Mica Lewis

EDUC 367
12/9/16

It is Personal

As a child, I never did anything that was not personal. When I wrote, I

always used my own wording, my own flourish, my own voice. In everything

else, I struggled, but never in literacy. I loved to read because I could picture

the stories in my head like a move, write them down, and add to them. I

could spend hours writing short stories of my own creation, which I could

then act out using different voices for the characters. I was always a creative

child, perhaps more so than most. However, as I grew older, my schooling

did not bend to my artistic pursuits. The teachers gave me strict formats for

writing. They wanted clean lines and correct punctuation. They wanted me to

write from the book, not from my heart. They fed me lines, and when we

read, it was quietly. We wrote vocab words in neat lines, row after row, until

our pencils broke. When I wrote papers, the teachers failed them, not

because they were poorly written, but because they were not formatted

correctly. My teachers did not feed my creative spirit. They smothered it by

trying to mold me to their standards. I became another student in a

thousand, taking standardized tests, and meeting the grade levels.

But this was my experience. I preserved, found teachers who fostered

my passion for literacy, and I blossomed. However, not all students are so

lucky. I know that I can make this difference, whether a child writes from the
heart or from the book. Literacy is not a science. It is not a formula you can

plug in with a couple vocab words and call it writing. Literacy is an

experience, a creation using language. Every form of writing is different

because the person writing it is different. Literacy is personal and intimate. If

we take away that intimacy early on, students will not be able to find their

passion, their voice, to write with their words and their opinions. Students

should learn that literacy is not a vice to contend, it is a tool to express

oneself. This is my philosophy.

One of the most influential books we have read this semester was

Patrick Finns (2009) Literacy with an attitude. Finn elaborates on the topic

of literacy in the working class, or lack thereof. Finn thoroughly discusses

topics such as Freirean motivation, and how a students voice can make an

impact. The students Finn encounters are all from working class areas, where

they are subject to authoritarian schooling, menial work, and oppositional

identity in the face of literacy. One of the biggest conflicts I observed in these

scenarios was that the teachers of these schools did not teach the students

powerful or even informative literacy. The teachers had the students read

chapters picked out for them, write papers that were pre-formatted. The

students did not think about their writing. There were no personal

connections or ties. They did not see the relevance.

In one chapter, Finn analyzes a teachers reaction to struggling

students during a writing class. According to Finn Children who are identified

by their teachers as poor writers [are instructed to] make letters right, spell
correctly, know where to put the commas, and so on (p. 142). The chapter

goes on to other moments where the teacher listens to students orally

explain their story. Instead of listening to the student, the teacher often cuts

them off to correct their grammar or the Formatting. While these factors in

writing are important, teachers of working class students tend to become

overwhelmed by the need to fix their students language, rather than listen

to what the student has to say. I felt that if my students are heard through

their writing, they might feel more inclined to express themselves.

In another chapter of the book, Finn explores a particular subject called

Freirean motivation. This is the motivation for students to realize that having

powerful literacy can enable them to be an active advocate for their rights,

and to be able to contribute to their personal environment. Finn explains,

[Freirean motivation] is meant to enable the majority of poor and working

class children to become better able to exercise their social, civil, and

political rights (p. 217). I identify best with this chapter, because I firmly

believe that at the center of literacy, the most important factor is that it

needs to be personal. If someone is going to be engaged in literacy, he or

she needs to make a connection to his or her own lives, and to feel the

relevance to themselves.

Despite some deep-seated fears that students in working class schools

are struggling in literacy, this is in fact not the case. Gee discusses this

misinformation in his (2008) article titled Literacy Crisis. He explains that

high numbers in the population are able to read at a functional level, and can
participate in everyday functions in society. However, as we have mentioned,

these students are not developing personal and powerful literacy. These

students from an early age learn the basic phonics skills and vocabulary to

read and write, but it is not thoughtful or creative literacy. Gee extends his

thoughts into what he described as the fourth grade slump. The forth

slump problem would, on the face of it, lead one to worry about what we

mean by learning to read in the early grades and how this idea can become

so detached from reading to learn (p. 37). The students lose this innate

interest in learning, and in literacy, because somehow in the schooling

process they become wary of the rules and the limitations. Literacy is

creative, it is expressive, and students need to feel they can be a part of it.

Only recently have I discovered how difficult literacy has been for my

peers and students. As a child, reading a writing never affected me. I could

write full papers in less than an hour, I could identify big elegant words and

use them in common sentences. I knew how to express my voice on paper,

and could tell a story with only a simple idea. I now realize that so many

other students could not. I began tutoring a kindergartener in literacy these

past few months. This student had no background in literacy, either in

reading or in writing. He could not identify any letters or their phonemes, he

could not read, and he could not form sentences on command. More than

any of this, what astounded me most was his blatant lack of interest in

literacy. When we read, he did not think about what was said. He did not look
at the pictures for guidance. When we formed sentences using his vocab

words, the results were disappointing.

Despite this, I was given insight into why there was such a lack of

interest in literacy. As was mentioned earlier, this student has grown up in an

implicit environment, where he was probably never asked to give his opinion

on anything. I wanted my student to realize that he did have a voice, and

that I was interested in what he had to say, no matter how it was spelled or

how incomplete the grammar was. The student needed to develop his own

voice, and that was the only was he would discover how powerful his literacy

could be. As Allison Roan pointed out during her (2007) investigations of

successful teachers, [They] demonstrated the ability to capitalize on the

innate curiosity of children and on their understanding of the topics that

energize elementary school students (p. 2). I found connections in Sebestass

1997 article Having my say. He was making connections between interest

in a topic and ability to read about it even when it is beyond a students

reading level (p. 544). Once I directed our writing focus onto the students

interests, he was able to feel more comfortable with his writing, and began to

express himself more clearly.

This experience showed me how many students struggled, and are still

struggling, to find their voice in literacy. Many of my peers have shared their

painful experiences in school, when teachers would criticize their writing

because it didnt follow the format intended. The teachers would become so

caught up in the grammar and the structure that they would begin to ignore
what the student was saying in their writing. An article written by Naomi

Flynn reflects on the way schools are teaching literacy, and why it is failing

students. In her 2007 article, she states Such encouragement of teachers to

be creative sat alongside an unrelenting target driven agenda from a

government seeking to control teachers pedagogy for literacy in increasing

detail (p. 1). This isnt the way we should be teaching literacy. Rather than

silencing our students, we should be listening to what they have to say. This

is something I learned from reading the Schultz (2003) article on listening in

education. Listening shifts the focusaway from the teacher, without taking

away their responsibility to teach. It is essential. for classrooms to reflect

students lives with books and materials that build on their deeply felt

interests and heritage (p. 15). If students feel that they can relate literacy to

their own experiences and their own interests, this may open up their

thoughts to writing, and dispel the negative stigma that comes with literacy

in schooling.

My experience has given me the ability of powerful literacy, and the

ability to use literacy to my own advantage and joy. I now see though that so

many students do not have such a connection, and end up repelling literacy

from their lives. As a teacher, I can try to make that difference for students,

between reading extrinsically, and reading intrinsically. I can try to change

their attitudes, and help students realize the beauty that literacy brings to

our lives, on a personal and developmental level. This is my philosophy.

 References:
Allison-Roan, V. (2007-2008). Creating safe and inviting learning communities
involves more than technical expertise. UAESP The leader, Winter, 19-22.
Finn, P.J. (2009). Literacy with an attitude: Educating working-class children
in their own self-interest (2nd ed.) Albany, NY:SUNY Press.
Flynn, N. (2007). What do effective teachers of literacy do? Subject
knowledge and pedagogical choices for literacy. Literacy, 42(3), 137-146.
Gee, J.P (2008). Chapter 2- Literacy crises and the significances of literacy. In
J.P. Gee, Social linguistics and literacies (3rd ed.) (pp.32-49). New York:
Routledge.
Shultz, K. (2003). Chapter 1 Locating listening as the center of teaching. In K.
Shultz, Listening: A framework for teaching across differences (pp. 1- 18). New York:
Teacher College Press.
Sebesta, S. L. (1997). Having my say. The Reading Teacher, 50(7), 542-549.