Anne Haas Dyson

Anne Haas Dyson is a professor at the University of Illinois. Her fields are the study of literacy, pedagogy, and contemporary, diverse childhoods. Writing Superheroes, Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy, Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School (1993), Multiple Worlds of Child Writers: Friends Learning to Write (1989). Dyson has also written articles for professional journals. In Dyson's words: “As a teacher and a researcher, I think intellectual, political, and moral issues of teaching and learning are best understood—and grappled with—when they are embodied in everyday human experiences of teachers and students, in and out of school; conversely, I think teachers immersed in the very human context of classroom life (which is not neat, not orderly, and not predictable) must also see the larger issues implicit in their daily decisions.” Attempts by parents and educators to bombard children with information to give children's cognitive abilities an early boost may be well-intentioned, but is ultimately counterproductive. According to Dyson (2009), “That approach doesn’t appreciate the role of play and imagination in a child’s intellectual development. Play is where children discover ideas, experiences and concepts and think about them and their consequences. This is where literacy and learning really begins.” The following year, Dyson received the Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year (1995), and in 2002 she received the Purves Award from the National Council of Teachers of English as an author of the Research of Teaching English article from the previous year judged as likely to have the greatest impact on educational practice. In 2006, Dyson received the Janet Emig Award for exemplary scholarship from the National Council of Teachers for her article “What Difference does Difference Make? Teacher Perspectives on Diversity, Literacy, and the Urban Primary School” published in ‘’English Education’’ in May, 1995. Again she received the Janet Emig Award in 2006 for the article, “Crafting ‘The Humble Prose of Living’: Rethinking Oral/Written Relations in the Echoes of Spoken Word,” which was published in English Education in 2004. And in 2007, she was selected for the honorable position of “Scholar” by the Hofstra University.

Teaching Award Dyson received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California-Berkeley in 1998.

Dyson's Research

Dissertation Dyson's dissertation entitled, “A Case Study Examination of the Role of Oral Language in the Writing Processes of Kindergarteners” helped to set the stage for her future research of children's writing in a sociocultural context. In her dissertation, Dyson drew heavily from scholars such as Britton, Vygotsky, Ferreiro, and others who emphasized the critical role that oral language has in literacy learning. For instance, Britton was quoted by Dyson as stating: “All that the children write, your response to what they write, their response to each other, all this takes place afloat upon a sea of talk. Talk is what provides the links between you and them and what they have written, between what they have written and each other.” Dyson elected qualitative research to investigate the role of oral language in the early writing processes of five kindergarten students over a three-month period. During her case study she collected data, such as observational notes, audio recordings of children's talk, written products, daily log entries, child and parent interviews, and informal assessment tasks. At the conclusion of this study, some of Dyson's findings include: that talk is an integral part of the early writing process, young children write for different purposes, and that there is no one early writing process. Typical of ethnography, her research has sought to explain, describe, and provide insight into human behavior in context. In Dyson's in-depth ethnographies,

Dyson deliberately chooses classrooms contusive to her research interest: how young children construct their understandings of symbolic communication, including learning to write. she pulls together the pieces of her studies into meaningful wholes through the interpretation of triangulated data (e.g., field notes, tape recordings, interviews, artifacts, etc.). By doing this, she tells the stories of children's literacy experiences that meet at the crossroads of official (e.g., classroom, school curriculum, etc.) and unofficial (e.g., peer groups, family, neighborhoods, popular media, etc.) worlds.

The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write An example of Dyson's work is given in her book The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write: Popular Literacies in Childhood and School Cultures (2003). The book is an ethnographic study that takes place in a first grade classroom in an urban school over an academic year. The school in this study had a socioeconomic mix consisting of approximately 50% African American, a third European American, and the remaining was of varied Latino and Asian ancestries. Approximately 40% of the student population qualified for free or reduced lunch. Dyson typically seeks out schools such as this in order to examine their complex classroom communities which are rich in cultural and social diversity. Dyson situates children on a “landscape of voices” that allows her to portray how children maneuver through social space, rather than only how they participate in the recurrent practices of the official world over time. Additionally, Dyson explored certain types of cultural material (sports, music, movies, etc.) as well as particular children's processes of transforming it into official practices (i.e., writing stories, journal entries, etc.). This ethnographic study is representative of Dyson's work in that it focuses on literacy development from a sociocultural perspective and explores the effects of the popular media on literacy learning.

Selected articles

Dyson, A. H. (1984). Emerging alphabetic literacy in school contexts: Toward defining the gap between school curriculum and child mind. Written Communication, 1(1), 5-55.

Dyson, A. H. (1987). Individual differences in beginning composing: An orchestral vision of learning to compose. Written Communication, 4(4), 411-442.

Dyson, A. H. (1990). Weaving possibilities: Rethinking metaphors for early literacy development. The Reading Teacher, 44(3), 202-213.

Dyson, A. H. (1992). The case of the singing scientist: A performance perspective on the" stages" of school literacy. Written Communication, 9(1), 3-47.

Dyson, A. H. (1995). Writing children: Reinventing the development of childhood literacy. Written Communication, 12(1), 4-46.

Dyson, A. H. (1998). Folk processes and media creatures: Reflections on popular culture for literacy educators. The Reading Teacher, 51(5), 392-402.

Dyson, A. H. (1999). Coach bombay. Research in the Teaching of English, 33(4), 367-402.

Dyson, A. H. (1988). Negotiating among multiple worlds: The Space/Time dimensions of young children (Report No. 15). Berkeley, CA: California University Center for the Study of Writing. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED297334)

Dyson, A. H. (1989). Multiple worlds of child writers: Friends learning to write. NY: Teachers College Press.

Dyson, A. H. (1990). Research in review. symbol makers, symbol weavers: How children link play, pictures and print. Young Children, 45(2), 50-57.

Dyson, A. H. (1992). "Whistle for willie," lost puppies, and cartoon dogs: The sociocultural dimensions of young children (Report No. CSW-TR-63). Berkeley, CA: National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED355513)

Dyson, A. H. (1993). Social worlds of children learning to write in an urban primary school. New York: Teachers College Press.

Dyson, A. H. (1993). A sociocultural perspective on symbolic development in primary grade classrooms. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, (61), 25-39.

Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (1994). The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Dyson, A. H. (1995). Children out of bounds: The power of case studies in expanding visions of literacy development (Report No. CSW-TR-73). Berkeley, CA: National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED384869)

Dyson, A. H. (1997). Writing superheroes: Contemporary childhood, popular culture, and classroom literacy. NY: Teachers College Press.

Dyson, A. H. (2001). Donkey kong in little bear country: A first grader's composing development in the media spotlight. The Elementary School Journal, 101(4), 417-433.

Dyson, A. H. (2003). "Welcome to the jam": Popular culture, school literacy, and the making of childhoods. Harvard Educational Review, 73(3), 328-361.

Dyson, A. H. (2005). Crafting "the humble prose of living": Rethinking Oral/Written relations in the echoes of spoken word. English Education, 37(2), 149-164.

Dyson, A. H. (2006). Literacy in a child's world of voices, or, the fine print of murder and mayhem. Research in the Teaching of English, 41(2), 147-153.

Dyson, A. H. (2006). On saying it right (write):" fix-its" in the foundations of learning to write. Research in the Teaching of English, 41(1), 8-42.

Dyson, A. H. (2003). The brothers and sisters learn to write: Popular literacies in childhood and school cultures. New York: Teachers College Press.

Dyson, A. H. (2003). Popular literacies and the" all" children: Rethinking literacy development for contemporary childhoods. Language Arts, 81(2), 100-109.

Dyson, A. H. (2013). ReWRITING the basics: literacy learning in children's cultures. NY: Teachers College Press.

Dyson, A. H. (2016). Child Cultures, schooling, and literacy: Global perspectives on composing unique lives. NY: Routledge.