Systemic functional linguistics and the teaching of literature in urban school classrooms.

In this current era of rapid demographic shifts and high stakes school reform, studies that explore the academic and social responses of students to critical language pedagogies are very much needed as resources for education policymakers and teachers. Through a combined ethnographic and systemic functional linguistic approach, this study explores the textual and classroom process of 5th-grade Puerto Rican students engaged in a SFL-based curricular unit on literature. Three interrelated questions guide the research: how SFL-based pedagogy supports students in developing an understanding of how to write literature and to accomplish social and political goals; and on a wider level, how institutional policies and practices constrain and facilitate teachers in developing such pedagogies. To address these issues, the dissertation draws on a critical sociocultural theory of language and literacy that sees language as a semiotic process and text as a web of previous texts and contexts woven together for a specific communicative purpose. To analyze ethnographic and classroom data, the study draws on concepts from Bloome and Egan Robertson (1993), Dyson (1997, 2003), and Keene and Zimmermann (1997). The comparative SFL analysis of literary source texts and students\u27 writing is based on the work of Eggins (2004), Halliday and Matthiesen (2004), and Thompson (1996). Analysis of the data reveals that students in this SFL-based curricular unit learned in very different ways to interweave patterns of meaning from literary source texts into their literary and other academic writing. Furthermore, the students\u27 access to a wide variety of literature and scaffolding activities afforded them different entry points into literature that resonated most strongly for each of them (Dyson, 2003). On an ethnographic level, a history of school-university-partnerships and school reform initiatives in the research site facilitated teachers\u27 implementation of critical language-based curricula. Implications of this study for K–12 practitioners and researchers are discussed at length. They include the importance of the explicit use of intertextuality in heightening students\u27 awareness of language as a pliable repertoire of choices and the crucial role school-university alliances need to play in supporting teachers and students in urban school classrooms

Entangled Trade: Peaceful Spanish-Osage Relations in the Missouri River Valley, 1763-1780

This thesis examines peaceful Spanish-Osage and Spanish-Missouri relations with an emphasis on the period 1763-1780. Using specific primary source documentation, this study highlights frequent reports from Lieutenant-Governors stationed at St. Louis concerning the thriving fur trade and positive Osage economic exchanges with Spanish-licensed traders. The multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial inhabitants and the entangled nature of trade and political interactions in the Missouri River Valley region, specifically in the Upper Louisiana capital, St. Louis, complicated and sometimes undermined peace. During this period, however, the Spanish, Osage, and Missouri nations, sought to overcome these misunderstandings and emphasized instead the mutual benefits of trade and peace. The findings of this thesis challenge the characterization of the Osage as warlike and violent and demonstrate that the Osage understanding of belonging and the use of fictive kinship ties established between St. Louis and the Osage made peace possible in this region

Research and Praxis on Challenging Anti-immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts

Recently, harsh immigration policies have made the lives of the new immigrant Diaspora in the Southeastern United States extremely challenging. Disturbed by the impact of these sociopolitical changes on students, their families, and their teachers, as multicultural educators, we have turned for help to recent research and praxis from the U.S. and Europe that overtly challenges anti-immigration discourse. We examine two theoretical perspectives that can support educators in talking back and acting against anti-immigration discourses and practices in schools and communities. We provide cases of our own work in the southeastern United States to test the value of these theories.Recientemente, las políticas migratorias punitivas han hecho muy difícil la vida de la nueva diáspora de inmigrantes en el sureste de Estados Unidos. Preocupadas por el impacto de estos cambios sociopolíticos en los estudiantes, sus familias, sus maestros, como educadoras multiculturales hemos buscado apoyarnos en las prácticas e investigaciones recientes en Estados Unidos y Europa que desafian abiertamente los discursos antiinmigrantes. Examinamos dos perspectivas teóricas que pueden ayudar a los docentes a responder y actuar en contra de los discursos y prácticas antiimigrantes en las escuelas y las comunidades. Utilizamos casos de nuestro propio trabajo en el sureste de los Estados Unidos para probar el valor de estas teorías

Tracing the tensions surrounding understandings of agency and knowledge in technology design

The literature suggests that prevailing understandings of the makeup of design knowledge and agency in producing design knowledge in technology is not helpful for design processes and its practitioners. Tensions arise within processes of designing, when design knowledge is understood as objective, whilst subjectivity is experienced in the research methods employed. In the same time, knowledge production is pursued in an individualist manner, where the situated nature of knowing as an interplay of factors, likely reaching beyond personal traits and human intention, is not acknowledged. In this way, design processes are currently working against their inherent potential with likely effects on designers and subsequently design outcomes. The arising tensions cause issues for practitioners, who are stuck in between an objectivity demand and experienced subjectivity, without an alternative conception of their work. Practice-oriented conceptualisations of social dynamics, how things are, and come to be, as well as existing research in consumption practices and sustainable design, have shown that agency and knowing conceptualised as emerging from practice might reconcile this tension. It is therefore that we argue for a reconceptualization of the makeup of knowledge and agency in knowledge production, so that these advancements in conceptualising practices can be of service to the technology design discipline

Highlighting issues in current conceptions of user experience design through bringing together ideas from HCI and social practice theory

A socio-technical reconceptualisation of use, and the active roles of the material and users in design prompt us to question professional designers’ roles and agencies within the wider realm of social (re)production. This paper focuses on bringing together key concepts of UX design and theories of practice, and pointing out some challenges that lie ahead of professional designers in the conception of their work. Theories used in HCI and historical legacies of production models may limit a full conception of ‘experience’ – or a locating of the social ‘motor’– that can bring change about, as well as ‘hide’ other factors that make up professional design. We argue that there are limitations with current theories underlying design practice, and that the commonly conceived concept of agency in design and use, and the ontological place allocations of the professional designer and the user in the mechanisms of social (re)production need to be revisited. An investigation of professional designing as a social practice can serve the purpose to illustrate alternative conceptions of agency in professional designing, and help designers to be more aware of the social dynamics in their work

Rethinking design: from the methodology of innovation to the object of design

The design literature theorizes design as the methodology of innovation, supposedly required for mediating the world’s separate entities, such as theory and practice, the human and the material, and subjective and objective knowing, coming “naturally” with the designer’s ways of knowing. But instead of taking such naturalizations for granted, we argue that through such positioning of design the specifics of design activity are obscured, along with the locations designers take within them. We propose that “design as a methodology” is an object produced by design. Investigating this object of design, and how it is made, will make visible what design activity is, and what locations the designers take within them.<br

Angular-Rate Estimation Using Quaternion Measurements

In most spacecraft (SC) there is a need to know the SC angular rate. Precise angular rate is required for attitude determination, and a coarse rate is needed for attitude control damping. Classically, angular rate information is obtained from gyro measurements. These days, there is a tendency to build smaller, lighter and cheaper SC, therefore the inclination now is to do away with gyros and use other means and methods to determine the angular rate. The latter is also needed even in gyro equipped satellites when performing high rate maneuvers whose angular-rate is out of range of the on board gyros or in case of gyro failure. There are several ways to obtain the angular rate in a gyro-less SC. When the attitude is known, one can differentiate the attitude in whatever parameters it is given and use the kinematics equation that connects the derivative of the attitude with the satellite angular-rate and compute the latter. Since SC usually utilize vector measurements for attitude determination, the differentiation of the attitude introduces a considerable noise component in the computed angular-rate vector

EFL chinese students and high stakes expository writing: a theme analysis

The expository essay in English is a key gatekeeping milestone as students seek to move from one level of schooling to the next (Schleppegrell, 2004). Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study analyzes a Chinese college student's expository essay written on a nationwide English examination in China. Two aspects of theme in the textual metafunction will be examined: theme markedness and theme progression (Eggins, 1994; Halliday, 1994). These components are further explored through a parallel analysis of an expository essay written by a North American freshman. This comparative theme analysis highlights areas in pedagogy that should be attended to if EFL students are to get more sophisticated control over important features of expository writing.El ensayo expositivo en inglés es un paso importante para estudiantes que quieren avanzar en su nivel de estudios (Schleppegrell2004). El marco teórico asociado con la Lingüística Sistémica Funcional (SFL por sus siglas en inglés), es utilizado en este estudio para analizar el ensayo expositivo de un estudiante chino requerido para un examen de carácter nacional en China. Dos aspectos temáticos de la metafunción textual serán examinados: particularidad y progresión temática (Eggins, 1994; Halliday, 1994). Estos componentes son explorados mas profundamente a través de un análisis paralelo de un texto de las mismas características funcionales y de contenido escrito por un estudiante de primer año en una universidad de Estados Unidos. El análisis temático comparativo revela áreas pedagógicas que deberían tenerse en cuenta para que los estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera puedan tener un control más sofisticado de las características más importantes de textos expositivos

EFL Chinese Students and High Stakes Expository Writing: A Theme Analysis

The expository essay in English is a key gatekeeping milestone as students seek to move from one level of schooling to the next (Schleppegrell, 2004). Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study analyzes a Chinese college student's expository essay written on a nationwide English examination in China. Two aspects of theme in the textual metafunction will be examined: theme markedness and theme progression (Eggins, 1994; Halliday, 1994). These components are further explored through a parallel analysis of an expository essay written by a North American freshman. This comparative theme analysis highlights areas in pedagogy that should be attended to if EFL students are to get more sophisticated control over important features of expository writing