You can already access the video of the speech delivered by Dr. Paula Carlino (CONICET – University of Buenos Aires), “Reading and writing with epistemic goals”

The video recording of the speech that Dr. Paula Carlino (CONICET-University of Buenos Aires) delivered within the M.A. in Specific Didactics programme at the Faculty of Education (University of Valencia) has just been published.

The event was organised by the research group GIEL, and its full title already hints at its content: “Reading and writing with epistemic goals across different subjects: questioning their transparency in order to turn them into learning tools, teaching objects, and research issues”.

http://mmedia.uv.es/buildhtml?user=ruluises&path=/facmagisteri/&name=confpaulacarlino.mp4

What is the place of reading and writing in Secondary and higher education within the different subjects whose main goal is not teaching students to read and write? Do teachers promote the use of reading and writing as learning tools in class or do they use these just as tasks for the evaluation of course contents? Are reading and writing considered tools under construction, so that they are gradually and carefully included within each subject, or are students at these educational stages supposed to not require pedagogical support to read and write, because they are assumed to have learnt to do both already? Are specific study procedures related to reading and writing contemplated within each subject or are these simply demanded from students?

Dr. Carlino first contrasted the most frequent conceptualizations of reading and writing with academic purposes in her research: the most popular everyday conceptualizations versus the most frequent definitions emerging in the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) literature, in academic literacies, and in the teaching of language as communication. Secondly, she reported on different studies conducted by members of her research group (Grupo para la Inclusión y Calidad Educativas a través de Ocuparnos de la Lectura y la Escritura en todas las Materias, GICEOLEM). Following this second conceptualization of reading and writing, these studies scrutinize the ways in which reading and writing to learn can be integrated as educational activities in non-linguistic subjects in Secondary and higher education coupled with exploring the effects and challenges of such enterprise. To that end, these studies use questionnaires, interviews, participant observation in the classroom setting, didactic co-design, and self-confrontation with one’s own performance.

Dr. Carlino is the director of the group GICEOLEM, which is formed by researchers and practitioners from different fields, whose research objectives focus on the relationships between teaching, learning, reading and writing in different subjects in Secondary education, and university at graduate and post-graduate levels. Her experience as a lecturer within the program Learning Theories at the National University of San Martin (NUSAM) in Buenos Aires is reflected in the collection of proposals on academic literacy she offers in her book Escribir, leer y aprender en la universidad (published by Fondo de Cultura Económica), which received the Best Book in Education –Didactic Project– award in 2005.