From reading this article and the Buehl chapter, I could not help but think of the movie Freedom Writers. (I know that's cheesy!) Mrs. Gruwell, an English teacher, accomplishes to create effective readers as well as writers. Her students were very difficult to deal with because many were in involved in gangs and they all had different reading levels. They were even known as the "unteachables." Mrs. Gruwell did not waiver or give up on her students. She related what her students were going through (i.g. violence, poverty) to the Holocaust and The Diary of Anne Frank. She then starts to gradually earn the trust and buys them composition books to record their daily struggles. Her students were soon captivated and submerged by the Holocaust and of Anne Frank's riveting story. Mrs. Gruwell starts to compile their journal entries in a book format, which makes the students feel accomplished and proud. (If you have never seen this movie, you should! It's really good!)
Mrs. Gruwell's example of how she managed to teach literacy to a group of students who were uninterested and unmotivated proves that it can be done. As Alvermann (2002) points out, building on students' cultural knowledge and personal experiences, fosters an intellectual community in the classroom that sustains interest in reading and discussion. As Buehl (2011) notes, we should explore ways to factor in the "reader profiles of our students, based on their out-of-school identities."
We should encourage and help our students to think "outside of the bubble" and try to relate something in the material to their own experiences.
Freedom Writers!
Using new technologies have enormous implications on how we communicate as well as how we learn to use them.
An important aspect of the "literary crisis" is that teachers need to not give up on their students and instead find literature that relates to the students in your class. Adolescents in particular are at the stage of there life where they are discovering their identity, and to support that teachers should try to find literature that incorporates the concepts that need to be taught in the class, but also have themes that relate to the student. It is easy for teachers in Mrs. Gruwell's place to just give up or to "water-down" the cirriculum, but teachers need to get rid of that perception and to analyze their classroom for a second to find literature at the students' expected reading level. By doing this, the teacher is not only encouraging the students to read the required material, but also gaining respect from the students.
ReplyDeleteI find this blog to explain perfectly the big issue we face when attempting to teach material such as history. Students are often bored and uninterested because they do not see the relevancy of studying material that occured before their lifetime and would rather spend time on their iphones. It is imperative we find a way to find common ground with students and relate our topics and what we aspire to teach to their personal lives and experiences. I think the freedom writers example is a greate one, and I feel that journal work is a great way to break through to adolsecents.
ReplyDeleteliteracy in the classroom is vital to a student's identity, especially with those who struggle. For example, I can relate to the inferiority complex felt by the students from freedom writers. In elementary school, I was placed in an ESL classroom and I was forced to read books that trailed what a 7 year old's reading level supposedly should be at. This led me to believe that I was inferior to my classmates and my interest in literacy slipped. To add on to what Gwen said, students need to know that they matter and one way to do that would be to implement their life experiences in the classroom. Interactive exercises that apply their real world to abstract subjects such as history would make the class more interesting.
ReplyDeleteBerenice, I really liked your blog and I find it very helpful for teachers to use as inspiration when handling "difficult" students. However, I have noticed some students lack of interest in such topics. For example, the other day I was tutoring a six grader and we were reading a book on the Civil Rights movement and you could tell he was just not interested. he kept giggling and not taking the book seriously. I tried to relate the book to him, telling him that Civil rights issues is more than just a "black problem". I tired to explain to him that Civil rights is any type of minority issues. Even after that, he still wasn't interested. I just couldn't find a way to motivate him. I'm wondering if there's a better approach for these type of students?
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