Response to Beuhler

Jennifer Beuhler’s Teaching Reading With YA Literature has challenged me to think about not only the accessibility that YA lit has for our students, but the responsibility that teachers have in constructing meaning from it. During my undergrad experience I read a practitioner text by Donalyn Miller titled Reading in the Wild, a text that is filled with strategies to support and build life-long readers. The reality is that although young adult literature is engaging for our students, it is still reading and there is work to be done in teaching our students the habits and skills it takes to be a good reader. Donalyn Miller and Jennifer Beuhler have similar thoughts about being a teacher of readers and the importance of creating a reading community.

I really enjoyed reading about the four qualities that Beuhler outlines for a successful reading community, but I felt that my classroom context is vastly different than that of those that were depicted in these chapters. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, my school does not embrace young adult literature into the curriculum. While reading I challenged myself to think about the ways in which I could incorporate these qualities in my own classroom in the fall. The first quality that Beuhler explains is that students need to believe that their work with YA literature is just as important as the classics. In my own classroom, this may look like frequent discussions about the YA literature that they are reading outside of school in the topics that we are talking about in class. That may look like connections they make to a whole class text with their YA independent reading novel. It may also look like making a time and  before or after school for students to “share experiences with books and construct meaning together” (Beuhler, 2016, p. 53). This is an important aspect of YA literature that I feel is important enough to make space for in my classroom despite the challenges that I face in the context of my school. The second quality that Beuhler talks about is blending analysis with personal meaning making. Beuhler states, “analysis is not merely an exercise and is done in context. By bringing up literary concepts in the course of discussion, he helps students deepen their knowledge of how texts work” (Beuhler, 2016, p.53). This quality was a challenge for me to place in my own classroom, because my students will not have the opportunity to read YA aloud in class. If I were able to incorporate this strategy I would do something like YA lit circles.

As a teacher whom values YA lit as a way of guiding students to a novel that may move them in some way, Beuhler brings to light an important responsibility that teachers of readers have. She states, “We must choose books that we can stand behind as both engaging and challenging-titles that are compelling for teens to read but also suitable to the kind of work we expect students to do in middle and high school English classes. We need books that will hold up under scrutiny from officials in the curriculum office, accreditors of the state and parents” (Beuhler, 2016, 73). More importantly, I appreciated the fact that Beuhler addresses the importance of having a rationale the YA novels that we choose for our students. A huge concern for me is that while I feel that certain students may be ready for novels that deal with controversial topics such as drug abuse, sexual assault, suicide, etc. How do you censor these novels for those that maybe are not ready or their parents are against it. I appreciated that Beuhler addressed this concern for me in chapter five and provided many resources for teachers on the topic of censorship.

This reading challenged me to think beyond the surface of YA literature, and how I may go about creating a community of readers in my classroom. This reading inspires hope and makes way to a future that may support a rationale for my own incorporation of YA in my classroom.

References

Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching reading with YA literature: Complex texts, complex lives. Urbana, IL: NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English.

Pride:a relevant retelling of Pride and Prejudice

This week I read Pride by Ibi Zaboi, a modern retelling of the canonical text by Jane Austen. This novel checks all the boxes when it comes to diversity all the while still staying true to the themes and major plot points of the canonical text. I think that this text brings to the surface two important points to think about as I look to incorporate this text in my classroom. This diverse modern retelling has a space in the English classroom as a replacement to the canonical text because it is relevant to the issues that our students are going through currently.

A concern was raised during our Flip Grid discussion posts that I resonated with and I felt needed space to air out on my blog. The point being raised was about monitoring the conversations that come out of this text about minorities. Pride centers around an afro-latinx family living in a “hood” in New York. The protagonist Zuri is proud of her hood and the community that surrounds her, but with gentrification moving in on her neighborhood her home seems to be disappearing right in front of her. As Zuri states in the novel, “It’s a TRUTH universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up” (Zaboi 6). The class systems in this setting are highlighted here through the experiences that Zuri has in her neighborhood and the encounters that she has with Darius. The inequality of the class systems are highlighted in this novel in the same way that they are in the canonical text, but with it being a modern retelling the framing is far less removed for our students. The issues of stereotypes and assumptions come into play and could be difficult to navigate. I think that this text is a great learning tool to have difficult discussions with about assumptions because Zuri is often quick to judge.

While reading this novel I felt that teaching this as a whole class text in place of the canonical would be incredibly beneficial. Reading Pride and Prejudice in high school was extremely difficult because it felt so far removed from what I was experiencing in my own life. This text is far more engaging for young adults all the while still upholding the same themes of the canonical novel. This novel was easy for me to picture particular students in mind to pair with this text. I would recommend this novel for a student that loves to write poetry, create songs, or is going through a change. I will be teaching eighth graders next year and I think that many students would be able to resonate with the overall theme of coming to terms with a change.

Questions for the course and goals.

In the fall, I will begin my first year as a teacher of middle schoolers.  Over the last two years I have been building a classroom library for students that I have not yet met. Through the characters, experiences, and themes of each novel in my library I think about the type of student(s) this book could move in some way. Whether that may be a fantasy world that they can be transported to or a character that they can identify with. I will be teaching in a school that expects students to independently read outside of class. I am under the impression that I cannot give daily class time to reading independently. This is something that is disheartening to me as a teacher, because I had hoped that I could make a space for independent reading on a daily basis. Given that independent reading will not able to have a designated space in my instruction, my goals for this course and myself have adapted.

Questions:

1. How can I promote a love for independent reading in a restrictive environment?
2. How can I determine a student’s lexile level and track progression over time?
3. What determines a text’s ability to be used as a whole class novel or individual text?
4. When should a text be censored for independent reading?

Goals:

1. Find ways to incorporate book talks, book love corners, and other reading strategies into my instruction.
2. Think about what makes a novel great for a particular student and why.
3. Create independent reading mentor texts for projects.

Ladson-Billings; Paris;Banks

Geneva Gay Response

The Geneva Gay article was about culturally responsive teaching. The author defines this type of teaching as, "using cultural knowledge and prior experiences to make learning relevant to diverse students" (Gay, 2001,p. 49). In my own placement experience the demographics of my school are that the majority of students are white and the minority are hispanic. I definitely feel that my experience in my placement school has very much been geared toward the majority. A lot of the ELL and hispanic students in my class are expected to read books by all white authors or participate in lessons that may not engage them. Recently my mentor teacher had all of her classes write a letter of thanks to the military. I definitely felt some tension from the hispanic students because of the political atmosphere that is going on currently.

Gloria Ladson-Billings Response

This article is about a study on culturally relevant pedagogy. The three main findings that are outlined in this article are the conceptions of self and others, social relations, and conceptions of knowledge. The study also found that culturally relevant teachers used "community as the basis of their curriculum" (Ladson-Billings,1995,p.279). I like that in this article it outlines the ways in which you can practice this method through strong communication with students. Reflecting back to the phone conference with the educator from Savannah, it is also important to have strong communication with the parents of your students.

James A. Banks Response

This article is about 5 dimensions of multicultural literacy. The 5 dimensions that are highlighted in this article are content integration, the knowledge construction process, personal cultural,  prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and empowering school culture and social structure (Banks, 1993, p.25). Some main take aways that I got from my reading of the article is that achieving multicultural education is complex and should not be over simplified. Achieving multicultural literacy in our schools requires more than just surface level inclusion and this article provides clean and cut examples of effective and ineffective methods. This article also analyzes the use of canonical texts in a multicultural classroom. 

References

Banks, J. A. (1993). The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education. Educational Researcher, 22(5), 4-14. 

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106-116. 

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3).

Banks, J. A. (1993). The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education. Educational Researcher,22(5), 4-14. doi:10.3102/0013189x022005004

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching. Journal of Teacher Education,53(2), 106-116. doi:10.1177/0022487102053002003

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal,32(3), =. doi:10.2307/1163320

Week 7/8 Toliver Articles

The Apartheid of Children’s Literature by: Christopher Myers

• "Recognizing oneself in a text, from the understanding that your life and lives of people like you are worthy of being told, thought about, discussed, and even celebrated" (Myers, 2014, p. 2)
• I belong to the Cherokee nation and being able to recognize myself in texts has been limited to the disney film Pocohantas and with the history books we read in school. 
• Our history books are written by white people
• Native Americans portrayed as savages 
• I did not read a book written by a Native American until I was in college.
• "Children of color are at best background characters, and more often than not absent, is in fact part of the imaginative aspect of these books" (Myers, 2014, p. 3)
• White-washing structure in literature

Critical Indigenous Literacies by: Debbie Reese

-"Unlearning stereotypical representations of indigenous peoples and replacing harmful narratives with accurate info" (Reese, 2018, p. 390)

-Textbooks written by white people

-Teachers have choice over the books that they include in the classroom

-"The key ideas are to choose books that are tribally specific, written by native writers, set in the present day, and relevant all year round, keeping native peoples visible throughout the school year" (Reese, 2018, p.391)

-Riding the Trail of Tears Cherokee Nation & Georgia author Blake M. Hausman

Five Steps Toward Successful Culturally Relevant Text Selection and Integration by: Sue Ann Sharma, Tanya Christ

-Culturally responsive teaching uses students cultural knowledge and ways of being in the world to support learning, offers a way to address the issue (Sharma, Christ, 2017, p. 295)

-Teachers should make an effort to get to know all of their students in order to teach based on each individual student.

-"Unfortunately the scarcity of texts for nonwhite students is the norm. The lack of accessibility to culturally diverse childrens' literature in todays classrooms is an alarming injustice" (Sharma, Christ, 2017, p. 397)

-Ted Talk with Kandice Sumner

-Texts need to be relevant to students

References

Myers, C. (2014, March 15). The Apartheid of Children's Literature. The New York Times, 1-4.

Reese, D. (2018). Critical Indigenous Literacies. The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy,             251-262.

Sharma, S. A., & Christ, T. (2017). Five Steps Toward Successful Culturally Relevant Text Selection             and Integration. The Reading Teacher, 71(3), 295-307.