Literacy for the iGeneration

Tonight we discussed the danger of a single story by viewing Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. We also discussed the podcast on Race from RadioLab, the website Race, Are We So Different by the American Anthropological Association, and the article Culture as Disability by McDermott & Varenne. As I moved around the room, I found the students discussing the texts, but one of the things I continually run into (and with myself included) is the tendency to talk in broad generalities and to not really engage with the text. The text triggers some ideas, but the ideas in the text aren’t really discussed. I have to do more to get people to really think about the ideas at a deeper level.

I’m enjoying teaching this course, and I love the content. This group of students is a good group too. I also looked at the results of the urban teaching scale and they have a good grasp of many of the constructs the survey examines. Therefore, I want to push them farther. Farther in their analytic skills, farther in their reflection, and farther in their engagement with the texts.

I also want to pull in a little bit more with literature. I know Joellen does a lot with that, so I don’t have to do too much, but I want to do some linking to methods. I also want to do more with the implications for technology. I’m not sure where that’ll go in the course. I have to keep thinking about it.

We also spent some time with Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model of human development. I’m not convinced that accomplished much – although it did allow me to hear some more background on people. I think we’re going to continually circle back to that.

The biggest thing I want to try to accomplish in this class is not to just march forward, but to continually circle back to where we’ve been and to build on that.

I’m really loving the wiki I have set up for the course. I’m also loving the idea of using a Facebook group to post announcements. We had talked briefly about having food at during class, and then I forgot to address it during the second half of class. When I remembered it, I created a page about food on the wiki and also posted an announcement on the Facebook group. Students are starting to weigh in on what they want to do. It’s just so cool to have people contributing. It may seem as if food is a minor issue, but I have come to the conclusion that it’s actually a very important part of building a community. It’s the whole issue of breaking bread. We don’t break bread with enemies. Sharing food represents trust. I’ve got to remember to make this a part of my regular practice.

As usual I overplanned. I wasn’t able to do the Bronfenbrenner stuff. I’ll do it next week. There was also the snafu with people getting onto the wiki in time and having read the texts before class. I may go back to not asking people to read before the start of the semester. I started doing that with the summer course because it’s such a short period of time. But it never seems to go smoothly. I’ll have to rethink the logistics.

Because not everyone read the texts, the conversation tonight about the texts wasn’t as deep as I would have liked. But we’ll get there in the future.

There are two things I’m really glad we spent time on. One was that we spent time in the computer lab just getting the logistics taken care of. I carefully made up instructions on what they had to do, and that seemed to help. There was a bit of problems with google docs, but that seems to be worked out. So far so good on the techy stuff.

The other thing I’m glad we spent time on was the course covenant. Some really good conversation came out of it about what the students need to have an environment conducive to learning. It took some time to share these ideas, but I am convinced it was time well spent.

I’m a little concerned because one student said that they read some of the articles in their undergraduate course. Every semester I get questions from students worried that this course is repeating their UG course, and I always reassure them that it’s not. But now it’s got me a little worried. I still don’t think it does, because I have them focus on language and literacy, but now I’m thinking of removing the Schneidewind & Davidson chapters (or just leave them there as review). But I have to think what I want to replace the McDermott & Varenne article with. That’s such a great article and the idea of culture as disability is so very important. And not everyone has read it. I’ll see how it goes next week. I’ve also requested a copy of the UG syllabus. There are so many great texts out there, there is no reason to do repeat readings.

Maybe I’ll replace the McDermott & Varenne with Kumashiro or something on Queer Theory.

Overall, I’m feeling positive about the class. We didn’t dig too much into content, I spent (as usual) too much time talking about the syllabus, but that’s typical of the first night. It does seem as if this is a group that will come together, and the time spent up front on building community (as we know) goes far in allowing us to explore content.

I have a policy that I try to carry out. Whatever I assign my students, I do as well.

This semester, I’m having my students in the diversity class blog about what they are learning in class. I’m not calling it blogging and their doing it on pages I’ve set up for them on my course wiki. I decided to go that route simply for my own convenience. I just have to go to one place to read their materials instead of going to a bunch of different blogs. But the effect, I think (I hope) will be the same.

But in the spirit of asking them to write weekly reflections on their learning, I’m going to be doing it too. I’ve done it in the past, and it’s time to return to that practice.

It was the last night of class that we are engaging in readings. We had a lot to discuss. We clarified the criteria for the literature review presentations. It went smoothly. The students have all done this type of thing before so they were pretty straight forward in what they wanted to see. So that was all hammered out.

I did a minilecture on the Miner (Nacerima) Yosso and McDermott & Varenne readings. Just to clarify some of the main points, then set them to discuss the other readings. It was fascinating to see the different groups dig into the different readings. Some groups really got into Recitatif (my personal favorite) whereas others spent time on the Young book (also powerful, but very different) and then another spent time on the grocery shopping activity (shopping using SNAP allowance). Each used a different text and approach, but each got to an interesting place.

We then spent a brief time workshopping the personal narratives they’ll be performing in two weeks. There were a lot of questions as to what those should look like. Several students asked if they could do a multimodal type of presentation rather than an oral presentation. I thought about it and remembered my digital story, so I said yes and showed them mine. Luckily I still have it in my file space. I hadn’t watched it in quite some time, and realized it’s a bit too fast, but I’m still proud of it. It serves its purpose. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a little self indulgent, but I think it serves its purpose. I realize doing it served a particular purpose, but I’ve moved on from it. But it remains a decent example of a digital story and I think I’ll include it in the syllabus next time I teach this class.

We then headed over to the Golisano gateway for a presentation by the Teen Empowerment group. Wow. knock my socks off. They started out with some introductory work, explained who they are and what they do, and then several members presented oral works or just talked about their lives. Mindblowing. The rawness of their emotion and their pleas for teachers to be advocates and activists is powerful. I am so impressed by their willingness to put themselves on the line – to be vulnerable in front of strangers. What an incredible group of people.They took my breath away and in the short hour we were with them they probably had more effect on the students than my whole semester with them did.

They also showed a movie about the school to prison pipeline. It was eye opening for me. I was unaware of the connections between school suspensions and kids winding up in juvenile detention and jail. I’ll be a little less flippant about suspension issues from now on. Following the movie they did a fishbowl where the youth first brainstormed what stood out in their minds about the movie and then went into deeper detail. I had to leave at that point, but it was fascinating watching the students work through the film. It reinforces my belief in the power of the fish bowl and of discussion for understanding a text.

I wish I had known about this in advance. I would have changed my syllabus to include it so that the students could stay for the whole thing. In fact, a few of my students did.

So the TE folk owned the night. I was fortunate to have attended, and I think my students felt the same.

We started class off with a discussion of APA style. I handed out an APA checklist and then went over APA reference style. APA is new for many of the students. I think it was well worth spending the time going over it. I do have to clean up the slide. There are a few little errors and one of my eagle eyed students caught the errors.

We decided that rather than a final exam we’re going to do presentations of the literature reviews. They’ll break into two separate groups (a mix of topics) and share for 10 minutes and discuss for 4. They’ll also upload their abstracts to the course wiki so that they can see what others have written.

They also decided on the grading scheme. They will get an A in the course as long as they complete all the assignments. I have to post what they’ve done on Blackboard (haven’t done that yet). They will also reflect on their learning in the last chapbook entry and will hand in their chapbooks on the last day of class. That won’t give me time to read and comment. I’ll just be able to read. I think that’s ok. I don’t have to comment on everything.

I had alloted only 15 minutes to discuss the Thompson article (Tiffany, Friend of People of Color), but our conversation went on for a long time. This group has good inquiring minds. We didn’t get to the Young book. Next week.

We ended with a brief sharing of their dialect study. I want to do more with that next semester. Not just accents, but also grammatical and lexical differences.

Next week we’re also going to workshop the personal narrative. I wanted to take them to the Teen Empowerment presentation at 6:30, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. There’s just too much to do. The strange thing is, class is almost over. Between me being gone for AERA and them attending capstone night, thenn two nights of presentations (personal narratives, literature reviews) there are many meeting nights left.

Crazy. The semester went really fast.

There is much I want to change in the course to make it work for me, but in hindsight, I’m glad I did it this way. It helped me to see what does and doesn’t work for me. It also gave me a greater appreciation of what a great group of students I have. They’ve really rolled with things.

One of the things I’m not happy about with this course is that it seems like a “diverse group of the week” approach. Plus, there’s still not a clear enough link to what the course is supposed to be about – language, literacy, and diversity. This week was “gender and sexuality week.”

There was a lot of good conversation. I love the Audrey Lorde piece, but we didn’t talk about it as deeply as I would have liked to. I’m kind of ambivalent about the Loutzenheiser pieces.The two videos we watched were good, but again we really didn’t do enough with them.

What was interesting was to hear various students’ experiences with homophobia and gender construction. For some students it was almost a nonissue because they had been raised in an open accepting environment, others admitted to play “smear the queer” and others said it was in conflict with their religious beliefs.

The issue of religon really complicates matters of homosexuality. More than any other issue within diversity studies, homosexuality runs smack against fundamental religious values. Then again, people were using the Bible 100 years ago to support racism and miscegenation. And we talked about that a bit.

What really came out though is that people are afraid to take action and stand up for marginalized groups because of fear for their jobs. And I think that fear is only going to get worse in this economic climate, which could lead to backsliding in our movement toward a more humane society. That fear is a tool of the intolerant. More than anything, I think we have to fight against that fear.

It was a bit of a hodgepodge of a night. I felt quite disconnected, but in the end it all came together – sort of.

We started out with a presentation by Mrs. Sigler on what is available in our library and how to conduct a literature search. Although our library is small, we have a fabulous set of electronic resources. Our most valuable resources though are people like Mrs. Sigler. She knows so much, is so good at her job, and is incredibly supportive of our students. We are fortunate to have her. I hope the students make good use of the library in all their classes.

After Mrs. Sigler’s presentation, I asked the students to use the behavior rating sheet I gave them last week to identify patterns in their behavior and to set a goal. It is to be private and something for them to work toward and track in their chapbook. We then took some time to identify topics for the literature review and to begin seeking some articles.

Following break we spent some time discussing the experiential assignment (either looking into what facilities are available for the hearing impaired at movies or the shopping experience of a little person). What amazed me was the number of people who connected the little person assignment to the tv show (which I’ve never seen). I’m not fond of the experiential assignments, but I think they were effective for raising awareness of how the environment disables people. I think too that the students got it when I talked about what constitutes a “norm” and how norms shift based on the population.

Then yet another shift to talk about the readings. A lot of interesting things were raised about the Elliot video and Gatto’s article. I don’t particularly like the Gatto article. There’s not a lot to it in my opinion. I’ll have to shop for something different that accomplishes the same thing. Interestingly, some of our own stereotypes and beliefs are starting to come out in the conversation. It will be our task, over the rest of the semester to openly, honestly, and supportively examine those beliefs that arise.

We ended with workshopping the narrative analysis assignment. I shared an exemplar with the students, but didn’t go over it. I figured they could read it. It’s actually quite straight forward. We spent the time in partners analyzing one of the strips of talk provided by Dr. Sangmeister using the five dimensions. The students did a really good job of analysis. What I most enjoyed seeing is that they backed up their analysis with evidence from the talk. What we didn’t get into though (and that’s my fault) was the “so what.” What does the analysis tell us. That’s something I’m going to have to do better in the future.

I also gave the students the option of selecting which Loutzenheiser article to read. They are both good articles and are different, yet I think the two of them are similar enough that reading one is sufficient. Next time I teach the class I’ll just use one and find another article that addresses the same issue from and eled perspective (Loutzenheiser focuses on secondary). I love the Lorde piece. It’s short, but so rich. When I read it, I can just feel the words rolling around in my mouth. She’s so angry and really takes white feminists to task, but does so in such a powerful way.

I’m beginning to feel better about the course. More in control of the structure of the course. I’m feeling much better for having taken out the media analysis and the experiential assignment number three. I hate giving assignments and not supporting students adequately in their completion of the assignment. As I told the students, I’d much rather have fewer assignments and do them well than have lots of assignments and just pass over them. I know there are arguments for having the students engage in lots of different writing and writing genres, but it just doesn’t work for me. That’s why it’s good for students to get different instructors throughout their program.

We had a guest speaker on Tuesday who shared her work in an urban school and how a group of exemplary teachers spoke to their students and the way those words helped the students develop a sense of agency or power in their world. I will definitely have her speak in the future.

We spent the second half of class going over Living Narrative with me explaining the five dimensions and just what narrative is.

Honestly, I’m frustrated. Not with the students, but with the course as it’s written. It’s not working well for me and I feel as if I’m constantly scrambling to make it work. I wish I could just pitch the syllabus and start over.

First change: Living Narrative needs to be front loaded. The students had little frame of reference on which to hang the text. I was pleased that a significant number soldiered through it and made sense of it. But it was tougher than it had to be. I commend those students who stuck with it.

Second change: The experiential assignments. Pitch ‘em. In the future we’re going to do community mapping. I think that will be much more meaningful especially in light of the literacy focused class. But we’ll see what the students come up with. I have faith that they’ll make lemonade out of lemons.

There will be more. I’ll capture my thinking in this blog and hopefully will be able to create a course that works for me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this course is a highly personal course and necessarily reflects the instructor. Of all the courses, it’s the worst one for following someone else’s syllabus. Taking up the 620 syllabus last semester was easy. Taking up the 670/690 syllabus in the past was easy. But this one is really really hard.

But I’ll tough it out. I hope my students are kind in their evaluations at the end of the year.