Lectures, courses, and conferences

Lectures:
Heath's lectures since 2000 have generally centered on one of three topics: early eighteenth-century children's literature (Cambridge University), informal learning in arts and sciences (Exploratorium, San Francisco; Kings College, London; Institute for Advanced Study, LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Australia), later language development (UC Berkeley, Center for Applied Linguistics), and academic literacy (UC Davis).

Abstracts of forthcoming lectures 2008:
Ball Foundation, Chicago, Illinois. October, 2008
Adolescent literacy and language socialization: A few long-standing research findings sit at the core of what we know about academic literacy. These findings are: (1) speakers cannot write what they cannot say; (2) academic literacy depends on fluency in an identifiable set of syntactic structures; (3) competency in these structures results from extensive experience in certain roles and relationships. Despite these research findings, students and teachers struggle to build learners' ease and fluency in reading and writing the genres and styles of academic language. Yet schools have a difficult time providing contexts in which young people can play multiple roles and use literacies and numeracies in "real" ways that matter to them. Two community organizations (Artists for Humanity, Boston and The Food Project, Boston) sustained by young people demonstrate informal learning contexts that go a long way toward providing the language socialization necessary to support oral language habits critical to academic literacy for adolescents. Provided also will be a few efficient research strategies for documenting learners' language change over time.

Courses:

Heath has taught in a wide range of departments, and her courses tend to differ each year. Upon request, syllabi are available for courses such as The Anthropology of Play, Anthropology and Education, Later Language Development, Children's Literature, Informal Learning, and International Social Entrepreneurship. She is scheduled to teach Informal Learning in the fall term at Brown University. In the winter quarter 2008-2009 at Stanford University, she will teach Children's Literature in the English Department and The Anthropology of Education in the Graduate School of Education.

Included here is the syllabus for The Anthropology of Play, taught as an undergraduate course at Brown University in the fall of 2007.

The Anthropology of Play (Get Full PDF Version Of Syllabus Here)
Anthropology 1212, Fall term 2007
Shirley Brice Heath

Conferences:

Upcoming conferences in 2008-2009 in which Heath is to give a keynote presentation are as follows:

July 26-29: Melbourne, Australia
Conference: Re-imagining special education through arts education and arts therapy Sunday, July 27--Keynote Lecture: Maps of Learning: Vision, plans, and word play.

The expression "maps are territories" equates theories with maps. Examined in these remarks is the importance of envisionment and imagination in the learning lives of young people of different abilities. Children diagnosed as austistic benefit from dance and painting. Why? Children with a range of learning delays find the combination of dramatic portrayal, children's literature, and music release their talents. Why? Recent theories from the neurosciences help explain how our internal visions of time and space order our knowledge of the world. These theories open up ideas for us of activities, language, and strategies.

September 19-22, 2008 Providence, Rhode Island (USA)

Sustaining Social Entrepreneurship: Helping good works stay well
Watson Institute for International Studies
Brown University

This seminar retreat, designed for young people committed to
sustained work in health, education, and environmental change in
Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, will explore issues
related to finance, management, and evaluation in community-based
social entrepreneurships. Planned and directed by the International
Youth Research Network at Brown (advised by Heath), the retreat
consists of panels of young people that will address these issues in
organizations they have either created or play a key role in
sustaining.