Whole Language is a Philosophy that Believes: 

 
 
1. Language and meaning making are inseparable. Meaning interprets reality.  

2. Language is language-oral or written-or other signals.  

3. Language is social-children learn in the context of its use.  

4. Children are natural learners, and will spontaneously make good learning decisions.  

5. Children learn to read - write and tell best when the conditions are informal, natural, a "dinner table" approach.  

6. Children need to be immersed in authentic text; novels, poems, story-telling, etc.; not basals.  

7. Teachers demonstrate reading/writing/story-telling.  

8. Teachers believe kids will succeed.  

9. Kids need to own their learning and literacy choices.  

10. Time to read, write and tell stories is essential.  

11. Kids learn by trial and error, invention, discovery, intuition.  

12. Curricular decisions are shared. The curriculum is integrated, with an authentic purpose of inquiry.  

13. Collaboration is key.  

14. Whole language privileges trade books over basals.  
 

 
Whole Language - a Quick Checklist 
(From Whole Language Newsletter, December 1986) 
 
 
TRADITIONAL  WHOLE LANGUAGE 
1. Teaches reading from parts to whole  Keeps language whole 
2. Is text-centured  Is child-centered 
3. Is vocabulary controlled  Is literature based 
4. Teaches skills in isolation  Is rich in context 
5. Focuses on mechanics  Is rich in writing 
6. Is quiet  Encourages verbal interaction 
7. Limits parent involvement  Facilitates parent involvement 
8. Sets criteria for competence  Enhances self-esteem 
9. Maintains static groups  Encourages flexible grouping
10. Uses a cookbook method  Includes a variety of strategies 
11. Prescribes methodology  Empowers teachers 
 
 
 
 
 
Old Literacy and Whole Language- 
Sources of Authority and Difference 
 
 
 
Old Literacy  Whole Language 
Teacher  Learner 
The official curriculum/cannon Curriculum rises out of experience-needs-interest 
Text - Basals  Trade books - discovery process 
Meaning is in the print  Meaning is transactional 
Power flows down Power marginally shared 
Transmission pedagogy Child Centered - reconstructionist 
Dominant Culture Asserted Multi-cultural -- critical theory 
Phonics first  Meaning first 
Individualist learning  Collective + Individual learning 
Theory isolated from practice Links word + world
Formal tests  Kids watching, journals, tapes 
Reading groups/skill  Reading groups/interest 
Kid Agency denied Kid Agency privileged
Drill + kill reading/writing "Real" reading and writing 
Information processing Search for Meaning/identity
Local community/knowledge denied Locality privileged
School workers deskilled  School workers empowered 
Identify - attack weaknesses Build on student strengths 
Knowledge disjointed  Knowledge united 
 
 

Both Old and New literacy focus on language, the development of individual meaning, as means for social construction or reconstruction. In this way...both are idealist.  
  
 
 
 

Grid of Reading Materials 
 
 
 
A. 
Newspapers and Magazines
B. 
Research materials
C. 
Symbolic 
materials other than books 
D. 
Problem-solving materials 
E. 
Trade books 
F. 
Primary sources 
I. 
Social Studies
Current events  

Controversial issues  

Feature articles  

Political news 

Encyclopedias  

Biographies  

Texts  

Journals  

Research reports  

Histories 

Globes  

Maps  

Morse code  

Photographs  

Fine Art  

Music sheets  

Political records  

Cartoons  

Ballots

Building models  

Making clothes from patterns  

Reconstructing Human culture from artifacts 

Nonfiction books  

Biographies  

History Poetry  

Anthropology  

Geography  

Political science  

Economics  

Human relations

Family documents  

Letters  

Government  

documents 

II. 
Science
Weather  

Science editor  

Science news 

Encyclopedias  

Text  

Journals  

Histories  

Logs

Graphs  

Chemical symbols  

Films  

Thermometers  

Scales 

Experiments  

Cooking recipes  

Computer printouts 

Biographies  

Physical science  

Natural science  

Nonfiction  

Poetry

Conservation records  

Notes of original  scientific records  

Prescriptions

III. 
Mathematics
Business news  

Want ads  

Stock-market reports  

Financial section 

Technical journals  

Histories

Films  

Formulas  

Expanded notations  

Scales  

Numbers systems

Solving problems  

Computation

Biographies  

Nonfiction  

Poetry

Written problems  

Business ledgers 

IV. 
Literature 
Book, play and  

movie reviews  

Narratives in  

magazines 

Bibliographies  

Texts  

Histories

Text illustrations  

Format (book,  
play, script)  

Music  

Works of art 

Theme and plot analysis  Fiction  

Poetry  

Nonfiction

Creative writing by students in class
  
Reading Strategies, Goodman, p. 37-38
 

 
 

Unrealized Potential Within the New Literacy 

There is a growing tendency to see whole language as just another way to teach literacy.  

This denies the real potential of whole language which lies in:  

    1. Its opposition to status quo schools--yet forms of " whole language" now become government backed.  

    2. Emphasis on collaboration-collectively-but collaboration to what end?  

    3. Is attacks on race/class tracking.  

    4. Its ability to open up class time 

    5. Its attacks on racist/class-based tests and basals.  

    6. The shift in the center of meaning. There is more than one interpretation-but infinite interpretations?  

    7. Encourages real language with real consequences-but is attacked for lacking rigor and relying on spontaneity.  

    8. Gives some decision power to kids, parents. An inquiry process.  

    9. Sees knowledge as collective rather than individual property.  

    10. Linkage of theory/practice-word and the world. Learning demystified.  

    11. Sees knowledge as integrated - interrelated. Whole language is Issue Rich, analyses issues, locates kids in their material world.  

    12. Whole language RE-skills school workers.  

    13. But Whole Language has not carried its power as a critical theory far enough. 

 
 
Critical Pedagogy Believes: 

1. Ideas are socially constructed . All knowledge is political, not neutral.  

    a. Education is political is political and partisan.  

    b. Schools are vast markets, warehouses for kids, and recreate unequal social conditions.  

    c. Schools are also centers of hope for democratic equality--and resistance. 

2. Knowledge is stamped with the brand of class, race, and sex.  
    a. Formal education systems are designed to reproduce class relationships and create people who are instruments of their own oppression.  

    b. Yet there is always room to struggle for what is true, to gain and test knowledge. 

3. All teaching presupposes a view of the past, an analysis of the present, a vision of the future.  

4. Partisan pedagogy seeks to:  

    a. Unmask oppression and domination through social inquiry.  

    b. Make people agents able to gain and test knowledge on their own.  

    c. Demonstrate the liberating nature of collective inquiry and action 

    d. Raise questions for reflection, and conditions for practice, so ideas and practices can change. Education becomes experimental and exploratory.  

    e. Forge unity of learners (leaders-hip based on a sense of respect and equality).  

    f. Encourage people to examine the contradictions of their own surroundings. What are our problems? Are our problems similar? Where do they come from? What can we do?  

    g. Authority is rooted in respect and extended knowledge, not sheer domination. Leadership is earned-and earned again.  

    h. Dialogue to gain and test the understanding of interrelated, interdependent, yet contradictory ideas. Unity through struggle.  

    i. Demonstrate that knowledge is partial - a momentary grasp of ever-changing reality. 

5. Theory into practice into theory. People are asked to take positions and rationally support them.  

6. From the people to the people. Knowledge is drawn from, and taken beyond, the classroom.  

7. At its base values:  

    a. Material equality  

    b. Political democracy  

    c. Importance of leadership 

  
 
 
Weakness 
in 
Critical Pedagogy 
 
 
1. Has, in some instances (Grenada, China, Cuba, Tanzania) served the interests of new elites rather than the interest of social and economic equality. Has failed the test of material equality...and a critically literature population.  

2. Continues to rely on spontaneous decisions and understandings of students/participants whose oppression may not allow them to see a wider horizon.  

3. Has regularly reconstructed basals which continued to deskill teachers and disarm students. Basals are inherently alienating.  

    a. Critical examination, then, had its limits  

    b. Examples, Grenada, Cuba, China 

4. Another strain of "Critical Pedagogy" denies that social class is the axis of social change and elevates secondary issues like race, sex, etc. to an equal plane. This leads to  
    a. Irrationalism in theory  

    b. Pluralism in practice  

    c. Continued material inequality 

5. A truly exploratory, investigative pedagogy hold everything open to critique.  

6. Fails to recognize the relationship of the state (government), capital (profits), and schools. See each disconnected from the other.  

7. Focus on discourse within schools rather than oppositional social struggle.  
  
 

 
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