I just finished observations of an eleventh-grade American Lit teacher. Let me tell you, American literature is a hard subject. Colonial diaries and Puritan sermons are difficult to wade through, and to any high-schooler, hopelessly boring. That's why I wasn't surprised when the teacher told me she would be teaching The Red Badge of Courage, but offering an alternative text for students, Slam, by Walter Dean Myers.
Slam is the story of a young black student coping with domestic trials and honing his basketball skills. I have no idea what it has to do with The Red Badge of Courage, though my teacher sees some parallelism. Once upon a time, I would have raged against this decision. I was a canonical purist who believed that reading something like Slam in class would be a crime against a student's education.
Alfred Tatum, though, would think it was a great idea,and recommended other books by Walter Dean Meyers in his own book, Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males. Tatum argues strongly for using texts that young black men can identify with and that reflect their own circumstances or culture. He is not the only educational scholar by any means to argue this, but Tatum is unique among the teachers I know in that he argues for a rigorous reading curriculum.
Most teachers I know, including the high school teacher I observed, argue that we shouldn't make students read whole books, whole plays, whole texts. I've been shocked to hear this advice from the teachers I know, but they argue that students don't want to read, they don't know how, and so it just turns students off to reading. Tatum, citing studies that show the whiter and wealthier you are, the more you read for your classes, argued that students should read not only read complete texts, but should read supplementary materials in addition to the full texts. The only excuse for reading a fragment of a text, he writes, is as a hook into a larger, complete text.
I like Tatum's argument, and it apparently works in his classroom, but I'd be interested in getting feedback from teachers about their classrooms. How much have you gotten your students to read? What got them into reading?
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I think you might have a very provocative inquiry here, Timothy. Tatum is an authority on African American males - and has written extensively about their literacy development (or lack of it). Another researcher you might want to search out is Carol D. Lee from Northwestern. She posits a theory of cultural modeling. You begin with cultural representations and move toward academic literacy. In your example, for instance. Beginning with reading SLAM - close to students' experiences and interests, perhaps moving to a video of Red Badge of Courage, through synergy (comparing disparate entities) exam the similarities, leading to reading short segments of The Red Badge of Courage and interpreting. Thus, moving toward the academic literacy that is necessary for further academic success.
ReplyDeleteIf you are interested, here are two article that will launch you on this inquiry:
'Every good-bye ain't gone': Analyzing the cultural underpinnings of classroom talk. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(3), 305-327.
Risko & Walker-Dalhouse (2007). Tapping students' cultural funds of knowledge to address the achievement gap. The Reading Teacher, 61(1), 98-100.
You can access on Galileo. Happy researching!
I've been surprised at the overall lack of reading in the classes I've been sitting in on. I've had one teacher tell me he doesn't assign much reading because students will not do it. Another issue is a lack of textbooks, meaning students can't take them home with them...Regarding your thoughts on the alternative book Slam, I feel like any way you can motivate an otherwise uninterested student must be worth doing. And, maybe it's just me, but I have wondered just how we decide what books are "must reads" for academic purposes and what books aren't "good" enough. Seems rather subjective.
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