In the opening chapter of Literacy Playshop Karen Wohlwend uses the term transmedia to describe popular media that is bound up with the sale of consumer goods, be they toys, movies, etc. She cautions us not to be too quick to dismiss the literary potential of such media forms. She writes that teachers often steer students away from these types of media for fear that it is likely inappropriate for young children. The result, she writes, is that "children with fewer economic resources are particularly disadvantaged" by this policy, going on to quote Seiter who claims that toys "most available to and popular with working class children are the toys most likely to be excluded from the classroom."
In my own field experience this year, however, I have noticed what, at a gut level, seems to be a disturbing trend in the other direction. I am referencing the Legos books that a number of children have brought into the classroom. I call them "books" when, upon closer inspection, they seem to be cleverly disguised catalogs. I find this (again, I am speaking from the gut and am happy to be corrected by anyone who knows better) particularly egregious since Legos, in their origin, were intended to be simple blocks which could be used to build any toy a child might desire. But since their inception, they seem to have become training wheels for a generation of compulsive consumers. A quick walk through the toy aisle will confirm that the "special" sets command outrageous prices, considering what they are. Made of cheap molded plastic, I can't shake the feeling that the company is stockpiling and rationing their toy sets like the De Beers would blood diamonds.
These slick catalogs market the expensive special sets exclusively. The end result, from what I have observed, is the opposite of that described by Seiter. By using a book or magazine format to create such a fascination with these pricey products, Legos effectively monetized literacy in my classroom. We are accustomed to well off students bringing in toys that other children may not be able to afford, but bringing in text that markets toys (that creates an entire subculture around them) that many children's families can't afford feels like salt in the wounds.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Biliteracy: Beyond Bilingualism
As a teacher with no small interest in the ways that multiple cultures interact in classrooms, I have recently started researching how I might effectively implement policies that respect languages other than English in my future classroom.
Previously I taught English to students of all ages in China. In that setting, I used a fairly strict English-only policy because total immersion is generally touted as paramount to second language acquisition, using English to teach English as the saying goes. While an English-only policy may be appropriate with Chinese students for whom the classroom may represent the only opportunity for any significant degree of immersion, now that I am facing teaching in the US, I am concerned about showing respect to other languages and ensuring that the colonialist attitudes that have historically devalued other languages do not persist in my classroom.
During my field experience at a local elementary school with a relatively high number of ELLs, I have already observed how easily I am able to gain students' trust and inspire their confidence by speaking even a few words of their own languages. In some instances, on the occasions when I have used another language (typically Chinese), it has been to clarify an instruction, but more often I have used the other language simply to demonstrate to an ELL, as well as to others, that his or her language has value in the classroom.
This will be of particular importance in the Navajo Nation where I will do my student teaching. Historically, English-only policies in boarding schools have done much to disrupt the transmission of Navajo language and culture. The colonialist attitude of the white educators at the time (until fairly recently, in fact) invoked the mantra "kill the Indian to save the child" as a way of justifying its own racism, and Navajo language was a principal target of the killing.
Furthermore, as a language learner myself, I am keen to practice my own Spanish in a way that honors Spanish-speaking culture in the American southwest, potentially in a bilingual school. With that in mind, I read Iliana Reyes and Patricia Azuara's "Emergent Biliteracy in Young Mexican Immigrant Children" in Reading Research Quarterly.
This article focuses on the first year (preschool) of a 3-year longitudinal study of 12 children living in Tuscon, Arizona. The authors, themselves bilingual in Spanish and English, used multiple methods including in-school assessment tasks and at-home interviews with students and their families. The in-school activities included children's analyses of environmental print such as food labels and of book print concepts such as directionality and sound-letter correspondence. Additionally, the authors identified children's metalinguistic understandings of their own and others' language use. At the children's homes, the authors observed the children during various types of naturalistic literacy activities with family.
One of this study's more relevant implications for the classroom is that biliteracy development is highly situated, relying much more on the environment (particularly the social environment) in which literacy takes place than on mere exposure (p. 392). Of particular interest is that the children in this study often switched roles of literacy "novice" and "expert" depending on the language being used (p. 392). When experiencing a literacy event in Spanish, a monolingual parent may be the expert and the child the novice, but upon switching to English the children may well find themselves in the role of expert, explaining for their parents. The authors suggest that these interactions produce higher-order thinking and that by differentiating between one language and another children developed better metalinguistic awareness (p. 392).
All of these points could be used to argue for a more situated type of literacy activity in the classroom (like the one mentioned in a previous post). If in-school literacy activities can be made to more closely resemble the socially mediated literacy events the study's authors have claimed to be at the heart of acquiring biliteracy, then paying particular attention to our ELLs could be a rising tide to lift all boats. That is, from a universal design perspective, a situated literacy curriculum that accounts for how bilingual students learn best may benefit all of our students.
Previously I taught English to students of all ages in China. In that setting, I used a fairly strict English-only policy because total immersion is generally touted as paramount to second language acquisition, using English to teach English as the saying goes. While an English-only policy may be appropriate with Chinese students for whom the classroom may represent the only opportunity for any significant degree of immersion, now that I am facing teaching in the US, I am concerned about showing respect to other languages and ensuring that the colonialist attitudes that have historically devalued other languages do not persist in my classroom.
During my field experience at a local elementary school with a relatively high number of ELLs, I have already observed how easily I am able to gain students' trust and inspire their confidence by speaking even a few words of their own languages. In some instances, on the occasions when I have used another language (typically Chinese), it has been to clarify an instruction, but more often I have used the other language simply to demonstrate to an ELL, as well as to others, that his or her language has value in the classroom.
This will be of particular importance in the Navajo Nation where I will do my student teaching. Historically, English-only policies in boarding schools have done much to disrupt the transmission of Navajo language and culture. The colonialist attitude of the white educators at the time (until fairly recently, in fact) invoked the mantra "kill the Indian to save the child" as a way of justifying its own racism, and Navajo language was a principal target of the killing.
Furthermore, as a language learner myself, I am keen to practice my own Spanish in a way that honors Spanish-speaking culture in the American southwest, potentially in a bilingual school. With that in mind, I read Iliana Reyes and Patricia Azuara's "Emergent Biliteracy in Young Mexican Immigrant Children" in Reading Research Quarterly.
This article focuses on the first year (preschool) of a 3-year longitudinal study of 12 children living in Tuscon, Arizona. The authors, themselves bilingual in Spanish and English, used multiple methods including in-school assessment tasks and at-home interviews with students and their families. The in-school activities included children's analyses of environmental print such as food labels and of book print concepts such as directionality and sound-letter correspondence. Additionally, the authors identified children's metalinguistic understandings of their own and others' language use. At the children's homes, the authors observed the children during various types of naturalistic literacy activities with family.
One of this study's more relevant implications for the classroom is that biliteracy development is highly situated, relying much more on the environment (particularly the social environment) in which literacy takes place than on mere exposure (p. 392). Of particular interest is that the children in this study often switched roles of literacy "novice" and "expert" depending on the language being used (p. 392). When experiencing a literacy event in Spanish, a monolingual parent may be the expert and the child the novice, but upon switching to English the children may well find themselves in the role of expert, explaining for their parents. The authors suggest that these interactions produce higher-order thinking and that by differentiating between one language and another children developed better metalinguistic awareness (p. 392).
All of these points could be used to argue for a more situated type of literacy activity in the classroom (like the one mentioned in a previous post). If in-school literacy activities can be made to more closely resemble the socially mediated literacy events the study's authors have claimed to be at the heart of acquiring biliteracy, then paying particular attention to our ELLs could be a rising tide to lift all boats. That is, from a universal design perspective, a situated literacy curriculum that accounts for how bilingual students learn best may benefit all of our students.
Monday, March 10, 2014
More from the Radical Middle
In 2011 Language Arts edited and published a podcast interview with Richard Allington and P. David Pearson discussing the unanticipated ways in which NCLB, and other policies since, have actually undermined literacy education in this country. At worst, out-and-out corruption lie at the heart of the mandated adoption of proprietary methods like DIBELS. At best, we are simply guilty of merely looking at how we can get money to fund our literacy programs rather than looking at what research tells us actually works. In any event, the upshot is by now familiar: we don't trust teachers to be professionals. More than that, we don't want them to be professionals. Said one policy-maker: "we don't want teachers making these, you know, professional and differential decisions about how we're using [literacy] materials" (p. 73).
While supposed research-based methods like DIBELS are not necessarily hurting students (apart from the fact that they take time away from comprehensive reading instruction), they are hurting teachers. Teachers become less capable and less flexible in adapting to the changing demands of the job and curricula. Rather than learning broad concepts that they can tailor to meet specific needs, they are being trained to robotically apply specifics with no thought to how those specifics fit into an overall literacy framework. No wonder that, as Allington and Pearson point out, half of teachers leave the "profession" at the end of five years, the point at which they would actually start to get the hang of the job. My guess would be that the half of teachers dropping out within five years is not the half we would like to keep.
While supposed research-based methods like DIBELS are not necessarily hurting students (apart from the fact that they take time away from comprehensive reading instruction), they are hurting teachers. Teachers become less capable and less flexible in adapting to the changing demands of the job and curricula. Rather than learning broad concepts that they can tailor to meet specific needs, they are being trained to robotically apply specifics with no thought to how those specifics fit into an overall literacy framework. No wonder that, as Allington and Pearson point out, half of teachers leave the "profession" at the end of five years, the point at which they would actually start to get the hang of the job. My guess would be that the half of teachers dropping out within five years is not the half we would like to keep.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
From the radical middle...
On The Voice of Literacy Dr. P. David Pearson describes himself as a member of "the radical middle," meaning that he is an advocate for balanced literacy. Dr. Pearson is an expert on Reading First, the literacy component of NCLB. His review of the literature suggests mixed results for Reading First with state-funded research claiming success and national research noting very modest gains in children's ability to decode nonsense words (think DIBELS) and no gains in actual comprehension. These facts are made more distressing by Pearson's claim that there is no research which actually suggests any correlation between an ability to decode nonsense words and an ability to read real text. Furthermore, the trend of teaching skills such as these (and the "big five" of the National Reading Panel's 2000 report in general) in isolation is, says Pearson, like teaching players to dribble, pass, and shoot without ever actually letting them play a game of basketball.
How is it then that we arrive at a point where so many educators are teaching skills in isolation? Do administrators and policy-makers put too much stock in the NRP's report at the expense of balanced literacy? According to Pearson, no. In fact, a close reading of the report would inform us that the types of skills identified by the report (Pearson uses the particular example of phonics instruction for K-1) have only been shown to be effective when they are part of a more holistic reading program. That is to say, the document that people who advocate teaching skills in isolation point to as evidence supporting their approach doesn't support this approach at all.
Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how much these kinds of educational fads are the result of private companies' salespeople doing their jobs a little too well. A quick look at the webpage for Dynamic Measurement Group (the producers of DIBELS) suggests the money to be made (money coming from Reading First) on professional development alone. It's pretty scary when we take our cues on what to teach from the companies selling the products we would teach, all of which begs the question: do we teach products or concepts?
How is it then that we arrive at a point where so many educators are teaching skills in isolation? Do administrators and policy-makers put too much stock in the NRP's report at the expense of balanced literacy? According to Pearson, no. In fact, a close reading of the report would inform us that the types of skills identified by the report (Pearson uses the particular example of phonics instruction for K-1) have only been shown to be effective when they are part of a more holistic reading program. That is to say, the document that people who advocate teaching skills in isolation point to as evidence supporting their approach doesn't support this approach at all.
Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how much these kinds of educational fads are the result of private companies' salespeople doing their jobs a little too well. A quick look at the webpage for Dynamic Measurement Group (the producers of DIBELS) suggests the money to be made (money coming from Reading First) on professional development alone. It's pretty scary when we take our cues on what to teach from the companies selling the products we would teach, all of which begs the question: do we teach products or concepts?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)