Chapter 10: Communal Truth and the Literacy Landscape: Echoings of Perspectives, Positions, and Practices

In this chapter Kyle Shanton seeks to expand the view on the current controversy around scientifically-based reading research and instruction mandated by No Child Jwft Behind. Using landscape as metaphor, he identifies several ways in which arbitrary boundaries have been drawn by the current policy making to frame a narrow view of literacy research and instruction. Moreover, he suggests a parallel between the misogyny too many women have suffered during “civilized” childbirth and the domineering mandates ordered on teachers as a result of recent “scientific” findings about learning to read and teaching children to read. And, he calls for a re-reading of this current educational policy context by opening up the view of the literacy landscape from multiple perspectives.