I will admit this week's chapters stretched me! I read with great anticipation of inspiration buried in our readings that will rise up and grab me. This week, inspiration is there, but it was more difficult to find. I first had to dig through some layers to appreciate its beauty. This is quite similar to building literacy in our classrooms. Sometimes, it is not readily apparent with our students. It seems we are communicating on two diffferent planes, our words are not connecting with each other, there is a large crevasse between us. It requires us to read our world in a different way. It is developing an understanding of the complex relationships between language practices. When children enter our classrooms they are packing buckets of knowledge specific to their cultures, their home environments, their prior experiences. When they enter, we should carefully ask to see their full buckets, allow them to unpack all that is within their bucket. Then, we take out our bucket and begin to show them all we have packed inside ours.This is the beginning of a literacy show and tell. We first begin with the history of our experiences outside of school and then bring revelation of how school can connect and grow what they have encountered. They practice moving between these differing cultural worlds. The more practice, the more permanent the language and literacy exchange and acquisition will become. A discourse will develop that encompasses complicated questions about power and social positioning. As we tackle these harder topics, we begin to introduce the development of critical literacy thinking, broadening our literacy understandings beyond the classroom and into the community. It is almost cyclical. We take their culture in the beginning, integrate with our school interests, and then use the combination to build an understanding of the world beyond the school walls. So, this week I thought about becoming deliberate in discovering what my students are packing in their buckets. Practicing exchange and acquisition will lead to permanence and relevance in the world beyond daily schooling. Perhaps the title of this new book is summation enough--Reading Lives is our goal!
Stefoni Shaw
Comments (2)
I loved how you compared your difficulty in reading this chapter to our classroom experiences. Even when we cannot make sense of something we read, we can still learn something from the process. This is a very powerful lesson!
Posted by Christy Rivers | March 28, 2009 9:07 AM
Posted on March 28, 2009 09:07
Stefani it seems like knowing what students have in their "buckets" is just one of the keys to academic success and quite possibly one of the most important ones. Like a previous article that we read it that talked about the importance of bring our students into the classroom before we can expect them to engage in the learning experience.
Posted by Cherrita Hayden-McMillan | March 28, 2009 5:39 PM
Posted on March 28, 2009 17:39