ncte critical multiliteracies updated
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
21st Century Literacies Pedagogyto Change the WorldLocke High School, Los AngelesJerica Coffey, Kathleen Hicks, Stephanie Cariaga
• Share concrete examples of Critical Multi-literacy pedagogy in 9th-12th English classrooms
• Discuss lingering questions and teaching implications from year-long inquiry on Critical Multi-literacies
• Demonstrate the urgent demand for Change-Based assessments in urban schools
Session Goals
The importance of context
Watch the film clip and discuss: • What would it be like
as a young person living in this context?
• What is the role of literacy teachers who work with students in this kind of context?
Legacy of institutional oppression and resistance• 1960 Watts
Riots/Uprisings
• 1992 Los Angeles Riots/Uprisings
Addressing ALL student needs
Assets
Bilingual
Bicultural
Resilient
Belief in potential of education
Desire to connect with others
Needs
Academic
• Below grade level
Social-Political
• Poverty level three times below state average (US Census)
• Police Brutality
• Deportation Threats
• Lack of access to basic health needs
• Crime average in Watts 300% higher than County (LA Crime Index)
Social, Emotional, Psychological
• Clinical Services at Locke Cluster, 2010-2011: 645 referrals, 518 serviced.
Inquiry Process for Collaboration
Bi-weekly meetings
Non-evaluative space
Our work mirrors type of inquiry asked of our students
Inquiry Questions
How do educators develop multi-literacy pedagogy where youth can…
examine their own struggles with oppression?
confront the injustices that plague their communities?
cultivate spaces that provide internal/external healing?
Community Cultural Wealth ProjectDeveloping Counterstories of Resilience and Resistance
Unit Guiding Questions
What are different ways people respond to historical and generational trauma?
How do people in our communities resist oppression?
Why is it important that we tell the stories of people in our community?
Critical Reading With and Against the Grain:Random Family by Nicole leBlanc
Model of 10-year research project written in narrative form
Problematizes “outsider” perspective of communities of color
Purpose of Counterstories
"Counterstories can build community among those at the margins of society...they bring a human and familiar face to empirical research...can open new realities...and address society's margins as places of possibility and resistance."
Tara Yosso: Community Cultural Wealth
Inquiry driven by student’s questions
Final Project
Emerging stories bring sense of community and solidarity
Black Power Movement
Civil War in El Salvador
Immigration
Surviving Illness and loss
Engaging community through technology
Digital Presentation of Research
• Storyboard
• Layering of media: audio narrative, images, music
Presentation of Learning at Community Exhibition
Student reflection
Learnings
Research and counter-storytelling create a sense of agency while learning rigorous literacy skills
Counterstorytelling is a tool to transform collective and individual identities from deficit to empowered
Rigor increases with authentic purpose and audience for student work and when students’ learning is guided by their own questions
SAT
Benchmark 1
Benchmark 2
Benchmark 3
Benchmark 4
CAHSEE
ACT
AP
AWPE
EPT
Community College Placement Exams
CELDT
Benchmark 1
Benchmark 2
Benchmark 3
Benchmark 4
CAHSEE
PSAT
CST
SAT
ACT
AP
EAP
CELDT
Benchmark 1
Benchmark 2
Benchmark 3
Benchmark 4
Mock CAHSEE 1
PSAT
CST
Mock CAHSEE 2
CAHSEE ELA
CELDT
Benchmark 1
Benchmark 2
Benchmark 3
Benchmark 4
Mock CAHSEE
PSAT
CST
CELDT
SRI
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse:Wake Up and Teach Already
Literature The 41 Tests We Take
ME
Our goal? Access to new worlds. Some we will break into, others we will create ourselves.
Survival Tip 1: Space
“...if we acknowledge the centrality of language to our development as raced, gendered, and classed, beings, then we must also consider the possibilities for English education to create spaces for the development of resistant and empowered identities”
-Critical Race and Urban Youth
Where are you?
What spaces are you creating?
Anyon’s Research on Class and Schooling
Survival Tip 2: Zombies are made, not born.
Tip 3: Zombies Hide Where You Least Expect Them
An excerpt from Kozol’s Savage Inequalties
A wealthy student says, “someone else can’t want a good life for you, you have to want it yourself
…Then she adds, however, “I agree that everyone should have a chance at taking the same courses…” I ask her if she think it fair to pay more taxes so that this was possible. “I don’t see how that benefits me” she says.
Critical literacy “can help students discuss the relationship between literature texts and the ideals and values of the dominant society…”
Morrell’s Critical Literacy and Urban Youth
Tip 4: There are only skinny survivors—you’d better hurry.
Fernando
In the end, each school reinforces the areas in which it believes are more important and the ones they believe is best suited for the type of community it is surrounded by. This conflict has marked many schools in both their potential for teaching and the potential their student’s posses as individuals…but despite all the odds I am willing to fight to for my education and prevail against them all.
Tip 5: Be willing to learn new things to survive.
•The transition to common core demands that we offer richer, more complex literacy opportunities to our students.
• Our local writing projects encourage our students to address real world issues and are offering incentives their efforts.
•Canonical and new literature itself screams for a critical eye—why would we train our students to be mini-psychologists or historians or use other lenses before they know themselves and their own histories?
Do School Policies Meet Student Needs?
“In Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs it says that we need self-actualization. Yes, Ms. Rezinkova, Mr. DeVilliers, and Dr. Gutierrez give us the chance to reach htat, but how are we supposed to reach that with our stomachs empty?”
What are the effects of dehumanization?
Holden’s Resistance:
Results
Having language to describe what I need from my students makes me feel sane
Being surrounded by like-minded teachers helps me continue teaching
84% of my students maintained or improved over the last 3 years
Significant increase in AP pass rates
Healing Self, Healing CommunityUsing Inquiry and Dialogue to Foster Critical Thought and Social Change
Developing more humanizing pedagogy
Duncan-Andrade’s “Note to Educators: Hope Required when
Growing Roses in Concrete”
“Socratic hope requires both teachers and students to painfully examine our lives and actions within an unjust society and to share the sensibility that pain may pave the path to justice.”
“The solidarity to share in others’ suffering, to sacrifice self so that other roses may bloom, to collectively struggle to replace the concrete completely with a rose garden is what I call audacious hope.”
“Too many of us try to create classroom spaces that are safe from righteous rage, or, worse, we design plans to weed out children who display it. The question we should be grappling with is not how to manage students with these emotions, but how to help students channel them.”
Designing Transformative Curriculum
Timeline Academic Transformative
Week 1: Models of Persuasive Writing as Healing Dialogue and Social Change
• Annotate three real letters about injustice
• Explore Writing and Research process
Week 2-3: Plan and implement research
• Develop inquiry focus: topic, target audience• Research credible sources: interviews, articles, personal experience• Source write-ups
Week 3-4: Write Persuasive Letter
• Multiple drafts• Revise based on peer editing, individual conference feedback
Week 5-6: Plan and perform/facilitate Multimedia presentation at Community Showcase
• Plan, develop and practice engaging presentations
•How can we create more dialogue around injustice in our community?
• How can dialogue lead to healing – personally and collectively?
•How can we use inquiry to affect change in our community?
Authentic Models of Writing as Healing Dialogue
Persuasive Letter Models
• Presente.Org letter from Widow of Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas
• Open letter to UC Davis Chancellor Katehi
• My letter to Kaiser Permanente Doctors after pregnancy loss
Skills
• Persuasive writing elements
• Citing research
• Vulnerability of sharing pain
• Power of risk-taking and honesty
• Validating experience and need for healing and accountability
Developing Authentic Assessments
Choice as Agency and Ownership
• Variety of topics
• Audience: perpetrator, fellow victims, or general community
• Presentation format as vehicle for creativity
Developing Authentic Assessments
Community Showcase as Collective Dialogue
• Students engaged in dialogue with community members
• Validating experiences and ideas
• Immediate feedback and reflection
Implications for Teaching: Writing/Speaking as Healing Dialogue
Implications for Teaching: Creating Opportunities for Dialogue and Empowerment
Inquiry Reflection: Expanding notions of literacy
Lingering questions
How do we assess transformative curriculum?
How do we make this sustainable?
How can we get support from our schools and districts?
Questions / Feedback?