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

As I began the reading I had never thought about how working-class children use literacy. After I continued reading I realized I was one of those children. My dad was a tobacco farmer and worked at Roadway second shift, while my mom was a preschool teacher for many years. We never had all the top of the line items, but we never went without either. The example with Jake and his little sister reminded me of how I used to play with my cousins. However, my mother probably would have told me to get in the house and stop all that noise, which set up the way I learned how to act with my own son in the same type of situation.

I fully agree with the thought on p. 16 that some have rejected, that “literacies are cultural and material practices shaped by histories, localities, and persons within them that give form and meaning to children’s lives.” The way I grew up has influenced the books I read and the way I write. I tend to choose books that are similar to the cultural experiences that I know. If I can’t relate to it I don’t want to read it. I feel it is the same for my students. Yes, they would love to have a book that will help them escape every once in a while. However, they want to relate to the types of situations that are in the books. My students are growing up just as I did, since I teach at the elementary school I attended. They are all from working-class families. So, they are learning those same community stories from their parents and teachers that I have learned as well.

Odessa Scales