Bring Back Motivation
With the constant globalization of our world today, the United States is continually looking at how our country ranks in comparison to others. In 2013, the US ranked 16th out of 23 countries in a study assessing literacy proficiency, despite having “higher than average levels of educational attainment” (Rogers 2013). Because of this disparity in literacy between our country and others, we seek out ways to improve the literacy of our citizens by reforming current education policies and emphasizing literacy in our schools. Though our country is attempting to be proactive in its quest to better the education and literacy of its citizens, it is using a narrow-minded approach which is having a negative influence on the literacy of many students. The way that schools sanction literacy influences the literacy of individual adolescents depending upon their background and continues to fail in repairing the achievement gap.
The limited sanctioning of literacy in today’s schools is largely in line with more traditional methods of teaching, which do not engage all students, thus decreasing overall literacy. These traditional methods of teaching in the Language Arts classroom frequently include reading classic novels and analyzing their content in some way or another. Here is an example of this as presented in one of the common core standards, “Grades 11–12: Demonstrate knowledge of 18th, 19th, and early 20th century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.” What this standard is ultimately requiring is the ability of the students to critically think about multiple texts from these time periods and how they are similar or different. To me, it seems as though developing critical thinking skills, which many students are lacking, is more important than teaching to specific texts. Teaching critical thinking is something that could perhaps first be done using texts the students are interested in, and once they learn this skill, they could then apply it to required texts. Furthermore, according to Lesaux (2012), “middle grades and high school teachers’ primary responsibility has been to teach the content, de-emphasizing the literacy practices central to comprehending the content and thereby increasing the struggles of students who may not have learned to read adequately in the lower grades” (p. 93). As Lesaux states, it is clear that many teachers are so comfortable with solely teaching the content, they are essentially teaching “‘around the text’ rather than ‘through the text’” (p. 20) (Woods 2009). One of the main reasons for this, states Woods, is because it is difficult for teachers to observe students struggling with reading comprehension, not a lack of caring (p. 20). Something that all teachers lack, however, is a context for student lives outside of the classroom (Finders 1997). Finders observed, “constrained by limited contact time with students, teachers had few opportunities to learn of students’ life experiences that might affect behaviors within the classroom” (p. 50). Without context, teachers are likely to only see a student’s lack of interest rather than distractions or worries outside of school that are the root of the problem. Not only do students likely have preoccupations about things outside of school, but because these sanctioned literacy practices are requiring students to apply critical thinking skills to works of literature from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, it is very likely that students not only lack the skills to critically think about these pieces of literature, but it is also likely that they lack interest in the content. Furthermore, in her year long investigation of the hidden literacies of adolescents, Finders found that lack of interest was not the only thing influencing students’ participation in school. Finders found that, for one of the groups of students she observed, “the social aspects of junior high far outweighed the academic” (p. 49). This could be another reason for students lacking motivation in analyzing literature from this time period. They likely see it as something that does not relate to their lives and are far more interested in their own day to day social lives anyways. Finders also found that although some students she observed seemed to be “doing school” just to get by, it did not mean they were not interested in other literate practices. For example, the students she observed were reading magazines at home, as well as different books that were not seemingly very “cool,” and were thus avoided being read at school. It was not that these students were not interested in reading, but they were not interested in reading content that they thought did not related to their lives.
The sanctioning of more traditional literacy practices is not helping students maintain interest and thus leads to poor performance for many. The varying backgrounds and cultures of students causes them to all have naturally differing interests when it comes to learning. David Kirkland stated in an interview (2015) that “students vary, and I think the conditions that will promote education among different students will vary.” These variations among students that Kirkland mentions are important to keep in mind when teaching about literacy because these variations are important to keep in mind to help maintain student interest. Finders found that students with different backgrounds engage in different literacy practices outside of the classroom.
Students that are performing poorly in literacy may have lost interest and therefore feel no connection or importance of improving their literacy. Though it may be difficult, finding a way to incorporate the different literacy practices students engage in outside of the classroom might not only help liven up the daily routine, but might also help pique more students’ interests more frequently. Snow and Biancarosa (2003) state that “readers must develop and maintain a motivation to read and learn (a characteristic commonly acknowledged as declining precipitously during the middle grades)” (p. 6). Clearly, maintaining interest is a large factor in helping students to succeed. The sanctioned literacy practices of schools, however, are not varied enough in helping students of all backgrounds succeed. David Kirkland (2015) stated in an interview that, “if we’re going to get anywhere close to ideal, we have to have the flexibility to embody, to wrap, to transmogrify a classroom space to fit the unique needs of the individuals that are in them.” We can take this quote of Kirkland’s, and apply it directly to literacy as taught in the classroom today. Currently, sanctioned literacy practices are limiting and causing students of different backgrounds to perform poorly in the classroom. Studies done by the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that there is a great disparity between minorities and whites literacy abilities (Snow and Biancarosa). It is possible that these literacy abilities could be stunted due to poor motivation and interest because of limited sanctioned literacy activities in schools.
In order to improve these students’ performance, we must transform the classroom into accepting more creative and forms of literacy practice that might not considered to be traditional. In this way we can garner the interest and motivation of a larger amount of students from different backgrounds and help close the achievement gap.
References
English Language Arts Standards. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/11-12/9/
Hip Hop Education: An Interview with Dr. David Kirkland [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhM2q-5u9l8
Rogers, M. (2013, October 8). Troubling stats on adult literacy. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/08/us-adults-rank-below-average-global-survey-basic-education-skills
Snow, C.E., & Biancarosa, G. (2003). Adolescent literacy and the achievement gap: What do we know and where do we go from here?. Retrieved from https://www.carnegie.org/media/filer_public/2a/92/2a924f5b-8130-4dc8-86c4-86ad71d2f08f/ccny_meeting_2003_gap.pdf
Woods, B. (2009). The right to think: Giving adolescents the skills to make sense of the world. In S. Plaut (Ed.), The right to literacy in secondary schools. (13–24). New York: Teachers College Press.
