H-700 From Language to Literacy
Paola Uccelli
This one-semester course will consider the continuities and parallels between the development of oral and written communication from infancy to adolescence, grappling with research on each of the following four major phenomena: expressing communicative intents, segmenting the speech stream, mapping words to concepts, and producing extended narrative and expository discourse. For each topic, we will consider how children break into the system in infancy/toddlerhood, examine their emerging competence in the preschool and early elementary school years, and investigate later developing skills and challenges as they approach adolescence. Students will be expected to participate in discussions, both in class and online; write brief papers integrating material from readings and lectures, considering their educational implications; and design (with the option to carry out) a small-group research project to present in a poster symposium. Class format will be a combination of lecture, hands-on analysis of children's oral/written production, and discussion.
Visit the course Web site
(Some resources on the course Web site may require a Harvard PIN number)