Gary B. Moorman

Effects of Participation in the Fifth Dimension on Far Transfer

The Fifth Dimension is a distributed literacy consortium comprised of after-school programs located in Boys and Girls Clubs, YM & YWCAs, recreation centers, and public schools across America, Mexico, Australia, Sweden, and Russia. The Fifth Dimension is also a mixed activity system designed to continue the projection of a second psychology [1] and to instantiate cultural-historical activity theory [2]. At the macro level the Fifth Dimension is a cultural system containing rules, artifacts, divisions of labor, and outcomes that appropriate local Fifth Dimension cultures. The four overarching goals of the Fifth Dimension are: 1) to create sustainable activity systems in different institutional settings that instantiate cultural-historical activity theory, 2) provide contexts for children to master knowledge and skills and acquire practices mediating cognitive and social development, 3) deepen our understanding of how the social and individual create each other, and 4) to provide a context in which undergraduates from disciplines such as developmental psychology, communications, and teacher education have opportunities to connect theory with practice and at the same time deliver community service to children in the local community.

Content Area Reading and Disciplinary Literacy: A Case for The Radical Center

Within the past few years literacy scholars have begun voicing serious doubts on theoretical and practical grounds about the efficacy of the longstanding notion that every teacher is a teacher of reading. In this commentary, we add our voices to the conversation around content area literacy as well as offer our perspectives on the recent calls for alternative practices grounded in disciplinary literacy. We conclude by advocating compromise based on honest, intelligent dialogue between literacy specialists and content area teachers.

Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age

Plagiarism is a complex issue in need of reexamination. A common misconception is there is consensus on what constitute plagiarism, and general agreement that engaging in plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty is a major breech of ethics. There seems to be little concern for differentiating degrees of seriousness; the intentional copying of large amounts of text without acknowledgement is often viewed the same as failing to properly cite sources. Furthermore, instruction that addresses issues related to plagiarism is rare. In this article, the authors explore the issue in relation to the ever-changing digital environment, and provide one specific example of explicit instruction that engages students in copying information from the Internet, rewriting or paraphrasing, then citing appropriately. Knowing students will utilize technology for writing and research, instruction should aim at demystifying the concept of plagiarism while at the same time improving students’ research and writing skills.

Using e‐mail to create pedagogical dialogue in teacher education

Abstract Dialogue has long been a central tool for literacy instruction. This paper reports on a project that engaged students in pedagogical e‐mail dialogue. All students were enrolled in a content area reading methods course at one of six geographically diverse universities: Appalachian State University, Arizona State University, the University of Georgia, the University of Utah, the University of Virginia, and Utah State University. “Read‐L” (a listserv) was created as an electronic dialogue community. The primary data source for this research was the slightly over 600 messages submitted by approximately 150 students during a single semester. Two extensive student‐initiated dialogues were selected from these messages and analyzed using Burbules’ (1993) dimensions of pedagogical dialogue and his criteria for educationally beneficial and detrimental forms. Results of these analyses are presented and implications for educational practice, specifically the use of e‐mail as a dialogue tool, are discussed.

A diary as a tool for mediating reading teacher activity

Abstract This study explores the use of a diary as a tool to mediate the strategic reading instruction of classroom teachers. The research is based on cultural‐historical activity theory and argues that human beings use tools to mediate their behavior. During weekly seminars, twelve teachers discussed the current literature related to research‐based reading instruction strategies. In the next phase of the study, researchers modeled how the knowledge from the literature on reading instruction could be used in instructional decision making with a basal reading program and regularly observed the teachers in their classrooms. Teachers used a diary as a tool for thinking about, planning, and implementing reading instruction. Analysis of data revealed that a diary may be an important media‐tional tool in helping teachers to access knowledge acquired during in‐service education and regulating their instructional activity.