Literacy…Motivating students in the classroom and beyond
How do you compartmentalize literacy? Is it a concept that can be contained in a basket? Is a classroom itself a simple one-dimensional holding cell? Is the idea of literacy one that can be addressed as a sole entity? Is it necessary to teach more than just the textbook in the classrooms of today?
Literacy cannot and should not be reduced to a mere notion of what education is. Literacy is a multi-faceted principle that guides and shapes the impressions of students who are as multi-dimensional as literacy itself. To successfully reach and guide our students, we as teachers, must strive to make our classrooms, our schools, and our communities erudite in what literacy truly is. We must embrace text books and classroom etiquette as well as the home languages and systems of belief that shape the primary discourses in each individual student.
That being stated, where do I start in responding to the literacy needs of each individual student within my classroom?
Relationships are, to me, the building blocks from which the structure of literacy takes its form. It does not matter how much content I know, how hard or well thought out my assessments are, or even how engaging and creative my lesson plans are, if I don’t know my students, I will never impart the true value of literacy to them. Without understanding what it is they bring to the classroom, I can only hope to teach to part of the child. My goal, my passion, my utmost belief in education is to reach the whole child. And, while I am not so idealistic as to believe that I will reach every child entering my classroom, my solemn promise is to teach to the whole child, EVERY child, EVERY day.
So, how do I forge meaningful relationships that will lead to literacy within my classroom? I inquire of my students what it is that is of interest to them. I take the time to discover the funds of knowledge that they themselves bring with them. I learn to recognize and accept cultural diversities, language differences, factors such as their socioeconomic status within the community, and I embrace these differences. I learn to differentiate instruction so that I respect what the students bring to the table; I applaud strengths while consistently scaffolding weaknesses. In a paper discussing Luis Moll and his Funds of Knowledge theory, it was stated that “[Luis Moll] believes the secret to literacy instruction is for schools to investigate and tap into the ‘hidden’ home and community resources of their students” (Gonzalez, Greenburg & Varez, n.d., p. 1). These resources help to build a learning environment that promotes literacy in the classroom while forging community relationships, teaching respect for diversity, and giving a genuine learning experience to the students.
After recognizing the individual differences and contributions our students bring with them in the classroom, we as teachers need to not only present our materials, texts, and lessons, but more importantly we should impart time for our students to think about and process the information. In Chapter 2 of The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools: Creating a Culture of Thinking, Suzanne Plaut summarizes Key Points based on Jennifer Swinehart’s scenario of empowering students through thinking. One such is point is that “students learn metacognition when teachers think about their own thinking and model that thinking for students” (Plaut, 2009, p. 25).
Teaching students to employ metacognitive strategies affords them the opportunity to take ownership of their own learning.
Students should be encouraged to ask questions such as why and how. Not everything in life is black and white, and by allowing students time to think about their own thinking, they are better prepared to understand and appreciate all the many shades of gray. In discussing his book Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms, Randy Bomer writes, “We have to help students become involved and invested in literate tasks that are significant to them, not because they were born to love reading and writing but because of the ways literate activity connects to other things in life that matter to them.”(Building Adolescent Literacy, n.d., para. 5)
My classroom now has students bringing in other life discourses to fill their knowledge banks and time is being given for the promotion of metacognition. I, as the teacher, am modeling and scaffolding throughout the learning experience. But, does my doing, as the students watch truly provide an authentic learning experience? Does this truly teach them to transfer their knowledge to other academic subjects or to other life experiences? Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey address the continuation of the learning experience with the model of Gradual Release of Responsibility.
This model divides the learning structure into Teacher Responsibility and Student Responsibility. It allows for the teacher to teach to the students directly, “I do it”, then to shift to the role of guide, “we do it”, and finally to allow students to take control in a collaborative “you do it together” format and individually, “ you do it alone” (Fisher & Frey, n.d). Fisher (2013) states that the model can be modified so that each of the stages can happen at any point during the instructional process, so long as each stage happens. Maybe you want the students to work alone at the start of the lesson to gauge where they are or what their interests are and then you shift to the focused lesson. The order is not what is important; it is that you are working to teach your students to be independent learners. The teacher should be an educational resource, not a crutch that students become dependent upon in order to succeed. “Our students need, in other words, to become independent in their literate lives. Not independent from other people or communities, but independent from their teachers or other authorities that demand literate compliance — the sort of independence that makes it possible to join with others in literate conversations across the many domains of a life history” (Bomer, 2011, p. 8).
In summary, designing a classroom that attends to the literacy needs of students means more than books, paper and pens. It means more than integrating technology and direct instruction via lecture. Literacy needs to be relevant and authentic and even more importantly it needs to respectfully address the diversity of each student, where they are, and what they bring to the classroom. I feel that by building relationships I can set the stage to encourage students to think. By modeling and scaffolding, I can provide the support needed while creating independence and the desire to live a life where the yearning to learn never stops.
References:
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Bing images. (n.d.). Funds of knowledge. Image retrieved from https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=NMv7B%2B10&id=8D3E12AA4AAEFEC056954EBD1DE70AD32B0B0139&thid=OIP.NMv7B-10QoAx372zd17BTwEsDw&mediaurl=http%3A%2F%2Fanderson-craig-firns-green-jennings-kichakov.wikispaces.com%2Ffile%2Fview%2FFunds_of_knowledge2.jpg%2F338196724%2F489x392%2FFunds_of_knowledge2.jpg&exph=392&expw=489&q=images%2Bof%2Bfunds%2Bof%2Bknowledge&simid=607996014715013349&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
Bomer, R. (2011). Building adolescent literacy in todays English classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.heinemann.com/products/e01394.aspx
Fisher and Frey. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.fisherandfrey.com/
Fisher, D. (n.d.). Effective Use of the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model. Retrieved from https://www.mheonline.com/_treasures/pdf/douglas_fisher.pdf
Fisher, D. (2013). Gradual Release of Responsibility. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjURdvzty4c
Gonzalez, N., Greenberg, J., & Velez, C. (n.d.). Funds of Knowledge: A Look at Luis Moll’s Research Into Hidden Family Resources. Retrieved from http://cmmr.usc.edu/FullText/Luis_Moll_Hidden_Family_Resources.pdf
McGuire, S. (2014). Incorporating Metacognition Strategies Into The Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXKy1El7nU0
Plaut, S. (2009). The right to literacy in secondary schools: creating a culture of thinking. New York: Teachers College Press.
