In Ch. 10 of Girls, Social Class, and Literacy, Stephanie Jones discusses and gives examples of using Critical Literacy within a Reading Workshop.  Jones’ transcript of a small group classroom discussion gave me a concrete model of what Critical Literacy can look like in the classroom beyond having culturally relevant discussions.  She showed what Critical Literacy is in terms of being a “text critic.”  (pulling from Allan Luke and Peter Freebody’s idea of the four “roles” of a postmodern reader: code breaker, meaning maker, text user, and text critic).

What struck me was Jones’ use of connections and disconnections to literature.  Like Jones, I have definitely fallen into the “multicultural trap” of simply avoiding texts that didn’t pertain to my students, taking the Henry and Mudge out of my classroom library instead of engaging students in conversations that question and analyze these types of text for the power relations and stereotypes.  “Making connections” is always one of the first, and easiest in my mind, to teach.  However, I purposefully give students texts that I they can “connect” with naturally and deeply.  I’d never thought of using a disconnect to begin a conversation around “perspective, power, and positioning.”  I’m thinking that the avenue of textual connections and disconnections might be a good one to address some racial comments that flow freely from my students on a daily basis.

Freire’s quote in my blog title is cited in Jewitt’s piece, “Multimodality and Literacy in School Classrooms” and somewhat captures the essence of this complex text.  Jewitt makes good use of the image of a “porous” classroom, one that “traverses institutional boundaries” between school and home, making a classroom curriculum “permeable” to the outside world.  Jewitt discusses approaches to new literacies and links these to studies of classroom practices.

Multiliteracies–

• A response to changes in cultural and linguistic diversity and complexity of texts including nonlinguistic, “multimodal” forms of representation and communication
• A political and social theory for redesigning curriculum that aims to “stretch” literacy beyond traditional constraints of “official” standard forms of written and spoken language.
• Based on “critical literacy” pedagogy, a culturally responsive curriculum that seeks to “redesign the social futures of young people across the boundaries of difference.”
• Jewitt makes the point that the Multiliteracies approach still focuses mostly on written lettered representation.

Multimodality–

• like Multiliteracies, is an approach to pedagogy that has roots in Critical Literacy
• no one mode stands alone in the process of meaning-making, “modes” being image, gesture, gaze, body posture, sound, writing, music, speech, etc.
• draws on Halliday’s social semiotic theory of communication, not based on on linguistic foundations of “print literacy” but instead on anthropological and sociological theories
• new modes are created and existing modes transformed as societies change

One pedagogical example of multimodal teaching from Johannesburg included a literacy project where students were assessed on narratives of culture through drawings, 3D figures, interviews, play, and performance.  To me this sounds like a layered curriculum where students are able to choose their own “mode” of representing their knowledge.  I’ve used this method of teaching successfully with 7th and 9th graders (thank you E-Pal!), but logistically it’s very difficult.  To adequately assess students on given objectives, you really need rubrics for each “mode.”  However, I wonder if you could assess in a very general way to accommodate the multiple modalities?

The article, “Response to Intervention (RTI): What Teachers of Reading Need to Know” (Mesmer & Mesmer 2008), claimed that 75% of literacy researchers thought RTI was “very hot” or should be “hot.”  While the article gave me a good background of the RTI process and concrete examples of how this can work in a classroom, it did leave me wanting to know more.  I had heard of the program, but I don’t think it is very popular at the middle school level or even upper elementary grades although it could be.  Actually, after reading Alice’s blog and the comments, RTI seems to be focused only on the very early grades.  I wonder why it’s not being used more in higher grades if it is in fact so hot.

To me, the basic process is quite simple: assessing, trying specific interventions, monitoring progress, assessing again, and then applying further interventions.  The difficult part would be to decide on the right interventions for a particular student as well as pulling together the necessary “team.”  In the anecdote given about “Mark,” there were four main professionals involved: a 2nd grade teacher, a reading teacher, a special educator, and a school psychologist.  It was interesting that the classroom teacher was frustrated with all the questions and demand that the others asked of her.  The school psychologist found teachers’ general responses to be defensive.  Teachers definitely aren’t used to discussing every aspect of their class (what exactly they are teaching, how often, and the results), but perhaps this type of conversation should be more commonplace.

I like the idea of RTI because it is more individualized than a program like Read 180.  RTI is also part of a student’s regular Language Arts block whereas Read 180 is a separate class.  Although I would be using this process on my own, I think I could easily follow the RTI model, and it seems that middle schools need more of this type of support for below level readers.  In fact, reading interventions seem to become less and less common as students grow older, not that the need declines that much.  Shouldn’t a struggling student at any age receive interventions to help him or her be successful?  Shouldn’t a classroom teacher be part of this process?

A few years ago I participated in a workshop about reading comprehension facilitated by Stephanie Harvey where she claimed that the AR program did not adequately test comprehension.  Five to ten semi-obscure multiple choice questions about a book does not inform a teacher of any deep understandings or progress of her student’s reading.  To me, a teacher working in a school that lived and breathed AR, this was revolutionary.  An expert had confirmed my feelings about this expensive program that didn’t seem to do anything for my students but take up time.  Of course, students desperately wanted to get AR points so that they could earn whatever tangible reward was offered in a quarter, but they would either read a book too quickly or not at all before taking the computer-based test.  Often frustrated by not earning all their points, students would rush on to another book, skim, then try that test, which would usually result in the same process over again.  To me, AR undermined my ability to teach my students to be thoughtful, reflective readers.

Although Mallette’s article on “The Influence of Accelerated Reader on Affective Literary Orientations of Intermediate Grade Students” focused on students’ “reader self-perception” after using the AR program and not comprehension skills, the mediocrity of AR is clear.  Half of our nation’s schools use AR, and yet the claims of the program to motivate students of all reading levels do not appear to be true.  Conversely, the program does not seem to affect student negatively either.  The only group that seemed to be negatively influenced by AR were a group of low-achieving males who had lower “reader self-perception” after using AR.  So how did this program become so popular if it didn’t have clear evidence of success?  Entire school libraries have to be relabeled with AR reading levels and points, and the computer tests for each book have to be purchased in order for AR to work within a school.  This article does not touch upon the origins or creators of AR, but it’s popularity seems to be the result of some fierce marketing and/or desperate schools.  The article does suggest more research be done on the attitudinal and achievement results of AR in order to make more informed decisions about using this program in our schools.  Isn’t it a little late?

What a novel idea, to actually ask students their opinions of standardized, high-stakes testing.  Why hasn’t this been done more?  The article “Third Through Sixth Graders’ Perceptions of High-Stakes Testing” makes the point that teachers, administrators, parents, policy-makers, and tests themselves have been studied repeatedly, but not much has been explored in the area of testing influences on students.  This study illuminates the negative effects that testing has on students through a study with drawings that students completed after taking high-stakes tests.  The students also provided written explanations of their drawings.

I have to say that I was in no way surprised by the results of this study.  The researchers, on the other hand, had not expected the overwhelming negativity of student responses.  The predominate feelings that students expressed after testing were nervousness, anger, and isolation.  The pictures described and shown in the study are depressing: kids sweating and crying with nervous wrinkled foreheads, kids with their heads on fire, kids working furiously while their teachers sat and relaxed, etc.  Any teacher that actively monitors students while testing has seen these feelings.  However, reading these clear study results push Afflerbach’s point that the general U.S. public ignores the negative consequences of high-stakes testing.  There is now evidence that questions the validity of high-stakes tests, the influence of tests on curriculum, and the well-being of students, yet every state continues to emphasize and even increase standardized testing.  This article quotes Kohn (2000) arguing that the use of high-stakes tests to decide promotion and retention standards is equal to “educational ethnic cleansing.”  I don’t think this statement is too harsh.

After using such a strong assertion in the article and showing the seriously negative effects of high-stakes testing on students, the authors’ conclusions seem light to me.  They recommend improving the testing environment (letting students chew gum, take off their shoes, etc), using a variety of assessments to determine promotion and retention standards, and having teachers play the role of comforter and coach in order to improve student perceptions toward tests.  To me, the main point here is not to make students feel better about tests but instead to alter or eradicate high-stakes tests all together.