Reading the literacy world: Navigating one’s way across the waves of change


 
 

 
Tierney, R. J. (2022, June 1). Reading the literacy world: Navigating one’s way across the waves of change. 
Acquired Wisdom Series, S. Nieto, F. Erickson & P. Winne (Eds.). Education Review, 29. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v29.3615 
 

Reading the Literacy World: 
Navigating One’s Way across 
Waves of Change 

Robert J. Tierney 

 

  

The field of literacy has afforded me spaces 
to engage my imagination. Literacy is a 
space where thought and culture come 
together – a space for me to wonder and 
wander. Literacy has offered me 
opportunities to explore the nature of 
meaning making, issues of teaching, 
learning, and assessment, societal 
considerations, and questions about our 
sciences.  

By happenstance I entered the field 
when studies of meaning making were 
proliferating. It was a time when reading 
comprehension was being unpacked in new 
ways at the hands of linguists, sociolinguists, 

cognitive psychologists and the artificial 
intelligentsia. If you were interested in 
meaning making, you were experiencing 
momentous change akin to a tidal wave that 
transformed the landscape of what was 
studied and how issues were explored as 
well as how we might approach meaning 
making and its teaching. Over time the 
focus upon understanding meaning making 
moved us beyond the word and sentence to 
deal with complex texts as encountered in 
the real world.  

To extend the wave metaphor, I found 
myself quite mesmerized looking toward the 
horizon and wondering what might be. New 
sets of waves appeared to reflect the shift 
from cognitive to socio-cognitive to critical 
to digital and global as our world intersected 
shaping the waves arriving in sets. These 
waves reflected new theories, ways of 
knowing – how literacies were perceived 
and pursued. For educators, there were 
shifts in how learners were positioned – 
moving from an assembly-line approach 
focused upon a narrow view of mastery to 
approaches that respect learners as meaning 
makers, enlisting their background 
knowledge or schemas, in concert with 
selectively enlisting clusters of strategies to 
explore, understand, and engage with the 
ideas. 

For those of us who were educators, 
there are times when we have been 
participants and witnesses; at other times we 
have been consumers and translators, and 
yet at others, we have been change makers. 
We did so as we moved across these waves 
as they emerged, swelled, crested, and 
surged. The waves (i.e., cognitive, socio-
cultural, critical, digital, global) unfolded one 
on top of the other, expanding and 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  2 

revamping our theories, research, and 
practices. Like waves, each has taken on 
different shapes and contours of fluctuating 
proportions and trajectories, varying in their 
crests, surges, and impact. They have 
variable durations – merging with one 
another and stirring undercurrents. The 
effects of these waves, turns, or zeitgeists 
extended to human affairs and societal 
matters – befitting literacy’s integral role in 
cultures and communications, social 
participation, and legal and political spheres.  

My history reflects my response to and 
engagement with these waves. It represents 
what I would metaphorically characterize as 
transitions from shore breaks in sheltered 
bays to the waves that surge across the 
oceans of the world. My scholarly pursuits 
include laboratory research with individual 
students to engagements with diverse 
communities. My research has included 
traditional positivistic studies, mixed 
methods, case studies, cross-national 
pursuits, critical studies, and historical 
analyses as well as advocacy, in conjunction 
with participatory approaches aligned with 
pluralism. Consistent with my range of 
interests, I have been engaged in funded 
research related to projects as diverse as the 
Apple Classroom of Tomorrow and the 
planning of the Children’s Television 
Workshop series, Ghostwriter, to support 
adolescent literacy development. I have also 
been involved in projects on educational 
development for the United States Office of 
Education, the World Bank, and UNESCO. 
I am the current lead editor of the fourth 
edition of the International Encyclopedia of 
Education, with the vision of creating a truly 
global volume.  

Befitting my commitment to the field of 
literacy, I am currently President of the 
International Literacy Association, past- 
President of the Literacy Research 
Association and past editor of the journal, 
Reading Research Quarterly. Currently, I am 
involved in pursuits enlisting critical 
discourse and cultural analyses, as I have 
sought to participate in a fashion equivalent 
to a global educator attempting to act 

respectfully and responsibly at the nexus of 
language, culture, meaning-making, and 
societal developments to support the 
warrants for my advocacy for 
epistemologies that extends to southern, 
eastern and Indigenous ways of knowing. In 
addition, I participate in a mix of face-to-
face and virtual engagements with school-
based colleagues as far afield as Menindee (a 
remote largely aboriginal town in Australia), 
Abuja in Nigeria, and Beijing and Erdos in 
the People’s Republic of China.   

  

Figure 1. Working with teachers in Nigeria 

Figure 3. Work in China schools 

 Figure 2. Working with colleagues in China   



Finding Your Way           3 

Should you visit one of my websites, I 
would hope that my passion for inquiry and 
discovery stand out. In my scholarly 
endeavors, I have been committed to 
contributing to positive change that is 
transformative, systemic, and sustainable – 
striving for global eclecticism that is ethical, 
respectful, collaborative, and innovative. I 
suspect that you will see some of these 
characteristics played out in a material 
fashion in my writings, videos, and other 
work (much of which you can find at 
www.robertjtierney.com; 
www://independent.academia.edu/RobTier
ney; and 
https://literacyresearchcommons.org).  

The present paper represents my efforts 
to reckon with the twists and turns in my 
journey, not just in terms of paradigms 
shifts but other developments – some 
regular and some not. In hopes of situating 
my recommendations, I attempt to describe 
my journey before proceeding with 
suggestions stemming from experiences. 
While my paper is set up in a linear fashion, 
I can imagine some readings would 
eliminate the narrative of my journey and 
skip to the latter – the portion devoted to 
advice. 

My Journey 

Disrupted cultural moorings 

 My journey is not what I might have imagined 
as a beginning teacher in Australia. My current 
engagements are quite a departure from Australia 
where I grew up quite sequestered in Sydney, 
Australia. It was as if my cultural moorings in 
Australia were disrupted when I moved to the 

United States. I would suggest that my departure 
overseas changed my life and my vision of myself and 
society. For me, my views of not only America were 
revised but also my views of Australia and the world 
and myself.  

At the start of the 1970s, just getting to the 
US was quite the trek. After over 36 hours on a 
Qantas flight that stopped for fuel in Fiji, Hawaii, 
and Los Angeles, I arrived in New York. My 
sojourn there was eventful. It was my first, and 
rather disconcerting, engagement with Americans. So 
much was different – from driving on the right 
instead of the left side of the road to trying to order 
from a different array of food choices. I suddenly had 
to become aware of numerous unfamiliar social cues 
and protocols in everyday life. I survived somewhat 
by eating less, trying to adapt my speech patterns, 
and accepting the support of Americans who 
recognized my naiveté. Indeed, my world became full 
of cultural educators as folks realized how culturally 
unsophisticated that I was.  

In the early 1970s, the US seemed on the 
precipice of societal change, especially in light of civil 
rights campaigns and its withdrawal from the 
intense war in Vietnam. Compared with Australia, 
I was enthralled and impressed by America’s critical 
consciousness especially tied to diversity and civil 
rights activism; the educational opportunities that its 
citizens were afforded; and concern about its 
perceived role in the world. In terms of my own 
critical reflexivity, I would suggest that my cultural 
bearings were being repositioned as I engaged in 
border-crossings especially tied to race and ethnicity. 

 

Rethinking Australia 

Despite some parallels and similarities in 
lifestyle, Australia was quite different at that time. 
It seemed to accept itself as a British colony, with a 
history of racist, gendered, and classed attitudes and 
practices. It was as if Australia rejected diversity, 
targeting it for eradication, compliance or 
subjugation. In terms of educational opportunity, 
education was aligned with assimilation tied to 
Western tenets and in turn access limited unless you 
were economically privileged, male, Anglo-Saxon 
and White. Only a small percentage of Australians 
received a tertiary education (53,000, or 
approximately 0.5% of Australians, were enrolled 
in universities in 1960) and those who did were 

Figure 4. Robert Tierney Lecture series, Youtube.com 

http://www.robertjtierney.com/
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney
https://literacyresearchcommons.org/


Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  4 

disproportionately male (approximately 8 males to 1 
female).  

In looking back at Australia, and in returning 
home for visits, I came to recognize Australia’s 
dismissal of its own racism, sexism and classism. 
Take Australia’s historic disposition toward ethnic 
diversity especially Aboriginal Australia. The 
population of Australia during my youth was one-
third of what it is today and was largely Anglo-
Saxon – with only a small proportion of Aboriginal 
communities remaining. Most of us during these 
times were oblivious to or ill-informed of the 
Indigenous history that preceded British 
colonization, despite the recognition of Aboriginal 
Australia as the longest continuing society in the 
world. For example, although I grew up in Sydney 
and attended the University of Sydney, I was 
unaware that I frequented Aboriginal lands, 
including burial areas and sites of resistance. It was 
not until I read my colleague Eric Willmot’s 1988 
book, Pemulwuy: The Rainbow Warrior, that I 
began to be re-educated. 

Most Australians seemed more willing to 
criticize others (e.g., America’s racism) than admit 
to their own intolerance. Certainly, we had some 
amazing Aboriginal activists and some of the 
world’s leading feminists, but I would contend we 
were (and still are) largely a colonial outpost that 
perpetuates discriminatory practices and White 
privilege. Government policies appear dodgy at best 
in terms of issues of equal rights and opportunity, as 
well as respect for cultural differences. Despite 
rallying cries for fairness, Australia balks at 
reforms for equity and diversity if they come at a cost 
of challenging existing privileges tied to class and 
race. As a result, Aboriginal cultures are still not 
given the full respect that they are due. Aboriginal 
sovereignty and self-determination are displaced by 
subordinating influences that value assimilation 
ahead of accommodation. Case in point: While 
university enrollments have grown considerably and 
there is no longer a disproportionate male to female 
student ratio, Aboriginal enrollees remain low, and 
program offerings lack an embrace of non-Western 
scholars. 

 

The beginnings of a planetary perspective 

For me, the contrast between the US and 
Australia on matters of race was and still is quite 

palpable. The denial of racism by most Australians 
fueled my critical disposition toward matters of 
diversity, raising my consciousness toward complicity 
and the convenience of complacency as vehicles for 
thwarting challenges to the social reproduction of 
privilege. In terms of my own scholarly ambitions, 
this ignorance and dismissal spurred my interest in 
the pursuit of cross-national, cross-cultural 
comparisons. Moreover, it served as the impetus for 
my engagement and advocacy for a planetary 
disposition – an attempt to challenge the hegemony 
of Western influences over our scholarly pursuits and 
educational endeavours. Many of my writings call for 
pluralism, bridging local and global, and pushing 
back against curricula, testing practices, and literacy 
engagements that are disconnected from cultures (e.g., 
Tierney, 2018a, 2018b; Tierney & Morgan, 
2022).  

 

Attraction to literacy  

My attraction to literacy grew from these 
interests, among others. I resonated with 
developments in anthropology and comparative 
education that were becoming increasingly conscious 
of their misplaced appropriation of others. I was 
drawn to the efforts by multicultural, Indigenous, 
and global educators to redefine literacy as key to 
societal development and individual empowerment.  

My involvement in literacy began in the 1970s 
when die-hard political views on reading instruction 
were displaced by a new energy fueled by a focus 
upon meaning making and learning to learn. There 
was a movement to break away from standardized 
and regulated curricula; narrow forms of testing; and 
from approaches to learning that were largely 
informed by behaviorism and the search for a single 
“best” method for teaching reading. These changes 
embraced a focus on learners as meaning makers, 
and on the need to engage students in learning how 
to learn. In terms of research, a plethora of studies 
emerged that involved examinations of the nature of 
the reading process, explorations of the viability and 

With literacy, I found myself at the 

nexus of thought, language, society 

and culture – and at the center of 

educational developments. 



Finding Your Way           5 

influences of strategy development, and analyses of 
literacy as social, cultural, and political engagements.  

 

Becoming a U.S. professor 

As I entered the world of literacy education, the 
field was repositioning itself – becoming less tethered 
to its behavioristic roots and research findings tied to 
correlational analyses of quasi-experimentalism with 
limited generalizability. As I entered graduate 
studies at the University of Georgia, which housed 
one of the largest reading education departments in 
the US, I encountered an energy and enthusiasm 
intramurally and extramurally including local and 
national networks of scholars exploring a wide range 
of literacy issues.  

Upon graduation with a PhD, I accepted an 
offer of a position as an assistant professor in the 
Reading Education Department at the University of 
Arizona. Close to the border of Mexico and amidst 
Native American communities including Apache, 
Yaqui, and Papago, I found myself involved in a 
range of engagements involving issues of language 
and culture. I also entered a professional community 
with colleagues who held different perspectives on 
reading development. There were secondary educators 
and other reading educators with connections to 
many of the major clusters of literacy educators 
across the US. Plus, at the university level, they 
hired a number of others and attracted an amazing 
set of graduate students with whom I came to 
collaborate (e.g., Joseph Vaughan Jr., Patti Anders, 
Diane Schallert, Wilbur Ames, Connie Bridge, 
Mary Jane Cera, Candace Bos, Jack Hayes, James 
Mosenthal, Jill LaZansky).  

With the changes afoot in the field, some of us 
formed a study group focused upon the nature of 
reading comprehension, launching a number of 
studies examining reading comprehension across 
different texts among elementary and high school 
students (see Tierney et al., 1978-79; Hayes & 
Tierney, 1982; Schallert & Tierney, 1982). And, 
to my good fortune, Ken and Yetta Goodman joined 
the University of Arizona’s Faculty of Education 
one year after I arrived. For some of my colleagues, 
the appointment of the Goodman’s was controversial 
and threatening to their views. From my perspective, 
however, it was amazing to have access to educators 
who had advanced a psycholinguistic view of reading 
– key to the shift to cognition. Interacting with the 

Goodman’s was akin to having a post-doctorate. 
Both Ken and Yetta indulged my curiosity as I spent 
hours with them, delving into their ideas.  

 

The cognitive zeitgeist 

Despite a certain restlessness to return to 
Australia, I found myself quite intoxicated by the 
literacy developments emanating from 
psycholinguistic and cognitive views of meaning 
making. Essentially, I became riveted to efforts in 
the field to unpack the nature of reading 
comprehension from these perspectives. When the 
opportunity arose, I decided to forsake tenure and 
accepted an invitation to join the Center for the 
Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, which 
had become a global leader in applying 
interdisciplinary and especially cognitive lenses to 
study reading comprehension.  

It was as if the Center for the Study of Reading 
was a moment in history and a nexus of a number 
of seismic developments in reading. If you were 
interested in meaning making, you felt as if you were 
part of a momentous change – akin to a zeitgeist. 
Behavioristic views of reading comprehension were 
displaced by cognitive views of meaning making and 
enhanced by perspectives from pragmatics, text 
processing theory, developmental psychology, and 
natural language processing simulations on 
computers. In essence, a tidal wave of scholarship 
was transforming the landscape of what was studied, 
how it was studied, and how we approached the 
development of reading comprehension. The saliency 
of and preeminent roles played by a reader’s 
background of experiences in reading comprehension 
were established.  

The Center for the Study of Reading and their 
partner, Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (based in 
Cambridge, Massachusetts), had amassed a massive 
federal grant to study reading comprehension, and 
were enlisting young scholars from different 
disciplines. At the Center for the Study of Reading, 
I was one of the few senior scientists who were also 
educators. Together, in collaboration with a fellow 
educator at the Center, David Pearson, we sought to 
address how one might improve learners’ 
comprehension strategies (i.e., the independent 
abilities of learners to select and apply, flexibly and 
selectively, appropriate strategies from a developing 
repertoire). By answering this question, we in turn 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  6 

sought to change how reading comprehension was 
approached and taught in schools. At that time, we 
were also joined by cognitivists (e.g., Richard 
Anderson, Rand Spiro, and Allan Collins; Tom 
Anderson, Bonnie Armbruster; George McConkie); 
linguists (e.g., Jerry Morgan, Georgia Green, Alice 
Davison, and Robbie Kantor); artificial intelligence 
scholars (Andrew Ortony, Phil Cohen, and 
Bertram Bruce); developmental psychologists (e.g., 
Ann Brown and Joseph Campione); some other 
educators at the University (e.g., Dolores Durkin, 
Karl Koenke, Barak Rosenshine) and very talented 
students. Plus, there were key others at Illinois at 
the time, including Alan Purves, Robert Stake, 
Robert Linn, Robert Ennis, Muriel Saville-Troike, 
Stephen Asher, and Carol Dweck, along with 
visitors from outside the US.  

The energy and passion of those at Illinois were 
amazing – especially in their focus in developing new 
comprehension strategies, based upon different tenets. 
These tenets represented a shift from a stage-wise 
model, which assumed that reading to learn was a 
biproduct of learning to read, or of reading words 
accurately. There was a newfound recognition that 
reading comprehension abilities were not pre-set, but 
teachable – as if we were recognizing that intelligence 
was not fixed but learned. Learning-to-learn, or 
metacognitive awareness, redefined reading 
comprehension processes through a cognitive 
perspective. As such, text characteristics, such as 
structure and authorship, became the foci of teaching 
studies. The end goal of teaching reading 
comprehension also changed; rather than just 
improving performance on a test, the goal became to 
find evidence of sustained and transferable strategies 
for learning (Tierney & Cunningham, 1984; 
Tierney & Pearson, 1981, 1992). 

If I take a step back and contemplate on what 
I was experiencing, I had forsaken a tenured 
position at the University of Arizona to be on the 
front-line of developments in my field especially 
related to my interests. I was not sorry, as I found 
myself immersed and energized as both a participant 
and witness to changes akin to a zeitgeist. It was a 
world of scholarly pursuits and exchanges equivalent 
to a think-tank embedded within a range of research 
and development efforts And, indeed, these 
developments served as a springboard for countless 
investigations and innovations tied to teaching 
reading comprehension. This call involved major 

shifts in what was studied, where how and by whom. 
Indeed, it spurred a surge in the engagement of 
educators in classroom-based research on teaching 
reading comprehension – a space that had previously 
been dominated by psychologists doing laboratory-
based studies of the reading processes of college 
students.   

 

The Rise of Writing: Research, Process and 
Practices 

There were other developments occurring in the 
1970s and 1980s that were also drawing my 
attention. Among the most notable were those in 
writing research and practices. Indeed, in my view, 
research on writing was replete with a treasure trove 
of ideas and insights – theoretically and practically. 
With few exceptions, despite their relevance they 
were largely ignored by reading researchers. They 
included discussions of author-reader relationships 
(e.g., voice, persona, audience, and rhetoric), 
explorations of the transactional nature of reading 
outlined by Louise Rosenblatt, notions of ethos and 
Walker Gibson’s notion of persona, discussions of 
interpretive communities by Stanley Fish, and 
others.  

And, of direct relevance to unpacking 
constructivism, studies of writing processes offered 

Figure 5. Reading Strategies and Practices 



Finding Your Way           7 

key insights, such as those stemming from the work 
of Janet Emig, Linda Flower, John Hayes, and 
others – via writers’ think-alouds and retrospective 
accounts. I and many others began to enlist such 
ideas in our own studies and engagements with 
learners. Indeed, given the parallels to meaning 
making in reading, some of us began to use 
composing as a metaphor to describe the nature of 
the processes of reading comprehension. In my mind, 
the writing research on composing offered insights 
into how to frame reading as a constructivist process 
of strategies – akin to planning, drafting, revising, 
and monitoring a written composition. This interest 
resulted in my effort to contribute articles focused 
upon viewing reading as composing (Pearson & 
Tierney, 1984; Tierney & Pearson, 1983). 

Beyond the aforementioned scholarship, the 
pedagogies of incredible writing practitioners became 
the foci of attention for many of us in reading. 
Unlike reading, writing pedagogy was not tethered to 
psychology, behaviorism, and the embrace of 
measurement. Instead, its approaches emanated 
more from the practical theories of writers and 
teachers of writing. It was more student-centered, 
and as such was spared the assembly-line or systems-
based mentality that regimented approaches to 
teaching and understanding reading. Perhaps, as a 
result, studies of writing had followed more open-
ended approaches in their pursuits, detached from 
the pre-set correlational analyses of factors and 
skills-based formulations pursued by many reading 
researchers. 

Whatever the reason, major new insights on 
literacy developments were forthcoming from writing 
scholars – including a fuller appreciation of the 
language acumen of learners as they enlisted various 
means to speak, read, and write. We witnessed a 
wide range of amazing studies of what was termed 
“emergent literacy,” with breakthroughs such as 
recognition of the nature and role of “invented 
spellings” and other language learning processes. We 
recognized that, if given the opportunities, young 
writers might learn to read and write for themselves 
more effectively and more efficiently than where 
educators or even linguists might (try to) lead them.  

Finally, among the most impressive 
developments in writing were the pedagogies for 
school-age students that emerged from engagements 
between writing scholars and classroom educators. 
This is clearly evidenced by the spread of process 

writings worldwide following the release of Donald 
Graves’ 1983 book, Writing: Teachers and 
Children at Work. Educators were drawn to the 
pedagogies of writing educators such as Donald 
Graves, Donald Murray, Nancy Atwell, Lucy 
Calkins, James Moffatt, Peter Elbow, and others, 
along with initiatives such as the Bay Area Writing 
Project.  

I had the very good fortune of seeing these 
developments firsthand in New Hampshire in 
Marilyn Boutwell’s classroom. Two of my students 
– Mary Ellen Giacobbe, a teacher from Atkinson 
academy, where Donald Graves did many of his 
early observations, and Susan Sowers, Graves’ 
research assistant – became aware of my interest in 
using writing as a lens by which to examine and 
improve reading. They arranged for me to meet Don 
Graves and Don Murray, along with Jane Hansen 
and Tom Newkirk, at the University of New 
Hampshire. They also arranged visits to classrooms 
where students were engaged in process writing and 
conferencing. I was stunned with what I witnessed. 
The students employed strategies astutely and 
recursively, and their contemplations were discerning. 
From my perspective, the students engaged in these 
writing experiences were doing the very things that 
one would hope strategic readers did – planning, 
pausing, rethinking, conferencing and consulting as 
they wrestled with ideas and their projects. 

 

Literacy: Advent of Reading & Writing 
Working Together 

These developments were integral to a major 
shift that ended the separation of reading and 
writing in schools. The move toward reading and 
writing working together in meaning making 
contributed to their amalgamation under the 
umbrella term literacy, and later, literacies. In terms 
of scholarship, an influential review of the research 
on reading-writing relationships was included in the 
second edition of the Handbook of Research on 

Reading (Tierney & Shanahan, 1991). This 
research included studies of reading and writing 
working together, from preschool-aged children to 
advanced writers, as discussed by Nancy Spivey in 
her study of discourse synthesis, the work stemming 
from Arthur Applebee, Judith Langer, George 
Newell, Sarah Freeman, Stephen Witte, Anthony 
Petrosky, David Bartolomae, Glynda Hull and 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  8 

others as well as William McGinley’s study of 
reading and writing from multiple sources. It also led 
to a study my colleagues and I conducted at the 
University of Illinois (Tierney et al., 1989) on the 
effects of reading and writing on thinking critically, 
which further validated the power of these combined 
processes. In many ways, there are a range of current 
incarnations of studies that stem from or are related 
to these pursuits including disciplinary research, 
project-based explorations, studies of intertextuality 
and various forms of digitally based on-line meaning 
making from different sources (e.g., text and images) 
involving different forms of collaboration or what 
became termed “participatory” literacy engagements. 
For example, a precursor were the analyses of young 
children being undertaken by scholars such as Ann 
Haas Dyson – whose work I still gravitate toward 
in terms of describing the ongoing nature of literacy 
practices especially how young readers/writers create. 
Notably, her work continues to inform Henry 
Jenkins’ more recent considerations of digital 
meaning making and various forms of participatory 
literacies. 

 

Assessing Assessment 

Much to the dismay of many of us, long term 
improvements in the teaching of reading were 
hamstrung by forms of testing that perpetuated ab 
insipid relationship between testing and teaching to 
the test. It was acknowledged that we were and 
would be stymied unless changes were made to our 
approaches to assessment.  

Put simply, our assessments did not keep up 
with changes in our literacies. If we assessed 
assessment in terms of criteria tied to changes in 
curriculum or teaching and learning, our assessments 
feel short of engaging students, teachers, and 
stakeholders with assessment. Our approaches to 
assessment had a chokehold on change. 

With the support of teachers and students, a 
number of educators began to explore forms of 
performance assessment and what was termed 
authentic assessment emanating from classrooms. 
Again, drawing from writing educators and art 
educators, some of us ventured in into the use of 
portfolios in reading-writing classrooms. As we did 
so, we witnessed students embracing rather than 
retreating from assessment as they assessed 
themselves (in terms of their progress, advances, and 

needs), considered their progress and set goals. 
Although somewhat short-lived, I would suggest that 
portfolios shifted assessment away from a 
preoccupation with quantitative practices to new 
techniques for evaluation – specifically, student-
directed assessments of their literacies over time 
(Tierney et al., 1991). Using portfolios, teachers 
were also able to align assessment with their 
classroom pursuits, were better able to support 
students’ assessments of themselves, and were able to 
set positive and proactive goals. 

 In the 1990s, there was somewhat of a 
regression in the acceptance of alternative forms of 
assessment especially as regulation and 
accountability became key benchmarks in reform 
policy. But nowadays there seems to be the 
reappearance of context-rich and situated 
assessments as socio-cultural considerations are being 
more fully appreciated.  

 

 Imageful distractions 

Spurred by rise of digital media, gaming, and 
studies of imagery, perspective taking, and identity, 
vicarious, virtual, and imageful engagement has 
become more mainstream. In the 1980s and 1990s 
it was mostly the subject of semiotic theorists or 
occasional novelists (e.g., Umberto Eco, Italo 
Calvino) as well as part of conversations with visual 
artists and dramatists. Indeed, my fascination with 
such matters (e.g., the nature and role of images, art, 

Figure 6. Portfolio Assessment in the Reading-
Writing Classroom 



Finding Your Way           9 

and dreams as well as the vicariousness of reading 
and writing) seem relegated to the sidelines rather 
than mainstream until recent developments related to 
affect, virtual worlds, and identity tied to the 
experience of digital users “in the medium.”  

Apart from a few wayward colleagues (e.g., Pat 
Enciso), such interests still seem out of sync with the 
field. In my opinion, they may still demand veering 
from the mainstream to explore these matters or 
akin to stepping outside of the proximal into worlds 
where such experiences are conjured. For example, 
such a pursuit has involved my engaging with 
discussions of theatre and the work of directors and 
playwrights, from Berthold Brecht to Stanislavski 
and Harold Pinter. It has involved seeking out  
drama educators, such Cecily O’Neal and some of 
her colleagues and students, including Dorothy 
Heathcote, Michael Benton, and more recently 
Brian Edmiston, Mia Perry, and Carmen Medina, 
the world of practical drama theorists whose craft 
involved moving people in and out of a staged world 
for purposes of provocation, critique, and 
appreciation. The practices of these drama educators 
seem far more advanced than efforts to date 
exploring issues of identity and digital and social 
media engagements. 

Despite the mainstreaming of these ideas 
nowadays, during the 1990s, I felt very much on the 
sidelines of work in reading as I explored learners’ 
digital engagements, access to multimedia and other 
multilayered interfaces vi a Hypertext Mark Up 
Language (HTML). Thanks to support from 
Apple, I was able to witness firsthand how the world 
of texts was changing – becoming a multilayered and 
multimedia-based tool that invited forms of 
participation that were dynamic and varied. While 
we found semiotics to be a useful lens to describe such 
edginess, it did not fully capture the dynamics that we 

were witnessing (e.g., Bond et al., 2006; Tierney & 
Damarin, 1998). Despite the efforts of some 
colleagues such as Marjorie Seigel and Jerome 
Harste, such work in the 1990ss did not catapult 
forward until the new millennium and its embrace of 
the new literacies, with the growth of studies of 
gaming as well as simulations, social media, and 
identity construction. These became the heart of 
discussions of multilayered, multimedia, and 
multifaceted meaning making in digital environments 
by new cadres of scholars (Beach & Tierney, 2016; 
Tierney, 2009a). Hopefully, they will veer into the 
world where studies of the imagination intersect with 
studies of art and drama and move beyond the 
measurable and categorical to the mobility of our 
homunculi. 

 

The social wave 

As I have suggested in my mentions of 
authorship, persona, and writing pedagogy, my views 
of literacy were not devoid of a social perspective – 
indeed, the social nature of literacy pervaded much of 
my work. But I did not realize the extent to which I 
had underestimated the social dimensions of literacy 
– how I had naively and erroneously positioned the 
social as a fixed factor separate from the literacy 
event. Essentially, I tended to cast meaning making 
as involving “within the head” processes only. 
Thankfully, colleagues such as Judith Green 
illuminated the integral nature of social processes 
and structures outside of the head. Indeed, I 
remember walking out of a department meeting with 
Judith as she presented her analyses of the socio-
political-cultural forces with which ideas were 
engaged.  

This was not just the additional of a new layer 
of understanding, it entailed shift in my schema that 
proved to be a necessary precursor to a fuller and 
truer understanding of literacy. It was also key to 
my own critical literacy, reflexive reading, and acting 
upon the world. It was as if I was able to see the 
world in a new light as my approach to reading and 
writing shifted. I had moved from analyzing the 
text-based representations to discourse analysis – 
along with various forms of sociological and 
rhetorical analyses – to uncover and interrogate the 
socio-political dynamics, the norms, conventions, and 
hierarchies, and the positioning of ideas, authors, 
and audience. These approaches shaped my political 

Figure 7. In the 1980s and 1990s, researching Apple's 
Classroom of Tomorrow 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  10 

reading of everyday exchanges and led to a number 
of analyses involving socio-political considerations, 
such as studies of the hegemonies at play across a 
range of circumstances (e.g., from the Western bias 
in our epistemologies to matters of Indigenous self-
determination). Scholars who became my friends, 
such as Patti Lather, Allan Luke, Greg 
Misiaszek, John Willinsky, Lauren Misiaszek, 
Fazal Rizvi, Kan Wei, Michael Apple, Victoria 
Purcell-Gates, Raewyn Connell, and others, were 
instrumental – as well as inspirational – in terms of 
helping me realize my past critical illiteracies and the 
broader scope of the reading the world. 

In conjunction with these social developments, 
my interest in education turned to issues of cultural 
responsiveness and pluralism as I contemplated 
global matters and ways of knowing. At the same 
time, my life took a turn when I assumed the role of 
a university administrator with an eye toward how 
faculties of education might be engaged globally. I 
was Dean of the Faculty of Education at the 
University of British Columbia for 10 years and 
then became Dean of the Faculty of Education and 
Social Work at the University of Sydney. My 
migration to Canada opened me to thinking more 
globally coupled with my continued interests in 
meaning making, different ways of knowing, and 
matters of equity, ethics, and diversity informed by 
Indigenous consideration and various forms of 
multilingualism arising in our transcultural worlds.  

 

Making the critical turn to global Indigenous 
activism  

Canada touts itself as a multicultural, 
bilingual, treaty nation – one that respects the rights 
of First Nations communities and stands as a 
global partner with other countries around the world. 
As such, my move to Canada engaged me with some 
the cross-national considerations of my earlier years 
and connected me to First Nations issues in Canada 
and throughout the Pacific (especially Maori and 
Australian Aboriginal). Following my border 
crossing into Canada – as well as my work in 
Botswana for UNESCO and the International 
Literacy Association, visits with Australian and 
New Zealand Indigenous educators, and coinciding 
with the various emerging discussions in the field 
(e.g., cosmopolitanism, global citizenship) – I 
became increasingly interested in global matters, 

including those of cultural reciprocity and bridging 
schooling with cultures and community. I found 
myself resonating with postcolonialism and related 
critiques of homogenized Western practices in both 
schools and scholarship.  

My awakening from latency to activism involved 
a number of research and development projects 
related to seeking transformative change and support 
for pluralism. Fueling my views were a number of 
studies focused on global scholarly matters, along 
with essays with colleagues on postcolonialism and 
Western bias. In the American Educational 
Research Journal (AERJ), I published an article 
comparing four years of research articles appearing in 
AERJ with four years of research articles that 
appeared in the leading educational research journal 
in China (Tierney & Kan, 2016). The findings 
were startling, as they revealed some diversity in the 
Chinese journals but no such diversity in the U.S. 
journal. Not a single article published in the AERJ 
included a citation of a scholar located in Mainland 
China. Around this same time, I also published an 
article in a Chinese journal discussing the biases of 
Western journals and the plight that Chinese 
scholars faced (Tierney, 2018).  

My advocacy for non-Western theorizing was 
also aligned with Indigenous rights and 
empowerment. With the prompting of Indigenous 
educational leaders, I found myself speaking out on 

Figure 8. Graham Hingangaroa Smith, New 
Zealand Maori Educator 



Finding Your Way           11 

Indigenous matters, supporting projects that might 
foster change in terms of pluralism and 
accommodation. A number of Australian 
Aboriginal leaders and New Zealand Maoris 
influenced me immeasurably – especially as I turned 
to them for guidance and leadership in my role as 
Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University 
of British Columbia and later at the University of 
Sydney. In particular, Aboriginal Australians 
Lester-Irabinna Rigney and Bob Morgan, as well as 
New Zealand Maori Graham Hingangaroa Smith 
and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, engaged me in a major 
shift in my direction and disposition.  

These Indigenous colleagues made me aware of 
the history of Indigenous peoples of Canada, 
Australia New Zealand, and globally, and of the 
changing trajectory – from exploitation, subjugation, 
and assimilation to recognition, respect, reciprocity 
and support of sovereignty for Indigenous persons. I 
was awakened to their struggle for even basic rights, 
such as the right to own their own land, to have a 
bank account, or to practice their cultural rites. I 
became increasingly aware of White Western 
privilege and the hegemonic systems in place to 
ensure the reproduction of that privilege in the world 
– including the enlistment of education as a means 
of exclusion and a tool of assimilation. At UBC,  I 
became a spokesperson for systemic change, in terms 
of educational scholarships and of the need to 
diversify the epistemologies and studies published in 
various journals as well as upgrade and adjust the 
ethics of our engagements to befit the standards that 
do not tolerate forms of commodification of others 
and license taken by outsiders to assume that 
emancipation on their terms can and should be 
pursued or applied without full consultation, 
governance and sovereignty consideration. At the 
University of Sydney, I found myself frustrated by 
the extent to which reputation was deemed more 
important than representation and assimilation 
views were prevailing.  

As you might surmise, my embrace of the global 
connects me to my own personal journey including 
not just what is in the offering from cross-national 
perspectives, border-crossings, and transculturalism, 
but also what is entailed in the embrace of a 
planetary perspective. For me, it is equivalent to 
retaining at least a toehold that connects to a key 
interruption in my life. My views have appeared in a 
number of papers tied to notions of global meaning 

making (Tierney, 2018, 2020; Tierney et al. 
2022). 

Some Threads of Acquired Wisdom  

As I look for some wisdom from my 
journey, I would suggest that there are some 
threads in my travails and endeavors. Some 
of the threads pertain to what might be 
viewed as quite normative; others are more 
radical and tied to my intense curiosity 
spurred by a search for the extraordinary 
including stepping outside the bounds of my 
field of study.  

Research as exploration and discovery 

Research has played more than just an 
instrumental role in my journey. As I have 
mentioned, I have pursued research as a 
means of moving beyond my predilections 
to making discoveries. Looking back across 
my own research I have come to revel in the 
discoveries that studies afford. Indeed, every 
study that I have undertaken has yielded 
surprises for me that made a significant 
impact on my understandings. Some of my 
early research on reading comprehension 
(involving text-based semantic analyses and 
other approaches) yielded amazing insights 
– into how authors and readers transact 
meaning with a certain elasticity for each 
other; how readers make sense of meanings 
with regard to authors; and how readers and 
writers create and inhabit worlds using cues 
provided or perceived. My research on 
reading and writing exposed me to the 
entwined processes of reading and writing 
that occur intertextually, serving as fertile 
ground for shifts in understanding and 
meaning. Coupled with my research 
supported by Apple Computer – directed at 

Even without a roadmap, I 

recognized that I can and should be 

making a difference – whether it be 

around influencing a shift to 

reading-writing research, exploring 

learner-centered assessments, or 

global meaning making. 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  12 

examining the interface of layers of text with 
images, video, and other multimedia – I 
became alerted to what might be considered 
semiotic affordances and provocations. 
Such insights are now widely studied, and so 
prevalent in the image-full and interactive 
digital worlds we inhabit.  

At times, reviews of selected areas of 
inquiry in literacy have given me pause as if 
prompting conjectures that we need this or 
that to be pursued by literacy scholars. I 
recall my first substantial review that I 
undertook for the Handbook of Reading 
Research. It involved a comprehensive review 
of the research on teaching reading 
comprehension (undertaken with James 
Cunningham), especially the emerging 
research on metacognition. I lamented the 
need for scholars in reading education to 
move from their laboratories or desks to 
classroom-based studies. As I took a break, 
I happened by a mirror – and realized I 
should be talking to myself. I should be 
walking the talk. Even without a roadmap, I 
recognized that I can and should be making 
a difference – whether it be around 
influencing a shift to reading-writing 
research, exploring learner-centered 
assessments, or global meaning making. 
Stated as a postulate, accept the call.  

Alternatively, a review of the research 
on reading-writing relationships with 
Timothy Shanahan led to studies on reading 
and writing intertwined in ways befitting a 
reconceptualization of the field under the 
umbrella of literacy practices. In a similar 
fashion, I have written books as I was trying 
to break new ground, such as a book on 
portfolios in reading-writing classrooms and 
a book on reading strategies and practices. 
Also, perhaps seminal may be essays 
proposing new models for conceptualising 
reading, such as those on reading as a 
composing process and more recent papers 
on global issues. Befitting the scope of this 
memoir, I also recently coauthored a book 
with David Pearson on the history of 
literacy education over the last century 
(Tierney & Pearson, 2021). 

My current work seems quite formative 
and is perhaps the most demanding – 
dealing with how deeply-rooted cultural 
practices, ways of knowing, and 
epistemologies have privileged some over 
others. This research involves a 
combination of sociological analyses, 
delving into socio-political and historical 
dynamics at play. It is also activist-oriented, 
rooted in critical theoretical orientations 
such as postcolonialism and feminism. In 
essence, my current research is focused 
upon making a difference – beyond the 
classroom and an individual’s learning 
trajectory.  

In terms of acquired wisdom, I would 
posit that scholarly endeavors and one’s 
journey are intertwined – your journey 
guides your studies and at times your studies 
guide your journey. As is the case with this 
paper, my journey is my study.  

 

Figure 9. A History of Literacy Education 

… scholarly endeavors and one’s 

journey are intertwined – your journey 

guides your studies and at times your 

studies guide your journey. 



Finding Your Way           13 

Collaborating and partnering 

My journey has never occurred alone, 
but in collaboration with or with the 
support of others. In this vein, a key thread 
in my journey relates to collaborating and 
partnering. When I began as an assistant 
professor, I had the mistaken notion that I 
should pursue things on my own. My 
academic orientation was that I needed to 
do things without the support of others 
otherwise I was being unethical. Naively, I 
held the view that I was cheating if I 
received editorial or other forms of support. 
I was mistaken. I discovered not only the 
generosity of others, but also that many of 
the more productive scholars were 
constantly reaching out to others for 
feedback or engaged in joint pursuits 
sometimes credited or as co-authors but 
sometimes not. Fortunately, at the outset of 
my career, I encountered colleagues who 
were keen to collaborate including being 
eager to provide me input and seek my 
feedback on their projects. These colleagues 
were not shy to question and challenge me 
as well as co-investigate or co-author papers. 
In doing so, they extended my experiences, 
advanced my scholarship, contributed to my 
attaining new insights and nudged my 
venturing into various unknowns. In terms 
of productivity and enjoyment, their support 
made a huge multiplicative difference. This 
began with various collaborations focussed 
upon research on reading comprehension, 
but also extended to cross national pursuits 
across the Pacific and into Asia and Africa. 
In terms of measurable outcomes, these 
collaborations led to not just one or two 
single authored publications but several. 
Moreover, the collaborations were ongoing 
and contributed to community building. 

A related development were networks 
with which I had the good fortune to 
engage. Among the most vital involved 
schools (i.e., teachers and administrators) 
who afford me license to engage with them 
in the classroom endeavors – problem 
solving and search for discovery. These have 
ranged from American elementary educators 
around the teaching of reading 

comprehension to high school educators 
involved in developmental work on 
portfolios or the Apple Classroom of 
Tomorrow educators involved in 
multimedia pursuits to non-Western 
educators in Africa and China keen to 
advance student led decision making. These 
partnerships are not a given as they require 
building relationships over time that are 
based upon respect and trust. For me trust 
aligned with shared values is paramount. It 
requires recognition of the need for 
adaptation and accommodation in ways that 
are respectful, supportive, genuine and non-
judgmental. The benefits of doing so are 
immense. It is in partnership with teachers 
and learners that your understanding 
unfolds in ways that may be quite nuanced. 
Your path forward becomes illuminated in 
ways that musing alone or pre-set mindsets 
will likely not afford. 

These partnerships extend to 
engagements with colleagues across the 
globe to involvement in projects with 
publishing companies, corporations, non-
profits, and various agencies involved in 
literacy. Despite the potential for critiques 

Figure 11. Collaborating with Tom Crumpler, Cynthia 
Bertelsen, Jane Bresler, Ernie Bond 

Figure 10. Lifelong colleagues:  Jerry Harste, P. D.  
Pearson & Rob  



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  14 

on the grounds of their potential affiliation 
with neo-liberal ambitions or forms of 
financial profiteering, my engagements 
afforded me opportunities to engage with 
groups such as Children’s Television 
Workshop developing a blueprint for a 
television series for adolescents where 
literacy was on the plot line to engaging with 
Apple Corporation, the George Lucas 
Foundation, and others in search of 
classroom-based innovation in literacy 
especially enlisting the new literacies. They 
were energizing encounters with very 
creative and insightful professionals 
involved in quite different but not less 
valuable learning spaces. 

Most recently, they have involved 
partnerships tied my interest in supporting 
diverse ethnic communities – especially 
Indigenous and non-Western. Again, a key 
to any engagement involves operating with 
integrity and a set of values befitting ethics 
of respectfulness. Likewise, as a global 
educator, I have become an ally with and 
advocate for others tied to a view of society 
as pluralistic and research that embrace our 
diverse global epistemologies bridging 
borders and regions (north-south, east-west) 
with a planetary orientation embracing 
diversity and an ecology of ways of 
knowing. To do so with integrity, I would 
solicit input from my Indigenous colleagues 
especially as I contemplated agency, matters 
of participation, community engagement 
and ethics. Likewise, I would enlist certain 
colleagues as critical friends, especially those 
who might enlist sociological, postcolonial, 
liberatory pedagogical and ecological 
perspectives, on global issues.  

 

Breakthroughs 

I am my first reader so collaborations 
with myself should not be underestimated 
whether I am reading as a check on myself 
and ideas or for purposes of discovery or in 
search of understandings. Indeed, I is in my 
reading of myself that I have come to expect 
breakthroughs at the level sometimes of 
epiphanies. Specifically, I enlist forms of 

meditation in search of spaces within which 
I can hold conversations with myself 
befitting my goals for reflecting on my ideas. 
For example, oftentimes, in the early 
morning around 3 am my mind would 
wander as I laid in bed or when I headed 
out for an early morning run. Running 
through the woods and along the coast has 
been part of my daily routine that affords 
me a space for breakthroughs or 
opportunities to gather or rethink ideas. 

I seek times to mull and reflect in ways 
that afford some distance or might help 
conceptualize. This might occur in 
conjunction with planning or contemplating 
a project or addressing a problem. The 
meditative nature of running and being lost 
in thought affords breakthroughs that I 
doubt that I would make otherwise. 
Admittedly, at times when I revisit these 
“breakthroughs”, I may not think that they 
are as profound. Nowadays these reflective 
pursuits are integrated into the fabric of my 
life especially as I work through ideas and 
seek new revelations.  

… a key to any engagement involves 

operating with integrity and a set of 

values befitting ethics of 

respectfulness. 

Figure 12.  Morning meditative trail 



Finding Your Way           15 

Perpetual development 

In my experience development is a 
perpetual pursuit. Some have described it as 
walking up a down escalator. If you are not 
committed to making upward progress you 
will be descending. For example, I would 
suggest that what was once the scholarly 
standards for judging assistant professors 
for tenure and promotion is now applicable 
to expectations for doctoral students prior 
to graduation. It has become commonplace 
to expect doctoral students to have a record 
of publishing and research endeavors prior 
to their graduation. To these ends, I would 
suggest that increasingly doctoral studies 
involve akin to apprenticeships or what 
might be considered internships involving 
teaching, research, and service, done with 
faculty mentors and also in collaboration 
with others (e.g., other doctoral students, 
practitioners, contractors). These 
engagements may be intramural or 
extramural involving cross-disciplinary 
pursuits or forums and meetings with 
scholars with joint interests, such as what 
might arise at conferences, etc. Together 
with the generosity of some of the faculty 
who recognized me as a co-author, I 
pursued a number of studies apart from my 
doctoral thesis. As I assumed my first 
appointment it was as if I was continuing 
rather than beginning my scholarly pursuits.  

And, where there are areas in need of 
development, they should be addressed. In 
my own case, I recognized relatively quickly 
that I had needs in a number of areas. For 
example, I struggled with writing and public 
speaking – still do. I also have occasionally 
struggled teaching some courses. While I 
tend to flourish in the context of practicums 
sometimes my approach to some courses 
gets off track. Occasionally, I allow my 
approach to mutate into forms of 
didacticism. Fortunately, I have learned to 
trust my students and to ensure their 
learning/engagements, I have set up a 
student advisory committee or forms of 
input to make adjustments, in order to 
better relate to them and engage with them 

through case-based and situated problem-
solving.  

In terms of research, I view myself 
amidst a shift from detached objectivity to 
formative, participatory inquiry and agency. 
For example, my interest and advocacy for 
diverse global epistemologies exceeds my 
knowledge and goes beyond my present 
repertoire – that is, if I am to make a 
positive difference on the planet in a fashion 
that represents responsible, ethical and 
informed advocacy or actions. Key for me 
are generous mentors from and engaged 
with the communities to which I am 
committed to support. They ensure that I 
am learning what is entailed in multicultural 
and planetary activism that weds philosophy 
and ethics with goals and practices that are 
organic versus imposed.  

 

Politics  

My fifth postulate is to recognize that 
there are politics involved in one’s field that 
need to be considered, analyzed, navigated 
and acted upon – especially in a field such as 
literacy. In my first appointment as an 
academic at the University of Arizona, I 
experienced intense local politics within my 
department – what I would characterize as 
efforts to ensure positions of power over 
others by forms of marginalization and 
partisanship. In some ways, the politics at 
the University of Arizona was a microcosm 
or off shoot of the political nature of my 
field. Literacy is often center stage of 
debates of what should be taught and how 
in classrooms as well as what research 
should be considered as evidence for best 
practice. The literacy has involved some 
individuals and groups vying for power with 
fixed agendas tied to what they perceive as a 

My endeavors have not occurred by 

default or defensiveness, but in 

conjunction with recognized needs, 

a search for possibilities and hopes 

of discoveries. 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  16 

panacea, which can discount and override 
the professional judgement of teachers. 
Such groups span opposition to 
developments in the field across a range of 
matters from the thwarting of socio-cultural 
perspectives to censorship, such as the 
banning of books to mandated teaching and 
testing practices controlling the professional 
decision-making of teachers. Most notable, 
in the field of literacy we witnessed intense 
lobbying by selected parties for the 
introduction of a narrow definition of 
research and other developments. They 
represented efforts to exclude social 
constructivism and cherry pick research 
methods and findings to advance or 
mandate certain approaches for teaching 
reading. I would suggest that you cannot 
avoid the politics and should not deceive 
yourself to think that neutrality is not being 
political. Campaigns that enlist consensus as 
an alternative to accommodation or resort 
to a bully pulpit or threats or alternatively 
incentives to coerce should be challenged. 
Sociologists, including Indigenous scholars 
and transcultural scholars, have given us the 
lens to examine ways in which to move 
forward. 

In my role as a Dean, I found that I 
have been called upon to act in a fashion 
that is political – at times related to racism, 
class and gender issues. Some institutions 
have baked in biases and aberrant politics 
tied to inequities and maintaining practices 
perpetuating the reproduction of historic 
privilege. As a Dean at the University of 
British Columbia, with the support of and 
guidance my education colleagues and 

fellow administrators, I was able to move 
forward in several areas such as major 
initiatives in the Indigenous space as well as 
globally. At the same time, I was proud to 
have become known as the social conscious 
among administrators at the university. In 
contrast, as Dean of the Faculty of 
Education and Social Work at the University 
of Sydney, sometimes I felt stymied and at 
times ostracized when I spoke out against 
the entrenched inequities and biases of our 
practices especially to Aboriginal students. It 
seemed that the leadership was keen to 
represent itself as advancing their Aboriginal 
enrollments and programs but in ways that 
were subordinating serving to thwart such 
advances in the interest of reproducing 
existing privilege. It was as if 
multiculturalism was used as a label that 
allowed for the subordination of diversity 
under the same hegemonies of power that 
ensured an assimilative effect (see Tierney & 
Morgan, 2022). 

 

Moving beyond the norm  

My endeavors have not occurred by 
default or defensiveness, but in conjunction 
with recognized needs, a search for 
possibilities and hopes of discoveries. As 
noted, a repeated thread in my journey has 
involved some veering “out-of-bounds.” I 
often have searched for spaces where I can 
engage my imagination in new ways. As I 
mentioned at the beginning this narrative 
memoir, I view literacy as the coming 
together of thought and culture, forming a 
space where I can wander and wonder. By 

happenstance, I entered 
the field when studies 
of reading 
comprehension were 
proliferating and 
making significant 
shifts in how reading 
comprehension was 
being studied and 
understood. As I have 
indicated, it was a time 
when reading 
comprehension was 

 

 

Figure 13. University of Sydney  



Finding Your Way           17 

being unpacked in terms of its processes in 
new ways – at the hands of linguists, 
sociolinguists, cognitive psychologists, and 
the artificial intelligentsia. A band of young 
scholars were pursuing studies that shifted 
our understanding of meaning-making at an 
amazing pace. Breakthroughs in reading 
comprehension mobilized and transformed 
the field like a tidal wave and reimagined 
how we might teach reading.  

But it was not enough. I found myself 
drawn to what I thought was salient and 
undersubscribed. I wanted to learn from 
folks somewhat outside my immediate 
perimeter so I often departed from the 
norm or the zone of proximal development. 
And I would suggest that you move away 
from the familiar or standard as well – even 
if it appears to take you afield; whether you 
sense your colleagues deem you as 
wandering too far. My final and perhaps key 
suggestion is to move beyond the proximal 
and outside of the boundaries of your field. 
Certainly, it is the space that I find myself in 
as I attempt to engage as a global scholar on 
behalf of or as ally for various communities 
– essentially learning to be an activist or 
actionist. In doing so, I found the words of 
Angela Davis befitting. Upon receiving the 
Steve Biko award in 2016, she commented: 

An essential dimension of the learning 
process is critical thinking, learning 
how to question things as they are, 
learning how to imagine the possibility 
of something different is the very 
essence of education. Facts are easily 
attainable . . . but what do we do with 
that information? Steve Biko and his 
comrades led vast numbers of students 
to raise questions about apartheid and 
to imagine a different world even as 
they clashed with the world as it was. 
Knowledge is useless unless it assists us 
to question habits, social practices, 
institutions, ideologies and the state. 
The questioning cannot end . . . 

 The young activists of today stand 
on our shoulders and because they 
stand on our shoulders, they see 
something of what we have seen, but 

they also see and understand a great 
deal more. They are beginning to 
address unresolved questions and some 
of the erasures and foreclosure. They 
stand on our shoulders, but we do not 
provide a steady foundation precisely 
because our questions were questions 
of a different era. Our critiques were 
expressed in the inadequate discourse 
of the past. The young activists want to 
reveal the erasures. They want to 
question what we did not have the full 
capacity to question in our time . . . 
they sway, they teeter, they totter, they 
falter, make terrible mistakes, just as we 
did at their age when we stood on the 
shoulders of those who came before 
us. But just as we learned from our 
mistakes, they must be allowed to learn 
from theirs.  

 

Closing Thoughts 

As with most of the invitees to submit a 
column, I feel significant discomfort in 
offering advice from my own academic 
engagements. This may be surprising as I 
have been and still am engaged in mentoring 
faculty. As a Dean I engaged with faculty 
annually on their progress and oversaw 
committee decisions on hiring and 
promotion and tenure. Nowadays, a number 
of scholars approach me for advice on their 
careers and university review teams. I 
suspect that my struggle comes when the 
advice is expected to be anchored in my 
experiences and done in a fashion that could 
be applicable to others. Not only am I 
reluctant to suggest my engagements as 
exemplary I question their generalizability. 
As I contemplated moving forward, I 
thought that unpacking moments in my life 
via writing a partial narrative might suffice 
as meeting the request for acquired wisdom.     

A memoir-like narrative would ensure 
that my advice was related to my 
circumstances. Unfortunately, the feedback 
on my memoir by my sponsoring editor was 
positive but suggested that I missed the 
mark. On reviewing my narrative, my 
sponsoring editor commented “What an 



Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  18 

amazing tour. Delightful and informing to 
read.” But then proceeded “Can you offer a 
bit more explicit, wise counsel – what to be 
open to, when to gamble, how to 
recover/retreat productively and gracefully 
… mingled with your story?   … what was 
learned from an experience or, 
retrospectively, what seeds were planted that 
spouted later. Per the series title, can you 
forward your acquired wisdom?”  He was 
right: I had missed the mark. I had pivoted 
away from offering advice and shifted away 
from what I found difficult. Indeed, upon 
submitting my version to the editor, I had 
suggested that my memoir might be better 
placed in a storage chest in the attic. I 
suspect my disposition was tied to a loss of 
energy for critical reflexivity perhaps as I 
view my engagements with literacy as 
incomplete and ongoing. As a colleague 
remarked “it seems like telling the story of a 
race before its finished”. 

 

 My paper is about me, but for you. In 
this regard, a key thread with which I find 
myself wrestling is tied to some family 
history. I am partially Norwegian by 
heritage, and one of my American support 
persons was my Great Aunt, who lived in 
Seattle. She was so generous to me that 
when I had accrued airline miles, I asked her 
to travel with me to what was her and my 
grandfather’s ancestral home in Norway. My 
Tante, Aunt Gudrun, was the last person 
living from her generation. Our visit was 
amazing; it uncovered for me a past that my 
grandfather, who had run away to Australia, 
had never shared. As it turned out, my 
grandfather and my Tante Gudrun were two 
of only a few family members who had left 
their homeland. My aunt was in medicine 
and had been drawn to the US to assist with 
the polio epidemic of the 1950s. My 
grandfather had left to escape his father, 
with whom he disagreed. In Norway, it is 
often the case that the oldest son inherits 
the family home; as such, my Norwegian 
cousin inherited and now has responsibility 
for the family home, which holds mementos 
and photographs dating back over several 
generations. As we sifted through some of 
the numerous photos, my cousin asked if 

Tante Gudrun could help identify some of 
the events and persons. She offered a few 
fascinating pieces of commentary but 
seemed reluctant to offer much in the way 
of details. When I asked her if I might help 
label the photographs, she commented in 
her soft but firm fashion: “It is time for you 
to live your lives. Do not stayed anchored to 
the past.” I would hope that you heed Tante 
Gudrun’s advice and draws upon my paper 
and narrative as being more provocative 
than didactic and more a parable than 
allegory in its thrust. 

 

 

Figure 14.  Rob Creekside 



Finding Your Way           19 

Selected Works Clustered by Areas 
 
Waves of Development in the History of Literacy Education 
Book 
Tierney, R. J., & Pearson, P. D. (2021) A history of literacy education: Waves of research and practice. 

Teachers College Press. 
 

Reading Comprehension 
Articles 
Bos, C., & Tierney, R. J. (1984). Inferential abilities of mildly retarded and nonretarded students. 

American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 89(1), 75-82.  
Hayes, D., & Tierney, R. J. (1982). Developing readers’ knowledge through analogy. Reading 

Research Quarterly, 17(2), 256-280. https://doi.org/10.2307/747486 
Raphael, T. E., & Tierney, R. J. (1981). The influence of topic familiarity and the author-reader 

relationship on detection of inconsistent information. In M. Kamil & M. Boswick (Eds.), 
Directions in reading: Research and instruction (pp. 40-50). National Reading Conference. 

Schallert, D., & Tierney, R. J. (1982). Learning from expository text: the interaction of text structure with 
reader characteristics. Report prepared for the National Institute of Education, NIE-6-79-
0167. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED221833.pdf 

Tierney, R. J. (1990a). Redefining reading comprehension. Educational Leadership 47(6), 37-42. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J. (1990b). Verbocentrism, dualism and oversimplification: The need for new vistas 
for reading comprehension research and practice. In R. Beach & S. Hynds (Eds.), 
Developing discourse practices in adolescence and adulthood. (pp. 246-260). Ablex. 

Tierney, R. J., Bridge, C. A., & Cera, M. J. (1978-79). The discourse processing operations of 
children. Reading Research Quarterly, 14(4), 539-573. https://doi.org/10.2307/747262 

Tierney, R. J., & Gee, M. (1990). Reading comprehension: Readers, authors, and the world of the 
text. In D. Bogdan & S. Straw (Eds.). Beyond communication: Reading communication: Readers, 
authors, and the world of the text. Heinemann.  

Tierney, R. J., & Spiro, R. J. (1979). Some basic notions about reading comprehension: 
Implications for teachers. In J. Harste & R. Carey (Eds.), New perspectives in comprehension. 
Language and reading studies monograph (pp. 132-137). Indiana University, Bloomington.  

 

Reading-writing 
Articles 
McGinley, W., & Tierney, R. J. (1989). Traversing the topical landscape: Reading and writing as 

ways of knowing. Written Communication. 6(3), 243-269.  
 https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088389006003001  
Pearson, P. D., & Tierney, R. J. (1984). On becoming a thoughtful reader: Learning to read like a 

writer. In A. Purves & O. Niles (Eds.), Reading in the secondary school (pp. 144-193). 
National Society for the Study of Education. 
https://doi.org/10.1177/016146818408500506 

Tierney, R. J., & LaZansky, J. (1980). The rights and responsibilities of readers and writers: A 
contractual agreement. Language Arts, 57(6), 606-613. (Center for the Study of Reading, 
Reading Education Report No. 15). https://www.jstor.org/stable/41405009 

Tierney, R. J., LaZansky, J., Raphael, T., & Cohen, P. (1987). Authors’ intentions and readers’ 
interpretation. In R. J. Tierney, P. L. Anders, & J. Mitchell (Eds.), Understanding readers’ 
understanding: Theory to practice (pp. 205-226). Routledge. 
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203056837.  

Tierney, R., J. & Pearson, P. D. (1983). Toward a composing model of reading. Language Arts, 
60(5), 568-580. Also, in E. C. Carillo (Ed.) A writer’s guide to mindful reading (pp. 64-78) The 

https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://doi.org/10.2307/747262


Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  20 

WAC Clearinghouse. Also, in J. Jensen (Ed.), Composing and comprehending, NCTE, ERIC, 
NCRE, 1984. Also, in C. Hedley & A. Barratta (Eds.), Contexts of reading. Ablex, 1984. 
Also, in E. Dishner, J. E. Readence, & T. W. Bean (Eds.), Reading in the content areas. 
Kendall Hunt, 1985. Also, in Kingten, E., Kroll, B. & Rose, M. (Eds.) Perspectives on 
literacy. Southern Illinois University Press, (1988). 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J., & Shanahan, T. (1991). Research on the reading-writing relationship: Interactions, 
transactions, and outcomes. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson 
(Eds.). Handbook of reading research, (Vol. II, pp. 246-280). Routledge. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J., Soter, A., O’Flahavan, J. F., & McGinley, W. (1989). The effects of reading and 
writing on thinking critically. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(2), 134-173 
https://doi.org/10.2307/747862 

 
Teaching Reading Comprehension 
Book 
Tierney, R. J., & Readence, J. (2005). Reading strategies and practices: A compendium. (6th ed.), Allyn & 

Bacon. The first four editions included E. Dishner as the third author. (Also, translated 
and released in Korea). 
https://www.academia.edu/25454141/Tierney_R_J_and_Readence_J_2005_Reading_st
rategies_and_practices_A_compendium_6th_Edition_Boston_Allyn_and_Bacon 

Articles 
O’ Flahavan, J. F., & Tierney, R. J. (2008). Inquiry with and through literacies: Rethinking our 

destination and journey. In D. Lapp, J. Flood, & N. Farnan (Eds.), Content area reading and 
learning (pp. 537-552). Taylor & Francis. 

Tierney, R. J. (2007). New literacy learning strategies for new times. In L. Rush, A J. Earle & A. 
Berger (Eds.), Secondary school reading – What research reveals for classroom practice (pp. 21-36). 
National Council for Teacher Education/National Council on Rehabilitation Education. 

Tierney, R. J., & Cunningham, J. W. (1984). Teaching reading comprehension. In P. D. Pearson, 
R. Barr, M. Kamil & P. Mosenthal (Ed.), Handbook of research in reading (pp. 609-656). 
Longman. https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J., & Pearson, P. D. (1981). Learning to learn from text: A framework for improving 
classroom practices. In E. Dishner, J. Readence & T. Bean (Eds.), Reading in the content 
areas: improving classroom instruction. Kendall Hunt. Also, in L. Reed (Ed.), Basic skills issues 
and choices, CEMREL and NIE, 1982. Also translated into Danish and appeared in 
Loesning. Also, in H. Singer & R. Ruddell (Eds.) (1985). Theoretical models and processing of 
reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association 

 

Assessment 
Book 
Tierney, R. J., Carter, M., & Desai, L. (1991). Portfolio assessment in the reading writing 

classroom. Christopher Gordon Publishers. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Books 

Articles 
Stowell, L. P., & Tierney, R. J. (1994). Portfolios in the classroom: What happens when teachers 

and students negotiate assessment? In R. Allington & S. Walmsley (Eds.), No quick fix: 
Rethinking literacy lessons in America’s elementary schools (pp. 78-94). Teachers College Press. 

Tierney, R. J. (1998). Literacy assessment reform: Shifting beliefs, principled possibilities and 
emerging practices. The Reading Teacher, 51(5), 374-391. 
https://www.jstor.org/stable/i20201931. Also published in S. J. Barrentine & S. M. 
Stokes (Eds.), Reading assessment: Principles and practices for elementary teachers (2nd ed., pp. 23-

https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://doi.org/10.2307/747862
https://www.academia.edu/25454141/Tierney_R_J_and_Readence_J_2005_Reading_strategies_and_practices_A_compendium_6th_Edition_Boston_Allyn_and_Bacon
https://www.academia.edu/25454141/Tierney_R_J_and_Readence_J_2005_Reading_strategies_and_practices_A_compendium_6th_Edition_Boston_Allyn_and_Bacon
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Books


Finding Your Way           21 

40). International Reading Association. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J. (2000). How will literacy be assessed in the new millennium? Reading Research 
Quarterly. 35(2), 244-245. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.35.2.3 

Tierney, R. J., & Clark, C. (with L. Fenner, R. J. Herter, C. Staunton Simpson, & B. Wiser). 
(1998). Portfolios: Assumptions, tensions, and possibilities. Reading Research Quarterly, 
33(4), 474-486. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.33.4.6 

Wile, J., & Tierney, R. J. (1996). Tensions in assessment: The battle over portfolios, curriculum 
and control. In R. Calfee & P. Perfumo (Eds.), Writing portfolios in the classrooms: Policy and 
practice, process and peril (pp. 203-218). Lawrence Erlbaum. 

 

Digital Literacies 
Articles 
Beach, R., & Tierney, R. J. (2016) Toward a theory of literacy meaning making within virtual 

worlds. In S. E. Israel (Ed.), Handbook of research on reading comprehension (Vol. 2, pp. 135-
164). Guilford Press.  

Tierney, R. J. (1996). Redefining computer appropriation: A five-year longitudinal study of 
ACOT students. In C. Fisher (Ed.), Education and technology: Reflections on a decade of 
experience in classrooms (pp.169-184). Jossey–Bass. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J. (1997). Learning with multiple symbol systems: Possibilities, realities, paradigm 
shifts and developmental considerations. In J. Flood, S. B. Heath, & D. Lapp (Eds.), A 
handbook for literacy educators: research in teaching the communicative and visual arts (pp. 286-298). 
Macmillan. 

Tierney, R. J. (2008a). Learning with multiple literacies: observations of lives exploring meanings, 
identities, possibilities, and worlds. In J. Flood, S. B. Heath, & D. Lapp (Eds.). Handbook 
of research on teaching literacy through the communicative and visual arts. (Vol. II, pp. 101–108). 
Taylor & Francis Group. 

Tierney, R. J. (2008b). Literacy comprehension and composing: Online strategies. In A. Berger 
(Eds.), Secondary school reading – what research reveals for classroom practice. NCTE/NCRE.  

Tierney, R.J. (2009a). Agency and artistry of meaning makers within and across digital spaces. In 
Susan E. Israel & G. G. Duffy (Eds.) Handbook of research on reading comprehension (pp. 261-
288). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315759609  

Tierney, R. J. (2009b). Literacy education 2.0: Looking through the rear-view mirror as we move 
ahead. In J. V. Hoffman & Y. M. Goodman (Eds.), Changing literacies for changing times: An 
historical perspective on the future of reading research, public policy and classroom practices. (pp. 282-
300). Routledge. 

Tierney, R. J. (2012). Multimedia digital engagements by readers and learners. In The Encyclopedia 
of Applied Linguistics. Sage Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431 

Tierney, R. J., Bond, E., & Bresler, J. (2006). Examining literate lives as students engage with 
multiple literacies: The thread, the needle and the fabric. Theory Into Practice, 45(4), 359-
367. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4504_10  

Tierney, R. J., & Damarin, S. (1998). Technology as enfranchisement, cultural transformation and 
learning practices. In D. Reinking (Ed.), Handbook of literacy and technology: Transformations in 
a post typographic world (pp. 253-268). Lawrence Erlbaum. 
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers 

Tierney, R. J., Kieffer, R., Whalin, K., Desai, L., Moss, A.G., Harris, J. E., & Hopper, J. (1997). 
Assessing the impact of hypertext on learners’ architecture of literacy learning spaces in 
different disciplines: Follow-up studies. Reading On-Line Electronic Journal of the International 
Reading Association. 
https://www.academia.edu/32031149/Assessing_the_Impact_of_Hypertext_on_Learne

https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers
https://independent.academia.edu/RobTierney/Papers


Acquired Wisdom/Education Review  22 

rs_Architecture_of_Literacy_Learning_Spaces_in_Different_Disciplines_Follow-
_up_Studies 

 

Global Epistemologies & Cross-Cultural Research in Education & Literacy 
Articles 
Tierney, R. J. (2017). Multitopia: Global citizenship across diverse spaces. Global Commons Review, 

I (Fall 2017), 75-81. Paulo Freire Institute-UCLA and the UNESCO-UCLA Chair in 
Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education. 
https://www.globalcommonsreview.org/download/b972f6ad34fcd2e33307646455838a6
a189728.pdf  

Tierney, R. J. (2018a). Toward a model of global meaning making. Journal of Literacy Research, 
50(4), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X18803134 

Tierney, R. J. (2018b). Global educational research in Western times: The rise and plight of 
China. Frontiers of Education in China, 13(2), 163-192. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-
018-0010-4  

Tierney, R. J. (2020). Notes on global reading: Critical cultural traversals, transactions and 
transformations. In L. I. Misiaszek (Ed.), Exploring the complexities in global citizenship 
education: Hard spaces, methodologies, and ethics. (pp. 36-68). Routledge. 
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315180397-3 

Tierney, R. J., & Kan, W. (2016). Knowledge mobilization within and across the People’s 
Republic of China and the United States: A cross-national study of internationalization of 
educational research. American Educational Research Journal. 53(6), 1759–1791. 
https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216678320 

Tierney, R. J., Smith, G. H., & Kan, W. (2021). Global literacies research diversity: A manifesto 
for change. Journal of Literacy Research. 53(3), 1-19. 
https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X211031262 

Tierney, R. J., & Morgan, R. V. (2022). The Indigenous imaginary and tertiary institutions. In A. 
A. Abdi & G. W. Misiaszek (Eds). The Palgrave handbook on critical theories of education. 
Palgrave/Macmillan/Springer. 

 

Other cited references 
Davis, A. (2016, September 9). Legacies and unfinished activism. 17th annual Steve Biko Memorial 

Lecture, University of South Africa, Pretoria. 
Willmot, E. (1988) Pemulwuy: The Rainbow warrior. Bantam Books. 
 
 
 
 

About Acquired Wisdom 
 
This collection began with an invitation to one of the editors, 
Sigmund Tobias, from Norman Shapiro a former colleague at the 
City College of New York (CCNY). Shapiro invited retired CCNY 
faculty members to prepare manuscripts describing what they learned 
during their college careers that could be of value to new appointees 
and former colleagues. It seemed to us that a project describing the experiences of internationally 
known and distinguished researchers in educational psychology and educational research would 
be of benefit to many colleagues, especially younger ones entering those disciplines. We decided 
to include senior scholars in the fields of adult learning and training because, although often 
neglected by educational researchers, their work is quite relevant to our fields and graduate 
students could find productive and gainful positions in that area.  

https://www.globalcommonsreview.org/download/b972f6ad34fcd2e33307646455838a6a189728.pdf
https://www.globalcommonsreview.org/download/b972f6ad34fcd2e33307646455838a6a189728.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1086296X18803134
https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216678320


Finding Your Way           23 

 

Junior faculty and grad students in educational psychology, educational research, and related 
disciplines, could learn much from the experiences of senior researchers. Doctoral students are 
exposed to courses or seminars about history of the discipline as well as the field’s overarching 
purposes and its important contributors. A second audience for this project include the 
practitioners and researchers in disciplines represented by the chapter authors. This audience 
could learn from the experiences of eminent researchers – how their experiences shaped their 
work, and what they see as their major contributions – and readers might relate their own work 
to that of the scholars. Authors were advised that they were free to organize their chapters as 
they saw fit, provided that their perceived major contributions to the discipline, 2) major lessons 
learned during their careers, 3) their opinions about the personal and 4) situational factors 
(institutions and other affiliations, colleagues, advisors, and advisees) that stimulated their 
significant work. 

 

We hope that the contributions of distinguished researchers receive the wide readership they 
deserve and serves as a resource to the future practitioners and researchers in these fields. 

 

Acquired Wisdom Series Editors 

Frederick Erickson, University of California at Los Angeles 

Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst 

Phil Winne, Simon Fraser University 

Former Editors 

Sigmund Tobias, State University of New York at Albany 
J. D. Fletcher, Institute for Defense Analyses 

David Berliner, Arizona State University 
 

Education Review/Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas is supported by the Scholarly 
Communications Group at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. 

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the 
Education Review. Readers are free to copy, display, distribute, and adapt this article, as long as the 
work is attributed to the author(s) and Education Review, the changes are identified, and the same 
license applies to the derivative work. More details of this Creative Commons license are 
available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/All content from 1998-2020 and 
was published under an earlier Creative Commons license: 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0