Enacting Adolescent Literacies Across Communities by Rodríguez R. Joseph;Burke Kevin J.;Rodríguez R. Joseph;

Author:Rodríguez, R. Joseph;Burke, Kevin J.;Rodríguez, R. Joseph;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Note: Created by R. Joseph Rodríguez

The six participants (see Table 5.1) were most candid in their teaching journals and open classroom deliberations about their past writing experiences, current struggles, and instructional readiness in their quest to become professional English language arts teachers in secondary public schools.

The Educator-Researcher

I am a benefactor of public schools in urban communities of Houston, Texas. My experiences in bilingual education during elementary school and later in a magnet, college-preparatory secondary school provided me with multiple learning experiences. As a gay, Latino male of U.S.–Mexican origin, I believe that teacher education can be strengthened by communicating to our students our identity awareness and positionality, which informs cultural knowledge. Teaching in a community that is home to one of the longest and most complex international borders of North America required that I examine my own writing beliefs while engaged in conversations about habits of mind and linguistic and cultural knowledge.

Teaching and learning can be strengthened through cultural competencies and by communicating to our students and colleagues our literacy beginnings to today. For instance, in the opening to the novel The Salt Eaters (1980), Toni Cade Bambara’s dedication reads, “To my first friend, teacher, map maker, landscape aide: Mama, Helen Brent Henderson Cade Brehon, who in 1948, having come upon me daydreaming in the middle of the kitchen floor, mopped around me” (p. 1). The author’s mother’s act is supportive of her daughter’s imagination and makes a space for her imagination and literacy. This dedication was significant when I first read it in the early 1990s in my search for books that spoke to diverse cultural experiences that included African American, Latina, and Latino life and thought in the United States.

While growing up in a working-class household and community, my public schooling was largely driven by rote learning to pass standardized exams. We read a number of the canonical classics, which were then followed by comprehension questions to answer for scoring. In these learning conditions, I sought books about community action and about cultural workers in the fight for equity, equality, and inclusion in public education and American literatures. I sought a new way to learn, gain freedom, and name my everyday reality. Unfortunately, these learning interests and gains were absent in the books the state adopted and books which were later distributed for my reading. Bambara’s dedication reminded me of the self-emancipation and self-respect that are essential for educational equity and social justice.

In recent years, teachers have communicated greater interest in more professional learning to guide their students’ college and career readiness. Today, my pedagogical practices include the concepts outlined in the Framework for students’ rhetorical and twenty-first-century skills.

Instructional Routines and Dialogue

Although I maintained my professor role with my students at Cholla University, I also became a teacher-action researcher as I documented direct observations, reflections, dialogues, and writings in the classroom that informed my students’ habits of mind, experience, and writing. Pine (2009) explained action research as seeking to “achieve concrete change in a specific situation, context, or work setting to improve teaching/learning” (p.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.