It's 7 AM...Do You Know What Your Child is Reading?

It's funny to think about how only a few months ago, I would not have questioned the premise behind Lisa Simon's article on scaffolding complex texts.  I understand that we want to give our students the tools to read across all genres and eras, especially when thinking about what they might be required to read in college.  But do we have to make them read stuffy texts like House of Mirth?  I was required to read this novel in college for an American Lit class, and even I had trouble with it, partly due to its length.  I think that we can teach students the same concepts with other texts; even teaching one of Wharton's short stories would be more accessible and probably much more interesting for the teacher and the students.  Simon mentions several times that students had problems with engagement.  So, yes, we don't want to "teach down" to students because they are capable of reading and understanding difficult texts, but if a constant issue is that they are not engaged, then is the exercise of making them read a complex and long novel really doing anything helpful?  Again, I think that all of the helpful points about reading a novel from a different era can be taught from a short story, which is probably much easier to engage with.  I think that we have such a limited amount of time with students that we should open up the curriculum to expose them to more texts, not force them to slog through one novel for weeks.

That being said, I have watched the students in my class at Reagan engage with their individual texts for a couple of months now.  Although they get 25 to 30 minutes at the beginning of each class period to silently read their books, I've seen several students still only a quarter of the way through their chosen books.  And generally, these books are not very difficult as far as reading levels, content, or length.  I'm concerned that time has not been given to them on an individual level to talk about their texts.  Their end goal for reading is supposed to be a project that they'll work on in a couple of weeks, but it doesn't seem to motivate anyone because they're not being conferenced with on a regular basis.  On top of that, I wonder if some of the students are having problems with comprehension; however, I don't feel like it's my place to work on these issues, because the reading time is supposed to be completely silent.  Instead, I can only read a book with them and hope that the time is useful.

This process of individual reading also makes me concerned about issues like the ones brought up Wendy Glenn and Marshall, Staples & Gibson.  These authors show that all kinds of fiction are valid for students to read, whether the fiction is considered "literary" or not, but there are issues of money and gender are raised by certain texts.  If we are not aware of what our students are getting out of the individual texts that they're reading, then we're allowing dominant systems of power to be passed down to another generation.  Instead, like the authors point out, we must teach students to question characters, their choices, and the ideas that they're promoting.  We can't utilize critical literacy and foster social justice if we aren't even aware of the books that we require students to read for 30 minutes a day.

Obviously, I have learned this semester that it is difficult for me to observe under someone else's system and not want to take charge.  Since I have such difficulty with this concept, it's definitely something I need to work on.  It's been a great learning process so far, but I'm still mostly ready to be the one in charge. :)

On Code-Switching

As I've been pondering the past week, I've noticed a common theme regarding the concept of code-switching as well as nonstandard English.  I think it's particularly relevant to the class I observe, because these students generally fall into two camps of code-switchers: African American Vernacular English and Spanish.  The code-switching from English to Spanish is more obvious in the classroom setting, just because it's easier to hear a completely different language; however, I've noticed the code-switching from AAVE to English in the context of a request to the teacher.  In fact, a couple of African American students were arguing with each other, and in order to settle the argument, one student explained the facts of what was going on to the teacher, a white woman.  The student's language didn't exactly become formal English, but it was clear that she was attempting to use a more "standard" form of English in order to convey what was happening to the teacher; perhaps she was afraid that the teacher wouldn't understand her, or she is simply aware of the fact that standard English affords her words more power than a nonstandard English.

The code-switching between English and Spanish occurs constantly in the classroom, as many Latino students are efficient at finding the exact words that they need to express themselves in both languages. The school has flyers that utilize both English and Spanish, so it's not like the school is actively suppressing their mostly native tongue. However, they also realize that standard English is the language of power.  I came into class this past Tuesday with a "Yo Vote" sticker on (I can't find the accented e on here).  A couple of the Latino students questioned me about it.  They wondered why a voting sticker would be in Spanish, even explaining to me that "that's not English, Miss."  I took the opportunity to have a conversation about the fact that English is not the official language of the United States, which they expressed surprise about.  Their way of infusing their English with Spanish and vice versa is such a rich use of language, but I honestly haven't seen them doing this in their writing at all.  Instead, they focus on using English conventions that are sometimes very stilted at the expense of richness and creativity.  I think this is unfortunate, and I think that it comes from teachers never explaining to them that they can actually write this way.

As always, I think the most important aspect of writing that we have to keep bringing up with students is considering your audience.  As Hill's article recommends, "Teachers must facilitate distinctions and support students as they negotiate appropriate contexts for employing language features."  So, sometimes students' different versions of nonstandard English are the most appropriate to use; at other times, we (sadly) must work within the existing power structures of language and try to use a more formal, "standard" version of English.  I went to a presentation this weekend given by the woman who's the director of reading, writing, and Social Studies assessments for the Texas Education Agency. It was interesting to see how the testing measures were constructed, especially from the other side, but one of the biggest recommendations that she gave to teachers was to instruct students to consider their audience.  Of course, she's talking about audience in the sense that it would guide your essay structure, but I also think that this is true for code-switching and nonstandard English.

While we don't want to tell our students that their version of English is wrong, we do have to explicitly introduce them to the tools of power that currently exist in our system.  And one of those biggest tools is "standard" English.  While, as Hill notes, "standard English should be a choice, not an imposition," she makes this statement conditional.  Yes, it "should" be, but standard, or white English, remains imposed on American society as a structure of power, and I'm not sure how quickly a change will be made to this structure in the foreseeable future.

Complaints About the Time-Space Continuum

So, it's November.  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and frenetic about all the stuff I have to do in the upcoming month.  It's always a tough time because I'm not very good at organizing my schedule so that I get certain things done ahead of time; instead, like many students, I depend on deadlines to push me to produce.  I'm beginning to realize that teaching is a profession that doesn't improve this tendency.  Because of all kinds of last minute issues that come up, planning lessons often occurs at the last minute, whether you intend to do so or not.  I think that's where I've been struggling to see progress in the classroom--I feel like there are days when not much is taught or learned, and I wonder if it has to do with poor planning.  However, there are times when there's not much to do about it.  For example, my CT has been required to go to two all-day workshops in the past two weeks.  Luckily, they didn't both fall on an A or B day, but still.  It's tough to think about that much time being wasted over the past couple of weeks, when there's had to be a lot of catch-everybody-up time already (due to a lot of student turnover).  And it is wasted time--the substitutes at Reagan pretty much let students have free reign.  (Two students wandered in our classroom the other day from a class whose teacher wasn't there and promptly proceeded to throw things at another student, start a fight, and cause the class to completely lose focus for a good 20 minutes.)  And they're testing for two days this week, which takes away from class time that they could be using to actually learn.

Maybe I'm just sounding negative because I've been listening to a lot of problems voiced by my CT about the school culture and administration.  Teachers were recently informed that they should not send students to the principal's office.  Reason?  The students already have to face problems at home that are scarier than anything they could encounter in a principal's office.  WHAT??  I do understand that we should be cognizant of our students' issues at home, and I'm also aware that some teachers will attempt to avoid confrontation by making principals deal with issues of student discipline.  But when you create a school culture that coddles students' behavioral problems, you're condoning bad behavior.  You're giving them an excuse.  Rather than saying, hey, I'm sure there's a reason behind why you're acting out, you're saying, hey, life is tough, so don't worry about it.  Instead of providing structure that may be lacking at home, and that the students may want, the school seems to be avoiding this issue, lest students may have a problem with it.  I understand that they really want students to show up, but they're lowering their expectations of students.  Also, they're making a broad generalization that seems pretty prejudiced.  So all students who come from a lower-income household have a bad home life?  A lack of money does not equate a lack of family support.  So anyway, I'm not sure what I would do as a teacher in this situation.  The administration recommends sending a "problem" student into another teacher's classroom to cool off, but this could cause unwanted distractions in that teacher's classroom.  I'm not really sure that there is a good solution, other than the fact that I'd try to avoid a blow-up from occurring by utilizing other classroom management techniques.

To address this week's articles about online literary communities and responses, I think that providing an online space for students to express themselves is a great idea.  However, the logistics could be a problem.  I know that it seems fairly easy for the students in the articles to have access to a computer and the Internet, but I don't even know where a computer lab is at Reagan.  There are two computers in the classroom, but for work on the computer to be helpful and accessible for everyone, I think that there would have to be a lot of explicit instruction on how to use the programs and time would be an issue.  There doesn't seem to be enough time just to get through the TEKS requirements, so I think you'd have to start at the beginning of the school year with regular instruction on technology use and a focus on online writing.  Ah, time.