Looking at the text, continued.

I am having a lot of fun looking more closely at the texts I am working with from the SRU graduate reading program & considering decisions researchers made...which lead to representation, then practice as delivered to the reading program students (this is my 2nd grad degree...the first, in Sustainable Systems, was interestingly, a whole different world research...which I'd like to explore in a post down the road).

In one course, we are looking at the concept of "coaching" and how literacy coaches augment coursework in K-12 schools. Much like the listserv post on the decisions, in recent years, to change the ways English Language Learners are taught to include prior literary and language experiences to augment the teaching of English, rather than immerse students in English only classes, an emphasis on this class is the community/ literacy connection...and how power structures among schools, students, parents create complex and sometimes troubling dynamics in the positioning of literacy in students' lives (a topic covered this extensively in Pam's class too). The last class offered practices to make the divide more integrated...including parents in classrooms, helping to make decisions in some policies, offering, in some communities, courses at the school from which parents might benefit (computer courses) etc. This positioning of practice as embedded in an awareness of social practices of both school and home is extremely intriguing...and is certainly something I'd be willing to try out --but, of course, I want to understand why the field has moved in this direction.
A search on the International Reading Association's publication Reading Research, led to a title "Analyzing Epistemological Considerations Related to Diversity: An Integrative Critical Literature Review of Family Literacy Scholarship." (Compton-Lilly, Rogers, Lewis) seems a start. Interesting, how I am viewing this document now. A cruise through the subheadings:

Introduction - Including the following quotes which jumped out at me:
"Therefore, in this review we ask the following questions:

• How has diversity been addressed and treated in family literacy scholarship?
• What epistemological stances are discernible in family literacy scholarship?" and:"We begin by presenting a brief and general review of family literacy, highlighting historical family literacy initiatives in the United States—public and private—as well as family literacy initiatives around the world. This review provides a sense of the political context within which family literacy developed and reveals some of the historical tensions that have characterized family literacy scholarship in the United States and abroad. We then explore various epistemological stances that operate in scholarship related to diversity. Insights from this analysis will be applied to family literacy scholarship later in the article. Next, we describe the methodological processes used in the current review and delineate the analytic processes used. Findings from three analyses of diversity are then presented. In the final section, we argue that epistemological awareness offers possibilities for family literacy scholars to reflect on their own work and strategically support families."

We view these two questions as intimately related. After addressing them and presenting our review, we end by addressing the question, What does an analysis of epistemological foundations offer family literacy scholars and practitioners?

A Brief History of Family Literacy Politics and Programs;
A Theoretical Framework: Epistemological Considerations in Diversity Scholarship (modernist epistemological ASSUMPTIONS and diversity scholarship/ postmodernist epistemological ASSUMPTIONS and diversity scholarship); Approaches to Diversity in Education (Freirian Pedagogy, Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Critical Race theory);
Method: Data Collection and Analysis
Findings: (representations - tables -
Sample Table:

Table 2. Twenty-Eight Most Cited Scholars in Reviews of Family Literacy

Number of citations	Dates of works cited	Name	Methods/theory	Focus
46	1982–1995	Shirley Brice Heath	Qualitative ethnography	Language and literacy practices

Another sample table:

Analysis of Comprehensive, Edited Volumes

We analyzed the tables of contents, introductory materials, and editorial statements of nine comprehensive, edited volumes that focused specifically on family literacy. These volumes clustered around three periods: 1995 and 1996 (Benjamin & Lord, 1996; Morrow, 1995b), 2003–2005 (Anderson, Kendrick, Rogers, & Smythe, 2005; DeBruin-Parecki & Krol-Sinclair, 2003b; Gregory, Long, & Volk, 2004; Wasik, 2004a), and 2009 and 2010 (Dantas & Manyak, 2010; Dunsmore & Fisher, 2010; Li, 2009; see Table 3).

Table 3. Sections and Chapters of Comprehensive, Edited Volumes

Text	Organization of the volume	Chapter foci relevant to this article	Populations addressed
Note. ESOL = English for speakers of other languages; SES = socioeconomic status.
Morrow, L.M. (Ed.). (1995). Family literacy: Connections in schools and communities. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.	Foreword and 20 chapters within three sections: • Perspectives on Family Literacy • Family Literacy Practices • Developing New Practices: Research and Perspectives	• Eight describe family literacy programs. • Two address local contexts.	• Adolescent mothers • Teenagers

Discussion;


And, of course, the Reference page. I won't go into all of the findings here, but feel oddly recast...as though I am really starting to normalize this research lense into anything I'm asked to do as a practioner (or a student training to practice). Suddenly, this short lesson on "family literacy" becomes a wide open discussion of where this concept came from, how it has moved through time (and place). The lesson we did last week, which I submitted and got credit for, explodes out of the "completed assignment" status I'd been happy enough to place it in before. This reminds me of a group of students I had in the past, when we were learning rhetorical strategies and worked with texts they saw each day -- a group returned after Christmas break saying, "we can't just sit there and watch tv anymore...we're always analyzing everything. Argh!"
Well, perhaps with less of the "argh" I feel the same.