Trimming my Mom's short and straight hair when I was younger should have been a fairly uncomplicated and to the point job. She would ask me every once in awhile to do it so she didn't have to take the time to go get it cut. I'd grab the scissors and eyeball it....it was usually shorter than shoulder length, and not too thick. Easy? Not for me! I would always cut one side a little shorter, then I'd try to even it up, so all of it would be a little shorter, then a little shorter, then still a little shorter. Good thing hair grows back! All I knew was to grab the scissors and cut. The scissors were actually pretty dull, so not only did I not have the right tools in my hands, I also lacked the knowledge of how to cut hair. Good think we also don't really see the back of our hair often, well, my Mom at least!!!! It seemed like it should have been a simple thing to do, but to me, it was complicated!
The same idea can be applied to texts and literacy! We so often give our children texts to read, thinking it is simple and they will get it. But in the hands of someone who hasn't had the right training or developed the right skills, the text can become about as useless as that dull pair of scissors!! A hair stylist goes to school and must have a license to cut hair, because there are skills that are helpful to giving a good haircut. That's not to say that some people can't figure out how to cut hair on their own, but generally speaking, I wouldn't trust my hair to a young kid who wants to play with scissors!! Just as cutting my Mom's hair was too complex of task for me as a kid, in a way, its the same with asking children to read texts they are not ready for. I was told to spray the hair and cut in a straight line with dull scissors. Often times, students are given a text book that contains text that is too complex with them, and told to read it without the proper tools! We must take text complexity into consideration to improve disciplinary literacy for our students.
Exploring the materials this week, two topics really stood out to me as priorities in disciplinary literacy in regards to text complexity, and they are expectations and purpose.
Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality.
~ Ralph Marston ~
~ Ralph Marston ~
We must set higher expectations in our schools, for both student and teacher alike, and give the support needed to achieve them! Rand and the Common Core material both speak to the fact that by college, or in the work force, there is a demand for high literacy skills (Rand, 26). However, literacy skills in students before college have been declining. Particularly in regards to their ability to read and comprehend complex texts. My Mom is an instructional assistant in a resource room. Several years ago, she worked with an autistic child. His parents had been told that he would never even write a paragraph. But she set a goal for him, and told him he could do it, even though it seemed impossible, and then she worked every day with him. Within a matter of months, he was writing paragraphs!! If we limit out expectations, we limit ourselves.We must set higher expectations for our students in regards to reading complex texts, which seems to be happening with the Common Core. But what good are high expectations going to do if we don't teach our children the skills to achieve them? The Common Core is calling teachers and students to reach further than they have been, and I think that is the first step, now it is getting there that we must do! Rand points out that 'research has shown that well-designed teacher preparation programs have a positive effect on reading outcomes' (Rand, 16). In order to raises expectations for students, and to help them prepare students to understand complex texts and be at the level they need to be to find success in college, we must first give teachers the skills they need to help students in disciplinary literacy. When we set high expectations for ourselves, and work to achieve them, I believe it will transfer to our students.
Another area I think deserves a lot of attention is a common area, purpose. According to Rand, reading comprehension is 'the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language' (Rand, 11). One of the elements he speaks to is purpose. As I was looking at what is common throughout the materials, I felt like each of the three readings this week was a piece of a puzzle that made a complete picture to help understand text complexity and how to help our students grow in their understanding of complex texts. I felt like the Rand material was able to specify and look at purpose, that the Common Core provides goals or purposes to aim for, and the Buehl material spoke to ways to reach the expectations through reading strategies, even specific to each content area!
While expectations and purpose are certainly not the only aspects to helping our students understand and grow in their abilities to be literate in regards to complex texts, they are two very important pieces of the puzzle!! It would be great to get to the point when our students are faced with a text, they don't feel that same terror I felt when my Mom got those scissors out!
This week, the readings spoke to text as primarily written, and as I was reading, I remembered years ago, hearing of a teacher who actually couldn't read. The link below takes you to an article about him! It is very interesting to see how he was able to be a teacher without being literate in written texts!!! There are a lot of connections to what we have been discussing and it makes me wonder how many of our students are getting by the same way!!
Purpose is one of the three elements that Rand lists, the Common Core provide a purpose
Trisha,
ReplyDeleteI agree completely when you suggest that teachers need to be given the correct skills before they can expect the correct skills from our students. Lucky for us, taking this class we have a heads up on this skill building. Having a reading endorsement is really handy to have in the classroom, but not every teacher has one. So it may benefit your school greatly if you show the teachers literacy skills you've learned. Especially if you are in an environment where you do have the separate disciplines, this way classes can be consistent.
Common core is asking us to introduce more complex texts into the curriculum. I do think this will greatly help students in their futures in college and careers. But only if complex texts are used in the correct way, with appropriate scaffolding. We all know that complex texts can be, well, complex and daunting to students. Like you said, purpose is important, we do not want to turn our students off to reading as a whole from overwhelming them. Somehow finding a balance with complex texts will be key to making its increased usage successful!
I love all of the analogies you have, it makes it totally relatable. I really liked what you said about how we need to have higher expectations, but also need to be given the support to meet those expectations. I think that sometimes we get lost in the labeling of students and insteas we should always believe in them and help them acheive the goals we set for them, instead of focusing on what they have been told they can't do. What a great article, that was really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI like your questions of how can we catch those students that are slipping the cracks, but it raises a couple of other questions for me. Why, even when we know students are struggling, do we push them through the system? And when they are slipping through the cracks, how do we help them. I liked your story at the beginning about hair cutting because it is true that if we don't have the right tools then the job is going to be complicated, but the problem is that if no one ever gives you the right tools how can they expect you to do a good job at it? How can we improve our system so that students are identified and helped without just being exposed to more assessment or being pushed through the system? I really don't think it is fair that students are never taught correctly and then they are punished or looked a like they don't care.
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