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

The article by Henry really got me thinking. It made me think about how I teach my children. Sometimes I feel like I am the one doing all of the talking and I do not give my students the chance to really talk to me. Some of my students are like Tamisha. She asked questions that people didn’t always answer, but Henry did. Sometimes they will ask whatever comes into their head and I am not always prepared to answer it. I need to be more like Henry in this case. If my students ask me a question I need to take the time to talk to them about it. This year I had a student ask me “Is God real?” I know the correct answer to that, but instead of taking the time to ask her more I just said “Maybe you should ask your Nana that question” and the little girl ran off. I should have taken more time to talk to her but I didn’t.

This article really hit home for me. Even though it was talking about adolescent women it made me think about my students. I have thought in years past about having journals where my students have the ability to write me letters/notes and I never have. There may be students who do not feel comfortable speaking out if I give them another way to express themselves even if it is through drawing a picture in the beginning of the year then some of my students might feel more comfortable sharing. This article reminds me about the movie “Freedom Writers”. Erin Gruwell, a teacher in an inner city high school, gives all her students journals and encourages them to write to her. She tells the students that she will read them only if they want and she will never share. At first nobody shared with her but after a little while more and more people started sharing with her. She had gained their trust and she realized how amazing these students were in writing. It made me think what do my students have to say to me and I am not giving them the opportunity to share what they have. I think that I am going to start giving them more of an opportunity to share. It can either be about what they learned that day, what they have read about, their favorite thing to do, or anything they want to tell me. I need to give my students many different avenues to express themselves and this article really helped me realize that.

Natalie Enns