el uso de textos fuente en una clase de inglés. También se entrevistó a sus profesores y a profesores de secundaria. Un análisis fenomenológico de las entrevistas reveló un desajuste entre las instrucciones de los profesores, la comprensión de las instrucciones por parte de los alumnos y la interpretación de la conducta de copia por parte de los profesores. Las opiniones de los alumnos se basaban principalmente en las razones pedagógicas dadas por sus profesores para explicar por qué no debían copiar el trabajo de otras personas, más que en ideas relacionadas con la propiedad de las ideas. Los profesores entendían las actividades principalmente en términos de copieteo y pereza.Although plagiarism has a much longer history, many teachers of English have noticed that the amount of copying has increased alongside the use of the Internet. The paper begins with a review of the literature demonstrates that although much attention has been paid to undergraduates in academic environments, little attention has been paid to plagiarism in schools. Other studies indicate that plagiarism is more common when people are writing in their L2, and when working with online sources. Combined, the review suggests that studies of L2 plagiarism in schools are needed, particularly studies where pupils are working with English language online sources.The paper reports on a study in which pupils aged 14-17 in Swedish secondary schools were interviewed about the use of source texts in an English lesson. Their teachers and High School teachers were also interviewed. A phenomenological analysis of the interviews revealed a mismatch between the teachers’ instructions, the pupils’ understanding of theinstructions and the teachers’ interpretation of copying behaviour. The pupils’ opinions were mostly based on the pedagogical reasons given by their teachers to explain why they should not copy other people’s work, rather than on ideas related to the ownership of ideas. The teachers primarily understood the activities in terms of cheating and laziness

“My Hard-Earned (Sámi) Identity”: The Hard Work of Uncomfortable Reading

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The Disgust that Fascinates: Sibling Incest as a Bad Romance

This article compares the discourse of sibling incest evident in a corpus of fiction with the discourse found in clinical, sociological and criminal literature. Whereas the former primarily regards the coupling as a bad romance, the latter presents the idea that it is unequivocally harmful. This discrepancy between the two discourses surrounding sexual relationships between brothers and sisters speaks to literary fiction’s need for thwarted romances for the purposes of the literary market. A more detailed look into three novels from the corpus, Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden (2010), Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) and Pauline Melville’s The Ventriloquist’s Tale (1997) shows how this logic of sibling incest as a bad romance works in practice.</p

Tracks to Mastering English

Siirretty Doriast

Becoming native? The wisdom of plants in Magaret Engle’s the surrender tree

This paper situates Margaret Engels’ collection of poems that form a novel, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom (2008), in both the historical context it depicts (The various wars against Spain 1850-1899) and the emerging field of human-plant studies (HPS). Noting that Cuba’s indigenous population was destroyed by genocide and imported illnesses, the paper suggests that the island itself, as portrayed in Engels’ poetry, has colluded in human politics and played an active role in determining who can lay claim to Cuban nativity. Human-plant studies provide a rationale for suggesting that, in Engels’ The Surrender Tree, the flora of the island determines the progress of the Wars of Independence. This argument is extended to crystals, which also ‘grow’ but which are not deemed to be ‘living’, to suggest that, in The Surrender Tree, it is not the people who choose their nation and fight for its independence or to maintain Cuba’s connection to an empire of nations, but rather that the island itself chooses its people.Validerad; 2016; Nivå 2; 20160304 (lydkok)</p

Phil Nel, Was The Cat in The Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books

Review/Recensio