Running head: Interdisciplinarity Essay

Shang Li

EDUC 606 – Literary Theory Research and Practice (Capstone)

Professor Alesha Gayle

Interdisciplinarity Essay

February 6, 2022
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Interdisciplinarity Essay
Our knowledge of literacy is not isolated in one subject. We desire to gather information

across the boundaries to address issues which evade study from a single epistemological

standpoint. On a personal note, psychology is the field I am most passionate about and hope to

further within the literacy teaching and learning field. Psychology affords the study a variety of

factors that affect students’ learning process, such as reading and writing. It also provides

educators with a plethora of references on how to adjust their teaching philosophy, methods and

curriculum design for the purpose of promoting educational success for all students. To this

point, and in what follows, this essay aims to invite major theorists of psychology into the

discussion of literacy development and provides insights to the ways in which their perspectives

inform the conceptualization of literacy.

Lev Vygotsky (1978), as one of the key theorists in cognitive development of

psychology, holds a high reputation for his constructivist perspectives. His sociocultural theory

emphasizes that human development and learning are shaped by the ways they interact with

others and the culture in which they are situated (Vygotsky, 1978). He indicated that social

interactions are a culturally mediated process where individuals acquire their cultural values,

beliefs, and attitudes through engaging in shared conversations with others. He also believes that

community serves as a significant influencer while individuals are in the process of making

meanings (McLeod, 2018). Moreover, sociocultural theory is regarded as a capstone because it

raises the importance of social relationships and culture to the development of higher

psychological functions (Vygotsky, 1997).

To build on the previously stated points, Vygotsky’s emphasis on sociocultural factors

can be found underlined in New Literacy Studies (NLA) that emerged a few decades ago –

which advocated for literacy as a social practice. NLA was a breakthrough to the dominant view
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Interdisciplinarity Essay
on literacy which focuses on acquisitions of skills (Gee, 2000). There were many scholars who

contributed to this new perspective of literacy studies. For example, Street (2003) argued against

the autonomous model and appraised the ideological model of literacy learning – wherein the

autonomous view suggested that literacy can be learnt independently of the social context, the

ideological view insisted literacy learning should be context-based and taught in a culturally

sensitive approach. As such, Barton and Hamilton (1998) presented that literacy practices are

modeled by the social rules that govern the use and distribution of texts, prescribing those who

can produce and have access to them. Notably, they proposed that it is more meaningful to

consider literacy practices as relation between individuals within groups and communities rather

than a set of personal attributes. It is apparent that both Street (2003) and Barton and Hamilton

(1998)’s endorsement of literacy as social practices resonates with Vygotsky (1978)’s views that

literacy learning is practiced through social interactions and are largely shaped by cultural

variants.

In examining other theories, John Dewey—a leading psychologist in Switzerland—

brought up instrumentalism theory and believed that human-beings learn through hands-on

experience (Dewey, 2015). Thus, he underscored that individuals’ experience and prior

knowledge are significantly crucial to their acquisition of new knowledge. This theoretical

perspective is particularly important in literacy teaching since it is taught to a variety of learners

who come from different backgrounds. For those who are not in the dominant cultural group,

they might be labeled as “illiterate,” “deficit,” or “underperformed” students (Gutierrez &

Rogoff, 2003). In this case, Dewey’s (2015) emphasis can remind teachers to develop and extend

students’ past literacy experiences to construct new knowledge, rather than making judgements

of what they do not know.

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Interdisciplinarity Essay
Dewey (1991) critiqued traditional schools for intending to separate school literacy from

students' everyday life clearly, leaving school literacy isolated from students’ life experience. As

such, he held a strong belief that literacy activities at school should be closely related to students’

lived experience so that students can achieve the goal of real purposeful learning. Remarkably,

many of the modern writing programs seem to start with the same spot as Dewey’s (1991)

notion. For example, Haddix (2018) noted that many students felt discouraged as writers because

of the disconnection between school writing assignments and outside of school practices.

Therefore, she devised Writing Our Lives to offer a space for youth to unfold their life stories

and make meanings of what they truly care about through writing. Similarly, Stornaiuolo and

Jung (2017) created an online writing community, Write4Change, motivating students to share

social justice they hope to fight for and to write for actions. It can be seen from the participants’

feedback that these two writing programs have successfully implemented Dewey (1991)’s theory

which stressed literacy learning becomes more meaningful when it is centered to students real-

world experience.

In all, this interdisciplinarity essay has discussed sociocultural theory and

instrumentalism theory from two key theorists of psychology. The primary distinction between

two theories is their different claims on how human learn. While Vygotsky (1978) suggested that

human learning is highly social and culturally mediated, Dewey (2015) advised that human learn

from experimental experience. This essay is not intending to argue which theory serves a better

support for literacy learning yet elucidating both of their views have put forward significant

implications to literacy education. It is, instead, to encourage educators to apply dexterity of

literacy education, for which students may be beneficial to either one or both two theories.
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Interdisciplinarity Essay
References

Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Literacy Practices. In Local literacies reading and writing in

one community (pp. 6–13). essay, Routledge.

Dewey, J. (1991). The School and the Life of the Child. In The School and Society and The

Child and the Curriculum (1st, pp. 30–62). essay, University of Chicago Press.

Dewey, J. (2015). The Need of a Theory of Experience. In Experience and Education (pp. 25–

32). essay, Free Press.

Gee, J. P. (2000). Teenagers in new times: A new literacy studies perspective. Journal of

Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43(5), 412-420.

Gutiérrez, K. D., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires

of practice. Educational researcher, 32(5), 19-25.

Haddix, M. M. (2018). What's Radical about Youth Writing?: Seeing and Honoring Youth

Writers and Their Literacies. Voices from the Middle, 25(3), 8-12.

Mcleod, S. (1970, January 1). Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural

Theory | Simply Psychology. Retrieved February 2, 2022, from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Stornaiuolo, A., & Jung, J. K. (2017). Public engagement and digital authoring: Korean

adolescents write for/as action. In Literacy lives in transcultural times (pp. 102-116).

Routledge.
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Street, B. (2003). What’s “new” in New Literacy Studies? Critical approaches to literacy in

theory and practice. Current issues in comparative education, 5(2), 77-91.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. The

collected works of LS Vygotsky, 4, 1-251.