Imagination and literacy : a teacher's search for the heart of learning / Karen Gallas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gallas, Karen.

Series:

Practitioner inquiry series

The practitioner inquiry series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Imagination.

Creative thinking.

Education--Aims and objectives.

Education.

Physical Description:

ix, 181 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Teachers College Press, [2003]

Summary:

In her newest book, teacher researcher and bestselling author Karen Gallas carefully investigates imagination in the classroom to understand its function in literacy learning. Using rich examples from her elementary classrooms, she proposes that imagination is a central, but untapped, component of learning across all subject areas -- language arts, science, social studies, and math. Getting to the heart of a theme which has been a strong undercurrent in her previous books.

Contents:

Introduction: Moving Imagination to the Center 1

Imagination and Education 3

Research Design 5

Why Imagination? 10

1 Story Time as a Magical Act 12

The Question of Story Time 12

The Setting 14

Denzel and Reading 14

Denzel and Story Time 15

Storybook Reading as Ritual 17

Reading a Text 20

What Is Literacy? 22

Part I The Question 25

2 Imagination as a Question, a Topic, a Tool 28

Beginning with Myself 28

Imagination as a Tool 35

Imagination as a Topic 36

Back to Denzel 38

3 Observing Imagination 41

From Playing to Drawing to Writing 42

From Writing to Playacting to Playwriting 47

Imagination as a Subtext 56

Part II Building a Literate Identity 59

4 Talking to Ants: Imagination and Identity 61

Connecting Observation with Theory 62

Building an Inside-Out Theory of Literacy Learning 65

5 "I Am the King Shabazzl": Appropriating a Discourse Through Imaginative Action 76

Tommy's Work with Texts 77

What Is Discourse Appropriation? 85

Observing the Process of Discourse Appropriation 94

6 Authoring 98

Author Versus Authoring 99

Sharing Time and Authoring 100

A New Setting 104

"Carnival" in the Style of Kindergarten 114

Part III Imagination in the Real World 117

7 Imagining a Different World: Sociocultural Literacy 120

Classrooms as Sites of Cultural Contact 120

Sociocultural Literacy in a Class of Diverse Learners 122

Developing Collaborative Texts: Fake Stories 130

Establishing the Groundwork for Sociocultural Literacy 133

8 Reclaiming, Renaming, Reimagining the Classroom 135

Teaching as Ethnography 136

Reimagining Curriculum and Classroom 143

Colonizing a New Planet 149

Reclaiming, Renaming, Reimagining the Classroom 161

9 "Entering the Rabbit Hole" 164

A New Paradigm 165

Joy? 166

Imagination and Education 167

Reclaiming Imagination 168.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-176) and index.

ISBN:

0807744050

0807744069

OCLC:

52509557