Justin Hampton
Annotated Bibliography: Disability Studies
Being Aware of our Students
One in four students is disabled in some way, and many of them are invisible disabilities such as ADHD or psychological disorders. Psychological and sociological studies have been informing pedagogical approaches on an upwards sliding scale for the past two decades. Disabilities are the great equalizer; anyone from any race, religion, or social class may be subject to a disability. We are constantly asking our students to compose, create, investigate, and revise their work, but if we can’t apply these same methods to our own style of teaching, we have done a major disservice to our students.
The biggest challenge facing composition teachers today, in terms of students with a disability, is the matter of transparency. Papers from a student with ADHD or Dyslexia can sound very much like a paper from a student who is unengaged and unconcerned with the class, but that is where the similarities end. Each individual disabled student requires a specifically tailored action plan for success in the classroom, and it is every teacher’s responsibility to understand the specific needs and teaching techniques that will prove beneficial to students that must struggle to keep up with their contemporaries.
Self-Evaluation and Adaptability
A major concern for teachers is adaptability and self-reflexive evaluation. We are constantly being evaluated by our students, peers, and the higher-ups in order to improve our teaching methodologies to be more effective. Teaching is a learning process. By engaging in a discourse about disability that spans across the academic world, we are calling into question our own values of standards and expectations. By generating awareness in ourselves and in our students about the realities of disability, we are becoming and creating more contentious academic citizens.
Bruggemann, Brenda J. “Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability.” College Composition and Communication. Vol.52 N3 (2001): 368-398. Print.
Brueggemann explores the challenges involved in defining a disability, and making accommodations for the disabled when their disability is not physically apparent. She talks a bit about personal narratives written by people with learning disabilities finding, “being shamed is a prominent feature in the autobiographical essay written by people with LD, whose stories provide vivid accounts of the way impairments become disabilities.”
Brueggemann seems to have an elusive stance on the subject of LDs. She seems quite ambivalent about whether or not classifying the constellation of symptoms that make up LDs are appropriately categorized as “disorders.” In a very Derridian style deconstruction of binaries, she grapples with current trends, ideologies, and practices that classify students with disabilities into neat little categories. Ultimately, her article seems aimed at starting a dialog with her audience about LDs in order to make them more visible.
Cook, Bryan G. “Inclusive Teachers’ Concern and Rejection Toward Their Students : Investigating the Validity of Ratings and Comparing Students Groups” Remedial and Special Education. V 31 I 67. 2008. Print.
This article deals heavily with teachers’ perceptions and interpretations of students with disabilities. It does well to address concerns that both students and teachers have regarding disability and perceptions of classroom participation and grading. Besides being filled with a number of practical questionnaires for teachers and students, there is a dizzying array of charts and graphs that explore the statistics of what percentage of students have specific disabilities as well as graphs generated specifically from questionnaires that address how teachers feel about and generate expectations for disabled students (paying particular attention to class and gender.) The article suggest some possible implications to the teaching of people with disability as well as an argument for an investigative and inclusive approach to teaching all students.
The limitations of the study come from the regional disposition of the students. 90% of the data has been gathered in the greater Ohio area, and the vast majority of teachers that were interviewed during the study were Caucasian and female. The article itself hedges these problems by bringing them up frankly, and suggesting ways that further study could be made more universally applicable across the board.
For my purposes, the statistics and general trends of inclusion and rejection of learning disabled students will help me to formulate a thesis based on the general perceptions that teachers have about their students when they are not doing well, and also when they are not doing well because of a learning disability, physical, or mental handicap. The bibliographic information at the end has generated a list that will be intensely useful to me in finding subsequent articles.
Gearheart, Bill R. Learning Disabilities, Learning Strategies. St. Louis: Mosby College Publishing, 1985. Print.
This was a rather dated textbook of teaching strategies and cognitive approaches to teach high school students with learning disabilities. As a historical text, it showed an overwhelming obsession with defining, diagnosing, and treating students like patients rather than learners. Chapters that seemed particularly dated were the “Specific-are Brain Defect Model” and “Principals of Remediation.” Most modern texts and especially textbooks have left behind this kind of classifying jargon for teaching practical approaches to the field. But as a historical document, it seems to be trying to bring attention to LDs in a time when many educators may have been unaware of during the 80s, and further, it show the grassroots of a movement that started to suggest computers and technological assistance as the proper methods for addressing LDs that was very popular during the time. Not the best source, but definitely a good landmark read for evaluating where we have been theoretically in regards to LDs in the past and where we are now.
Heiman, Tali. “Assessing Learning Styles Among Students With and Without Learning Disabilities at a Distance-Learning University.” Learning Disability Quarterly. Vol. 29 N1 (2006): 55-63. Print.
Heiman notes the vast chasm of difference between the learning disabled university student and his or her non-disabled counterpart as far as preferred learning styles is concerned. The ultimate conclusion of the piece is that LD students, even at the university level, require a much higher degree of planning, linear processing and teaching models, and continuous evaluation. Out of a study pool of 212 students, 32 of which had dyslexia or ADD, questionnaires about learning strategies were doled out to students and later evaluated along with their academic standing.
Heiman offers up some strategies that universities can implement in order to better serve the needs of the learning disabled student, mainly by suggesting that universalities offer more skill building workshops, and regular examination of individual student work by the educator.
Higgins, Elanor L. “Stages of Acceptance of a Learning Disability: The Impact of Labeling.” Learning Disability Quarterly. Vol.25 N1 (2002): 3-18. Print.
An ethnographic and longitudinal study carried out with forty one individual subjects with LDs and tracked over a period of two decades. Higgins does an excellent job of tackling the quality of life questions as secondary and focusing her primary approach to “changes over time” on questions regard social conceptions of disability and how the afflicted feel that societal preconceptions about learning disabilities have undergone a transformation in the past two decades.
Effectively, by the time they become middle aged, most people with learning disabilities are able to become metacognitive individuals, that is, able to recognize their own flaws and set out with self-made strategies that overcome them. While this source is full of overwhelming statistical models and graphs, the first hand anecdotal evidence from learning disabled students who have gone through college level training and survived to tell the tale adds an interesting afterthought to my argument.
Lerner, Janet. Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.
Lerner has compiled a very comprehensive text which fuses theories of learning disability in the field with practical teaching suggestions and activities. The book reads like a psychology textbook in certain ways, and has case studies and personal narratives from learning disabled students ranging from the age of eight to forty six. Of course, there is a lot of attention paid to younger children with learning disorders, and the practical activities that are offered up to help composition teachers at the university level read a bit too much like the writing activities that are proposed for those students with an LD on the secondary level. But again, Lerner’s text keeps pointing to the emerging theme of metacognitive strategy building as the most important tool a composition teacher can use to help the students with LDs.
Lerner’s arguments that learning disabilities are a lifelong struggle seem to butt heads a bit with Wolf’s argument that learning disabled students will eventually figure out what learning strategies work best for them by the time they become mature adults. I’m not quite sure about the remedial approach she takes toward teaching composition to college students either, but her practical teaching advice on the subject was golden.
Lewieckie-Wilson, Cynthia. Disability and the Teaching of Writing, A Critical Sourcebook. Boston: Bedford St. Martin, 2008. Print.
This book, which was loaned to me by a very compassionate soul, contains a wide array of very useful articles dealing with pedagogies, various disabilities, and maps a trajectory from teaching students with disabilities toward teachers with disabilities teaching their students about disabilities. The wide array of theoretical articles does well to help map out the current trends and attitudes of educators teaching with and to students that are disabled in some way. The disabilities dealt with in the book are mainly in the realm of physical handicaps, which are an area of my argument that I have been trying to hammer out in terms of appropriate pedagogies, so this book is extremely helpful for placing my argument outside of the realm of “learning disabilities” and into the realm of physical and mental handicaps.
The book itself opens up a variety of discourses on the teaching of disabilities. What it lacks in facts and figures, it makes up for in exposure to theoretical paradigms and attitudes in the field of composition. The bibliography in the back also serves as a good resource for finding other related sources.
Vogel, Susan A. Success for College Students with Learning Disabilities. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992. Print.
Vogel’s text offers up a number of (though somewhat dated) articles on the subject of teaching that all seem to glide seamlessly into one another to form a very cogent and cohesive argument for changing teacher attitudes towards the learning disabled and providing pre-college training for students with disabilities before they ever set foot in a college classroom.
Janet Lerner writes the forward which adds an interesting intertexual component to the book. And while this book seems aimed at educating the educator more than educating the student, it does provide a good context for the ways that people were trying to break down disability stereotypes in the 90s.
White, Linda F. “Learning Disability, Pedagogies, and Public Discourse.” College Composition and Communication. Vol. 53 N4 (2002): 705-738. Print.
Interestingly enough, this particular article belonging to White seems geared at stirring up controversy over the “problems” that doctors cause by suggesting that learning disabilities are an issue of the mind. White argues that medical models of disability focus the body of research and educational teaching strategies in the direction of mediation, which is harmful to those students with a disability that are beyond the remedial stages. I really find her arguments compelling, though some of her language regarding what should or should not be afforded to disabled students is really offensive.
Wolf, Lorraine E. Adult Learning Disorders, Contemporary Issues. New York: Psychology Press, 2008. Print.
Wolf’s book is a pretty exhaustive survey of theoretical arguments surrounding issues of learning disabilities in graduate, undergraduate, and professional settings. It delves heavily into the unprecedented number of LD students that are pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees for professional purposes, and the legal implications of accommodating these students with appropriate resources and aids. Though there is very little practical advice for teachers contained within the book, it serves as another god theoretical survey of contemporary issues in the field.
Works Referenced
Barnes, Colin, and Geof Mercer. Disability. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2003. Print.
Marshall, Catherine A. Disabilities ‘Insights from across Fields and around the World. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2009. Print.
Annotated Bibliography: Disability Studies
Being Aware of our Students
One in four students is disabled in some way, and many of them are invisible disabilities such as ADHD or psychological disorders. Psychological and sociological studies have been informing pedagogical approaches on an upwards sliding scale for the past two decades. Disabilities are the great equalizer; anyone from any race, religion, or social class may be subject to a disability. We are constantly asking our students to compose, create, investigate, and revise their work, but if we can’t apply these same methods to our own style of teaching, we have done a major disservice to our students.
The biggest challenge facing composition teachers today, in terms of students with a disability, is the matter of transparency. Papers from a student with ADHD or Dyslexia can sound very much like a paper from a student who is unengaged and unconcerned with the class, but that is where the similarities end. Each individual disabled student requires a specifically tailored action plan for success in the classroom, and it is every teacher’s responsibility to understand the specific needs and teaching techniques that will prove beneficial to students that must struggle to keep up with their contemporaries.
Self-Evaluation and Adaptability
A major concern for teachers is adaptability and self-reflexive evaluation. We are constantly being evaluated by our students, peers, and the higher-ups in order to improve our teaching methodologies to be more effective. Teaching is a learning process. By engaging in a discourse about disability that spans across the academic world, we are calling into question our own values of standards and expectations. By generating awareness in ourselves and in our students about the realities of disability, we are becoming and creating more contentious academic citizens.
Bruggemann, Brenda J. “Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability.” College Composition and Communication. Vol.52 N3 (2001): 368-398. Print.
Brueggemann explores the challenges involved in defining a disability, and making accommodations for the disabled when their disability is not physically apparent. She talks a bit about personal narratives written by people with learning disabilities finding, “being shamed is a prominent feature in the autobiographical essay written by people with LD, whose stories provide vivid accounts of the way impairments become disabilities.”
Brueggemann seems to have an elusive stance on the subject of LDs. She seems quite ambivalent about whether or not classifying the constellation of symptoms that make up LDs are appropriately categorized as “disorders.” In a very Derridian style deconstruction of binaries, she grapples with current trends, ideologies, and practices that classify students with disabilities into neat little categories. Ultimately, her article seems aimed at starting a dialog with her audience about LDs in order to make them more visible.
Cook, Bryan G. “Inclusive Teachers’ Concern and Rejection Toward Their Students : Investigating the Validity of Ratings and Comparing Students Groups” Remedial and Special Education. V 31 I 67. 2008. Print.
This article deals heavily with teachers’ perceptions and interpretations of students with disabilities. It does well to address concerns that both students and teachers have regarding disability and perceptions of classroom participation and grading. Besides being filled with a number of practical questionnaires for teachers and students, there is a dizzying array of charts and graphs that explore the statistics of what percentage of students have specific disabilities as well as graphs generated specifically from questionnaires that address how teachers feel about and generate expectations for disabled students (paying particular attention to class and gender.) The article suggest some possible implications to the teaching of people with disability as well as an argument for an investigative and inclusive approach to teaching all students.
The limitations of the study come from the regional disposition of the students. 90% of the data has been gathered in the greater Ohio area, and the vast majority of teachers that were interviewed during the study were Caucasian and female. The article itself hedges these problems by bringing them up frankly, and suggesting ways that further study could be made more universally applicable across the board.
For my purposes, the statistics and general trends of inclusion and rejection of learning disabled students will help me to formulate a thesis based on the general perceptions that teachers have about their students when they are not doing well, and also when they are not doing well because of a learning disability, physical, or mental handicap. The bibliographic information at the end has generated a list that will be intensely useful to me in finding subsequent articles.
Gearheart, Bill R. Learning Disabilities, Learning Strategies. St. Louis: Mosby College Publishing, 1985. Print.
This was a rather dated textbook of teaching strategies and cognitive approaches to teach high school students with learning disabilities. As a historical text, it showed an overwhelming obsession with defining, diagnosing, and treating students like patients rather than learners. Chapters that seemed particularly dated were the “Specific-are Brain Defect Model” and “Principals of Remediation.” Most modern texts and especially textbooks have left behind this kind of classifying jargon for teaching practical approaches to the field. But as a historical document, it seems to be trying to bring attention to LDs in a time when many educators may have been unaware of during the 80s, and further, it show the grassroots of a movement that started to suggest computers and technological assistance as the proper methods for addressing LDs that was very popular during the time. Not the best source, but definitely a good landmark read for evaluating where we have been theoretically in regards to LDs in the past and where we are now.
Heiman, Tali. “Assessing Learning Styles Among Students With and Without Learning Disabilities at a Distance-Learning University.” Learning Disability Quarterly. Vol. 29 N1 (2006): 55-63. Print.
Heiman notes the vast chasm of difference between the learning disabled university student and his or her non-disabled counterpart as far as preferred learning styles is concerned. The ultimate conclusion of the piece is that LD students, even at the university level, require a much higher degree of planning, linear processing and teaching models, and continuous evaluation. Out of a study pool of 212 students, 32 of which had dyslexia or ADD, questionnaires about learning strategies were doled out to students and later evaluated along with their academic standing.
Heiman offers up some strategies that universities can implement in order to better serve the needs of the learning disabled student, mainly by suggesting that universalities offer more skill building workshops, and regular examination of individual student work by the educator.
Higgins, Elanor L. “Stages of Acceptance of a Learning Disability: The Impact of Labeling.” Learning Disability Quarterly. Vol.25 N1 (2002): 3-18. Print.
An ethnographic and longitudinal study carried out with forty one individual subjects with LDs and tracked over a period of two decades. Higgins does an excellent job of tackling the quality of life questions as secondary and focusing her primary approach to “changes over time” on questions regard social conceptions of disability and how the afflicted feel that societal preconceptions about learning disabilities have undergone a transformation in the past two decades.
Effectively, by the time they become middle aged, most people with learning disabilities are able to become metacognitive individuals, that is, able to recognize their own flaws and set out with self-made strategies that overcome them. While this source is full of overwhelming statistical models and graphs, the first hand anecdotal evidence from learning disabled students who have gone through college level training and survived to tell the tale adds an interesting afterthought to my argument.
Lerner, Janet. Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.
Lerner has compiled a very comprehensive text which fuses theories of learning disability in the field with practical teaching suggestions and activities. The book reads like a psychology textbook in certain ways, and has case studies and personal narratives from learning disabled students ranging from the age of eight to forty six. Of course, there is a lot of attention paid to younger children with learning disorders, and the practical activities that are offered up to help composition teachers at the university level read a bit too much like the writing activities that are proposed for those students with an LD on the secondary level. But again, Lerner’s text keeps pointing to the emerging theme of metacognitive strategy building as the most important tool a composition teacher can use to help the students with LDs.
Lerner’s arguments that learning disabilities are a lifelong struggle seem to butt heads a bit with Wolf’s argument that learning disabled students will eventually figure out what learning strategies work best for them by the time they become mature adults. I’m not quite sure about the remedial approach she takes toward teaching composition to college students either, but her practical teaching advice on the subject was golden.
Lewieckie-Wilson, Cynthia. Disability and the Teaching of Writing, A Critical Sourcebook. Boston: Bedford St. Martin, 2008. Print.
This book, which was loaned to me by a very compassionate soul, contains a wide array of very useful articles dealing with pedagogies, various disabilities, and maps a trajectory from teaching students with disabilities toward teachers with disabilities teaching their students about disabilities. The wide array of theoretical articles does well to help map out the current trends and attitudes of educators teaching with and to students that are disabled in some way. The disabilities dealt with in the book are mainly in the realm of physical handicaps, which are an area of my argument that I have been trying to hammer out in terms of appropriate pedagogies, so this book is extremely helpful for placing my argument outside of the realm of “learning disabilities” and into the realm of physical and mental handicaps.
The book itself opens up a variety of discourses on the teaching of disabilities. What it lacks in facts and figures, it makes up for in exposure to theoretical paradigms and attitudes in the field of composition. The bibliography in the back also serves as a good resource for finding other related sources.
Vogel, Susan A. Success for College Students with Learning Disabilities. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992. Print.
Vogel’s text offers up a number of (though somewhat dated) articles on the subject of teaching that all seem to glide seamlessly into one another to form a very cogent and cohesive argument for changing teacher attitudes towards the learning disabled and providing pre-college training for students with disabilities before they ever set foot in a college classroom.
Janet Lerner writes the forward which adds an interesting intertexual component to the book. And while this book seems aimed at educating the educator more than educating the student, it does provide a good context for the ways that people were trying to break down disability stereotypes in the 90s.
White, Linda F. “Learning Disability, Pedagogies, and Public Discourse.” College Composition and Communication. Vol. 53 N4 (2002): 705-738. Print.
Interestingly enough, this particular article belonging to White seems geared at stirring up controversy over the “problems” that doctors cause by suggesting that learning disabilities are an issue of the mind. White argues that medical models of disability focus the body of research and educational teaching strategies in the direction of mediation, which is harmful to those students with a disability that are beyond the remedial stages. I really find her arguments compelling, though some of her language regarding what should or should not be afforded to disabled students is really offensive.
Wolf, Lorraine E. Adult Learning Disorders, Contemporary Issues. New York: Psychology Press, 2008. Print.
Wolf’s book is a pretty exhaustive survey of theoretical arguments surrounding issues of learning disabilities in graduate, undergraduate, and professional settings. It delves heavily into the unprecedented number of LD students that are pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees for professional purposes, and the legal implications of accommodating these students with appropriate resources and aids. Though there is very little practical advice for teachers contained within the book, it serves as another god theoretical survey of contemporary issues in the field.
Works Referenced
Barnes, Colin, and Geof Mercer. Disability. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2003. Print.
Marshall, Catherine A. Disabilities ‘Insights from across Fields and around the World. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2009. Print.