I really liked the way Hicks used the words Discourse and literacy in these two chapters. I first heard the word discourse in a graduate class entitled: The Politics of Literacy. My first assignment in the class was to define literacy and explain two different discourses that I am a member of and what role literacy plays in those discourses. I decided to discuss the discourses of my church and work. This task took a lot of thought and self examination. Through this paper I was able to come to a better understanding of what literacy is and how it plays a major role in all discourses. I am including the last section of my paper because it describes my own personal definition of literacy and its relation to discourse. After taking an in-depth look at two discourses that I am an active member in, I believe that the definition of literacy can be defined in many different ways. However, I strongly believe that a person’s discourses play a large role in how they define literacy. James Paul Gee said that a person’s discourse is like their “identity kit” (Gee, 1989). Therefore, based on the two discourses I have described, I believe that literacy is not only a person’s ability to read and write, but how a person applies their ability to read and write to function in their different discourses. Literacy can be seen when a person uses their knowledge, status, behavior, skills, education, and experiences in life to help them relate and be a part of a variety of discourses.
As I was reading other peoples posts I kept thinking about how schools tend to measure students’ literacy skills based off of objective tests (e.g. K-2 Assessments, Aims Web, EOG’s, A.R. Tests, Dibels, etc..) However; I believe that Hicks is trying to help us see that literacy is such a subjective topic and we should not judge our students literacy knowledge solely off of objective tests. Tests can only tell us so much, what we really need to do is gain knowledge of how literacy is affected by the different discourses our students are a part of. Hicks gave a great example of this on page 28 when she was describing a section in the book The mastery of Reason. Preschool students insisted that the Mommy Bear was the biggest Bear even though they saw pictures of the Daddy Bear being much larger. Why ws this the case? Well maybe in these children’s homes home the mom did more things with them, maybe dad was not in the picture, or maybe dad had to work a lot. The point is that students come to school with a variety of literacy backgrounds. We know students do not learn the same way so why do we push them so hard to answer test questions the same way. Don’t get me wrong, I understand we have to have tests to measure our students, but I think education needs to take a close look and see if we are truly getting a clear picture/results of what our students know.
I think it is amazing at how well my little first graders can “code switch.” They can turn off and on all their codes much like you can a light switch. They understand and know how to act and what to say at home, school, on the bus, with friends, at church etc… All these places require them to use different interactions and language. Our students are very moldable and learn quickly. However, I also believe that some students have a harder time switching roles. Many times roles get crossed over. I think this is why teachers need to get to know their students outside of school too. I know this is hard because we already have so much on our plate. But, I think if we make house visits or attend an event outside of school we will get a more realistic view of who are students are and how to help them be more successful in school. Our different discourses shape who we are and what we do. It is vital that we have a good understanding of what discourses make up our classroom.
Emily Rhoney
Comments (6)
Emily,
The first two chapters of this book brought me back to our Politics of Literacy class as well. I think discourses and code switching go hand-in-hand. Our students belong to so many differnt discourses (class, sports, church, dance, etc.), and they have to know how to act and respond in each of these discourses. Code-switching comes in for students when they change from one discourse to another discourse. I believe, as teachers, we do need to get a handle on our students and the various discourses that make up who they are. For example, I had a child this year who I found out played soccer quite well. Guess when I found this out? The LAST week of school! If we know about our students' various discourses, we can build on those in learning. I could have had that child read books about soccer, write about soccer, included soccer in math problems, etc. We need to know our students well enough to "connect" with what is going on in their lives. I think too much emphasis is placed on testing as well. How can we get to know and focus on our students' discourses if we have to spend most of the year preparing for a test?
~Jamie Brackett
Posted by Jamie Brackett | June 20, 2010 12:19 AM
Posted on June 20, 2010 00:19
Emily,
Your commment about finding out the different discourses that make up our room is so true. It's not just the different races and cultural backgrounds we need to be aware of, it is their discourse within that group. I agree as well we need to commit more time outside of school to learn our students and see what situations they live in. By doing so we see how they fucntion and the role literacy plays. We are overworked in our profession, but maybe by spending more time getting to know our students we wouldn't be spending so much time trying to develop lessons. We would be working smarter, not harder. Our relationships with the students would be stronger, so our classroom community would be stronger. Through all this student motivation would increase, and learning would increase.
Michael Lemke
Posted by Michael Lemke | June 20, 2010 2:00 PM
Posted on June 20, 2010 14:00
Emily,
I think your title is perfect. I teach 8th grade and for this age group, the discourse does have a lot to do with who they are. Teaching and coaching middle school, I see kids interacting in many different aspects of their life. I see the cross-over from student, to musician, to athlete, etc. I love watching the "code switching" that takes place as they move from venue to venue.
Posted by Karen Chester | June 20, 2010 3:15 PM
Posted on June 20, 2010 15:15
I agree with your statement about testing. Reading is so much more subjective. Think about when you look back over a child's reading test scores. You see what is black and white. What you see is how well they were about to read and comprehend one piece of literature on one day. It does not take into affect how much prior knowledge they had of the subject they were reading about. Reading is a subject that needs to be assessed many times over time and then averaged. Not tested once and taken as a final evaluation.
Posted by Sarah Hutson | June 21, 2010 11:29 AM
Posted on June 21, 2010 11:29
Emily, I chose to respond to your critique because you addressed literary discourse, which I think is the most challenging. When I read about the different discourses I began to realize that this what students use when making inferences. I find this a lot with my middle schoolers. One big problem middle school students have when inferring is they tend to rely solely on their background knowledge (which is often based on their discourses). I think this is why some students have so much trouble with standardized testing. If they don't interpret things just like the test makers feel they should, they miss the question. Along the same lines and similar to our discussions on code switching, I find that many of my students "wait" for you to tell them they are right or give them the right answer. Now I wonder if this has a connection to their social discourses? Maybe they aren't allowed to offer their opinions at home or participate in intellectual discussions with adults. Maybe this is realated to the discouses they form about school. Do they think they aren't smart enough to answer such questions? Do they fear embarrassment if they're wrong? Or maybe their peers will harrass for being "smart". I'm also really interested to get into more about "critical literacy". That is a subject that I haven't thought a great deal about but I want to learn more.
Posted by Sally Elliott | June 21, 2010 3:25 PM
Posted on June 21, 2010 15:25
Emily,
I'm so glad you indcluded the quote from James Paul Gee in your post. That was a really neat way of defining discourse.
I agree with you that reading is subjective to assess. In our school, we've recently had several staff developments focusing on summative versus formative assessments. We've been challenged to try and start using assessments formatively instead of summatively- to use assessments to plan our instruction. We've even been told to do this with our reading assessments. I know this would look differently in a different grade level. I teach 1st grade and so we don't have EOGs. I'm sure it would be tougher to do it in the upper grades. You may would even have to do more informal testing in order to get the information to plan instruction.
Marsha Warren
Posted by Marsha Warren | June 22, 2010 3:30 PM
Posted on June 22, 2010 15:30