Lol very true - sad indeed.

"Progressive" as in selective history - delete some significant parts of history out?

Wow! Highlight worthy! Right on with this statement.

I agree as some believe they only want their children to know the "'good parts" of America's history. Selecting which history is taught is a detrimental to the future humanity of our nation. I agree that, we, as a country can use painful parts of our history to move towards, reconciliation, healing, and understanding the untainted truth!

I am not surprised as a person of color because many of the mainstream textbooks purchased by schools are NOT written by authors of color. It is egregious and disgusting with the intentional retelling of history to growing minds.

Racisms exist in textbooks - often goes dismissed - which is the purpose of bringing supplemental materials into a classroom

I love that: shape humanizing spaces that "love students up." I do wonder what students face today that counter a strong self-image. What do students specifically feel about themselves that are influenced by the media that literacy may help to counter?

Perhaps student collaboration on projects create a type of interdependency: my group needs me and I need them. There's an incentive to not skip school.

I never thought about the power in discourse. Powerful discourse that embarks change is political and legal discourse. I like how this student thinks.

Yes, it does. Benchmark testing helps mainly the school instead of the students. Benchmark testing neither develops higher order thinking skills nor any real student agency.

This still happens today, and sadly enough inside an English classroom that is a discussion-oriented subject. Too much teacher talk.

Now that's educational agency! Go head!

The engagement was the result of student agency and cultural relevance to their lives.

Something the average teacher may never think about if the current curriculum is not challenged and changed. I like that the study examines how changing the curriculum can IMPROVE low or marginalized academic literacies.

This is central to establishing relevance when students interact with the literacy.

Wow, how common is this really in an English classroom? The key is what he said: "embracing more pluralistic views of literacy and language education." I love the concept of using literacy to give students agency to counter negative or stereotypical images in media, film, and literature even.

Sounds like critical self-affirmation using literacy.

Something I as a student was never taught to examine and develop. This is an interesting concept that I like.

I love this idea - so innovating! I want to borrow it for my high school classroom!

What year will this combination be a reality in most schools - public and private?

I love the critical literacy and digital media. Project-based learning may be the cherry on top.

I really do wonder what are schools doing, district by district, to relevantly adapt the literacy curriculum in this technological age. That will take research to find out. Though it's rare to find a media project assigned in an English classroom. Media centered projects will definitely help to incorporate digital literacy.

Yes, schools - public and private - still have a literacy curriculum that is still dominated by European authors. If students are lucky, they may get one author of color throughout the year but that's about it.

I've been to PD grade meetings. Teachers often/sometimes complain about "new" models being pushed on teachers when the core teaching concepts are the same. I wonder when culturally relevant models of literacy will really permeate across districts to train teachers. I am hopeful it can and will happen but when?

Is this the cure to improve student writing in ELL students or struggling students? Connecting writing to experiences with family value and meaning.

Powerful title - love it!

When you assign homework that is meaningful to students, the homework return will come out high! Funny

These were the key factors that maximized students writing practice that I need to remember when creating writing assignments: personal connection, authentic audience and purpose.

This level of connection confirms why a diverse body of literature must be read in every classroom especially classrooms with a diverse student body. A lack of student engagement can have a lot to do with the type of literature being read and content chosen by the teacher.

Wow the power of feeling "connected and interconnected" with the writing material. It's amazing how her true writing capability blossomed all because she felt CONNECTED with what she was writing. That connectedness increased the meaning the assignment meant to her and desire to write a coherent, organized, engaging piece.

This should be a requirement for all teachers especially if you teach in a culturally diverse school or have students who are ethnically different from you.

That's interesting: school is just one aspect of a student's community but it functions as the epicenter of one's educational and social development from age 5 - 18. I think schools should build a literacy curriculum around home since students spend a majority of their time at school during the day and at home in the evening and night.

Hmm, that's an interesting distinction: "Literacy means that you are reading things that are important to you, that matter to you, that somehow change your way of thinking or drive you into making a change for something."

How often do English teachers try to increase literacy that is relevant to students' culture, community, or home life?

If only more schools functioned with those three elements in mind: inquiry, collaboration, and shared agreements about practice. I've been to some schools where teachers collaborate and other schools where collaboration is minimal to nonexistent.

To essentially ground classroom learning with a real-world context for students' cultures and communities. Love it!

This reminds me of the sociocultural theory of learning: interacting with one's community to maximize learning the content in class.

I read about this - a study actually - from my ED 503 class. Integrating literacies from students' homes and merging the content from class can definitely increase student learning and engagement.

This should be every teacher's goal in every classroom: organic engagement and excitement produced by students.

When I read about this student, I think of Martin Lawrence's story as a student. He was a class clown who loved to make his classmates laugh. He remembers one teacher in elementary school gave him a few minutes during class time to tell his jokes.

Little did Martin Lawrence's teacher know, she was preparing him for stand-up comedy. Too often, it's easy to label a disruptive student or unengaged student as stupid or not going too far in life. It's imperative for teachers to understand the source of a student's lack of engagement. From working with students, I've learned that a student is disruptive or may not be engaged if: there are family problems, the student struggles with personal difficulties (i.e. sexuality), work is too easy, or work is too hard (due to learning difficulties, gaps in learning, or struggles because the student is not at grade level).

"how valuable sharing ideas and collaboration are" (192)

The Annotated Map of the Neighborhood writing assignment really nails sharing ideas and collaborating. When it came to writing, I never shared my essay ideas in a small group. The collaboration was usually a peer review with a partner. I may try small group sharing and collaboration as an English teacher on certain assignments and see what difference it makes.

"The Annotated Map of the Neighborhood is a vehicle for writers to begin conversations as they become animated storytellers" (194).

You never imagine the power of sketching or illustrating to tell a story. The key here is starting a conversation in written form with oneself of a memory that inspires students to have a voice and something to say most importantly.

"Even though competent writers do some editing as they write, they do not focus on it so much that their thinking is blocked" (192).

This is why I think free writing is so important so students can embrace the fluidity of their own writing style and voice. A short free write can take place during or after a literature discussion in class. I think it's important for students to become familiar with unblocked writing because it's a wonderful, freeing feeling.

"...they stopped thinking of writing as a finished product that had to be correct and realized that some writing never made it to the final draft" (191).

I think it's important to teach students that writing is a PROCESS. Like in Math, be afraid to mess up with your writing and write an incorrect or clumsy sentence. Understand the important function of revision once you have a solid first draft. Too often students' may experience writing apprehension if they don't understand that writing is a process that may not reach a final draft (depending on the project and scope of it).

"If, on the other hand, they identify with the mainstream culture, they may become alienated from their family and risk losing their own language and cultural identity" (190).

I disagree because there are people who can identify with mainstream culture and still have their cultural identity. The maintenance of one's cultural identity if a student is immersed in mainstream culture is a stable immersion in his/her own culture on a stable basis. The various environments make a difference outside of school to maintain one's cultural identity. I have observed people lose their cultural identity as a result of assimilation, but a student can have both. W.E.B. DuBois spoke of double consciousness and there are people who have mastered code switching who understand how to navigate different cultural "worlds."

"Fitting in" stories were about the dilemma of being treated differently as young children because of ethnicity or language differences" (189).

I like that universal similarities can be found among the vastly different cultural stories. Most people struggle with fitting in, but some have a cultural or linguistic barrier which makes it harder.

"...as a starting point for a discussion...or a springboard for writing a comparison piece...these essays reflect Moffett's ideas of having personal reflections be bridges to essay writing" (188).

That's key: using students' personal writing in reflecting on their own life to stimulate an interest in essay writing. That may work on some students and trick them into liking another form of writing.

"The memory has all sorts of potentialities for the transpersonal writing that goes into essay" (187).

I love what Moffett says about memory. Students can learn to embrace writing through reflection and memory of their own personal experiences. People like to write what they know the most: their own life.

"Writing apprehension." I'm glad I never experienced that at a young age. If students are introduced to writing at an early age, the capacity and confidence to feel like a writer emerges early so minimal to no apprehension will be felt.

"Therefore they do not assign much writing, do not encourage writing in their classrooms...few opportunities to write" (185).

I've observed what Carolyn is talking about in the different classrooms I've been in. When writing assignments are given, often the required length of the assignments is very short matching the expectations of the teacher (low).

"My fear of writing had been mixed up with a fear of not knowing what to write about, not having anything to say, and not knowing enough about what I wanted to write" (186).

This can be a struggle when a free write is assigned. Some students will sit there with a blank stare and say, "I don't know what to write about" or "I don't know what to say." We all have something to write about because we experience life each minute of the day. The Annotated Map of the Neighborhood is an ideal way to encourage students to reflect on and write about a childhood memory - whether if it's a good memory or not.