I totally agree with cultural literacy researchers in that the way students act, their values and beliefs are important in how our students engage in literacy. I found it interesting that Hicks stated it's not just the preschool years that make such a difference. It seems that is the point to drill home to our preschool parents and teachers. But that's not all there is to it. According to Hick's it's the entire cultural web and the literacies within that web. A "cat's cradle" of different language practicies and the identities that come from knowing and acting on those languages. I think that is a very important point in that it's not just how much exposure these children have to books that is the key to early literacy, it's also understanding the background of our students. The literacies they are engaged in at home, involving all language practices. It makes perfect sense to me that we must reflect on the histories, cultural locations, class and gender of our students in order to understand them and their literacy background. As educators our job is to help our students create new literacy, a literacy of learing. The social and economic status of our students shape them into not only who they are, but what they know. The culturally hybrid classrooms were a great way for students to remain who they were and to maintain their cultural " language" as they move to literacy education. Language is more than just linguistics. I agree that conflict occurs when school languge is unfamiliar to our children. The one thing that really comes to my mind is our time spent in Writer's Workshop, just like Roadville. As we read fiction aloud to our students and then ask them to create a piece of fiction writing and they can't. We wonder why this is so hard for them, but to create a piece of writing that is not true or imaginative is out of their language norm. As we (educators) do a better job of understanding the cultural languages (the community of our learners) of our students maybe then we can help our students create new possibilities for their writing and literacy.
Karin Scott
Comments (3)
We can transform how our students learn if we take the time to know who they are. When we compare their literacy webs to school literacy, we can hopefully establish connections that will help them relate to school. In response to the conflicts that students face in writing, teachers need to meticulously choose books and genres that our students can relate to in their writing. This can only happen if we know and understand what composes their cultural literacies. If we assume that exposing students to books and more books is getting the job done, then we are misled in our own understandings of what true literacy is. The books placed in front of our students needs to be of something familiar to their families, friends, gender, race, class, etc.
Posted by Melissa Riley | June 21, 2011 7:01 PM
Posted on June 21, 2011 19:01
Karin,
I can strongly relate to what you said about asking children to write "out of their language norm." Unfortunately, many have been conditioned to believe that what they "tell" us in stories has to be based on real events. It is not enough to simply read fictional stories; we must be willing to create them ourselves.
Posted by Holly Lawson | June 22, 2011 10:07 PM
Posted on June 22, 2011 22:07
Karin, You have some excellent points here -- the way you connect Hicks' argument to your observations of children is very insightful. Well done!
Posted by Dr. Jackson | June 23, 2011 9:19 AM
Posted on June 23, 2011 09:19