RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

In the article “Experiencing Literacy In and Out of School: Case Studies of Two American Indian Youths,” Elizabeth Noll attempts to examine the meaning of literacy in the lives of two Native American teenagers and the role that literacy places in helping them find their way in the various cultures of which they find themselves to be a part – Native American culture, “mainstream” culture, and the culture of their school. While many aspects of good qualitative research were present (such as member checks, the amount of time spent collecting data, and rich description), I must admit that in some instances I was overwhelmingly left with a feeling that what Noll found was not necessarily unique to the experience of Native Americans.

First of all, with Zonnie, Noll commented that friends were extremely important to her. She said that one factor that influenced how Zonnie expressed herself was “her desire to socialize with friends” (p. 222). That does not sound so different from many teenagers, no matter what their cultural background might be.

Secondly, Noll also comments about the fact that Daniel and Zonnie often do not feel connected to the assignments that are given in school, such as when Zonnie is asked to come up with a cause-and-effect story. They do not feel that these assignments relate to the real world. While my understanding is that a central idea of Native American thought relates to the interconnectedness of all things, I do not think the feelings these two teenagers have regarding their assignments are that atypical from many American teenagers. At that particular point in their lives, they do not see how school assignments are relevant to the world as they are currently experiencing it. To them, it is just something the teacher comes up with for a grade or to pass the time, and it is definitely not something that would ever be used in day-to-day activities in the real world, either now or when they become adults. (I can certainly understand this as I never understood why I needed to take calculus in high school.)

Thirdly, Noll states that in most instances, “the adolescents’ literacy strengths, cultural knowledge, and richness of expression outside of school are not fully recognized or tapped in school” (p. 229). My feeling is that this is pretty much par for the course, especially with regard to activities taking place outside of school. I think there is, in many instances, a tendency on the part of many teachers to be very compartmentalized in their thinking. The individual teacher deals with his/her particular subject area with a particular group of students at a particular time during the day and anything that happens outside of those parameters does not matter in terms of that educator’s realm of responsibility in educating a child. I realize this is not true of all educators, but I believe it becomes increasingly true as children move up through the grades and teachers have more specialized fields of expertise and see increasingly large numbers of students. In my own particular grade of pre-kindergarten, I am required to do home visits at the beginning of the school year and since I have these same 17 students all day for the entire school year, it is potentially easier for me to establish a home-school connection which encompasses activities outside of the classroom, whereas if I saw 90 students for an hour each day for half the school year, I think that connection would be harder to make.

I do have to commend Noll on her willingness and ability to evolve as this study progressed. One of the most concrete examples of this was her willingness to expand her notion of literacy beyond traditional boundaries of reading, writing, etc. and to include the influence of music, dance, and art. I was more impressed, however, with her willingness to listen to the Native Americans’ concerns regarding the naming of the after-school club she proposed. If she had not consulted with these individuals and been willing to be flexible in this regard, I believe this would have severely limited her access to valuable information for her study because she would have been seen as just another white “oppressor” who was trying to dominate the minority culture. In my opinion, the parental objections to the proposed name of the club basically boiled down to the cultural history of “haves” vs. “have-nots” and the human tendency to think in terms of polar opposites. These parents believed by having the word “literacy” in the club’s name, this meant that the purpose of the club was to move them from the ranks of the illiterate (the “have-nots”) to the ranks of the literate (the “haves”), based on previous experience with being dominated by Eurocentric cultures in which they were forced to move from their native ways to the ways of the majority, as were Zonnie’s parents when the dad said they were forced to learn English. As I’m sure we all know, when one is forced to do something, he/she often doesn’t find the experience very pleasant and he/she often engages in the experience begrudgingly.

Clyde Rice