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Developing Powerful Readers and Writers Socially, Culturally, and Digitally Engaging Instruction
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The Engagement Crisis in K-12 John T. Guthrie
• We have a literacy engagement crisis K-12. Instructional focus on skills is not solving the problem. Policy makers should provide guidance, resources and [incentives] for teachers who nourish active readers and writers.
• John T. Guthrie is the Jean Mullan Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Development at the University of Maryland. A member of the International Reading Association Reading Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Education.
…in 21st Century Literacy Classrooms (Morrell and Scherff, 2015)
A Series of Movements
• Ideas about Texts
• Ideas about Reading
• Ideas about Language
• Ideas about Literacy
• Ideas about Teaching
• Ideas about the Learner
• Ideas about the World
Giving Ourselves Permission to (Re) Invent
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How do we get students excited about learning? (Lave and Wenger, 1991)
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How do we develop students’ literate identities? (Robert L. Selman, 2003)
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How do we make it digitally relevant? (Morrell, 2008)
The Principles
What the Research Says About
Failure (See Russell Rumberger and Edmund Gordon)
• Lack of Confidence
• Lack of Relevance
• Lack of Engagement with high quality relevant literature
• Lack of engagement with a community of learners
• Lack of engagement with the social world
21st Century Learning & Literacy (Morrell, Duenas, Garcia, and Lopez, 2013)
• Moving from a receptive century to a productive century
• Learning that is participatory and interactive
• Learning to critically discern when inundated with information
• Learning that allows students to develop their own unique and powerful voices
• Learning how to listen to and consider others' diverse perspectives
• A 21st century curriculum needs to offer spaces for collaboration, presentation, and invention
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Strengths-based Instruction Engagement as attachment to a community of learners
(Allyn & Morrell, 2016)
• Belonging
• Friendship
• Kindness
• Curiosity
• Confidence
• Courage
• Hope
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Rethinking Engagement & Motivation The Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation
(Wigfield and Eccles, 2000; Brophy, 1998)
+ =
Engaging Students as Readers 20
New Theories of Reading
• What do we read?
• How do we read?
• What do we do while and after we read?
• Most of the texts we now consider classics were once popular culture!
A New Moment in English Language Arts What makes a text a classic? (Applebee, 1974)
Different Reading. Reading Differently. Independent Reading, Critical Comprehension, Reading for Social Action
Adapted from Every Child A Super Reader: 7 Strengths to Open a World of Possible, by Pam Allyn and Ernest Morrell. Published by Scholastic, 2015.
The LitWheel
Enjoyment and Engagement
Focus and Stamina
Fluency and Expression
Identity and Goal Setting
Collaboration and Community
Building
Comprehension
and Critical
Thinking
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“…Students who reported reading for fun at
least once a week had higher average
reading proficiency scores than students who
reported never or hardly ever reading for fun.”
Source: Education World © Pam Allyn 2015
“Research shows that reading at 98
percent or higher accuracy is essential for
reading acceleration...It’s not just the time
spent with a book in hand, but rather the
intensity and volume of high-success
reading, that determines a student’s
progress in learning to read.”
Richard Allington (2012) Every
Child, Every Day
What do students do during
Independent Reading Time?
▪ Read texts they have chosen.
▪ Engage with high-interest text.
▪ Practice process and strategy.
▪ Connect to the central ideas of a unit of
study.
▪ Participate in conversations about text.
▪ Explore a variety of genres and texts that
they can comprehend.
▪ Confer with individual students with a focus on
process or strategy.
▪ Coach into collaborative text talks (partnerships,
clubs).
▪ Help students choose books.
▪ Instruct small groups of students with similar
challenges/strengths.
▪ Create a supportive overall environment/tone
where reading is cherished.
▪ Gather formative assessment data.
What do teachers do during
Independent Reading Time?
Questioning to Uncover Meanings
Surface:
“What is the main idea?”
Deeper Meaning:
“What are some possible
themes and what
evidence from the text
guides you?”
© Pam Allyn 2015
Asking Deeper Questions
with Literary Texts
• What might the
illustration tell you
about the character’s
feelings?
• What may be making
the character change
her mind?
• Why might the author
have made this
decision?
© Pam Allyn 2015
• Does the author
appear to be objective
or biased? Why?
• What words or phrases
has the author used to
try to persuade you?
• What do you think the
author might have
needed to do to write
this piece?
© Pam Allyn 2015
Asking Deeper Questions
with Informational Texts
“Back in the days, before we were
born, the white people were mean to
other people that didn’t look like them.
They would um, them badly because
they were different and that is not right.”
- Jolynn
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99th Street School
Third Grade
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Example of a Letter
Dear Mr. H,
This letter is about our
school. We are studying a unit
named Imagination in Open
Court. We want to make our
school a better place. We don’t
have enough school supplies, our
restrooms are dirty, our school
lunch is nasty, we don’t have
enough paper and we don’t have
enough worker either… We
interviewed kids in 3rd grade and
they said that they didn’t like
things in the school and some
said they did. Then we got a
report card from the school
district. I didn’t like the report card
because it sounded like they
didn’t care about our school.
Student initiated letter
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Oral History
We interviewed teachers and asked
them the following:
1. What was it like being bussed?
2. What did you like about your school?
3. Did you have friends?
4. Did people pick on you?
5. What time did you have to wake up?
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Raggedy food
Dirty Bathrooms
No grass
Some
good
teachers
Order off a menu
Supplies
Grass
Clean bathrooms
Our School Rich Schools
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Play
Developed and acted by: 3rd graders
Time: 1960’s
Settings: Home and newly desegregated
school
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Multicultural Literature, Mock Trials and Debate
(Morrell, 2004, 2008; Johnson, 2016)
Mock Trials in the Literacy Classroom
“Putting Bigger Thomas on Trial”
The Casebooks • All the questions prepared for the witnesses of
your team and scripted responses
• All of the anticipated questions to be asked of your witnesses in cross-examination.
• All of the questions prepared in advance for opposing witnesses in cross-examination.
• The opening arguments.
• All notes taken during the trial (trial notes are mandatory)
• A 5-7 page summation/analysis of the trial.
Connecting Multicultural Film & Literature (Morrell and Morrell, 2012)
“You have an exciting new idea for a modern adaptation of House on Mango Street. Your task is to create a movie poster and a 500-word pitch that you will share with potential producers. Be prepared to share your poster and your pitch with the class.
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Critical Media Analysis Developing Literacies Across the Disciplines
• What values or ideas are promoted?
– What does it mean to be normal (or cool)?
– What does it mean to have power? – What does it mean to be desired? – Who is marginalized or “Othered”?
• How is the audience/recipient constructed?
– Who is targeted? – What assumptions are made about
the audience? – How does the ad/image/artifact
intend to make the recipient feel about him or herself?
– What is an audience member compelled to do/believe?
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Students as Playwrights and Digital Filmmakers
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Filmmaking as Social Action
The One-Minute PSA Contest
• Involves background Research (Reading)
• Requires Academic Writing
• Uses Cheap and Accessible Technologies (Phones, Tablets)
• Fun and Engaging
• Serves Social Purpose
A Day in My Life (Written essays & digital stories)
• What do you do in the morning?
• What do you see on your way to school?
• What happens in first period, second period, etc.?
• What do you do for lunch?
• What happens after school?
• What do you do in the evening?
• What happens before you go to bed?
Myself, My Community, My World
• My Self – Poetry, Narrative Writing,
Scripts
• My Community – Journalistic, Case Study
– Interviews, observation
• My World – Quantitative,
descriptive statistics
– Demographics
Student Research and Social Action
Projects (Mirra, Garcia, and Morrell, 2016)
• If you could change the world what is one thing you would do?
• If you could change your community what is one thing you would change?
Youth Participatory Action Research
(YPAR) Mirra, Garcia, and Morrell (2016)
• Involves young people as researchers and change agents (Who/What)
• Research is community-centered (Where)
• Collective investigation of problems (How)
• Connects Research to Social Action (Why)
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The Process
1. Identify a problem 2. Develop a Question 3. Design a study 4. Collect data 5. Analyze Data 6. Make Claims 7. Provide Evidence 8. Create Products 9. Disseminate Products 10.Social Action
Youth Historians in Harlem Becoming Digital Archivists
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Bless Me Ultima Oral History Project
• Length: 5 weeks
• Culminating Task:
• Oral History Essay
• Power Point (5 Slides)
• Resources:
• Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
• Computers
Essential Questions: • What forces influence our identities as young people? Am vs. Latino
• How do we as young people deal with DUALITY (two kinds of “worlds”)—
living in a US society (new ways/modern) while still maintaining the
language, traditions, and values of our home culture?
• What knowledge and history of our past (from our elders) can help
inform/guide us towards our future?
• What connections or shared experiences do we share with Antonio and his
family’s experiences and our own? Why?
Dream Deferred By Langston Hughes (1951)
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Inequality of Education
Historically and currently,
South Central Los Angeles schools have
lacked the necessary resources needed to
provide a quality and effective education
“Despite greater need, 79% of large city districts studied by the Council of
Greater City Schools are funded at a lower rate than are suburban schools;
nationally, advantaged suburban schools spend as much as ten times that
spent by urban poor schools”
(Anyon 1997)
•Macleod: Social Reproduction
•“schools actually reinforce social inequality while pretending to do the opposite.”
•Freire: “Fitness” for Oppression/Liberation •“…domination rests on people fitting the oppressive world they have created, and how little they question it.”
•Valenzuela: Authentic Caring
•“appreciation of students’ culture and their educacion model of schooling – enabling them to successfully navigate through troubled waters.”
THEORISTS
• Schools: Roosevelt,
Wilson, Garfield, &
*MAHS
• Students: 34
• Teachers: 8
• District Administrators,
School Board Member,
& Supt. Cortines
Interviewees
•Organizations:
•Comunidad Cesar Chavez Homeless Shelter
•Inner City Struggle
•Upward Bound CSULA
•City Terrace Recreation Ctr
•Community people:
•Fulfillment Fund Representative
•Local artists
•Parents
•Small business owners
•City officials: 4
CLAIM 1: The economic
crisis is breaking down
critical foundations of
society in East LA, such as
health, housing, education,
and employment.
“It’s definitely affected our waiting list. We’re seeing families that may have
otherwise not have entered the system. People that have lost their jobs.
Unemployment is not enough. CalWorks or Welfare will not kick in because a lot
of these families that had things, material goods, cars, etc. do not qualify for
CalWorks. They’re not even getting the benefit assistance they need that may
help them increase their income until employment is found.”
-Kris, Homeless Shelter Director
Radical Truth-Telling
Demands
Step Into Our Shoes
Action Plan for Community Leaders
Teachers: Create
lessons that connect your
subject to the economic
crisis (organize student
focus groups)
Policy-makers:
Streamline communication
between school district and
city officials to develop a
comprehensive plan to
help homeless youth and
families.
Youth Research and Literacy
Production
• Conference Presentations
• Policy Briefs • Plays • Digital
Documentaries • PowerPoint Slides • Spoken Word Poems • Hip Hop Songs • Mobile Apps • Social Media sites
The Promise Evidence-based Benefits
• High School Graduation and College-readiness
• Academic Achievement
• Digital Literacies
• School-wide Achievement
• Teacher Engagement
• Safer Campuses
• Social Action
What I’ve Learned from Mom and
Dad What WE do matters!
“I wanted to retire a dreamer” “Don’t let anyone take away the privilege of teaching”
“Teaching makes you eternal…”
Teaching as an act of LOVE!
• “I have never encountered any children in any group who are not geniuses. There is no mystery on how to teach them. The first thing you do is treat them like human beings and the second thing you do is love them”- Asa Hilliard
