Making Things

I have commented on several occasions about the influence genre studies have on student composition practices. This week's articles on multimodality and student composition highlight once again the value of purposeful, authentic literacy practices in school.

In Smagorinsky, Zoss, and Reed, the authors look inside one home economics classroom to observe the complex thinking students used to solve interior design problems. The authors argue that even though courses similar to the one in the study are often times marginalized in academia, the practices students engage in while participating in meeting course goals reveal a deep level of creative thinking and motivation. One particularly poignant notion presented by the authors was the concept of "flow." This notion of flow suggests that when one is totally immersed in an activity he/she loses track of time. I wonder how often students in our classrooms become so completely engrossed in their coursework they forget to stare at the wall clock willing the minute hand to move faster. I believe in my own academic history the times I truly felt flow were in classrooms where I was making something. There's something to be said about tending to tasks which have a meaningful social and/or personal purpose.

Similarly, in both the Shipka (2006) and the Burn & Parker articles, students make things. The students in these studies engage in complex thinking in order to achieve defined end goals. These tasks encouraged students to think on multiple levels, revise, tweak, experiment before presenting to their peers and teachers. Again, motive and goal play a significant role in the composition process.

These articles highlight how current schooling practices continue to be in conflict between "in here" and "out there." Classroom instruction influenced by lack of resources, teaching knowledge, and emphasis on standardized testing, continues to be reduced to a set of skills to be learned instead of instruction that engages students to use their personal and culturally resources to make things for themselves and others. These articles also highlight the need for teachers to rethink what composition really means and to reconceptionalize the composing process.

I have no comment. . .the link speaks for itself.

http://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people-puts-three-more-in-jail

New Literacies Articles

"From a sociocultural perspective, the focus of learning and education is not children, nor schools, but human lives seen as trajectories through multiple social practices in various social institutions" (Lankshear & Knobel).

I love the above quotation. Now the question is how do we get others to buy into this way of thinking? I can't help but be reminded of the quote by Norma Gonzalez in I Am My Language (2001) which echos Lankshear and Knobel albeit in a more simplified way: "What we should be about is big people helping little people become big people" (pg. 197). How often do we engage our students in tasks which are meaningless, hoop-jumping activities which neither promote thinking nor prepare young people to engage in literate activities outside of school?

I agree completely with the authors' stance, but I question the feasibility of authentically engaging students in these "new" literacies under the current pedagogical framework operating in most schools. Lankshear and Knobel are also skeptical because of the tendency for the school's to colonize ("schoolify") social practices, and recast these practices in an artificial, "pretend" ways.

So, last Thursday, I met with my principal, and he offered me the language arts department head position for next year. Not a bad gig for a redheaded, East Texas Aggie who is often times linguistically and culturally challenged. I mention this because I'm concerned about what direction I'll take with my department. I have been exposed to a wealth of knowledge from faculty and peers while at UT, but I am going to have to be subtle in my approach to enact change. I have this bad habit of being so passionate about something that my myopia sets in, which can be a little off-putting. I wonder what will be the best starting point for our department. I'm thinking genre studies will be most logical choice because this type of inquiry lends itself to incorporating authenticity, choice, and purpose to literate acts. Another challenge will be how I will reconcile district-mandated curriculum plans with my pedagogical perspectives. I just wish I could give all my teachers my articles and books over the course of my two years and say, "Read, and then we'll talk", or better yet I wish I had a cool Matrix like plug-in and could just download the information directly to their brains--that would be sweet, minus the whole computers taking over the world thing.

Kamler, Blackburn, Martino

In the Kamler article, I found her position interesting and rather disturbing. The teachers in the 1st and second grade classrooms believed that they were being progressive in their writing instruction. They were using a "process writing" approach on the surface but instead continued to hold on to elements of traditional writing instruction. By not giving students feedback or introducing them to various genres for writing, the two young writers continued to perpetuate gender roles. I find this disturbing because the highlights the problem with teachers who incorporate new teaching methods by name but do not truly understand the theoretical foundations of the teaching. I am also once again surprised at how early gender plays a significant role identity development. My nephew is six, and I remember vividly when he announced to the family that pink and purple were "girl" colors. The question remains how much is socially constructed and how much is physiological. This once again demonstrates the impact our "neutral" practices influence and reproduce cultural practices.

In the Blackburn article, I find it ironic that a group who combated prejudice reproduced marginalization within their organization. I think this article highlights how in any social group power is distributed unequally between its participants. Social capital is an limited resource and frankly, I posit that it may be impossible to avoid this unequal distribution (especially in the American culture). Through Blankburn's article we see the need for social groups to question and rethink their operating structures in order to construct a better world.

"Is This English"

During the reading of this book, I could not help but be reminded of when we went to the website showing the high school graduation rates per school. If I remember correctly, Johnston had a 36% graduation rate. I find it ironic that the "remedy" for Johnston's high attrition rate is more structured schooling practices which continue to produce the same results. High stakes testing and the standards movement continue to detach the learner from the learning. Isn't this what we have been reading this entire semester?

Taking an inquiry stance in the classroom provides students the opportunity to become active seekers of knowledge. I liked Fecho's extension of Rosenblatt's transactional theory from reading books to "reading" people. We transact with one another, shaping and being shaped by the experience. In classrooms where teachers are willing to take risks and ask challenging questions where no absolute answer exists students become meaning makers and identity shapers.

Teaching in the Contact Zone

While reading this book, I couldn't help but wish I had been in Gaughan's class when I was in 9th grade. I mean, Mrs. Thomas was nice and everything, but for some reason I feel a bit cheated.

Gaughan's classroom promotes the kind of democratic ways of being I want to nurture in my classroom. Teachers who are committed to the well-being of all students must begin to reflect and rethink how and why they teach. Gaughan's book highlights the need for teachers to be aware of the multiple voices in the classroom. By envisioning the classroom as the intersection of multiple ideologies, we begin to become aware that teaching and learning are never neutral. This awareness allows us to engage in conversations that surface underlying assumptions. However, oftentimes, we are pushed by outside forces to focus on the content instead of the person, but Gaughan's book illustrates how powerful engaging students in the academic conversation can be. Gaughan doesn't shy away from the difficult topics and appears to enjoy teaching within "the contact zone." Gaughan's way of teaching is messy and unpredictable, and I fear that for many teachers it is by far easier to hide behind the curriculum then to connect with students in the ways Gaughan suggests.

More "Reconceptualizing. . ."

I just want to say first that I have a huge man-crush on Gee. TMI, perhaps, but I can't help it. My first read in grad school was Gee's Social Linguistics and Literacies, and I've been hooked ever since. Gee's work is relevant and important to schooling reform because he focuses on the "darker aspects" of our capitalist reality and how schooling tends to contribute to social and cultural reproduction. His notion of "Shape-Shifting Portfolio People" informs my practice as I attempt to apprentice my students into the academic discourse (Gee, would that be a "D" or a "d"?). If Gee is correct in his thinking that modern reality requires young people to engage in self-fashioning practices that recreate their identities, students should be provided ample opportunities to engage in such practices. Unfortunately, however, students of privilege tend to participate in self-fashioning acts to gain social capital that will be used for future successes; whereas, working-class students "display themselves as immersed in a world of action and feeling untied to vaunted futures of achievement, transformation, and status" (p. 182). In addition, what I found most surprising was that the upper-middle-class schools in the study did not engage students in social critique and the working-class schools did not engage students in conversations about living in a ever-changing, technological society.

Gee suggests that exposing students to digital literacies may bridge the "divide" between the haves and the have-nots, but alas, in the Wilder and Dressman chapter they show that often teachers and students fail to reap the transformative benefits of technology. The authors argue that students need more explicit instruction in using technology, and the students need to participate in authentic technological tasks.