Entry #6: No Blank Slates In This Classroom

This week, there was something that Tompkins (2017) said that I thought applied to the education field as a whole:

"Literacy development has been broadened to incorporate the cultural and social aspects of language learning, and children's experiences with and understandings about written language - both reading and writing - are included as part of emergent literacy" (p. 111). 

Let me explain because I'm not talking about emergent literacy being applied to all of education. I am talking about the idea of widening the lens through which educators view students' skills and experiences. It seems like a common theme in education; the best practices now involve looking at the child more holistically, at everything they bring to the table, rather than just very specific features that have traditionally been valued. 

What came to mind first had to do, of course, with English language learners. In my other literacy class, in our section on getting to know our students, I read this great article by Moll et al. (1992). Moll et al. (1992) switched their mindset from what their students couldn't do to what their students could do. They learned about their students and saw that they had rich cultural knowledge, diverse experiences, and practical skillsets that just weren't appreciated by the traditional American school setting. They called what these students had "funds of knowledge," defined formally as "historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being" (Moll et al., 1992, p. 133). These funds of knowledge were then consulted to design lessons that were engaging and related to students' lives. Clearly, this is an example of broadening to incorporate cultural and social backgrounds of students in education.

Similar to Moll et al. (1992), DeCaupa and Marshal (2011) focused on students' (particularly SIFEs' (students with interrupted formal education)) experiences and strengths. They developed the mutually adaptive learning paradigm (MALP), based on the collectivist culture of education found in many of the societies SIFEs come from. DeCaupa and Marshal (2011) describe it as such:

"in MALP-driven instruction, the teacher acknowledges and uses what the [SIFE] bring with them but also provide pathways to new and different aspects of learning that their students will need in order to achieve academic success" (2011, p. 40).  

This approach values what students can already do and uses what they can do to develop their skills further. 

I can also see this idea in Muhammad's (2020) Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) Framework. I mean, Muhammad (2020) literally has "identity" as a dimension of HRL. It is clear that she values incorporating individual and cultural experiences into the literacy development process. 

Even the Innovation Configuration (IC) allows students to connect their personal lives into the literacy experience. One of the goals for comprehension development with the IC is for students to make "text-to-self connections to characters, setting, or story events" (Beauchat et al., 2009, p. 30). Text-to-self questions allow for students to make meaning of a story by using what they already know. 

I can see this holistic, broad-lens approach in our class as well. We are constantly using and sharing our diverse literacy experiences through both discussions and our literacy autobiography. We didn't all come to this class with the same experiences - far from it. But all of our experiences bring something important to the table that allow us to see different perspectives that make us grow as both an educator and a person. 

No student comes to us a blank slate. Rather than seeing the deficits, I want to rejoice in the valuable and diverse experiences that can enrich the classroom and support learning. 

And of course, this sounds all fine and good, but it will take some real work to shift our thinking (at least, I know it will be for me). It is so easy to see what students can't do, especially in the ENL world, where students might come with no English and no written literacy in their home language. How can I work to change the narrative in my classroom so that everyone can see all that they can do?

References

Beauchat, K. A., Blamey, K. L., & Walpole, S. (2009). Building preschool children's language and literacy one storybook at a time. The Reading Teacher, 63(1), 26–39.

DeCapua, A., & Marshall, H. W. (2011). Reaching ELLs at risk: Instruction for students with limited or interrupted formal education. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 55(1), 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/10459880903291680 

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., and Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of Knowledge for Teaching Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Home and School. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141

Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Tompkins, G.E. (2017).  Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.