Complicated, and Worth It: Fashioning Links in Literacy

Teaching

This post is written by Jason D. DeHart, PhD. Read more about Jason at the bottom of this post.

Were I to conduct a thematic analysis of my career in literacy so far, “I don’t like to read” would rise to prominence as an often-stated reality. Even if students feel that they are capable readers, they do not always express connection and engagement with the texts that they encounter in school settings.

This was true in my time as a middle school teacher, it is a theme that has inspired my scholarship, and it is a mantra that continues to resonate in the K-12 setting in which I am working now. When I consider the types of texts that continue to be honored – voices from hundreds of years ago, many of which include problematic language related to ethnic, racial, and gender identities – it is no small wonder that instant buy-in is so rare.

While there are many potential solutions to discuss, the word that also comes to mind in my thematic thinking is linking. This notion of linking speaks directly to the work of Literacy in the Disciplines in terms of thinking about the strands of critical inquiry that can be fashioned between and among content areas and types of texts. As I start a new semester, I am continuing to revisit the ways I can make content rich and relevant for my students through thoughtful connections between and among content areas, types of texts, and voices old and new.

The Rising Voices

Text selection is a key part of this process. When I first began teaching my students, they were reading Steinbeck’s outsider report of migrant farm workers in Of Mice and Men. That same year, in 1937, a book called Their Eyes Were Watching God was published. I was fascinating by this cultural dichotomy and struck by the opportunity to find a voice from the intersections of gender and ethnicity that could broaden my students’ perspectives about the lived experiences of people in the past. Zora Neale Hurston was, famously, an anthropologist, and her attention to ethnographic detail shows up in her writing.

I then worked with students across my courses to trace this literary journey to Alice Walker, who was instrumental in bringing attention once more to Zora Neale Hurston’s work in more recent times. This conversation between authors across time was one that I could discover and share with my students, linking to their current stories as part of American culture(s). It is both a linking of time and a critical inquiry that travels through a chain of inspiration.

In addition to Hurston and Walker, we read Jason Reynolds, Jericho Brown, and additional contemporary voices who have shared about facets of America that are simply not discussed in many canonical works. It is also important to me to choose works not simply because I am drawn to them personally, but as a way of filling in a gap that exists in what students might have discovered in literature so far.

Critical Analysis and Honest Stance

At one time, suggesting that a revered work of literature contains problematic content would have caused me insecurity. I desperately wanted to be a “good English teacher”, and I thought that meant holding the classics up on clouds. At this point in my teaching career, I recognize the value of honestly evaluating the limitations of thought and experience represented by literary canonical figures. In this way, I can be clearly critical about what it means to be an inside or outside voice related to a particular topic or way of being, and I can invite my students to think critically about these questions of authorship, as well.

I feel that this approach honors my students’ intelligence and acumen in noting these inconsistencies in human stories, as well as their awareness of the absence of some stories in what they have discovered in curriculum so far. This critical stance is not only possible in English class, but can lead to inquiry in history and social studies courses, discussions of equity and equal access in science and health care, and questions of ethics in technology courses, to note a few possibilities.

Asking students to evaluate an author biographically, not to simply suggest that they did not know better than to use language at a certain period in time, but to consider authors’ biases and positionalities is part of deep thinking and ethical work. This need not be a full lecture on the author’s history, but rather a point-by-point glimpse at some major details about them, considered historically alongside literature.

Ways of Reflecting

Finally, all of this critical work requires some kind of outlet. I cannot imagine teaching a class about virtually any topic and not having my students respond in some way each day, either in a paragraph, a sentence, or a few take-away words. I embrace videoed content as students have created zeitgeist poems and adapted key narrative scenes in groups, using their cell phones as one-stop shops for moviemaking. I embrace the visual, not just in thinking about remembering vocabulary words, but in sharing multimodally and symbolically about reading and viewing experiences.

A question stem to encourage this kind of response might be something like: Locate or create three images that represent your thinking about the representation of political unrest in Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez, or Create an infographic to help us understand the setting and context of Elie Wiesel’s Night.

In this way, students can explore links between and among stories that have existed for some time, as well as those that need to be (re)told. Moreover, as I have explored in this post, students can become aware of, critique, and even compose links between historical and contemporary voices, and engage in the process using tools and approaches that build their mathematical, artistic, and technological skills.

Teaching and learning is truly a linking and connected process, from past to present and across multiple literacies. All of this rich complexity requires attention, but I have found the conversation to be worth the time.

Jason D. DeHart is a passionate educator, currently teaching English at Wilkes Central High School in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. He served as a middle grades English teacher for eight years and an assistant professor of reading education at Appalachian State University from 2019 to 2022. DeHart earned his PhD from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash

Wicked Problems

Teaching

Many important societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems. ¹ A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and groups, has unpredictable outcomes, and defies typical problem-solving techniques. ²

Wicked problem is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It’s important to note that the word (wicked) is used to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil. ³

Systems Theory

Because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. We make sense of this through systems theory, or the the interdisciplinary study of systems. These systems are cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made.

Every system has causal boundaries and is influenced by its context, defined by its structure, function and role, and expressed through its relations with other systems. A system is more than the sum of its parts as it can express synergy, or the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Systems can also show emergent behavior, or an unanticipated side effect of bringing together a new combination of capabilities. Emergent behaviors can be either beneficial, benign, or potentially harmful, but in all cases they are very difficult to foresee until they manifest themselves.

Addressing Wicked Problems

To address a real-world, wicked problems a transdisciplinary lens is needed to support educators and students as they engage with this content in ways that extend beyond traditional academic boundaries ⁴ Transdisciplinarity is a research or educational approach that seeks to challenge disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic perspective that enables inputs across scientific and non-scientific communities. ⁵ Looking at a problem and context through a transdisciplinary lens allows one to construct meaning in more authentic contexts where disciplines intersect, combine, and work together. ⁶

What could be described as a wicked problem is really a situation in which we’re recognizing the power and irregularity of evolving systems. In education, we want to provide learning opportunities for students that are valid representations of the challenges they’ll encounter in the real world. This calls for a greater amount of flexibility on the part of the teacher. Given the lack of structure, and problems with validity, reliability, and access of open digital information, educators need to be more flexible and tolerant as they engage in the learning process. ⁷ Teachers need to have an appreciation for the complexities, pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities that exist when using open, digital information in the classroom. ⁸ Educators must constantly re-envision what it means to be educated, and what it means to be literate as technology advances. Through the careful use of texts, tools, and pedagogy there is an opportunity to effectively achieve Friere’s goal that teachers should be learners, and learners should be teachers. ⁹

Students also bear a great deal of responsibility when engaging with wicked problems in the classroom. Students must display the discipline, responsibility, persistence, and flexibility required to work as an active participant in these interactions. In this process, students must take an active role in learning, and reconsider the concept of “school.” ¹⁰ In a classroom in which teachers empower students to wrestle with wicked problems, students may have to take a leadership role in the crafting and revision of new learning process or product. ¹¹ ¹²

Conclusion

We we prepare youth to enter their futures, it is important to be honest with learners and let them know that the systems, policies, and practices that govern our spaces may not always make sense. As we address wicked problems it is important to consider all of the contexts and contingencies that impact the these decisions. As learners in a globally connected community, we need to continue to evolve with these incomplete, contradictory, and changing challenges from a systems perspective.

When we think about pedagogy or curriculum in terms of content areas or disciplines, these arbitrary designations limit the creativity and perspective that youth need as they prepare for their futures. This siloed view of teaching, learning, and assessment stunts youth from fully engaging with meaningful experiences.

Adding complexity to this wicked problem of considering these opportunities in learning environments is that as we debate whether to include them in classes, the wicked problems themselves evolve, intensify, and metastasize. Educators need to evolve and reset paradigms around teaching, learning, and power as the challenges persist.

Content originally posted at https://wiobyrne.com/wicked-problems/

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Webinar: Transdisciplinarity as a Gateway to Critical Literacy

Announcements

Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.

Traversing, Transforming, Transcending, and Transgressing wicked problems in the classroom.

Many critical societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems (Zellner & Campbell, 2015). A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and groups, has unpredictable outcomes, and defies typical problem-solving techniques (Rittel & Webber, 1973). To address real-world, wicked problems, a transdisciplinary lens is needed to support educators and students as they engage with content in ways that extend beyond traditional academic boundaries (Alford & Head, 2017). Students experience deeper learning and start thinking outside the box when their teachers collaborate to present different aspects of the same subject across various disciplines. (Mauser et al., 2013). A transdisciplinary lens allows one to construct meaning in more authentic contexts where
disciplines intersect, combine, and work together (Rice, 2013). This session will define transdisciplinarity and provide teachers with techniques to expand critical literacy opportunities in their classrooms.

When: This webinar was held on Tuesday, December 28th, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.

The slide deck for the presentation is embedded below.

The video recording of this session is available below.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session featured Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session will feature Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne

Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne (@wiobyrne) is an associate professor of literacy education at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on individuals’ dispositions and literacy practices as they read, write, and communicate in online and/or hybrid spaces. Ian is the author of many journal articles and book chapters focusing on initiatives ranging
from online and hybrid coursework, integrating technology in the classroom, computational thinking, and supporting marginalized students in literacy practices. His work can be found on his website or in his weekly newsletter.

Please share this professional learning opportunity with your colleagues.

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Webinar: What does Critical Literacy have to do with my Teaching?

Announcements

Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.

What does Critical Literacy have to do with my Teaching?

Learning through a critical literacy lens encourages students to take steps toward identifying potential solutions to current, real-world problems (Vasquez et al., 2019). They can do this when educators ask
them to explore “personal, sociopolitical, economic and intellectual border identities” when they read (Bishop, 2014, p. 52), and to promote valid, thoughtful critique of the power structures they either are subjected to or that are upheld in their classrooms. This session will define critical literacy and provide frameworks and techniques for teachers to begin exploring this concept in their classrooms.

When: Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.

The recording of this event is embedded below.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session will feature Drs. Rachelle Savitz and Jennifer D. Morrison.

Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz is an associate professor of reading/literacy at East Carolina University. Her scholarship investigates teacher self-efficacy, literacy within the disciplines, and the use of culturally sustaining pedagogy and practices. She worked across the grade levels as a reading teacher, literacy coach, reading interventionist, and music teacher. She has three published/in-press books and has been published in such journals as Teaching and Teaching Education, Literacy Research and Instruction, Whiteness and Education, and Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. She serves as the President of LiD 6-12.

Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and a National Board Certified Teacher. She worked as a middle and high school English teacher and instructional coach for 19 years. Her research agenda focuses on teacher induction, literacy attainment (particularly digital and multimodal), and teacher inquiry processes. She has been published in such journals as: English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Talking Points, Principal Leadership, and Educational Leadership. She serves as the interim Vice President and Secretary of LiD 6-12.

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Use digital spaces and poetry to share a walk in your world

Research

The #WalkMyWorld project started as a community focus on poetry and multimodal exploration; it then developed into a community of inquiry. Participants explored the experiences of others by responding to and authoring multimodal poetry. In #WalkMyWorld, educators and students created a social space of engagement to explore civic uses of social media. This exploration served as an opportunity to consider the media literacies at play as the group participated as a community of writers.

Guided by carefully-crafted learning events, participants took photos, authored short pieces, and filmed small glimpses of their lives. At weekly intervals, they documented their “walks” using photo and video capture tools that easily allow users to share content with others. By collecting snippets of their worlds that seemed trivial one at a time, participants experienced the magic that, when strung together, these digital “gatherings” presented narratives of very human things: pain, beauty, joy, friendship, and wonder.

During the project, instructors were able to target specific educational objectives revolving around (but not limited to) explorations with poetry. With the understanding that creating and sharing digital content in online spaces might be a novel and even scary experience, instructors also charged participants to grapple with what to share and how. This raises questions between educators and learners as they contemplate how and how much to share. Accordingly, thoughtful experimentation online, connection with digital texts and tools, and play ultimately serve as valid, if not crucial, educational outcomes.

This project encouraged educators and students in elementary school through higher education to engage in social scholarship practices. Social scholarship utilizes the Internet and other communication technologies to evolve the ways in which scholarship is conducted. Like many other social scholarship projects #WalkMyWorld connected formal scholarship with informal Internet-based social practices while embodying specific values (e.g., openness, collaboration, transparency, access, sharing). #WalkMyWorld evolved into a space that allowed participants to explore the characteristics of online information and educational opportunities by allowing them to share and develop (a) writing lifeworlds, (b) communities of inquiry, (c) media literacies and (d) expanded perspectives of narrative writing. These skills have proven to be integral to the way teachers view themselves as professionals in online and hybrid educational spaces.

The trailer shared above was created for a session on the project released at the K12 Online website. The full video for the session is available below.

Work with the 2014 version of the #WalkMyWorld Project was printed in the MIT Civic Media Reader.

Results from the 2015 iteration of the #WalkMyWorld Project were also presented at the annual conference of the Literacy Research Association. Work from this session by Wise and O’Byrne was later published in the Literacy Research: Theory, Methods, and Practice journal.

The #WalkMyWorld Project was also highlighted in a publication by Rish and Pytash in NCTE’s Voices from the Middle and the accompanying podcast.

Lastly, in 2017 this project served as a motivating factor in this chapter on mentored open online communities (MooCs) as a third space for teaching and learning in higher education.

What’s in a Name?

Teaching

By: Antoinetta J. Rogers

“Schooling is the process by which you institutionalize people to accept their place in a society… Education is the process through which you teach them to transform it.”- Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade

What’s in a name?

This is a very common and loaded question. Asunción Cummings Hostin, Euphemia LatiQue Sumpter, Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba, and Antoinetta Jamika Rogers prove there is always a story behind a name.

Asunción Hostin is an American lawyer and a very intelligent, articulate, and charismatic cohost of the Daytime Emmy Award winning talk show The View. She is commonly known as Sunny Hostin. During an interview with People Magazine, Sunny stated that when she began working on Court TV with Nancy Grace, the famed legal commentator, she had a difficult time pronouncing her name. Acknowledging that Sunny was indeed quite talented, Nancy Grace feared that because most people may find it difficult to pronounce her name that she shorten it to make it easier to pronounce. So, instead of Asunción Hostin, Sunny Hostin is the famous household name. Euphemia LatiQue Sumpter is an American actress. Known for her flair, fortitude, and fascinating role on the highly acclaimed series Tyler Perry’s The Haves and Have Nots, she mentioned in an interview that although she was beautiful and talented the name Euphemia just was not “it.” So, instead of Euphemia Sumpter, Tika Sumpter is the famous household name.

Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba is a dynamic, vibrant, and effervescent, Nigerian American actress who is best known for her roles in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black and the film Miss Virginia. She is commonly known as Uzo Aduba. A video surfaced of Uzo stating that she hated her name. The hate seemed to stem from other people having a difficult time pronouncing it. Growing up in a small New England town, she explained that there were not a lot of Nigerian Americans. Uzoamaka means “The road is good.” What was quite noticeable in her candid oration was the visible mentioning of teachers finding it difficult to pronounce her name. One day upon returning home from school, she casually asked her mom to call her Zoey. Her mom simply stated that if people can learn to say Tchaikovsky, people will and would learn to pronounce Uzoamaka.

So, what does an English teacher from a small rural town in South Carolina have in common with the aforementioned Hollywood stars? Antoinetta Jamika Rogers is my name. Nobody calls me by my first name Antoinetta, instead I go by Jamie. Antoinetta has ten letters, four syllables and is often pronounced as (An-tw-un-Et) instead of (An-tw-un-Et-Uh). So, growing up Jamie was more adaptable and easier than Antoinetta. It became my nickname. Nicknames are convenient, but seldom created as a courtesy or in favor of the person in which the shortened name is given. What’s in a name? Absolutely everything! A person’s name is a huge and important part of a person’s cultural identity; therefore culturally responsive teaching is very imperative and quite a necessity to say the least in an ever changing and evolving world.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally Responsive Teaching is the practice of teaching cultural competence. States and school districts already have educational standards and curriculums established that are usually adjusted and molded according to society’s norms. However, in the classroom it is so important that teachers make it a norm to not only teach, but practice cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures. One’s own awareness of cultural competence includes developing positive attitudes towards cultural differences and gaining knowledge of cultural practices and world views. I realized that regardless of the demographics of students I teach, classrooms should be increasingly diverse with diverse teaching materials, methods, and strategies. If the demographics are all the same, this does not mean that cultural competence and sensitivity should not be inclusive. All students should feel welcomed into a learning environment that celebrates diversity and multiculturalism. Most curriculums and lessons include an aspect of diversity, but it should be woven into the atmosphere of the classroom.

Real World Implications

According to the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers (CPET), school practices currently reflect the norms of monolingual, white, middle class students, which often excludes students who come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Students who are excluded from these norms are often viewed through a deficit lens. South Carolina College and Career Ready Standards are the standards that I am required to use as a certified classroom teacher. So, the overall goal is for students to be prepared to enter an institution of higher learning, the workforce, and/or the military. Not only should students be academically prepared, but students should be culturally prepared as well. Thus, a simple yet complex task of accepting and pronouncing an individual’s name can possibly have an everlasting positive impact.

Society has a habit of associating certain sounding names with certain races and ethnicities. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research Issue No. 9. “Employers’ Replies to Racial Names,” a job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American – say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones – can find it harder to get a job. Despite laws against discrimination, affirmative action, a degree of employer enlightenment, and the desire by some businesses to enhance profits by hiring those most qualified regardless of race, African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed. Pronouncing an individual’s name correctly and accepting that the name may have cultural attachment to it is important for the advancement of society.

Classroom Applications

I make sure that I pronounce a student’s name correctly as well as the student’s peers in my class because names represent a heritage, a lineage, and a legacy. This is also common courtesy and a sign of respect. A name is a representation that we should be proud of and not something that anyone, in this case specifically students, should have to worry about changing or shortening in the future, because we live and exist in a society where certain names make people uncomfortable for a quick minute or two. If teachers discuss or present this topic in the classroom and really show and teach through experiments, instructional strategies, and projects, this can begin to turn the tide and become the norm therefore possibly preventing society from having a perception of “racial names.”

The world is a colossal entity that embodies diverse, multicultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. If students are taught to be culturally competent and responsible people, then as the world continues to progress and move forward, teachers will be a major part of molding and shaping well- rounded culturally aware individuals. Awareness promotes respect and acknowledgement. In foresight, these individuals will not haste to say names such as Asunción, Euphemia, Uzoamaka, and Antoinetta because of their phonetic pronunciation, but make embracing and sharing the importance of all names and all things that represent heritage, culture, and diverse backgrounds the standard.

About the Author

Antoinetta J. Rogers has seven years of teaching experience and currently teaches Secondary English at Richland Northeast High School.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Data over Assumptions: Determining How Our Schools Engage in Family-School Partnerships

Collaboration

By: Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison

In 2016, the University of South Carolina Language & Literacy faculty members decided to overhaul the Masters in Education degree requirements. The then current program was outdated and focused on very narrow conceptions of literacy, who owned it, and how it was to be taught. Because we all hailed from strong critical theory backgrounds, we knew a social justice thread was imperative. Through this lens, as we examined individual courses as well as the program as a whole, we began to ask questions such as: who owns literacy? How do we want to present this? What about funds of knowledge and out-of-school literacies? This line of questioning led us to realize that nowhere in our program did we account for parental and community involvement in students’ literacy learning. This, to us, was a huge gap that needed to be filled. We decided to redesign a course entitled “Guiding the Reading Program,” changing it from a third assessment course to one on literacy leadership with a focus on developing skills that would assist teachers in employing community and family resources in school and district literacy practices and policies. I was the initial instructor for this course and looked to my experiences, as an instructional coach and administrative intern, to help me build the curriculum and key assessment experiences.

Tough Conversations and Deep Reflection

When discussing family involvement, it is not uncommon to hear educators talk about how many parents attend PTSA meetings, come to Open House/Curriculum Nights, or support the band/athletic boosters. However, it becomes important to really consider which parents are involved and what percentage of the school they represent. It is often eye-opening to realize large swaths of families are un- or under-represented at school events. For example, as the instructional specialist at a middle school in Maryland, I was part of a school leadership team who specifically sought to broaden our parent involvement, not only in how they were involved but also in who was involved. We had a very active and invested community; so, when we collected data about who was coming into our school for social and academic activities and who was not, it was surprising to see we had almost no members of our Latino families represented. This required us to conduct deep reflection and address cultural divides. We thought we were providing appropriate communication with our families by sending home notices in backpacks and posting on our school’s social media and websites. However, when we asked members of the Latino community why we had limited attendance, they indicated to us more personal means of communication were needed. When we started picking up the phone and personally calling families, we found they were significantly more responsive; we had to bridge a cultural divide we did not realize we had built, to ensure all families felt welcome. This is not an uncommon experience that emerges once school leadership teams and teachers delve mindfully, deeply, and honestly into the degree to which families and community members are truly involved in schools.

The Work

In my class, one of the early activities I ask teachers to complete is a pair of inventories regarding parental involvement practices. The first is Salinas, Epstein, and Sanders’s (2012) An Inventory of Present Practices of School, Family, and Community Partnerships. It identifies six ways parents can be involved in schools (called “types” in this instrument) including: parenting, communicating, volunteering, home-learning, decision-making/leadership, and community collaboration. School members are asked to consider the degree to which statements listed under each type are true and in what grade levels. These responses help illuminate both traditional and nontraditional means of involvement and also show if there are patterns or trends in participation. I then pair this inventory with a second evaluation instrument from Beyond the Bake Sale (Henderson, Mapp, Johnson & Davies, 2007). This instrument uses five domains (building relationships, linking to learning, addressing differences, supporting advocacy, and sharing power) to help educators identify which of four versions of family-school partnerships best describes their school (partnership, open-door, come-if-we-call, or fortress). To help them to see patterns, I ask students to identify which version of partnerships their schools represent for each domain and place a sticky note in the appropriate location (see Figure 1). While most people would say they have a partnership school, especially at the elementary level, many individuals are surprised with the results of this survey. There are areas suggested, such as including parents in curricular decisions, many of my students have not ever considered.

Between these two instruments, my students begin to get a clearer, and more accurate, picture of their schools’ strengths and needs with regard to parent and community partnerships. They are then asked to develop a family and community partnership grounded in the data they have collected from these two sources. I encourage them to think about how they can move their school to a higher version within one domain of the Beyond the Bake Sale rubric while also using some of the descriptors from the Epstein inventory to help frame goals and action steps. The projects that have emerged from this project have been organic, deeply-embedded in individual school needs, centered on literacy, and overall impactful. One resulting project was discussed in this blog by Hannah Kottraba in June when she wrote about her family heritage project. Other examples have included virtual science activities where parents and students engage in disciplinary literacy to solve scientific problems; pre-k students engaging in pen pal writing and subsequently building a garden with members of an assisted care facility (see Figure 2); online interactive math resources (focused on literacy needed for word problems); workshops that coach family members how to support reading with all ages of students; family culture exhibits; writers’ gallery celebrations; and international student shadowing days where high school students serve as hosts for international graduate students learning about America’s education system. Many of these projects addressed family and community populations who are often underrepresented in schools, and several have become multi-year or ongoing events.

It is important to remember that such projects are many times singletons, snapshots that occur once as a result of a course; the impetus being the need to complete a class assignment. I am not so naïve as to think these class assignments have suddenly made every school my students teach at a Partnership School. What is important is the paradigm shift that occurs as teachers undergo this process. They begin to seek out ways to better meet the criteria established by these two inventories; they become more attuned to cultural differences that may be acting as a barrier to some families and making them feel unwelcome with the school space; and they become more appreciative of the funds of knowledge parents and family members bring with them.

About the Author

Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison is an instructor at the University of South Carolina. Her experiences include being a middle and high school English teacher, gifted education resource teacher, and instructional coach. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Nevada, Reno, in Language, Literacy, and Culture. She is a National Board Certified Teacher (AYA/ELA), an alumnus of the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Theater in Washington, D.C., and has won multiple awards for teaching and writing including NCTE’s Paul and Kate Farmer English Journal Award and AERA’s Dissertation Award in Research on Teacher Induction. Currently, her research focuses on adolescent, digital, multimodal, and disciplinary literacies as well as narrative and qualitative methodologies.

Strengthening the Generations Through Agricultural Literacy

Collaboration

By: Alonzo McDonald, South Carolina High School Agriculture Teacher

Everybody knows the song, “Old McDonald had a farm.” Well, that song is about my dad. He’s the McDonald that had the farm…and the cows, and the peacocks, the ducks, the hogs and the mules. I’m the McDonald that took my passion for agriculture, which developed at a young age, and turned it into a career as an agricultural education teacher. Often, people believe teachers of elective courses are not concerned with literacy; however that is not the case. When teaching an elective course, you have to come up with creative ways to motivate students to engage in content literacy. I have found that I can foster student literacy through the community engagement of my students.

One of the cornerstones of agricultural education programs is the desire to create productive citizens who serve their community. Through the Agricultural Education Program and Future Farmers of America (FFA) at Manning High School, students are molded into being model citizens that willingly give back to their community through various events and community partnerships that continue throughout the year. The motto of FFA reads “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve.” The last line, “living to serve” is one that I think the students grasp without even realizing it, because it becomes so embedded in our work in and out of the classroom. When you connect the last line of the motto with the first line, “learning to do,” students are equipped with the tools needed to successfully give back to the community that made them.

Through various in class activities, articles from agriculture magazines, and hands-on experiences students gain content knowledge they can put to use and pass on to younger students, in one of our strongest community partnerships, at Manning Early Childhood Center (MECC). Students within the agriculture program are able to explain the content that they have learned throughout the semester in a way the younger students are able to understand and use as they work on the raised bed garden at MECC. My students are able to teach these younger students how to transfer this knowledge into a useful skill (i.e. seed depth and spacing, watering needs, pollination, importance of fertilizer, plant parts, etc.) that can be used in the school garden. When my students are explaining to four and five year olds the needs of plants, and seeing that the younger kids are actually understanding it, brings me joy. As a teacher, being able to see the products of our toil is always rewarding.

Having good role models for students to emulate is important. Through a consistent partnership with the Clarendon County Master Gardeners, my agriculture students have learned ways to pass on agriculture knowledge to others. The master gardeners model the ways in which experiential knowledge can be transferred through shared gardening experiences. My students then use what they have learned in their interactions with the master gardeners, with the students at MECC. The master gardener volunteers are able to bring in their real-world knowledge and experiences to help enhance the students understanding of not only the task-at-hand, but meaningful life experiences. Through this partnership, students are able to experience what it feels like to have someone giving back to the community and investing in the students at our school. As a result, students are more willing and eager to gain a better understanding of agriculture so that they can pay it forward.

Several students have gained a new appreciation for different aspects of agriculture because of these partnerships and have taken additional steps to further enhance their knowledge through research. Students are more willing to engage in learning, because they want to be able to share their knowledge with younger students and understand the information they learn from the master gardeners. As a result of community partnerships, students learn to use the agriculture content vocabulary, which supports their learning in my class and future agricultural classes they may take in the future.

Agriculture is an important part of today’s society that is sometimes overlooked. As the global population increases, we need to make sure that our appreciation for what agriculture provides continues to increase, so that we have future generations who are interested in agriculture and want to contribute to the field of agriculture. There are many initiatives and programs that are in place to encourage the younger generations to be more interested in agriculture. Through partnerships with different agricultural organizations, the youth are being exposed to the many different aspects of agriculture. My challenge to you is expose your students to some of the many different avenues that lead to the wonderful world of agriculture.

About the Author

Alonzo McDonald is an Agricultural Education Teacher at Manning High School, in Manning, South Carolina. Alonzo earned his Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education from Clemson University. He also holds a Masters of Education in STEM Leadership from American College of Education.

Learning about our families through the Family Heritage Project

Collaboration

By: Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina and Rocio Herron, Jackson Creek Elementary School

Last fall I taught a Family Dynamics course and was searching for a way to engage my undergraduate students in meaningful experiences with children and families; the course carries a community service component that is left up to the instructor to design and implement. I sought to involve my students in experiences that would help them develop strategies for authentic family and community engagement that they could later draw upon when they became classroom teachers.

I am very fortunate to be able to spend time in a local Pre-K classroom with a teacher, Rocio Herron, who willingly shares her students and families with me. Rocio has taught at Jackson Creek Elementary School since the school opened three years ago; the majority of the school population is African American (73%), followed by Latino students (13%), and 100% of the students receive free/reduced lunch.

Rocio and I have a history; she was my youngest son’s Pre-K teacher a few years ago (he is now 15). Rocio and I share similar views on teaching and learning and family engagement; we believe that children have a right to their language; children must be actively engaged in their learning; teachers must learn about their children lives outside of school in order to better teach them; and that trusting relationships with families are the cornerstone of teaching.

Family Heritage Project

I spend Friday mornings in Rocio’s classroom engaging the children in bilingual (Spanish/English) read alouds, songs, dances, and games. One Friday I mentioned to Rocio that I was teaching a course with a community service component and wondered if she had any ideas for my class. I explained the time commitment and my goals for the project and she excitedly exclaimed that she had a Family Heritage Project she was looking to do that would involve all three Pre-K classrooms.

The purpose for the Pre-K Family Heritage project was to get to know the children and their families by engaging them in a project about their family. Rocio explained that she also wanted the families to know that they all had things to be proud of and to contribute to the school and society in general; too often our immigrant families and families of color are made to feel insignificant and that they have nothing to offer our schools or their children. Through the project, the families would investigate their heritage, family, and culture and uncover for themselves the tools they possess that can be used for helping their children learn; i.e. language, sewing, gardening. I wanted my students to view the families as contributors of knowledge and see them through an asset-based lens where their funds of knowledge, their community-based ways of knowing (Moll, Amanti, Neff, González, 1992) are recognized as valuable instruments for school learning.

The Family Heritage Project spanned a few weeks in the fall semester. Families were asked to come to school on three evenings; my students and I participated in all activities that took place over the three visits. The first evening was spent getting to know each other; Rocio engaged the families in a read aloud followed by a discussion, families sang songs that the children did in school, families played school games with the children and we all got to know each other. We expanded the view of ‘family heritage’ to include things that you do together as a family because we wanted to be inclusive of all families. Rocio asked them to think about things that they did together and gave the example of her spending time at the beach while in her home country of Costa Rica; she showed her beach bag and other artifacts. I shared that my family enjoyed going on road trips and explained that my artifact would be a car and a roadmap.

The second evening the families worked on creating a physical representation, an artifact, of their family and/or family heritage using supplies we had at school; paper, cereal boxes, soup cans, etc. The only rule for the artifacts was that they had to be handmade, nothing could be store bought. There was so much excitement, so many conversations and a busy hum filled the room! The third and final evening was a potluck celebration where each family shared their artifact and story with the group, the children presented a song, and we celebrated with a meal. I shared my car and road map representing our love of road trips, my students also shared their various artifacts as did all of the teachers. Artifacts were displayed on tables for all to see. Once everyone shared, we had our meal which was the annual Thanksgiving celebration.

As I walked around, I heard laughter, families making connections with one another and sharing stories! It was truly joyful!

What would we do different?

We were so eager for the project that we held the events in one month! We realize that having the meetings so close inhibited attendance, especially for the second meeting. The next time we do this, we will space out the meetings over a couple of months or over six weeks.

Closing thoughts

As noted above immigrant families and families of color are often viewed through a deficit lens where what they do not posses is highlighted, for example; families do not know English or they live in a high poverty area. One of our main goals for the Family Heritage Night was for families to uncover their own riches and recognize that they indeed posses knowledge, skills, and strategies that will help their children succeed in school. Engaging the undergraduate students helped them see this firsthand and also helped them see that family engagement is not scary. Finally, if we approach our families with love and respect and demonstrate that in everything that we do and say, our families begin to trust us and a trusting relationship with families is the foundation upon which everything is built.

References

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & González, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into practice, 31(2), 132-141.

About the Authors

Julia López-Robertson is a Professor of Instruction & Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina.

Rocio Herron is a Pre-K teacher Jackson Creek Elementary School.