Literary Engagement and Black Youth

       For the reading this week I decided to focus on the article I found most interesting. Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men with Reading by David Kirkland is a case study on how the literacy practices of young black men is not just a matter of "likes to read" vs "doesn't like to read, but is profoundly wrapped up in the ideologies and the identities of our students that are constructed within and outside of the classroom. The article presents two different units studied in the same classroom one about Beowulf and one about The Iliad. Both considered classic texts in our society and very prevalent in high school english classrooms. The student, Derrick, and his teacher Mr. Kegler are the subject of these observations. When Mr. Kegler teaches Beowulf he does it in the very formulaic manner that most people are used to in classrooms:(1) read a section, (2) answer questions, (3) unit test. Derrick, a young African American student does not do well in this unit. He is disinterested and he quickly gives up on reading the book; he says, " I can read that stuff, but it ain't me... They want me to act like somebody I'm not." Contrasting this to the unit that they did for The Iliad were Mr. Kegler has students engage in the text in a totally different way. Having them discuss it and synthesize it into and text that they find engaging (comic books) suddenly the same student that you might have thought didn't care is connecting to and engaging in a text that he might not otherwise cared to even read. So what's the difference?

It is important to understand how students see themselves in relation to texts in the classroom in order to fully understand their literacy practice. I have known many students that love to read but when it comes to an assigned reading in a classroom they completely check out. In fact I was one of those students. I spent a lot of time in in middle and high school walking around with my nose in a book, but if you saw me during my Honors British Literature unit on Wuthering Heights you might have wondered how I was ever allowed into an Honors English class in the first place. I suffered through many unengaging assignments on books that I found uninteresting through my years as an English student. I also found every opportunity to read something that I could enjoy for example for my American Literature class we had to choose an American Author to research from a list of authors that my teacher gave us. Naturally the list was mostly white authors so I chose someone that was not on the list, Maya Angelou. 

What is most important is not that the characters in the book look like your students--although that is one of many things that should be attended to--but that whatever text you choose is presented in a way that aligns with how students see themselves as readers. Kirkland writes, "Traditional approaches to ELA instruction have long enforced master narratives, where canonical texts act as toolsets for reifying the status quo." The solution is to not only introduce texts that are not typically considered part of the literary canon (a canon constructed around hegemonic ideologies), but to also decanonize texts that are often presented as essential texts in the classroom. Teach so that students are able to reach beyond just reading to understanding text in a way that is entwined their own lives. As evidenced in this article students' refusal to read a text or their lack of connection to that text does not come from a place of laziness or defiecit, but it is a failure on the part of the curriculum to cater to who they are as readers. Kirkland analogizes "books as clothes" and in this case the clothes don't fit their style. For Black (male) students, there is a complicated identity that is influenced by their own interest and the competing images of how they see themselves and what is expected of them in a classroom setting.

The video is showing how we can challenge classroom norms about what is a valuable text and what can be learned from it. This teacher is centering a different narrative and a different kind of artist/writer (Kendrick Lamar) that connects with his students and how they identify themselves as literate individuals.

So what do you think about how this teacher uses Kendrick Lamar to teach English? What are the students learning? How are they going beyond or adding to what they could learn from a "classic" text like Shakespeare for example?

I also wanted to share this clip of Marc Lamont Hill where he talks about using Hip Hop in the classroom that goes beyond just using lyrics as text.

How do you see yourself using this information in the classroom?

How would you apply this beyond to teaching in a way that goes beyond using hip hop because my students like hip hop music? For example, using hip hop habits of mind to talk about Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte

Sidenote: One critique that I had of the reading is that is focused on Black males as though there is a crisis that exists in the make population and Black girls do not face similar issues. Black girls are often not the focus of these kinds of studies because they are seen as being "better off" when that is not the case. Even if Black girls are statistically doing "better" in school they are typically still far behind their white counterparts.

Blog Post: Week 11/8

The readings for this week were really interesting for me!

The reading that I primarily focused on was David E. Kirkland's "Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading." I really liked this reading because I think that it is something that is very relevant in schools today. The different types of literacy that are chosen to be used in schools today weather it be digital, or through text may be very disengaging for students because there is no personal connection to the content of the text. The reading was explaining how people were stereotyping Derrick. They were saying that he was lazy to do the work and that he didn't like school. This is something that I see going on in schools today because a lot of students who don't do the "work" are considered lazy. I think that it is very easy to blame the students, but the content that is being taught in classrooms today teaches to the test. This causes there to be a huge disconnect between the students and the context. I think as teachers, we need to find ways to make the material more engaging for our students to keep the interested, active, and motivate then to want to learn. I think that teachers label their students when they aren't producing the expected results and resort to deficit ideologies, but there is a much deeper problem.

As the reading shows at the end once all the data is analyzed, Derrick enjoyed to read things that he was able to connect to and that kept his interest. Although, there is a lot to be covered in relation to teaching to the test, I think that as a future educator it is crucial to make modifications to lessons in order to accommodate every student. As I was reading Dean Tatums article as well, he focuses a lot on the issues that young adolescent males face in schools in relation to the community, environment, social class, gender etc. He explains how he has worked to close the achievement gap for African American Males. It was very interesting when he was explaining how some males feel embarressed when they are at the front of the class reading and they aren't able to pronounce all of the words. As a future educator it is important to create good relationships, safe spaces, and to be the biggest advocate to your students in order to help them with the tools that they need in order to succeed. A big part of this is to create lessons that keep your students engaged, and active.

My questions to you are:

What did you find most interesting as you were reading?
How would you approach this issue as a future educator in terms of working towards closing this achievement gap?

In this week reading, it talked about how African American males felt about academics texts their teachers handed out. One of the readings pointed out most of them refused to read a text, not because they are not able to comprehend it. Most of these students refused to read what their teachers assigned, because it was not relevant to their life. Besides from not being relevant to their lives, they also felt that the teachers were trying to change them through the readings. From my fieldwork, I do noticed some of my students being very disengaged in school. I have this one particular student, who would ask me, "Is it time to go home yet?" when school just started. When I asked her what she thought about school, she told me that it was boring. This was not a shocker for me because I have been there and felt the same way. Things that are being taught in school can be so disengaging since most of it aren't even relevant in the students' lives. This is especially the case for those schools that are mainly focused on teaching for the test.

So my questions for you are:
 Have any of you see this in your field work? Do you see some of your students being disengaged in a lesson because they don't see the relevance of that lesson? Does your teacher do anything to engage the students or do they ignore those kids? What are their view about those students?

If you are the teacher, how would you address this problem? How will you engage ALL of your students in the lesson?

Thanks for reading!
Van

All of us have worked with assessments in our classes last year, this year, even when we were younger as well. But now as we, future teachers, are going through the process of these different classes and assessments that come up, we begin to learn more about what we are comfortable working with and also what we can use for different types of assessments. Whether they are formative or summative, it's always good to see the progress of the students when it comes to the knowledge of any subject that is taught in school. I know for me, I always hated getting tests and quizzes. I can say that I dreaded it. But now that I am going to be a future teacher,, that testing really allows me to see the thinking of the students and also how they are adapting to everything that they are being taught to. Also another thing to consider is how they are able to apply it to their learning in schools and all in the subjects that are in school as well. I'm able to see it at my observation school and my mentor teacher does a nice way to assessing the assessments as well. Very structured and has a nice way of working things out.

My question is how do you plan on using assessment to help formulate the student's thinking? Like the way your mentor teacher does it, or with what the article says? (the article by Victoria Gillis and Ann Van Wig)
What are some of the different ways that you've seen assessments been implemented that make you want to use them in your class too?

GO CUBS!

Strategic Content Literacy Assessment, also known as SCLA, is something that I’ve honestly never heard of but it makes sense. It’s interesting to me that it has different ways for different subjects. I think as a teacher I would definitely use these assessments during the year to document their growth in disciplinary literacy. Summative assessments have literally taken over the classroom and I’m sure we’ve all seen it. That’s all some teachers really focus on. Formative assessments are basically super underrated these days to be honest. 

So I have some questions for ya’ll 

1. Do you see formative assessments going on in your placements? If not, how do we bring them back?
2. Do you agree with the form of assessments the author though of? Because it kind of bothered me that for science, social studies and english, the teacher picks texts that don’t require prior knowledge. Isn’t that the one thing we’re taught to do? I don’t know. Just a thought. 

See you all tomorrow!

Assessment is a "four-letter word" these days. (Strategic Content Literacy Assessment)

The article "Disciplinary Literacy Assessment: A Neglected Responsibility" mentions things that I agree with, for example "Summative assessments of learning have overshadowed formative assessment for learning." I agree with that statement because I have seen summative assessments as parts of standardized testing which have consumed our educational system.
Although summative assessments are being focused on more, formative assessments are still, in my opinion, very important to assess students understanding right there and then. Formative assessments also let you know if you need to change your lesson plan or keep going.

The article also mentions the development of "Strategic Content Literacy Assessment (SCLA). This type of assessment allows the teacher to create assessments that assess students' abilities to read and comprehend discipline-appropriate text by using guidelines from SCLA. SCLA can be used for every discipline including English, Science, Social Studies, and math.
I include the table that was provided on page 457

SCLA Elements	Disciplines
	English	Science	Social Studies
Text selections: Texts	Narrative, fictional text that is a complete story or a non- fiction text [perhaps one that would provide background for an upcoming short story or novel]. In general, choose text that is relatively self- contained and that does not require excessive amounts of prior knowledge.	Use an excerpt from the textbook/internet with diagrams related to the key ideas, or provide a description of lab procedures with data (modify the SCLA questions appropriately as indicated below).	Use an excerpt from the textbook/internet that is relatively self- contained or choose two to three short primary documents, provide quotes from primary documents, or highlight segments from primary documents and direct students to read only the highlighted text.
Cognitive Processes: Questions addressing prior knowledge	What did you know before you read the text that relates to the information in the text? How did you use this knowledge to understand the text?	What did you know before you read the text that relates to the information in the text? How did you use this knowledge to understand the text?	Contextualization: What previous or concurrent events might be related to these documents?
Cognitive Processes: Questions asking students to summarize text	If using fictional text, consider asking students to identify the theme of the story. For non- fiction, ask students to show the most important ideas in the text in any way that makes sense to them [diagram, summary, map].	If using a textbook/internet excerpt, ask students to indicate the most important ideas in the reading in any way that makes sense [diagram, summary, map]. Drawing conclusions: [When using a description of lab procedures with data]. What conclusions can you draw from the lab report?	Close reading: What are the key ideas from these documents?
Cognitive Progress: Questions requiring students to draw inferences	What is something you think is true based on the text, but that is not said in the text? Why do you think this is true?	[When using a textbook/internet excerpt] What is something you think is true based on the text, but that is not said in the text? Why do you think this is true? [When using a description of lab procedures with data] What pattern(s) do you observe or see in the data? What inferences can you draw from this pattern(s)?	Sourcing: When was this document written? Who wrote it? How does this influence your reading? Close reading: How does the language in these documents influence your reading? Is there evidence of bias? If so, what words indicate bias and how do you know?
Cognitive Process: Questions requiring students to make connections	Identify two ideas from the text (X and Y) and ask: Two ideas in the text were X and Y. How are these related? In fiction, you might ask about connections between the setting, characters, and/or events in the story.	Identify two ideas from the text (X and Y) and ask: Two ideas in the text were X and Y. How are these related? In fiction, you might ask about connections between the setting, characters, and/or events in the story.	Corroboration: What are the similarities and differences between [among] these documents?
Cognitive Process: Questions that assess students’ knowledge of vocabulary	Select about three words – one that you believe students should know [prior knowledge]; one that is explicitly defined in the text; and one that is implicitly defined in the text. Identify the terms and ask students to tell what the words mean and how they know this.	Select terms in the text/internet excerpt or lab procedures and data that are crucial for understanding the readings. Be sure to include terms that are implicitly and explicitly defined in the text.	Choose terms that are crucial for understanding the documents. You may wish to provide the meaning of archaic terms and phrases parenthetically, and ask questions related to the use of these terms or phrases.

Questions:
Can you see this assessment being implemented into our classrooms?
In your opinion is this beneficial or just another complex teaching strategy that will not be used?

Let's Talk About Assessments

I am going to be blogging about the one word we all dread hearing. Assessments.  The article that I am focusing on is "Disciplinary Literacy Assessment: A Neglected Responsibility" by Victoria Gillis and Ann Van Wig.  This article focused on the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment.  I found this assessment interesting because I never heard about it before reading this article.  I am so used to seeing the usual tests that come directly from the teachers editions of the curriculum.  The part that I like most about this assessment is that it is a teacher created assessment.  The assessment is created to assess the students abilities to read and comprehend text in each discipline.  The key part of this is that it is comprehension in each discipline.  This form of assessment is different because I have never seen the teachers that I have observed assess the students on comprehension and reading in each discipline.  Since I have never seen it before, I was not too sure on what it entails.

A quote that helped clarify it for me is, "The assessment measure students' abilities to connect what they read to their prior knowledge, summarize what they read, draw inferences, make intertextual connections, comprehend vocabulary terms that are explicitly and implicitly defined in the text, and think metacognitively"(page 455).  

As I was reading this, I was thinking about how I would implement this into my classroom.  I was thinking of doing it at the beginning of the year, so I could understand what I would have to focus on teaching.  This is a formative assessment for disciplinary literacy.  I think this is important because the assessment addresses the students needs and it is a way to collect the growth of the students comprehension.  

My questions for you guys are: what do you think about this form of assessment?, do you see this in your classroom now or in previous classrooms you have been in?, how would you implement this in your classroom?, and do you think it is beneficial?

Feel free to answer one of them or all of them. The choice is yours my friends! 

Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!! 

Thank for reading my post!

Tina Skukan :)