THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2023/2024

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Moray House School of Education and Sport : Education

Postgraduate Course: Teaching texts across borders - from picture books to teenage fiction and film (EDUA11206)

Course Outline
SchoolMoray House School of Education and Sport CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe cultural artefacts including literature, film or multimodal texts produced by societies worldwide for their glocal citizens are worthy of investigation because they reveal much about a society's ideology, aspirations and the complex relationships between text and reader. This course is suitable for both practising language educators and for others with an interest in culture and intercultural communication. The course will give participants the opportunity to investigate the way in which text - of any kind - is situated in socio cultural readings. Participants will have the opportunity to investigate and discuss
critical and intercultural theory in relation to texts; they will develop an understanding of and be able to analyse the different polemics within this area and they will develop an understanding of the relationship between this aspect of studying text and related areas within language education studies.
Course description Course Description
1) Academic Description
The course will give participants the opportunity to investigate the way in which cultural texts - including multimodal artefacts - are situated in socio cultural readings. Participants will have the opportunity to investigate and discuss critical and intercultural theory in relation to such texts; they will develop an understanding of and be able to analyse the different polemics within this area and they will develop an understanding of the relationship between this aspect of studying text and explore implications for language education pedagogies. Students will further come to understand that glocal citizens of all ages are subject to an unregulated mass of information from a variety of different kinds of text from which they have to make meaning and
that language educators can enable them to do this through selecting and teaching text from a critical literacy perspective. Students will have the opportunity to investigate methods of teaching text in order to enable children, young people and adult language learners develop investment, agency and intercultural competence in schools, university and society, including globalised digital environments. Students will also consider the links between literacies and inclusiveness.
2) Outline Content
Interactive seminars will include two sessions each focussing on children's literature and picture books, young people's fiction, fillm and graphic novels, and world literature and cultural artefacts for adult language learning. Two further sessions will focus specifically on applied pedagogies for critical intercultural reading, including translation, process and product drama as a means of developing integrated language teaching and learning skills. Open access sources of published works and multimodal cultural artefacts will form the basis of the materials studied, framed within appropriate critical,
intercultural and media literacy theory and examined in the context of relevant empirical research.
3) Student Learning Experience
Students will be taught in weekly interactive seminars and encouraged to curate their own selections of texts for group learning and discussion, as well as for a microteaching task and assignment. The Course Organiser will provide both core cultural texts and theoretical readings of relevance to the weekly topics. EOLs will include student-led peer-reading activities, microteaching, posting and commenting on curated texts on shared media boards, and students will also write blogs and be invited to comment
on each others' blogs.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs Open access materials will be use wherever possible, or provided by the university library
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2023/24, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  0
Course Start Semester 2
Course Start Date 15/01/2024
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 8, Seminar/Tutorial Hours 16, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 172 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Summative Assessment
Participants will be required to produce a practice-based assignment of approximately 4000 words (100% of the assessment) presented in two parts. In part 1 (2500 words) they will be expected to discuss and evaluate critical literature that theorises aesthetic works such as fiction, film or multi-modal artefacts, and apply this to a systematic examination and critical analysis of a particular text. The second part (1500 words) is related to embedding a critical literacy approach to teaching the text examined in Part 1, and exemplifying this by the design and analysis of a lesson or series of lessons (up to 5) based on this text. The outline of the lesson should be presented in an appendix with target level of learners, objectives and LOs, stages and timings. This outline should be annotated and clearly cross-referenced with the analysis presented in Part 2, which should address the rationale for the lesson design, justification and theoretical underpinnings for the chosen text, methodology, activities and intended outcomes and an evaluation of the proposed lesson(s).

The assignment will be marked in line with the common postgraduate marking scheme set forward in the Taught Masters Generic Handbook, which students receive at the start of their studies and which is available online.

Formative assessment will be provided on the basis of a 45 mn group micro-teaching task (in learning sets of five), with oral feedback from peers and tutor. Written feedback will be given by the tutor on reflective blogs following the micro-teaching.


Feedback Oral feedback will be provided during seminars. In addition to commenting on individual reflective blogs, formative assessment will be provided on the basis of a 45 mn group micro-teaching task (in learning sets of five), with oral feedback from peers and tutor. Written feedback will be given by the tutor on reflective blogs following the microteaching.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. * read/watch and reflect critically on a variety of texts from all over the world as a resource for language education and intercultural learning
  2. * consider, analyse and question the theorising of written, multimodal and hybrid texts from picture books to graphic novels, poetry, fiction and film
  3. * understand and evaluate critically the key debates within the theorising of such texts
  4. * reflect critically on literature and artefacts from different cultures and countries
  5. * evaluate the pedagogy of teaching text and the importance of discussion in the classroom in relation to this area of the curriculum and the development of habitual, critical readers * understand and be able to demonstrate in their thinking and / or practice, relevant theories of literacy in relation to teaching texts
Reading List
Arizpe, Evelyn, Colomer, Teresa & Martínez-Roldán, Carmen, 2015. Visual Journeys Through Wordless Narratives, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Bal, M., (2017). Narratology: introduction to the theory of narrative, University of Toronto Press.

Boal, Augusto. (1979/2000). Theater of the oppressed. London: Pluto Press

Cohn, N., (2013). Visual Language of Comics, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Cook, G. (2010). Translation in Language Teaching: An Argument for Reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Corbett, John & Byram, Michael, (2003). An intercultural approach to English language teaching, Pasig City: Multilingual Matters.

Dasli, M. & Díaz, A.R., (2016). The Critical Turn in Language and Intercultural Communication Pedagogy : Theory, Research and Practice., Milton: Taylor and Francis.

Elleström, Lars, (2019) Transmedial Narration: Narratives and Stories in Different Media, New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan.

Freire, P. (1970/2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Press.

Gamble, N. (2019). Exploring Children's Literature: Reading for Knowledge, Understanding and Pleasure, SAGE LTD.

Gavins, J. (2007). Text World Theory: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Gee, James Paul, (2014). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, London: Routledge.

Gee, Paul (2015) Unified Discourse Analysis: Language, Reality, Virtual Worlds and Video Games. Routledge: Abingdon

Haven, K. (2007) Story proof: The science behind the startling power of story. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Heathcote, D. & Bolton, G.M., (1995). Drama for learning Dorothy Heathcote's mantle of the expert approach to education, Portmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Janks, Hilary et al., (2014). Doing Critical Literacy, London: Routledge.

Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kress, Gunther R. (2009). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London & New York: Routledge

Kubota, R. & Lin, A., (2009). Race, culture, and identities in second language education: exploring critically engaged practice, New York ; London: Routledge.

Lefebvre, B., (2013). Textual Transformations in Children's Literature, London: Routledge.

Levy, F., Mendlesohn, M. & Mendlesohn, Farah, (2016). Children's fantasy literature: an introduction, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Nikolajeva, M., (2014). Reading for Learning, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Piazzoli, E., (2018). Embodying Language in Action The Artistry of Process Drama in Second Language Education, Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Ramdarshan Bold, M., (2019). Inclusive Young Adult Fiction, Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Sipe, L.R., Pantaleo, S.J. (2008). Postmodern picturebooks play, parody, and self-referentiality, New York: Routledge.

Stibbe, A., 2015. Ecolinguistics: Language, ecology and the stories we live by. London: Routledge

Trier, James, (2014). Detournement As Pedagogical Praxis, Rotterdam: BRILL.

Tshurtschenthaler, H. (2013). Drama-based foreign language learning: Encounters between self and others. Munster: Waxmann.

Zipes, J. (2011). The enchanted screen: The unknown history of fairy-tale films. Routledge

Zipes, J. (2013). The irresistive fairy tale: the cultural and social history of a genre. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills "The course will enable student to develop University of Edinburgh's seven core attributes as critical and reflective thinkers, effective and influential contributors and skilled communicators. As language educators in particular they will be encouraged to develop a curiosity for learning that makes a positive difference and a passion to engage locally and globally.
This course will encourage students to develop glocal mindsets as innovative and lifelong learners, to draw on their initiative and experience to expand and fulfil their potential and to engage with the communities and world around them with an informed international perspective, seeking to contribute positively, ethically and respectfully."
Additional Class Delivery Information 2-hour weekly seminars including interactive lectures
Keywordslanguage education,interculturality,literature,multimodality,critical pedagogy,literacy
Contacts
Course organiserDr Madeleine Campbell
Tel: (0131 6)51 6044
Email: Madeleine.Campbell@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMr David Gilbert
Tel: (0131 6)51 6265
Email: david.gilbert@ed.ac.uk
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