RES 5530: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Spring 2009)

“Child learners come to be and know with others as they engage in discourse practices fully saturated with cultural meanings” (p. 23). This beginning quote comes from chapter 2 of Reading Lives, but I feel like it fits perfectly with what I just finished reading in chapter 3. Hicks wrote this quote in her discussion of Heath’s work, Ways with Words, where she studied the literacy and language practices of children and adults from 2 different communities in the Piedmont area. This quote speaks, for me, to something that we take for granted as teachers. Our students are learning to know themselves and one another through the daily practices that occur within their culture. At the same time learning to read and write occurs within a child’s situated history, their literacy development is connected to their lives and in many ways can become a way to deal with, work through and grow up in their communities.

I found myself connecting many times in this chapter. I too learned quickly how to be the ‘good’ student and wanted so badly to be liked by my teachers. I worked hard, studied harder, and tried my best to do everything that I was asked. (However, I consistently got suggestions on my report card to work on excessive talking. I probably still need to work on that.) I think I fell in love with school and reading because of my teachers and school was one of the most important things in my house. My dad read ALL the time and my mom read to us ALL the time. I always saw my dad as the scholar because he would go through books at lightening speed and I rarely saw my mom read for her own enjoyment or knowledge until my brother and I were older. Now that I look back I’m pretty sure that was because my mom worked full time as a teacher’s assistant and then took care of us the rest of the day. My dad, while a hard worker, worked third shift so we didn’t really know him like we knew mom. When my dad was awake with us, he took us to the library and helped us check out books. It was what he knew so it was his way to connect with us. I remember one trip to the library in Rural Hall, NC. I was in the Beverly Cleary section on my way to the L.M. Montgomery section and my beloved Ann of Green Gables books, when my dad found me. He asked me to walk with him into the adult section and there he proceeded to pull out Moby Dick. I looked at it and then I looked at him like he was crazy. I remember him asking me to just give it a try, so I went up to the desk, pulled out my library card, and checked out Moby Dick. The librarian just gave me a quick grin but my dad couldn’t stop talking about how interesting and well written the book would be. I never did finish it that time, but I think my dad was just looking for a way to connect with me, to share in my literary history – whether he knew it or not.

Amie Snow

I liked how Hicks artfully connected memoirs of others to her own stories, and then led into Laurie's history. She points out that all children come to be readers in a specific location (class, race) and with specific people. It is those relationships and how children choose to react that determines literacy.

For Frame and for Hicks, living and reading came together. For Laurie, however, this doesn't seem to be the case. Even though Hicks considered school to be work, reading didn't have to be work because it fueled her imagination. Laurie had a close relationship with her mother and chose "domesticity" over academics. Romance was a real possibility to her. For Hicks, she had some of the same influences and experiences as Laurie, but reacted differently. She took the academic route. Wow!! The child's choice and reaction changes everything. How can we as teachers affect this choice??

I underlined the quote on page 50: Girls' identities are shaped by "their love for their mothers, their mothers' desires... and social class standing." My mother is not a college grad. I always thought of her as not very smart. I always wanted to get As in school and prove to her that I could be successful in ways I thought she was not. How much of my overachievement is tied to my relationship with her? Could I have been unsuccessful in literacy had I made different choices? Do I look down on Laurie for her desire to be like her mother?

I think this chapter needs another good reading for me to absorb the possible implications for my life.

Ashley Catlett

I enjoyed hearing Hicks’ reflection of her literacy experience as well as the stories of other working class girls. It is interesting to hear how much family influenced the reading lives of each person. It certainly made me reflect on my own experience. It seems I learned to read despite my family.

Growing up in rural Maine, hard work and independence is what mattered. I quickly learned to stack cord wood faster than my brothers and never to complain about my frozen fingers and toes. At home, my mom read dirty novels and we watched TV.

I can remember getting my first book at the school book fair in the second grade. It was called Benjamin and the Big Woods. I bought it with my own money and I read it every night for a year. I guess it must have helped me become a decent reader though, because in third grade, I was placed in the Blue Bird reading group. I loved reading the stories in our anthology where I found a whole new world into which I could escape! I also made a friend from a “rich” neighborhood. I loved visiting her house and was amazed to see magazines on the coffee table and shelves filled with books. Her mom smelled good, dressed pretty, and read “real” books. My friend gave me her hand-me-down clothes and her Nancy Drew books and I knew that I wanted to be just like her.

Although my literacy experience came from friends and school, the values I learned from my family, hard work and independence definitely helped me to achieve my goals. Eventually I became the first person in my family to get a college education. Looking back, I’m thankful for the people and the books that helped shape my thinking.

I know it’s important for me to remember that my students come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have lots of experience with literacy while others are just now getting their first taste. How exciting that I get an opportunity to introduce them to a whole new world!

Jayne Thompson

I made many connections within this chapter. I also grew up in a small town at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains and went shopping in Asheville. (Does anyone know where Deborah Hicks is from?) While I didn't grow up going to Vacation Bible School every summer, my children did and I taught every year. It was a tradition and why wouldn't you go to VBS? I grew up in an area where race, class and gender, were important. You didn't talk about it, but there were "hidden rules" and you knew to follow them.What you wore on the first day of school determined the rest of the school year.
I traveled as a child extensively, without ever leaving home- my books were my escape. I was able to go anywhere or be anything I wanted to. If I wasn't doing chores on the farm, I was reading. While my parents weren't avid readers, they did read and knew the importance of it. I remember entire summers when the TV was unplugged and we turned loose outside to play. I usually ended up in my "fort", a special place in the woods. But my favorite place to read was in the barn. I would find a "nook" in the hay bales up in the loft, put an old moving blanket down and read until I heard mom ring the dinner bell.
What I found very interesting was how much of this chapter was like my own experiences, but I had never realized it until reading these chapters. I guess I never spent any time thinking about, reflecting on being a child in a rural working class environment. It's just the way it was!
SuSu Watson

I really enjoyed reading this chapter, I don’t know if it is because I share the same feelings of respect for the women in my family as Jane Miller, bell hooks, and Janet Frame. At the beginning of the chapter, Jane Miller wrote about the early attachments children have with their caretakers: “It is surely within those first conversations, those shared sightings and naming that the specificity, the material detail and concrete knowing of the world are learned as values within an actual, evolving culture” (page 37). This quote made me think about a chapter I read in Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Policies and Promising Practices edited by Jill Lewis and Gary Moorman. The authors of the chapter are David W. Moore and Karen A. Onofrey. I am reading this book for one of my other classes, and we actually discussed the chapter this week. The title of the chapter is “Fostering Literate Academic Indentities During the First Days of School”, within the text the authors define their ideas of what an identity is, and more specifically literate identities. I think the authors’ ideas/definition of the term “identity” are similar to the text we are reading in this class, it may be more like a combination of the terms discourses and identities. The reason the quote by Miller made me think about the chapter on fostering literate identities for students, is because Miller mentioned the importance of the first conversations between a caretaker and their child, and Moore and Onofrey mention the importance of creating an environment that fosters the literate identities of students within the first few days of school. I feel there is a connection between Miller’s feelings about the important connection that is made by a child and caretaker within the first “conversations and shared sightings” and Moore and Onofrey’s idea of the important connections teachers make on the first day.

Miller, hooks, and Frame described their identities or students identities outside of school and how they affected their experience with literature. In the text Miller argued: “Literacy learning is part of these histories, not something that children do as a cognitive task divorced from their lives”(page 37). I want to share some of the ideas in the chapter by Moore and Onofrey from Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Policies and Promising Practices so we can create cognitive tasks that ARE NOT divorced from students lives that help them develop literacy identities. (An identity that would be similar to Frame’s literacy identity she described in Reading Lives)

Moore and Onofrey suggested several instructional activities that would help students identify or develop an identity that relates to literature in school. These suggestions have the biggest impact when they are implemented the first days of school, I picked the two that I thought would be neat to use with students that are similar to those we read about in Reading Lives:

1. Literacy Resumes- “have students brainstorm all literary experiences from their early school years to present, considering all their actions inside and outside school as readers and writers...compiling such information helps students analyze their identities in general and their academically literate identities in particular” (Moore, Onofrey page 291).
2. Shoebox Autobiographies- “place minimal demands on the content of the boxes. Students fill a shoebox with objects or artifacts that best represent them as readers and writers. Shoebox autobiographies create opportunities for you to make personal connections with students and welcome them into a classroom community where multiple forms of reading and writing are valued”.

I have tried to connect two pieces of literature and provide suggestions of how to connect students identities outside school to the identity they are responsible for having in school, in fact I have tried to identify two activities that would help students develop hybrid identities that link their home life and school.

At first when I started reading this chapter I wonder what it had to do with Hick's research. I found the memoirs interesting but wasn't sure of their purpose. It wasn't until I was further in the chapter that I realized she was giving us background knowledge of what it would and could be like to be a working class girl. Once I read Laurie's story I appreciated these "references" and how they related to Laurie. It also made me think about how important it can be for our students that we help them develop background knowledge, especially when learning about an unfamiliar topic. This obviously empowers them as a reader and can help them read through more difficult text.

As I read I couldn't help but reflect on my life as a young girl and how it influenced me in school. I grew up in a house where material things, even books were scarce. Unless it was a necessity we didn't have it. I don't remember seeing anyone read and I never remember going to the library. Our life was very hectic and we were always moving. I would assume that is why I do not remember reading being something I valued. In school reading wasn't extremely difficult but it wasn't easy either. I really had to pay attention to learn but as long as I did I got it. Thinking about this made me think about my students and why some of them seem less motivated than others. If they haven’t been brought up to value learning and other circumstances at home make it almost impossible for their parents to even have time or the resources to put food on the table then why would our kids come to school wanting to learn or caring about learning?

As I finished the chapter I started to wonder how Hick's relationship with Laurie may have impacted her research. Hicks addresses this some but I am still unsure of how her research might have turned out differently if someone else had tutored Laurie and she hadn't taken her under her wing.

Amy Spade

"Literacy learning is part of these histories, not something that children do as a cognitive task divorced from their lives" (pg. 37).

How many of us have stopped to think about each of our students as having a personal history? And, even more sobering, that not only do they each have a history, but WE are part of that history? As their teachers, we play such a huge role in shaping their literacy futures by being a part of their literacy pasts. I know we all realize how important the role of teacher truly is, but I had never thought of it as being involved in the students' literacy histories.

I, too, really related to the introduction about growing up in the Bible Belt. While it was not as rural as growing up in the mountains, I grew up in a suburb of Columbia, SC for the majority of my life. However, I did spend 6 years in Florida, and I'm thinking now, how much did those 6 years shape my literacy? I was out of the South, into an entirely new "culture" for someone who was in the formative stages of life (ages 5-10). When I think about the personal literacy histories, it is very interesting to me how we can never pinpoint exactly what it was in our histories that may have caused something. It's the collective that has shaped us. I can't say for sure that being away from my home state for 6 years definitely caused me to act this way, but the collective of events that happened from day 1 of my life to age 26 has shaped me in ways I cannot specify.

I really enjoyed reading the histories of both Janet Frame and bell hooks. I wish that I had the time and know-how to be able to listen to the histories of everyone I've ever met. One of the biggest things I've learned since I've started my master's program is just how much the early years of reading (or not reading) impacts the rest of a person's life. I'm really starting to believe that it may just be one of the biggest indicators of how someone acts and how they live the rest of their life. And once again, it hits me that as "literacy supervisors" in the schools, we have a daunting task ahead of us.

Christy Rivers

"Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I read chapter three this week I floated between two worlds. The world I was reading about and my own childhood histories. Every few sentences, Deborah Hicks related a scenario or memory that I connected with and was transported back in time immediately to my youth. I stress building connection with my students as they enter a novel, yet this connection was different. I was knit to the experiences shared this week. "We never engage in cultural practices as sponges, simply appropriating cultural meanings or being positioned in power relations. Rather, learning also entails small, and at times imperceptible, moments of shading, valuing, and imaginative reconstruction. Those small moments and histories are as critical to a theory of learning as what we might descibe as socialization or positioning in discourses." WOW! I am the result of a long series of small moments that may have appeared insignificant to others, but now have constructed my outlook and beliefs about learning and life. I remember distinctly the stern Italian voice of my third grade teacher who called my handwriting chicken scratch in front of the entire class. I remember the shame and emabarrassment that lasted for such a long time, I would practice my handwriting endlessly in secret to avoid a situation as unpleasant as that encounter. I remember the same teacher's klip klop of ther Italian leather slide shoes as they approached my desk unsure if I would be the recipient of praise or condemnation. These are just a few of the particulars of my narrative that have shaped my life and the teacher I have become. I think almost effortlessly we translate these small moments into vows of what we will and won't repeat or become. We are not only teaching the reading of books in our classrooms, but the reading of lives, of situations, of behaviors. What we do expose our students to in books contributes to their histoy, such as this book is contributing to mine. We are fluidly taking what we read in a book and inserting it into our individual narratives or personal histories. They are stored in there waiting for a moment to escape onto a page as a fictional piece, poem, reflection, or conversation topic. That is the moment our histories are knit together in shared experiences, ideas, and thoughts. These are the stones we are bringing that contribute to the city of language. We are operating in a construction zone, each one of us assisting in the assembling of something bigger and greater than we are, yet our individual histories form its foundation.
Stefoni Shaw

Throughout the book thus far, I have personally connected with Hicks. In this chapter, she talks about her “Bible Belt” raisin’. Like her, I was reared in an environment where being bad would spiral into a world of sin, and inevitably Hell. Also, like Bell Hooks mentioned in her memoir, I had a personal struggle with my want to form a new identity, while at the same time my need to still fit in. I realized from a pretty young age that I wanted “bigger” things. I wanted to explore, and find out about the world through my own experiences. It was not that my parents specifically discouraged this, but my “church” environment (specifically) did not promote it. Even today, it is more common for a rural southern woman in her early twenties to be married with children than not. This is one cultural norm that I believe distinguishes southern women from those above the Mason Dixon. It is not that I think that these women are making poor choices, but I don’t think that it should be considered “abnormal” that a woman who is 25 is not married.

Janet Frame’s writing regarding her childhood experiences with literature also reminded me of myself. In an attempt to live beyond the world around me, I chose adventure and fantasy stories that I placed myself in. Growing up in a home with three other female siblings, it was not difficult to find others to share these experiences with. Looking back, it seems as if our summers were full of all kinds of adventures--archeological digs for treasure, princesses trapped in the woods forced to survive on our own, pirates on a magnificent river (really, just a small creek that ran through the woods behind our house), and gymnasts, bike riders, and dancers performing at the Olympics.

Before taking this course, and reading Hooks’ book, I never really considered the effect of my childhood literacy practices on the outcome of my life. Now, I can also see how my experiences also affect my teaching. One quote at the end of the chapter summarizes this: “We read students’ lives in ways that draw on our own histories as learners.” I can clearly see how my literacy experiences from my youth are reflected in my teaching practices. How I learned and experiences best is how I expect my kids to. I really enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to reading the remainder of the book.

Heather Coe

I was immediately drawn into this chapter. The scene Hicks describes of time spent in Vacation Bible School could be one borrowed from my own life. Few are my childhood memories that are not situated around church. While I credit my parents’ diligence to provide a language-rich home environment as the key to my readiness for school, I must admit that many of my first experiences with reading and writing were in a Sunday School classroom. I can remember learning Bible verses printed on large posters for my classmates and me to read together. I loved each Sunday School paper adorned with cotton ball clouds. I was intrigued with the flannelgraph board and the colorful figures that told “…the old, old story—of Jesus and His love.”

Hicks states, “My teachers in Vacation Bible School were formative others, too, but their gaze, their touch did not have the special meaning of someone whose connection with me involved a loving value context.” When I read this statement I was immediately saddened. Although there are similarities between Hicks’s girlhood church experience and mine, I cannot relate to her conclusion. This stark difference between us is probably not just the result of differences in what we were taught but in how we were socialized in this discourse. As I evaluate how Hicks and I could arrive at points so opposite of one another, I realize the uniqueness of my discourse and hers. Although similar, they are not the same and cannot be the same by virtue of how our identities have been shaped. I am not just the product of a religious system. Hicks asserts, “Such are the histories of knowing and knowers. We never engage in cultural experiences as sponges, simply appropriating cultural meanings or being positioned in power relations. Rather, learning also entails small and at times imperceptible, moments of shading, valuing, and imaginative reconstruction” (p. 36).

It is the knowledge that my experience can be so different from Hicks’s that reminds me that I must truly read the lives of my students. I can read my students like a book—or can I? I can make predictions, anticipate twists, discover themes, and even read between the lines. But can I really know all that has shaped that book? I must make a decision to read each one individually and not to assume if I have read one I have read them all. Even if my students and I share similar backgrounds and interests, it is important for me to remember the individuality of discourse. I need to work on my own reading skills. Reading lives may be the hardest of all literacies to develop.

Lisa Rasey

Like several people have already mentioned, this chapter instantly caught my attention because it neatly fit into the summary and outline of my own life. I was the little girl living in the Bible Belt Southeast coloring pictures of Jesus at Bible School. I can relate to the idea of being a "good girl" and if not, rotting in the place where sinners go. I never realized how this played into my life or into my literacy.

Thinking about the Bible Belt made me consider my own history with literacy and reading. As a preacher's daughter, I read the Bible most nights during the week. The first words I was able to fingerpoint read where most likely those from a memorized verse of the King James Version, like John 3:16 or John 11:35. If I wasn't reading from the Bible, I was listening to someone else read from it or a bible story book. Also, my dad would actually ask questions after Bible Story to check our understanding. He would actually level his questions so that the same story would produce a more difficult question for my older sisters and the easiest question for my younger sister. Although all of this sounds like history now and a menial part of my childhood, I can't help but consider that it probably had much to do with my success in reading early in my education.

I was able to gain oral literacy and practice comprehension questions. Also, the reading was familiar and pertinent to my own life and socialization. I was very aware of the ideas and characters in bible stories. Therefore, I began to successfully comprehend even difficult text. I would compare this to a child reading a certain series of books in school. If a child reads Frog and Toad books, he becomes more and more familiar with patterns in text, events, and characters. This same continuity showed in my own literacy.

All of this discussion of reading, literacy, and socialization made me really consider how each of my students are impacted by their surroundings and social situations. What types of situations do my students come from? What have they been socialized to believe or think? How has their surrounding impacted their literacy?

Brittany Guy

I must say that I rather enjoyed reading this chapter by Hicks. I made so many connections to my own working-class girlhood as I delved deeper into the reading. In my childhood reading and imagining were intertwined so intricately with real life I was sometimes confused to where life and literature began and ended. I was the child that loved to read more than anything else, and that love has followed me into my adulthood. My parents surrounded me with books, fiction and non-fiction and they read to me religiously every night. However, it wasn't until I was in the 1st grade where I was a proud member of "the eagles" reading group that my teacher taught me and the rest of the group how to "go inside" of a book and become the characters. I was already connecting with the characters, but now I was getting lost within countless books. I would still be "inside" a story long after I finished reading it. Thank God my sister shared my love of reading and imagining because I remember making her re-enact countless storylines with me. We would go outside and play for hours pretending that we were some fictional character from mine (or her) latest book. Sometimes we would be lucky enough to convince our friends to play along with us. Unlike Hicks etc., I did not use reading to escape from lifeI saw reading as a way to make my life more vivid. I had a pretty awesome childhood and often in my imaginitive reenactments I incorportated elements from my own life into the story that I'd read. As an adult, not so much, but if I am reading I've been told that you have to call my name 5 or 6 times before I come back into the physical world and answer you.

I wish that all of my students could experience the love that I have for reading. For me, making connections is the part of reading that shapes our world. I try so hard to convey this during read alouds and I am seeing definite progress in my student's reader response journals. A few of my students are actually doing more than just reading for comprehension. They are interacting with the characters and relating to the characters on a much higher level. I will continue to share the joy of reading with my students throughout these last 48 days left in school.
Cherrita Hayden-McMillan

I am really starting to get into this writing. It is not so much that I can personally relate to it, as many of you have been able to. I grew up in a busy city with many luxuries not afforded to most children. We had 5 acres of land, a swimming pool, mini bikes and go-carts. No,I was very fortunate in that regard and never saw my parents worry over money. I think the way I am relating to this though is through my father. My father's mother was a sharecropper from South Carolina. She had a 4th grade education and paranoia schitzophrenia. My father was the oldest out of 6 children and after their father left and their abusive stepfather began to control his mother, he became the sole provider. The stories he shared were so vivid, so incredible. He would talk about their factory house with the bathroom on the back porch and how some days it was so cold, he would try not to use the bathroom till he got to school. He told me about working at UNC-CH selling peanuts so that he could buy lunch for his brother's and sisters when he was only 9 years old. And he told me of the fun he had in Monkey Bottom, the nickname for the little park where all of the "poor" kids hung out. He would make bamboo whistles and crawl through the drain pipes under the baseball field. I can't believe that even now, I can so vividly recall him telling us these stories. I even recall wishing that I had grown up poor because the family worked together to survive and my dad had so much more fun than I did.
For me, this really seems to be a common theme throughout this chapter. The fact that imagination becomes the main way to escape the reality and hardship of life. Hicks talks about "pegasus" and how she use to imagine seeing and riding off into the sunset, something very similar to what Laurie says. A number of the authors have written about imagining that they were a princess who was treated with royalty and doted on. This imagination is to me, what fuels a creative mind. Perhaps, this creativity and imagination in fanciful notions created a need for many of these authors to get their ideas down or to thirst for more stories fitting this mold.
For me, the stories my father told me have always stuck in my mind. Now that I think about it, I realize that a lot of the things I write reflect his hardships in life. I have never really written about "happy" events. I write lots of poetry about hardship and social injustice. My father was labeled as "Durham's first hippie" because people thought he was simply rebellious. They didn't know that he actually couldn't afford a haricut or had to wear clothes until patches would no longer hold. He shared these stories with us and moved my heart and led me to try and be a voice, an activist, for the little people that are often forgotten.
Whitney Gilbert

On a side note.......
Another interesting thing is, that even though my father was never very studious, my first memories of reading are with him. He use to take me to the grocery store and have me sound out food labels! I think he always just wanted a better life for us and he busted his butt to make sure we didn't grow up like he had to and that we had every opportunity out there.