Hi Everyone,
Welcome to this online course -- I hope that you will find the readings and our discussions provocative and useful in your professional lives.
To give you some insight into who I am:
I have PhD in Language Education from the University of Georgia. I've been at ASU for four years, and I previously taught middle grades language arts and reading for 7 years in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA.
I have some experience with literacy and language/racial minorities, but lots of experience with the intersections of gender, class, and literacy. I have studied widely in my PhD regarding issues of language and racial minorities and their literacy learning, and I have worked with teachers in the public schools with these topics. My passion is to foster fresh conversations about race, class, and gender and literacy among inservice teachers. Therefore, here we are!!!
My own literacy learning took place in various sites. I remember articulating my version of family in a drawing while I was in kindergarten. I drew my mom, my dad, my gradmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, and great grandmother. We all lived together in one house because of poverty. My kindergarten teacher told my mom that I obviously didn't understand the "definition" of family because of my drawing -- it included too many people who were not my so-called immediate family. This is not a story that my mom told me but one I **remember** vividly, on my own! This was one of my first experiences with literacy that tried to keep me in my working-class "place."
Another strong impression of my literacy learning occurred with music. I can remember learning to read music before I could read words. This happened mostly in church, but also at home with my dad at his guitar. One of the first songs I learned was Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4." I learned to sing the song with perfect pitch without really understanding the words. This experience led to my most profound literacy expression --- that of music, and the conveyance of meaning through that form of literacy.
I am most comfortable with writing, reading, and musicality in my literacy expression. From my experiences, I have little confidence in my ability to express myself through the visual arts -- or even interpreting visual art. It is my belief that teachers have the single most profound impact on how students view themselves as literacy learners. Of course, that learning and expression takes place in various sites, such as family, church, community, and so on. However, one negative experience in school can shape perception in all other sites. The research bears this out, and it is something that teachers need to examine closely and critique.
I hope that this course will offer each of you an opportunity to explore these issues and will help you to think about your professional work in literacy.
I look forward to learning more about you and learning with you this semester.
Alecia Jackson