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

This week's readings were hefty! I really did not enjoy the Hinchman article so I am focusing on the Moller and Allen article, which I found very interesting. The fact that thinking can be transformed through speech, wow. The response development zone allows for this and for the safe space to have strong emotions. These girls who had never been invited into literary discussions of this kind really had a meaningful experience tied to literacy! They actually shifted from spectators to "actors" in the course of the discussions. They were engaged and made connections to historical and present day issues.

I found "engaged resisting" to be a familiar concept, but one for which I did not have a name. The girls were obvioulsy very involved in the story, putting themselves in the characters' positions and saying, "I would have..." One girl had to pull back when the material was too painful or scary for her. This makes me think of how I watch cops shows on tv like Law and Order. I cover my eyes for the first scene when they find the body. It is too real and scary for me. But then I want to get into the story and see how the crime is solved. As readers we sometimes cringe and "cover our eyes" only to be drawn back in by our attachment to a character. Low readers need to have this feeling too!

I loved the statement that struggling readers need to focus on meaning, not just decoding and isolated skills. I have a RAP group this year, part of a county-wide program from the Hill Center. It teaches skills in isolation and is supposedly for struggling readers who are below grade level. I really struggle with this class because it goes against my ASU ideology. I think this article is proof that even low readers need to be in meaningful, motivational text.

Ashley Catlett

I really appreciated the podcast and would have loved the instruction and insight when I took my Action Research class. The podcast and outline were clear and concise in the description of qualitative research.
The Moller and Allen article conjured up some thoughts while I was reading. First, I need to purchase the book by Mildred Taylor. I read Lincoln's Way by Patricia Polacco to my class yesterday and I think there are some similarities between the books. The Friendship is definitely for the older grades,while the Polacco book tackles racism for a younger audience. My class listened intently as I read and we had a discussion afterwards that was okay. I sensed some hesitation about the topic. The topic of racism or prejudice is uncomfortable to talk about, even in second grade when some of the students' inhabitions are low. I love that a book will not always illicit comfortable conversation. The girls in the article struggled with fear as they pressed on in the application of The Friendship to life around them and their personal experiences. The book had become more than a collection of words transcribed on pages, it had become a revelation of life to these four young ladies. It was a revelation that was difficult to comprehend, yet they pressed on. They allowed themselves to connect this literature with situations from their own lives. They moved from a narrow, obstructed view of factual recall from the details of a book to building connection with its themes and characters to their very own lives. The Friendship had freed them from word analysis and reading rates and opened a door to engaged reading. The focus on meaning rather than a set of isolated skills drew the girls in to the pages of a book. Sim Bishop sums it up this way,"The main purpose of a literay work...is to encourage its readers to reflect on the human condition." These girls did that, this purpose was accomplished. This is also my purpose in introducing literature in my classroom. It is to expose the commonalities of life between the characters in a story with the real life events surrounding us on a daily basis. When the focus is on the connection, or the building of meaning, EVERY student can participate and find success. EVERY student comes with their own set of circumstances and life shaping events that will affect their processing of a piece of literature. When I read Lincoln's Way yesterday, my student who reads at a preprimer level didn't feel shut out or "dumb". He is always the first one to participate in the discussion. He may not grasp many of the words, but he deeply understands the themes and meanings of our stories. Perhaps my favorite part of the article was Tamika's poem. She found a way to express her reaction, her connection to this powerful book. While this study was conducted over a period of 5 sessions, the impact will continue on with these girls over a lifetime. They were sitting on a runway in their classrooms, just taxing around in isolated skills waiting for the tower to give them the go ahead to take off. Karla gathered them together, allowed them to press on their accelerators, and soar up into the atmosphere of meaning. These girls, I have a feeling are still circling about up there, blazing new trails in the skies.
Stefoni Shaw

In my first week of teaching, I began assessing students and planning reading groups for reading instruction. On Thursday, after I had completed IRIs with most of my students, I began to explain what our reading groups would entail for the year. One of the children in my class said, "It's okay. We usually read out of the textbook. We're in the low class." Not knowing how to respond, I simply said, "Well, we are going to try some new things in reading class this 6 weeks and see how they work out." I was completely devastated. The classes are ability-grouped for reading at my school. However, the students are not told of their abilities or why they are in the class that they are. This is when I learned that students can easily make inferences about their placements and their ranking among their peers.

"The central prerequisite for advancing the teaching of reading is to grasp the process of learning to read through the nonreader's eyes and ears - we must understand what it is like not be able to read." --Hinchman

This quote from Hinchman resonated strongly with me. After reading it once, I returned to read it once more for a better meaning in the way a beginning reader would. We must understand what it is like not to be able to read. I think this is a tough idea for most teachers. Because we are teachers and studying at the masters level, it would probably be a safe guess that most of us were natural readers or possibly teachable readers. For the most part, we did not struggle to the point of frustration year after year. I believe that to really understand children and the type of instruction they need, we should talk to them and gather information about how it feels to struggle with different aspects of reading instruction. It is easier to find out exactly what my students want or need if I ask them. Assessment scores can give a lot of data; however, they cannot provide why the student failed or how they felt about the assessment task.

The next piece of this article I would like to address was the topic of quantitative versus qualitative assessment. Quantitative assessment can provide numbers and percentages of correct problems; however, it does not assess the types of mistakes the student made. An example of the importance of analyzing the type of mistake students make took place in my own classroom this year. On a spelling assessment, two students made Fs, both in the 60s. This would suggest that they are near the same level in spelling instruction. However, student #1 spelled bench B-A-N-C-H. Student #2 spelling bench B-A-C-H-T. A qualitative analysis would suggest that the first student was actually higher than the second. The substitution of A for E is a common short-vowel substitution. The student also recognized initial consonant, a nasal, and a final digraph. The student was pretty successful in spelling the word. However, the second student only mastered initial consonant. This is one example of a time when quantitative analysis is not enough. The quality of the mistakes made a world of difference for these two students and the type of instruction they required.

Finally, I also enjoyed the talk of investigating social issues through children's literature in the second reading. I think incorporating history and social issues in literature is a superb way to engage students and interest them in reading instruction. In my last internship while at ASU, I did a literature study with 6th graders and the novel Number the Stars. I quickly learned that although some struggled with the tough concepts in the book, they really enjoyed the history and social issues because it was a part of a story that they were able to read. Students were interested in continuing reading the book and learning more in social studies about WWII and the Holocaust because of the integration of the material into their reading instruction. I think this can be very effective when students are given the opportunity to express their opinions and feelings in a structured open environment, like a classroom.

Brittany Guy

I must say, I had a hard time getting through these readings! I totally understand the need for research, both quantitative and qualitative, but I don't enjoy reading about them. However, the one point that truly jumped out at me is one that others have already written about: "The central prerequisite for advancing the teaching of reading is to grasp the process of learning to read through the nonreader's eyes and ears - we must understand what it is like not be able to read" (Hinchman). There are probably many reading teachers who got into the profession because of a negative experience with reading in their past, and they want to help students overcome the same issue. But many of us were probably good readers in school, never having a problem with reading and never needing extra help. This isn't a bragging right, but a reality--I can't ever remember having issues with reading. It just came naturally to me, so to get inside a child's mentality who is having trouble is difficult. This is why qualitative research is so important. To be able to not only look at the numbers, which, of course, is important, but look at what is going on in a child's environment to try to get a feel for how he or she is feeling is the real goal. I loved Jason's thought at the beginning of the Hinchman article. Yes, Jason understands a certain process. He can't put it into adult words, but he understands nonetheless. This, paired with numerical data, statistics, and years of studies, is what garners results in the reading field. In my mind, you can't have one without the other.

I really enjoyed the Moller & Allen article. It is so true that bringing a piece of social and political literature, at any age range, is going to spark different responses in different children. In my opinion, this doesn't necessarily have to be a multicultural work either. For example, in my English III classes, we read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Many of my students approach this work as if it were a "kids" book--when in fact it is the complete opposite. While they relate to the character of Huck, they aren't prepared for Mark Twain's social commentary, and they all come away from reading the book with a different outlook. I've seen, however, that each student's outlook is different--just like Moller and Allen argue--based on their background. I loved when they stated, "there is no such thing as an individual reader. We are each a product of our interpretive communities and of our ethnic and cultural backgrounds." I think the whole of this argument can be summed up by another statement that stood out to me (I underlined AND highlighted this one): "children's literature can be a powerful, positive force in the lives of children. It can make them less innocent. It can make them conscious that there is more than one way of being normal." (emphasis added) Gosh, I get chills at the thought of how powerful this can be for our young people today. How much could this snowball into changing our world?

Christy Rivers

When I started teaching, I was placed in a kindergarten classroom. I went to all of these new teacher orientation meetings, had countless hours of training on teaching literacy, but at the end of the day, no one could tell me how to get someone that has never seen print to read. The trainings focused mostly on children who were all ready reading. When I asked all of these "gurus" in the county, they mostly replied "it just happens". Luckily for me, my first year I had an extremely advanced class. And they did seem to just read. We focused on learning the letter sounds and putting these sounds together to make words and I did A LOT of read alouds. I also did leveled reading but it was a little bit disjointed. All in all though, that class did great. I had 2 5 year olds reading on 3rd grade level, 4 on 2nd grade level, and the rest on middle of the year 1st grade level. For me, this was a big achievement.
My next year, we pretty much ability grouped. My principal knew that I spoke Spanish so I got all of the ESL students and the "low" kids. Well, I had learned some more about reading and felt a little more confident. So, I proceeded like I did before and taught my class in English and in Spanish. Only this time, I saw that about half of the class wasn't comprehending the stories we were reading. I was puzzled at this. I mean, why had the class before had such success? So I looked at the socioeconomic make up of the class. My first year class was filled with parents who were active in their child's schooling. Many were educated and had well respected jobs in the community. My second year class was the complete opposite. Many of these children were very poor, had uneducated families, or were being raised by grandmas and grandpas that did their best, but who had been out of school for a long time. This made me wonder about what they were understanding. When I did read a louds, only a handful commented. So one day, I decided to take each student back individually and ask them about a book. It was a simple book about a little girl going to the grocery store with her dad. What I found was remarkable! Many of the students, the non-ESL students, had no idea where the story was taking place. They didn't know the vegetables or the fruit. They referred to the man as an uncle, grandpa, or friend. They had no experiences to base the text on. So, in order to help the children, I started to bring in simple items and pictures to help build their vocabulary and experience bank. I read a lot of non-fiction texts to try and broaden their horizon. We did a lesson on the supermarket and I showed them fruits and vegetables and let them taste them so that they could understand. Until then, I had never thought about what it would be like to not have experienced these things. How could I describe a banana if I had never tasted one in my life? How could I write about the beach if I had never seen one or discussed one?
For me, this rationalization shows why standardized testing is so grossly unfair. If you only use these quantitative measures to measure what a child knows, than you won't get a very good response from a child who hasn't had enough experiences in life. Present them with a topic that they have been exposed to, or have lived through, you can get anything you need out of them. That is why I now try to use a lot of books with very vivid pictures. This really helps a child connect. Like for black history month, we wer talking about segregation. Now, most of my children have never experienced this, but they do know what it is like to be singled out and be mistreated. So, I used this experience to help show the pain that African Americans went through during segregation and explained that they suffered only because of their skin color. Boy, that helped them to assimilate their experiences. Many were pretty much outraged and the discussion that came out of that was so powerful and moving. I think if we connected more topics to the personal experiences of our children, quantitative or qualitative, the outcome would be much better.

Whitney Gilbert

I decided to center my critique on the first article we read and the methodology of qualitative research.

The Pod-cast was very helpful for me, especially learning about the layout of qualitative research papers and the details about each component. I have not learned much about qualitative research until now.

I agree and understand why qualitative research is primary in education. Or education primary uses qualitative research. The methodology of qualitative research, from what I understand from the pod-cast, is a description of who the people are that are involved in the research (who the researcher is watching/observing), the setting of the research, and who the researcher is. I also understand the methodology link to qualitative research, and the reason why it is not important for qualitative research to be generalized or replicated. From what I understand, the importance thing for the reader to understand in qualitative research is the methodology, so the reader can determine if they have an appropriate setting to apply the suggestions that are made in a paper.

The first article by Hinchman beings with a quote: “Reading is looking for the little words in the big words, and knowing enough words. Hey you know I’m the third worst reader in my class. I know, because the other kids read books with more pages in them than I do”. I think this is a very powerful way to begin a paper, and gives the reader an insight of what is happening. As I was reading the article I was trying to identify the specific components of a qualitative research article, that were identified in the pod-cast. The methodological section of the paper was easily identified and Hinchman wrote about the classroom study she completed by collaborating with a social studies teacher. I think the points she made in the article were similar to the points that the authors in The Skin We Speak were making.

There was one comment Hinchman made regarding the small groups of students and the collaboration of teachers: “we continue to see youth choosing to engage only sometimes and for some teachers”. I wonder if it is the characteristic traits the students bring to school that make them feel more comfortable with teachers, or if it is an environmental characteristic that the teacher can control to a certain degree to make the students feel that they can always be engaged with the teachers and their peers in the classroom.

Elizabeth Griffin

First of all, thank you for the outline, it was helpful as I listened to the podcast. I was particulary interested in the podcast, because I am currently taking the class Teacher as Researcher with another professor. It confirmed everything that I am learning in that class. Prior to this semester I had never even heard of Qualitative Research and here I am not only reading about it but beginning to do it. So while I will use the outline and information to help with my own action research project, I am overwhelmed to think that I am actually going to writing my own article.
I have not read Mildred Taylors "The Friendship" but read "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry" and did a project with it in my undergrad. I know it may difficult for my students, but would like to try something like this with my class. My school is currently going through redistricting and next year our population will be completely different- the majority of the school will be minorities.
The Hinchman piece was not as interesting for me, but I could still relate to Jasons quote at the beginning of the article. My third graders know without me saying a word who the "good readers" are and who struggles. Heck they knew before I did. I have guided reading groups where students are about on the same reading level and other groups where I mix them up-some high, med and low. I praise all students for their progress but try not to place emphasis on the groups, but rather the individuals. I have seen confidence growing in my "low group" and nothing pleases me more. Confidence leads to success and success leads to confidence and that leads to comprehension which leads to success. Now thats what call a good "vicious circle".
SuSu Watson

I think what Hinchman is saying in her article is that researchers and policy makers need to talk to the students and teachers to get their perspectives on the literacy programs in which they participate. I understand her to say that you can’t just interpret the data (quantitative research) alone. A complete representation should include participant thoughts and feelings (qualitative research.) I imagine that this is especially true when researching race, class and gender. I kept this in mind as I read the second article, by Moller and Allen.

Quantitative research could never begin to touch the depth of the emotions uncovered in this qualitative research piece, where struggling students responded to Mildred Taylor’s, The Friendship. Sure, quantitative studies can show that meaning based classrooms produce high test scores. However, a qualitative study helps us understand the children behind the numbers. It helps us to see why struggling students need the quality literature that stimulates thoughtful discussion, deep reflection, and emotional connection. The girls in the research study showed us the real life possibilities a good book like The Friendship, offers struggling readers.

I wondered what a policy maker might take from Moller and Allen’s research. I hope that they would see the important role meaning plays in the development of struggling readers. As a result, perhaps they would grant teachers and students the time and freedom to explore important social themes in their classrooms. I feel like schools are too data driven. It seems that all we hear about are test scores. School board members and law makers need qualitative research to help them know and understand our students and the issues that affect them. After all, we teach children not numbers.

Jayne Thompson

Working on my dissertation this year has been a huge task. It’s even bigger than I ever imagined it would be. There are many days that I feel that I am in the middle of a huge sandpit of data that I will never be able to claw out of, but there are other days where I am amazed at the beauty of the data. The way the data tells the story of a classroom, a teacher and her students in a way that others many not ever be able to see. I’m working in a first grade classroom with a teacher who is 110% dedicated to her students and goes above and beyond the call of duty each day to ensure that her instruction is worthwhile. It’s refreshing to be in her classroom so that I can celebrate the teaching and learning in her classroom. As I collect data I’m collecting both quantitative measures and qualitative measures. Before beginning I didn’t realize what a tremendous impact the qualitative pieces would be to my study. It hit me the hardest as I looked at the student’s spelling. At the beginning of the year the quantitative numbers would have told me NOTHING about each student’s spelling ability because at that point few of them could spell any of the words on the list – so their scores were 0%, 5% and 10% correct. However, as soon as you look at their spellings and qualitatively analyze each one, you can see how much the first graders actually know. They know beginning consonants; they can mark that long vowel – even if it’s not done correctly. For example, I had one student spell the word 'thirsty' as 'thrsty'. Quantitatively it's wrong but qualitatively it's absolutely beautiful. If only we could get more policymakers to see that the qualitative research can take us toward a more complete curriculum. It can give us the insight we need to plan a curriculum that meets the needs of our students because many times it gives us the description that the numbers are unable to provide. Hinchman’s piece was easy for me to connect to because I see the value in teaching our students to think about their own learning. If we want students to learn from the sake of learning, to become life long learners, then we have to help them realize the power that comes from being directly involved in the learning process. It’s more than listening to your teacher and completing your assignments. It’s listening to your teacher, making connections to other learning you have experienced and extending that learning in new directions. For this to happen we have to listen to the students and I think Hinchman makes this point well.

I also appreciate Hinchman’s call for ‘varied research methodologies’. There are so many different ways to collect and represent data and each offers a new layer of knowledge and curiosity. It can only help our students to expose ourselves to different ways of learning because then we are still pushing ourselves to learn. We may not feel comfortable trying a new research methodology or reading in a new discipline, but that challenge can only make us better teachers. The challenge of something new encourages deep thought and pushes us to go beyond what we know so real learning can happen. If we allow ourselves to go through this process on a regular basis, I think we will also be better able to offer the same experiences to our students.

Amie Snow

Everyday I hear the words "research based". Most of the research that we use in school is quantitative research. This is also what I used for my research course at ASU. I never thought about the implications that qualitative research could bring about. Right now, there is a huge issue with the grades of second grade students and their performance the following year on the third grade pretest. There is a discrepancy. And a rather large one at that. Our principal asked us in a meeting, why we thought this was happening. And this isn't anything new. K2 typically performs better than 3-5. Wouldn't it be great to jump in and do a qualitative research project to find out some answers? Is there a problem with the test? Is there something happening to boys and girls at this age? I wonder what the students are thinking. And I wonder what the parents are thinking. What happens from second grade to third grade? Or, can we select a small number of students, give them an intervention and see what happens? In the meeting, I mentioned tutoring second grade students over the summer. What if we selected a small group of students to do this with? We could follow them from the beginning of second grade to the beginning of third grade. We could give them the extra support, tutor them, monitor them. I bet we would find out something interesting things that can happen to an 8 or 9 year old over the summer that would have an effect on their performance.

I think we are always trying to get students to fit into these perfect square pegs. I think it is important to really take the time to get to know students. I would like to see more qualitative research done in schools. I am not seeing enough of it. Especially with No Child Left Behind. What are some implications of this? And how are students really being helped? Are we ready for yet another shift in education?
Sarah Feinman

My learning curve has been quite steep this week as I have contemplated qualitative research. While the Moller & Allen article provided an example of qualitative research, I focused more on the Hinchman article in order to process what is involved in this type of research. Hinchman states, “One needs time and energy to read widely, discern compelling questions, develop worthwhile theoretical groundings, gather and transcribe interviews or observational field notes, analyze data in ways that are thorough and consistent with theoretical groundings, and write” (p. 101).

As I read both articles in light of our previous readings and discussions, I was struck with Hinchman’s section on theorizing meaning. If I simply considered the process of qualitative research and did not consider the importance of perspective and how one constructs meaning, I would be unprepared for engaging in this type of research. “What I bring to the table”—all of my personal baggage, past learning experiences, and biases—will impact my qualitative research. Hinchman asserts, “We know that the theories that we develop to explain others’ experiences are colored by our own histories, values, and structures of meaning, only some of which are within our awareness” (p. 103). It is the very last part of this quote that troubles me. As hard as I might try to be objective, my personal history has been built on experiences, some of which are completely beyond my control. I am the sum total of these, and, at times, am completely unaware of how much I have been shaped by these.

Even though I am just beginning to learn about the processes involved in qualitative research, I already see the great value of member checks, peer review, and honest self-reflection. While member checks may be about “getting it right”, peer reviews and self-reflection may be more important in providing an accurate representation of the data.

Lisa Rasey

First of all, I would like to state that I thoroughly enjoyed “Connecting, Resisting, and Searching for Safer Places.” As Moller and Allen point out, it is important that we allow children to experience and reflect on social issues--often through the medium of text. As a social studies teacher, I understand this concept extremely well. My kids are thirsting for a knowledge of their society and how it has “developed.” We discuss current events bi-monthly, and these issues are often addressed. While studying Islam, we read two articles on the practice of hijab among Muslim women. One article was written from the perspective of a self-described liberal American 20-something who criticized the practice as demeaning to women. The other article was written by a female Muslim who defended the practice as “liberating.” We used the articles to form discussion groups--I purposely mixed the groups to contain two people who totally disagree, and one neutral person. Using points from the article, the groups debated the topics. It was an amazing experience! The kids learned a great deal about Islamic society, and some of the misconceptions that are associated with their social practices.

On the other hand, when kids read stories about groups or individuals that they are “emotionally” connected to, things are a little different. For example, when our English classes read racially charged novels, some of the African American students are very uncomfortable with the topic. For example, when the kids read Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry this past Fall, we had parents who visited the principal regarding the novel. Moller and Allen clearly point this idea out by stating, “Children’s emotional responses to literature dealing with social and political issues will not always be comfortable.” Even though our kids were fine discussing the norms of Islam (a culture which is not represented in our entire school), reading about racial injustices and African American stereotypes stirred too many emotions for several of our students.

On the same token, we also see “engaged resisting” from the white children. Many of them don’t want to believe that the white racist characters that they read about in novels are related to them. I am not suggesting that our white kids are racists, but that they don’t want to be associated with those that they read about. Not only do they disconnect themselves, but they rewrite the story to include themselves. Instead of just accepting the story with its racist characters, they “retell” story, stating what they would have done differently (similar to the girl’s reaction to The Friendship).

Even with all of its discomfort, I still agree that addressing and discussing these social issues is crucial. The world, itself, is not a classless, unbiased, “raceless,” and unfriendly place. In order for kids to understand their world around them, they need to learn about it in a neutral environment. Often, school is the only place of this nature that exists for them.

Heather Coe

When I was an undergrad student at UNCG I remember my Reading Methods instructor telling us that it was our duty to teach "good" literature. She defined good literature as "literature that evoked change, or at the very least makes one feel with strong emotion". I am the first to admit that I am quite guilty for not following her instructions. I cannot count how many times I explore "safe" literature with my students simply because it is a lot less emotionally draining for me (and my students). Although I will willingly go down the road of controversial topics, it is by no means my favorite thing to do. As a matter of fact, I can only count three times in my teaching career that I made that venture and I ran into "complications" each time. My first two experiences were when I taught 4th grade, first as a student teacher then as the commander of my very own classroom. Both times my students were reading To Kill a Mockingbird and of course we delved into the history behind the story, etc. When I was student teaching the demographic make-up of my class was primarily white. The entire time we were reading this novel I felt like my students thought I was accusing them, no, making them feel guilty for being white. My cooperating teacher (a white lady and the one who suggested that I explore the novel with the students) assured me that I was "doing no such thing" and that it was important for them to know American history, all of it. Needless to say I was thrilled when we finished the novel, and I am almost positive that we read something light and fun like Stuart Littleafterwards.
The next school year I was in my own classroom with a very diverse demographic make-up and since I already had the unit, why not? Well about half way into the novel I was called into the office to have a meeting with my principal, one of my students, and their parents. The student (one of the most compassionate kids I''ve ever met) took it upon her self to call her great-grandpa for the express purpose of finding out if their family ever owned slaves. His answer upset her, she gave him a tongue lashing, and officially declared to her family that she was ashamed to share their last name. As you can imagine that meeting did not go well.
I guess the more you do it the better it gets. The third time that I dealt with controversial issues using literature was in my 2nd grade classroom last school year. This time I was doing an assignment for my Advanced Children's Literature class with Dr. Green. This time I got three notes from three different parents (two black parents and one white) that reprimanded me for teaching their children about slavery and racism and pretty much they just wanted their children to know that Martin Luther King Jr. changed all of that. Despite the parent notes, I continued my unit and finished the project with my students.

The Moller and Allen article has challenged me to be the responsible teacher of literature that my undergrad professor commanded me to be. I am not doing my students any favors by keeping the truth hidden from them. Frankly, it is a teacher's duty to give children the truth no matter how bad or ugly it may be. Of course there is a proper way to teach the truth and Karla Moller did just that. What struck me as I was reading the article is that she did not lead the children to draw any conclusions. She did not start asking the four girls questions until they began making their own connections and drawing their own conclusions about the characters and situations in the story. Only once the girls stumbled upon the right conclusions did she ask them probing/leading questions. She also did not "shelter" the conversation. She allowed the girls to express their feelings/comments/concerns regardless of how deep the conversation went or how uncomfortable it became. She provided a space where these students could discuss social issues and confront real fears. The depth of knowledge that these girls acquired over this short time period is far more promising than test data scores on any given day.

Cherrita Hayden-McMillan

Prior to this week I didn’t realize truly how valuable qualitative research is, especially in education. Between the podcast and Hinchman’s article I really started to think about how more qualitative research and less quantitative is needed to truly understand what is going on in education. The few times that I have done research or looked at studies, I have mostly looked at quantitative research. I guess I never really thought about how I was only getting a generalization not a real answer to the problem. I would have to agree with Hinchman in that if we want to really focus on why kids aren’t performing they way that we would like then we need to do more qualitative research to pinpoint the problem.

I was moved by the Moller and Allen's article. It really made me think about the fact that as teachers we stray away from topics that might be controversial or topics that may lead to a conversation that might take us out of our comfort zone. We fear what others might think and especially what parents might say. But we forget about whose needs we should really be thinking about, the children. Even as parents we try to “protect” our children from the real world. The truth is that so often they already know about the things we are “protecting” them from. Inevitably we are only hurting them by not giving them the opportunity to share their feelings and interpretations. As parents and educators we need to remember how important literature that discusses social issues and discussions about them is in helping our children grow and have a deeper understanding of the world. As Moller and Allen stated, “ If we pretend that we live in a world where these things do not happen, we not only reveal ourselves as dishonest to children, who often know more than we give them credit for , but we also fail to prepare them for the world that we and they must work together to change.” We need to work towards being proactive in helping our children understand the situations they face daily and the world around them. Moller and Allen’s article was a great reminder of this, they did not chose the book The Friendship haphazardly. Although Moller had no sure way to know which way the kids would go with the book and topics within it, she strategically planned to have multiple ways to address the topics as well as offered teacher support as needed. Moller also did not plan on a deep conversation to arise right from the beginning. However, she intended and did help guide them from a more textual and contextual guidance to more emotional guidance. So often we cut the kids off when they get to the point where emotional guidance is needed. Instead we need to embrace these types of conversations and support them as needed.

Amy Spade