Things I notice while I'm reading: Adolescents on the Edge

I am still finding things that I like, and things that I don't really like while I am reading. A big flaw in this book is that I am being made to feel like it is one giant advertisement for Jimmy Santiago Baca's books. For instance, the book reads "Consider using these questions as a framework for discussing Jimmy's powerful story, 'Didn't Mean To,' included in Stories from the Edge, and watch students tap into deeper intellectual and emotional responses than they may have ever experience before." (Lent, 31) I just feel like lines like those (which there are many) are just a pitch to buy his book. I guess I didn't really expect this kind of plugging when I started reading this book. I thought there might be some, but there is quite a bit. I am sure the stories are good, but I guess I would just rather get information in a way that I can apply it to all stories, not just Baca's.

Aside from the constant plugging, there are some great points that are being made throughout the book. A theme that really resonates with me is that the author constantly points out that the reason it is so difficult to work with students "on the edge" is because they have practiced failure and rejection their whole lives, so when we really work with these students, they have to practice success and acceptance, which isn't as easy as it would seem after 14-20 years of the rejection/failure practice. Lent says, "many students who have been unsuccessful at "school" reading or writing in earlier grades have lost confidence in their ability to read or write" (Lent, 31). Lent points out how our public school system really isn't designed to teach children that are marginalized from a young age. Some children thrive in our public school system, but the ones that don't? It seems that we just send them out to pasture. Prakash Nair, founder of an architectural firm that specializes in school design says "Who seriously believes that licking 25 students in a small room with one adult for several hours each day is the best way for them to be 'educated'?" (2009,1). I thought that was a fantastic quote. I never thought of it quite like that, but really, it is a good point.


Lent also makes a theme of the fact that we silence kids that have something we don't want to hear to say. Often times it is a discipline issue, but thinking about my own students, sometimes kids are just goofy. They just are. If we silence them every time they are being a kid, what kind of message is it we are sending to them? I think it is that we don't care about them past the student-teacher relationship. We aren't interested in their weekend or who they are or what kind of silly joke they want to tell today. We want them to put their heads down and do their work.

Let talks about literature circles and even about our class' book.  Of course, never missing a beat, literacy circles are used as yet another chance to sell Baca's books. "How might a literature circle look after students read Jimmy's "Wells Market"?" then it goes on to give a lesson plan for that story. Perhaps I am missing something. I guess I expected this book to be more about Baca's methods than about which stories I should use for which lesson. I really like a lot of Baca's stories, don't get my wrong, but my classroom can't be all Jimmy Santiago Baca's stories all day long, it doesn't even make sense. I feel like the relentless plunging of works takes away focus from some of the great methodology that Lent suggests.

Problems- Connection to the readings

 I haven't been able to make too many connections between the reading and my own problems with literacy circles yet. As of now my major problems are apathy and group size. I feel like the students I have that hate reading are so set on hating reading that they are not open to interesting text. I am going to keep working at it because I know it doesn't happen overnight, but it is very frustrating. I think I have picked interesting text from them to choose from, but some students are drawn in, and some aren't. The ones that read at home seem to enjoy this, and the ones that think reading is a chore are rolling their eyes at me and reading begrudgingly. I made a participation and self evaluation sheet for them because even though our text says that we really shouldn't have an assessment on this, I have found that if the kids don't feel like they are being assessed, they won't try. Even when they feel that they are being assessed they are trying minimally. Harvey Daniels says on page 226 that we can't change our reading groups for the two or three kids out of twenty that are uninterested or unmotivated, but the school I am working at is made up of the kids that are uninterested and unmotivated. That is why they are here. The kids didn't make it in high school because they were those two or three kids, so they come to us. When Daniels said that we can't change literature circles for those few kids, it made me feel disconnected because for me it isn't the few kids. I did feel better when he suggested that usually kids that don't do well in traditional settings often do well with literacy circles.

I don't have problems with students putting each other down as was described in Clark & Holwadel. I have had problems like that in the past, especially when opposing gang members were in classes, but they usually do a pretty good job of steering clear of each other. For me, just making the kids aware of who is in which group keeps bad mixes from happening. I have yet to see if students try to stay with their same friends all the time, but on my first attempt people didn't really seem to try to stay with certain people. Groups mixed based on the readings the kids were interested in.

The biggest problem that I had wasn't addressed (and why would it be, it isn't a common problem) and that was that one of my classes only had two students in it today. Clark & Holwadel did talk about the revolving door, and the poor attendance, which did relate to my classes, but they didn't address what to do when only two kids show up. We just carried on as usual, and while it wasn't perfect for the group to be so small, I participated as a group member, and it was alright.

I am definitely struggling with the kids not using higher order thinking. I think that is just something that they have to practice. I keep having kids tell me that this is dumb, but I realize that it is just because they are not used to thinking this way or looking at texts this way. I feel that it will develop.

I think that the biggest problem I encountered with my large class is that they didn't want to move from where they were sitting to get into their groups. I think I was pretty frustrated with that class today because they were just being obstinate about petty things such as moving, or writing in their literacy log. One student put her head on the table and couldn't be coaxed to remove it; one student wouldn't stay on subject for anything; two students kept looking up from the reading to talk to each other... it was pretty trying.

Problems... Cont

I wrote my last blog while students in my last (and largest) class were writing in their journals. I was feeling very frustrated with the way that the literacy circles had gone in the two classes that I tried it in. The last class saved me. The literacy circles went really well in that class, and the students stated that they were excited to really get going on them (I explained how the first time was sort of a practice run). The class was large enough that I could actually break them into groups. They read the same thing silently. Once they were done, I had the students discuss and just listened in, and I was amazed to find them pretty on track. They did get off on other (but related) subjects, and I would just sort of prod them back to the text with comments like "can you relate that experience back to the story at all?" as I overheard. At the end the two groups reported out to each other about what they had discussed, and had a pretty good discussion then. We looked at some texts for the students to read on Monday (I am going to try to make this a Monday thing, and see what happens) and I am feeling more optimistic. I think that the major component that really helped was the small groups. When my other two classes did this as a large group, they kept looking to me to facilitate the conversation. With the small groups, I was not at the center of the class; they were in clearly defined groups and there was not really anywhere to look for me. In the larger group it was harder for me to stay out of the center of attention, so they couldn't get the idea of facilitating the discussion themselves as long as I was so present. Suggestions?

Problems

So today I tried to start the "training" for literacy circles in my classroom... it didn't go too well. I can identify something that I might have done wrong, but not all of it.

I didn't let the students choose the piece that we worked on, I think that might have been the first problem. If anyone can suggest some short stories that high school kids might enjoy, please share! I picked a poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca called "As Life was Five". It is about him witnessing his grandfather being discriminated against because he didn't speak English. Most of my students really didn't enjoy it, which was surprising to me because I thought they would relate well. Many of them have grandparents that don't speak English.

The second problem that I had was that two of my classes were too small to break up into small groups. As a result, we did a larger group discussion, and there were students that wouldn't speak in the larger group (5 or 6). The other problem with the large group is that they all expected me to mediate, and absolutely could not wrap their heads around carrying on the discussion themselves. There was a lot of silence and only a couple speakers. Students were really getting off topic too. I think it would help to have a video of what a literacy circle should look like, does anyone know where I can obtain one (not YouTube because I don't have access at school).

I think this is a very different way for students to read. I met with a lot of resistance. The said that it was stupid, and why do we have to do this. I get met with a lot of resistance often when I try to roll out something new, so I am not really discouraged yet, but I would like some ideas about how to be more successful. Maybe after I finish reading the chapters that will help as well. I am just blogging about the first attempt while it is still fresh in my head.

Literacy Circles

I am very interested in these literacy circles. I think that they sound like something that I would like to set up in my classes in the very near future. Personally, I like the idea of setting them  up for once a week. The readings said that might not be enough to start, but they also said that was based on most classes being 40-50 minutes. I have classes that last for 80 minutes. My idea is to have a mini lesson for about ten minutes, then read for thirty. I would then let students journal for 5-10 minutes, and have them discuss for 20 minutes. We could come together for a large group discussion for the last ten minutes.

There are a few things that might make this difficult for me. The first and largest problem is that my classes are very small, and attendance is often poor. My smallest class has 8 kids that attend pretty regularly. I think that if I just had two groups for this class, I could still hold the literacy circles. Fortunately, in this small class attendance is pretty good. The other issue that I have is that our school has a pretty limited library, and there are very few books which we have three or four copies of. To remedy this problem, I might start my students with short stories and poems. I can work with the library to build up copies of at least a few titles. The school has about 300 students, so it is difficult to ask the school to spend money buying several copies of the same book.

Another problem that I might face is that my students don't do homework. It just doesn't happen. I don't know how to remedy this, which is why I was thinking I would include 30 minutes of reading time into their literacy circle days. If we get to the point where we are reading books, I can hope that students will get interested enough in the book to read it for homework, but this creates another problem and that is that the students aren't allowed to take home school books (because they are so often lost or stolen) but many cannot afford their own books, and will not go to the public library to take out the book they have chosen. I think that for now, my best bet is to use short stories and poems.

I am concerned with out my students will do in un-lead discussion with each other. It seems that when I am not directly next to students, the like to talk about things other than what they are supposed to be talking about, but I am going to try it and try it again and see if we can get past that point.

I am excited about the prospect of trying literacy groups, because it does seem like it could be a lot of fun. On top of in class literacy groups, I have talked to the librarian, and we are going to try to form a book club after school once a week and use the model that we have been reading about. I think that this could be a lot of fun if I was able to generate the interest. Unfortunately, there are few kids that are interested enough in reading to go to an after school program. I am hoping that I will get some interest because there are several students that stay for night school with an idol hour in between. I am hoping some of those kids might come to at least get out of the cold (our school is all portables).

The last thing that I will have to figure out is how to show the students an example. I have nothing from last year to show them, and I can't pull up YouTube from the school Internet. Ideas?

Blog for LLSS :Intro

What is the nature of students and what do students need to learn when studying literature?

Lent says that it is students' nature to learn best when they are immersed into a learning community. I am just beginning to read about this, but I started with something simple:

She suggests some techniques that Jimmy Santiago Baca uses to create learning communities. She started with the idea that students should create their own classroom norms. We just started a new quarter, and I have many new students. I decided to try having them create their classroom norms today. It was interesting, and I am curious to see how they follow the norms that they created. One of the most striking things was that they created norms that were harder on themselves than I would have been if I had created the "rules". I guess it is always that was. I wondered if part of the reason they did this is because they are used to certain rules and guidelines within the classrooms they have grown up in. Another striking thing was that they did not create their own rewards in their classroom norms until I suggested that they create rewards along with goals. It really seemed to be difficult for students to differentiate between "rules" and "norms". I will continue to update how the students are doing in following their norms.

Blog for LLSS: Testing

Blog for LLSS: Testing: "I am testing this to see how it works, as I have never written a blog before."



I can't figure out how to write a fresh blog so I am just commenting.

So far my book is pretty interesting. There are a lot of things about creating a learning community which are really making sense to me. I have long thought that one of the best things that a teacher for "at risk" students could do was create a culture in which students feel safe, and feel that their learning community truly belongs to them. This book gives some ideas about how to do that. One thing that I am finding odd about the book so far is that it does seem to be one big advertisement for Jimmy Santiago Baca's stories. They keep referring to using his stories as learning tools, and indeed his stories are wonderful, but I sort of feel like this book is going a little far in advertising for them. I think that offering them is helpful, but the book is pretty repetitive in endorsing the book. There are other authors which I am familiar with named, but only in passing.

I really like some of the ideas that I have read so far about how to create trust and community. One thing that I really liked, which is something that I am going to do as soon as I go back to school (it is a new quarter for us) is having the students get into small groups to discuss classroom rules and norms, and then in a larger group, creating them together. I have had students create their own classroom norms in the past, but I like the idea of them starting in small groups because in the large group (especially at the beginning of a term) they are not very forthcoming with ideas.