I found the article Learning "schooled literacy": The literate life histories of mainstream student readers and writers by Rick Evans very interesting and beneficial, but probably not for the purpose of the author. I was a little confused by the conclusion of the article. Was Evans in his conclusion saying that the system is working the way it is? If so, I do not agree. Sure these students are having success in academia, but at what cost? In the case of Kelly she lost her desire to read. Other examples showed that students detested academic reading and writing because they felt like it was forced.
This article confirmed my beliefs that as reading and writing instructors it is important to incorporate expressive writing and group discussions into our lesson plans. I also feel we should give students a choice of what they want to read because it could foster intrinsic motivation within our students. Feedback also seemed to play an important role in students attitudes towards reading and writing. When they received positive feedback from their friends and peers they were more willing to share their work. This shows the importance of community building and creating a safe environment for our students to share their ideas in class. I want to find ways to incorporate leisure "popcorn-trash" reading into my lesson plans so students are less anxious about the reading and writing they have to do in school. I have to admit that I also feel at times the reading and writing I do in school feels like a task, but the majority of the time I like school work because I approach it with the attitude of enjoying the process and learning from it.
Most provocative passage for me: "Most students remembered being read to by their mothers, grandmothers, or sometimes even by their big sisters (rarely by their fathers); and, in turn, when they could, reading to them." What are the fathers doing? I can remember my Dad telling me when I was a kid that he would take me to the movie Star Wars after I read the book. I remember hating having to read the book before getting to see the movie at the time, but then being really happy I did. Now as an adult I enjoy reading the novel before seeing the film. This passage also shows me the importance of parents reading to and with their children when they are young because it instills in them a love for reading at an early age that with many of the students in this article has stuck with them into adulthood.
I was most moved by the Cook-Gumpez notion about a purpose of school is to transform commonplace literacy to school literacy, in which case, it has a pretty big machine trying to get this done - standardized assessments, tradition teacher training, Back to Basics, etc. This idea of "the machine" is interesting; I wonder about how much space we can make in schools to bring in students' outside reading without "schoolifying" it and then removing students' desire for it. I read something about a pre-K classroom where children had free time and made lots of art. But once the teachers tried to build curricula around students' art, students didn't want to do the art anymore. The power of institutions!
ReplyDelete- Julie