Gender issues in the books we read

According to Vivian Vasquez's article titled "Our Way: Using the Everyday to create a Critical Literacy Curriculum," teachers have to be more cognizant of the various social issues that occur in the classroom. She states, "not recognizing Power Ranger stories prevented me from being able to use this text to get at some deeper underlying issues such as gender, power, control, racism, and cultural stereotyping." This particular statement resonates with me because it relates to some of the texts I plan on teaching my students during this last advisory. Gender is a important but convoluted word because of the unique cultural perceptions our students have about the opposite sex as well as different power struggles that exist in the books they read.

As a result, I have decided that this advisory, I will make an effort to teach texts that will give me a better understanding of my students' perspective on gender and how it affects their personal lives. Since most of my students are 9th and 10th graders, I want them to be able to identify and analyze some of the gender biases and disparities that exists in the books we read. Among one of the books I look forward to reading with my students is Speak, which is a novel about a high school teenage girl who gets raped at a party, but is unable to disclose the issue and the assailant to anyone, including her parents and her close friends for fear of alienation. This is an issue all of them are familiar with, but it is also an issue that is hardly spoken about. In addition, I hope to help my students discover some of the control issues that teenagers, especially girls experience in their young lives.

Teaching to the 4th power-continued

Tomorrow is the last day of the third advisory and there are some critical things I will like to put in place as the 4th advisory approaches. This advisory, my students completed a project on leadership by composing a newspaper article of an interview they conducted with someone in their community that they thought met their criteria of leadership. Many of my students interviewed their mothers, grandmothers, while others interviewed teachers, coaches, and administrators. Some branched out and interviewed other people in their community such as police officers and youth center coordinators. The astonishing fact is that none of my students interviewed a male figure in their family, since many of them lack a positive paternal relationship in their lives.
Overall, I enjoyed teaching the students about "leadership" and they enjoyed learning and composing a newspaper article about a word which has such a significant meaning to their lives. Since many of the students did an outstanding job on the project, I would like to publish some of the best interviews I received, thereby helping my students reach the 4th stage as mentioned in the teaching and learning to the 4th power article. The only problem is that the actual publication of my students work can take a long time, especially because this is the time when all of them are taking standardized tests. Does anyone have any suggestions about other publication outlets I can utilize to help publicize student work?

Teaching to the 4th power

It is every teachers dream, no any dedicated teacher's dream to have each of their students reach the 4th tier of learning. However, I feel that there are numerous roadblocks that prevent teachers from helping their students become transformative learners. For instance, in a month, most of the students at my high school will be hurdled together like swines and forced to take the DCCAS, an exam that gives little indication of a student's aptitude level in math and English. The test my inner-city public school students take, many of whom are recent immigrants, is geographically, culturally, and linguistically biased because many of the questions is not relevant to my students' lives.
The time it takes to prepare my students to perform well on this exam detracts from valuable class time I can use to help them build (T1), use (T2), interpret (T3), and produce (T4) a depiction of their newly acquired knowledge. Our school system today, including my school has an unwarranted obsession with teaching students how to pass a test instead of giving students the necessary tools to help them become a part of their learning. I teach because I want my students, most of whom are socio-economically disadvantaged, to think critically about the world they live in and at some point become agents of social change in their community. Teachers cannot help their students learn effectively if they are constantly bombarded by standards-based bulletin boards, standards-based lesson plans, standards-based curriculum, all of which are important, but not as important as helping our students reach the fourth tier of learning.

What do we mean by literacy now?

A few weeks ago, Dr. Harste, a professor at the University of Indiana, delivered a thought-provoking lecture about children's literacy in contemporary American society. Some of the most pertinent comments he made included the fact that kids must see themselves as characters in what they read, in other words kids should be able to identify with the character in the book. Teachers must select texts that their students can relate to on some level.
He also discussed multiple literacies, which pertains to how cultural groups induct their kids in literacy in different ways and critical literacies, which suggests that different cultures value different types or kinds of literacy over another.
The most poignant point he made was the fact that in today's society, we educate inner-city school students to follow directions and work in assembly lines while we train suburban students to be lawyers and doctors. As a teacher who educates students in a school district where only 59 percent of students graduate from high school, it is a sad reality that some of my students end up with menial jobs. Since the beginning of the school year, I have already lost about 9 students, which is very troubling. There are various reasons inner-city school students do not succeed, however, I believe that our current educational system is designed in many ways to fail our students. No substancial changes can be made until some of the problems that plagues the educational system are eliminated.