On Historically Responsive Literacy

 

Interview here: Historically Responsive Literacy: A More Complete Education for All Students | Cult of Pedagogy

Muhammad’s critique of the education system is that the educational standards in place do not reach most black students because the “curricula and standards are lacking” [00:02:06]. The standards are lacking because they teach skills that are only useful on standardized tests. Muhammad believes that teaching should instead focus on a four-layer framework that involves identity, skill development, intellect, and criticality. The curriculum “was never designed for black and brown students” and as such, those students who are most alienated by said curriculum are the ones who will learn the least from it [00:12:50]. Muhammad stresses that the standards need to be rewritten to be equitable in order to fix them.

There are four layers to Muhammad’s framework: identity, skill development, intellect, and criticality. In the first layer, identity, representation is the key idea. Students need to see others who look like them, act like them, and dress like them to become more comfortable with their self-concept. I imagine that I feel the same way as I play the Sims. The ability to create a Sim that looks like me makes me feel more invested in the game, making me want to play more. The same is true of students; when students see images of themselves reflected in the characters of stories they will read, they will be more engaged with the text because they can relate to them easier.

The second layer of the framework, skill development, involves considering a wider range of skills than usually considered. Muhammad suggests that a wider variety of evaluation should be considered in evaluating if a skill is gained or not, stating: “And then when you assess it, you can assess it in discussion, if they were able to talk about it. You can assess it in a quiz or a summative kind of test at the end”. These types of assessment differ from the usually pen and paper tests while still adhering to higher-order thinking. I remember my English teachers in high school assessing us with Socratic Seminars. The teacher would grade us on participation and the quality of our questions asked and notes taken during the discussion which allowed teachers to assess us through writing and through speaking. By doing an assessment in a variety of ways, it allows teachers to differentiate instruction as well. Perhaps there is a student who is not good at taking a multiple-choice test, but they excel in discussion-based assessments. That could be one way to utilize “skill development framework” in the classroom.

The third layer of the framework is intellect. According to Muhammad, achieving intellectualism is a simple as asking, “what do we want our students to become smarter about?” Additionally, Muhammad makes a point to differentiate between intellectualism and skills stating that “the difference between knowledge and intellect, intellectualism is when you do something with that knowledge, where you apply it somehow, in your discussion, in your activism, in your actions, in your exercises, in learning”. Essentially, intellect is about getting students to the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy by encouraging them to create new things. In an English class, this could involve students writing their own short stories. This could only come after students read and analyzed other short stories so that they know what works and what does not in the format.

Finally, there is criticality which is the act of “helping students to read, write and think in active ways”. In the classroom, this could be as simple as asking students to analyze a text or look at a text through a variety of different literary theories. Of course, teachers could also encourage students to view texts in an “anti-racist” mindset through Critical Race Theory or take use Peggy McIntosh’s iconic essay, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, to start conversations about privilege and race.

Learning to be Anti-Racist

 

As I watched the film “I Am Not Your Negro”, I initially thought that it would begin at the civil rights movement of the 1950-60’s and move further towards the “present”. Instead, I was treated to a hybrid of a read-aloud of James Baldwin’s unfinished book “Remember This House” that was mixed with various other forms of media like newspaper headlines, movie clips, and interviews that Baldwin gave.

This film made me stop to examine my own worldview in society, or one that I once held to be more precise. Around halfway into the film Yale Professor, Paul Weiss, is invited onto to be a guest speaker in the sameinterview as Baldwin. Weiss argues that “all this emphasis upon black man and white, does emphasize something which is here, but it emphasizes, or perhaps exaggerates it, and therefore makes us put people together into groups which they ought not to be in. […] So why must we always concentrate on color, or religion, or this?” [1:11:33-1:12:01]. I, too, thought the same as Weiss. That by placing so much emphasis on skin color, we just arbitrarily put ourselves into identity groups that tell us to look at our difference first and foremost. By doing as Weiss says, we can move into a “post-race” world. That, as Baldwin argues, is something that should be avoided.

Baldwin responds to Weiss, saying, “You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children, on some idealism which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen” [1:13:43-1:13:54]. As I reflected on this exchange between the two of them it became clear that myself, like Weiss, was able to believe in this blind idealism because of privilege afforded to us by our white skin. The implications this has for ELA teachers are the same implications raised in “Gangstas, Wankstas, and Ridas”: “low-income children of color, are the group most likely to change the world” (625). The people who are most alienated form society will be the ones to change it in any meaningful way because they are not attached to said society. However, students can only recognize this power for change by becoming aware of the oppression in their society. This can be achieved through culturally diverse readings from minorities outside of the traditional literary canon.

Literacy In Action: North Providence, RI

 

In her article “Critical Literacy Finds a ‘Place’”, Barbara Comber describes ways to get children involved in the community by using critical literacy teaching techniques. Following teacher Marge Wells at a low-income school in Australia, Comber documents the various ways that Wells uses events in the community to influence what is done in the classroom. Children in Wells’ class were in the middle of a development project led by the Australian government with the goal of having “private companies demolish, renovate, and redesign neighborhood environments so that finally there is a blend of public and privately owned dwellings” (Comber 455).  

Using Comber’s article for inspiration I looked in my town for local politics/events that can be used for developing critical literacy skills. Similar to The Parks in Australia, the town of North Providence, (specifically the areas surrounding Centredale) is classified by the state health department as having a social vulnerability index (SVI) score of .5145 indicating a moderate to high level of vulnerability in this particular area. Unfortunately, this score was calculated in 2016. I can only assume that the SVI is higher now due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

There are a few low-income housing complexes in North Providence. One of which is located in the middle of Centredale down the street from the town hall. The name of this particular development is called BrookVillage which caters to low-income and senior housing.  

Recently there has been an effort on the part of a few small businesses to clean up Centredale and make it a more desirable place. Just last week there was a town-endorsed event called the Village Festival hosted by the Centredale Revival restaurant. Additionally, across the street from the Revival is a school being converted into apartments meant for college-age renters by a company called STRIVE. By observing all of these small changes in the community, it is clear that Centredale may be on the cusp of a major cultural shift.

In my place-based literacy project, I would have students grades 9-12 address questions similar to the ones posed in Comber’s article: “What would you change about your neighborhood, school, and world?”, What change can young people make? What happens when an area becomes too expensive for its residents to live in? First, students will have a general discussion as to whether the changes to the community are good or bad and if there are long term effects of businesses/housing developments being built in a community. Then, students write letters to business (building formal writing skills) leaders, town council, etc., with questions and comments that might have come up during discussion. Finally, students will take a field trip to a town council meeting and observe (or even ask a few questions!).