E-Book Overview
Students with learning disabilities are entering college in far greater numbers than ever before, but most composition instructors have little experience working with these students and current composition theory doesn't offer much help. In the first comprehensive study to connect composition and learning disabilities, Patricia Dunn both challenges and confirms what many believe about writing. "Learning Re-Abled" examines the many issues that contribute to the learning disability controversy and provides historical perspectives on LD and composition, showing how the two fields complement and conflict with each other. She discusses disagreements surrounding different educational approaches and makes sense of the claims and counterclaims of the experts. "Learning Re-Abled" shows how influential composition theorists fail to account for the struggles some students encounter when faced with written projects. In a section focusing on a student whom she exposed to both whole language and phonics-based instruction, Dunn shows how multisensory links can improve learning. Several other students describe their successes and failures in a linguistic-based academic world; their stories suggest ways in which all educators might rethink their assumptions about teaching and learning. In the final section, Dunn calls for philosophical change and cooperation as well as for a pooling of resources from a variety of fields, urging readers to transcend disciplinary boundaries. Dunn wrote this book because her years of teaching experience and doctorate in composition studies could not account for the linguistic difficulties some of her students were experiencing-including her own nephew. By reading widely, tutoring, and interviewing LD college students, she came to realize that our educational system can indeed help all students to learn but only if we adopt a much more flexible, creative, and broad minded approach to learning, which she demonstrates in her book. "Learning Re-Abled "is a powerful challenge to broaden and enrich the learning of all students and teachers by recognizing ways of knowing that will allow the learning disabled to become re-abled.
E-Book Content
LEARNING RE-ABLED
LEARNING
RE-AILED
The Learning Disability Controversy and Composition Studies
Patricia A. Dunn Utica College of Syracuse University
Boynton/Cook Publishers HEINEMANN Portsmouth, NH
BoyntonlCook Publishers, Inc. A subsidiary of Reed Elsevier Inc. 361 Hanover Street Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912 Offices and agents throughout the world © 1995 by Patricia A. Dunn.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders and students for permission to reprint borrowed material. We regret any oversights that may have occurred and would be happy to rectify them in future printings of this work. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dunn, Patricia A. Learning re-abled : the learning disability controversy and composition studies / Patricia A. Dunn. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-86709-360-9 (alk. paper) 1. Learning disabled-Education (Higher)-United States. 2. Learning disabilities-United States. 3. Dyslexics-Education teaching-United States. 1. Title. LC4818.5.D85 1995 95-19316 371.91-dc20 CIP
Editor: Peter R. Stillman Production Editor: Renee M. Nicholls Cover Designer: T. Watson Bogaard Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. 99 98 97 96 95 DA 1 2 3 4 5 6
For Joey and Larry
Contents
Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1
Chapter One
L