Interversity.Org

Another step in journey toward critical literacy in the classroom--a stumble.

Today, I taught an "inferring" lesson. I gave some statistics about spending on education: six times more money is spend on corrections than on higher education. Since 1980, the prison population has risen from 500,000 to over 2 million, with half of the prison populaton being African-American while African Americans account for 13% of the total US population. I asked students to tell me what it says (literal interpretations) and then to draw some inferences. They had trouble. Maybe I should have gone to Kylene Beers' "It Says-I Say" strategy to help students make connections between their background knowledge and the information in the text.

I really had trouble getting students to see the "justice-injustice" theme in the statistics. I don't think anyone ever made the connection between education and prison until I pointed it out. Ugh. . . .

After that, we read three selections from three pieces that dealt with similar issues: the closing argument scenes from A Lesson Before Dying and To Kill A Mockingbird and the description of the trial of the "Groveland Four." Again, I had to pull teeth to get students to list literal information and inferential "information." Are students just not interested in issues of justice and injustice? Two students did make some good points in the morning class. One student wanted to know why we keep reading stuff like this that has racism and the like. Racism is still here; nothing has changed much. But another student said that we have to keep confronting the issues because, if we don't, nothing will ever change.

I think it bothers me that some students still feel powerless. This is where the critical literacy approach is important--to get students to think about their lives and what they can do to "change the world." I guess I'm thinking of the cliche: "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?" Who said that?

So, what are my next steps? I don't know. I just know something has to change and students have to get involved in life.