LEADERSHIP LITERACY
by Alfred W. Tatum author of
Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap
Too often, reading and writing instruction for African American students does not feed their hearts of minds. Explicit instruction that incorporates cognitive, emotional, affective, and social development strategies can provide students with skills and strategies that nourish them.
Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State, responded to questions about the crisis in Kosovo on a nationally syndicated news program. When he was asked to assess the then 30-day bombing campaign that NATO was engaged in, he responded that NATO's failure to use the Powell Doctrine-clearly outline objectives, initiate action, and complete the mission effectively and efficiently-- would result in a drawn-out military operation with no definitive way of securing victory. Powell asserted that NATO's failure to use his doctrine would make the U.S military operations futile, and the attacked had the power to determine when, or if, to succumb to military pressure.
The Powell Doctrine can help educators overcome the barriers that many African American adolescent students in the United States encounter. The approach that was used by NATO in Kosovo is analogous to the way reading is taught to many of these students, particularly the ones who struggle with reading. Many district-mandated reading programs and approaches are being offered as quick-fix solutions. And because of the growing popularity of high-stakes testing and standards, many teachers adopt a test-driven approach to increase the achievement of struggling readers. This is problematic for two reasons. First, lower reading achievement is associated with practices that accompany test-driven instruction. Second, the gap between a comprehensive approach to teaching literacy and the current widespread practices used to teach adolescents with poor reading skills is widening because of the increasing emphasis on meeting standards. Darling-Hammond and Falk (1997) pointed out that standards could create higher rates of failure for those who are already least well served by the education system. After spending more than eight years as a classroom teacher and five years teaching grade 8 African American adolescents living in an economically depressed area, I have concluded that increasing students' reading and writing abilities calls for much broader dictates than test-- driven educational practices that are intended to meet minimum standards.
A cadre of authors representing the International Reading Association issued a position statement on adolescent literacy development two years ago. The statement emphasized the importance of providing access to a wide variety of reading materials, building skills and desire to read complex materials, using assessments that test strengths and needs, modeling and giving explicit instruction, involving reading specialists to assist teachers, developing an understanding of the complexities of individual adolescent readers, and getting the United States to support adolescent literacy.
Helping African American adolescents from impoverished communities become better, more involved readers may call for different dictates because of the historical mistreatment this group has experienced in the United States. These students are more likely to attend low-achieving schools that have limited resources and have a greater chance of being taught by teachers who hold low expectations for their students' success.
Effective educators adopt a multidimensional approach that moves beyond "remediating" struggling readers. Theoretical and professional development strands that compliment instructional practices are essential because theoretical and pedagogical dimensions for teaching are often ignored. Also, the professional development that most teachers of adolescent students receive is usually limited in focus, with most emphasis given to the instructional aspects of teaching. The following nine strands increase the literacy achievement of African American adolescents (see figure 1).
Theoretical Strands
Curriculum Orientation
Many political, economic, and cultural structures outside of school are unequal, and teaching practices in the day-to-day life of classrooms and schools can preserve-if not generate-these inequalities. Certain students receive a social efficiency model of teaching that allows teachers to get through the day, while others receive a curriculum of possibilities. African American adolescents living in poorer communities disproportionately receive the former. In attempts to meet minimum standards, many African American students receive an indoctrination of basic skills that does not encourage them to acheive their maximum competency level.
Effective teachers and administrators challenge and reverse such curricula. Understanding how curriculum orientations render certain groups powerless and redirecting these orientations are major challenges for those who want to combat the underperformance of poor, African American adolescents who struggle with reading. Teachers and administrators who are not aware of these orientations and how they have been constructed over the years (see Watkins, 1993, 2001) can become inadvertent accomplices in the failure of African American students.
Literacy Instruction
Literacy instruction should include a combination of teaching techniques to empower African American students and it should be a vehicle to examine how cultural definitions of race and class are constituted historically and socially. Schools are part of a wider dominant culture that marginalizes the experiences of many African American students, preventing these students from drawing upon these experiences to gain control of their lives.
Teachers who create opportunities for repeated, meaningful application of academic skills, provide opportunities for students to imagine themselves in new roles, and help students divorce academic success from "acting White" teach African American students how to perceive the world and understand the limits and possibilities that make up the larger society. A curriculum that treats reality as something to be questioned and analyzed, offers opportunities for students to develop strategies and hope for overcoming academic and societal barriers, and allows them to experience social structures as impermanent and changeable will help teach African American students the reading skills to be functional and critical within the school environment. Culturally Relevant Approach During the past decade, a closer look at the teaching strategies that are effective with African American students has revealed a clear and distinctive educational philosophy and pedagogy. Effective teachers of African Americans are concerned individuals who command respect, show respect to pupils, and are caring but require that students meet high academic and behavioral standards. Such teachers are concerned not only with their students' cognitive development but also with their affective, social, and emotional development. Moreover, they use a culturally relevant approach to teaching literacy.
A culturally relevant approach includes talking to African American students in terms they understand about the personal value, collective power, and political consequences of choosing academic achievement. Activities based on African American community norms are incorporated into the classroom, cooperation is emphasized over competition, and learning is structured as a social activity. Ladson-Billings (1995) offered other requisites for a culturally relevant approach to literacy teaching that is specifically committed to collective empowerment:
Students must experience academic success, develop and maintain cultural competence, and develop a critical consciousness to challenge the status quo
Teachers attend to students' academic needs, not merely make them feel good
The students' culture is a vehicle for learning
Teachers help students develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities.
African American Literature Teachers of struggling adolescent readers often use skills and drills as a way to bring students up from the bottom, rather than introduce students to the benefits of reading literature. Using quality, authentic African American literature as part of literacy teaching is a key component of a culturally relevant pedagogy. This literature is a vital form of cultural expression and offers validation of African American experiences and history.
Because literature can be used in complex and meaningful ways to shape and reshape identities, placing African American literature at the center of the curriculum is beneficial to African American adolescents. When taught effectively, literature helps struggling readers negotiate meaning and think critically about the texts they encounter, whether in or out of school. African American literature can help students understand history, substantiate their existence, and critically examine the present, as well as anticipate the political, social, and cultural changes that may affect students' lives.
Instructional Strands
A Comprehensive Framework for Literacy Instruction
A comprehensive framework of literacy instruction includes word study instruction, fluency instruction, reading, comprehension instruction, and writing. Such a framework is more timely than ever now that there is a nationwide thrust to adopt high-stakes testing. Many students' poor reading skills are exacerbated by an inadequate amount of instruction or a lack of quality instruction. Although skill-based instruction is necessary, it is not sufficient for meeting the complexities of African American adolescents' needs. Along with African American literature, they need explicit strategies that increase their awareness of their own performance as they read fiction and nonfiction. Struggling readers who receive explicit strategy instruction make superior gains over students who do not. Benefits of explicit strategy instruction and some practical approaches are described in Figure 2.
Mediating Literature
Jeffrey Wilhelm (1995) reminds us that most of reading for struggling, reluctant adolescent readers focuses on cracking codes instead of creating meaning. He goes on to state that the role of the reader as an active meaning maker-one who connects personally with what is read, who spends pleasurable and stirring time with stories, and who might judge or resist the text and its author-is essentially precluded from the act of reading. The way literature is mediated has a profound effect on adolescents' engagement with literature. Mahiri (1998) illustrates this point in Shooting for Excellence: African American and Youth Culture in New Century Schools when describing examples from two classrooms.
Example 1:
The assigned reading was The Color Purple. Ms. Jackson began each class session with a 15-minute, in-class writing assignment on the previous day's reading homework, centered on questions designed to reveal the students' grasp of the key issues and themes in the book. The questions directed students to such issues as the patriarchy, the varieties of love, and the roles that writing and education played in the book. The writing assignment was designed to be a springboard for discussion.
Example 2:
The assigned reading was To Kill a Mockingbird. Ms. Jackson began each class by asking whether students had done their homework. The same three students were the only ones who ever actually did their homework. But the routine was consistent. She would praise the ones who did the work and remind the class that these would be the students moving up to the higher track. Everyone else wold get zeros. Unfortunately, attempting to do the homework did not help those students fare much better.
In the first example, the way the the teacher taught helped her students become engaged in the text. Although they complained that some discussions were flat, they expressed a desire to explore issues in longer essays or have small group discussions. The students in the second example said that they were not only unmotivated but also unchallenged. Getting students to become actively engaged and equipping them with metacognitive tools are two vital features of literature instruction. Far too many classes are like the second example, and students' perceptions of themselves as less able readers are often reinforced when they are given literacy tasks that are less involved or less challenging than those assigned to their peers.
Assessments
Effective teachers evaluate students' abilities fully and accurately and gather information that can help them develop strategies that meet individual needs. Adolescents who struggle with literacy figure out ways to avoid reading orally, manage to produce mediocre results on reading assessments, use a keen ear for details to comprehend texts from classroom discussions, and develop ways to answer comprehension questions correctly without understanding texts. A reading assessment plan for adolescents must assess cognitive dimensions (i.e., comprehension, word knowledge) and affective dimensions (i.e., types of materials students value, attitudes toward reading). To ensure that students get the help they need, teachers must know the specific strategies students possess. This is vital to responsive teaching, and even more so when dealing with students who struggle with reading.
Effective teachers come to know individual students by watching them, listening to them, and interacting with them in meaningful literacy activities. These teachers are able to evaluate how classroom practices accommodate individual differences. Teachers who listen to the voices of their students are able to construct classrooms responsive to the needs of the students they teach. Assessments should be ongoing, involve both formal and informal techniques, extend across several areas of reading, and include adolescents in the assessment process.
Professional Development Strands
Professional Communities
Many professional development workshops for middle level and high school educators attempt to cover too much in too little time and are unable to "do more than tinker at the margins of teaching" (Wineberg & Grossman, 1998). This kind of staff development is usually an effort to keep teachers up-to-date and has little follow-up. Effective professional development is sustained, ongoing, and designed to provide teachers with support and corrective feedback.
Effective schools have a professional atmosphere that encourages teachers to develop subject-matter communities that support teachers' growth and strengthen teaching. Professional communities within schools don't encourage teachers to wait to be talked at by subject-matter experts or instructional specialists from outside. Some practical guidelines for building a professional community include encouraging teachers to conduct sessions about their teaching, gathering and distributing professional literature, allowing time for peer observations and feedback, making professional journals available to the faculty, and attending professional conferences to share information. Effective teachers appreciate their colleagues as fellow learners, create a sense of shared intellectual community, and expand their knowledge base.
Teacher Inquiry
The recent emergence of teacher as researcher opens up a realm of possibilities for classroom teachers. Principals are in the position to encourage teachers to initiate, implement, and evaluate their activities. These teachers provide a perspective that can relieve some of the tension that exists between classroom teachers and outside researchers.
Teacher inquiry is a powerful way to understand how teachers and their students construct and reconstruct curriculum, identify discrepancies between their theories and practice, and evaluate what's going on in their classroom. The classroom is a laboratory that allows teachers to make reflective decisions and plans on the basis of knowledge that they can adapt to their teaching situations, their students, and their classroom experiences . Conducting inquiries of teaching, writing, and presenting can empower teachers.
Final Thoughts
A gentleman at a local bookstore explained nesting grounds as the nourishment you find when you are surrounded by nutrients that feed the mind. Educators must give poor African American students who struggle with reading the nourishment that feeds the mind and provide them with the sustenance to enter a different world from the one in which they were born.
Until recently, functional and cognitive ways of knowing have predominated adolescent literacy development. But curriculum orientations that address affective and cultural dimensions and support the development of literacy are also important. Effective principals strengthen the professional development activities to support teachers whose students struggle with reading. The Powell Doctrine can help educators outline a plan, act, and evaluate the outcomes to create nesting grounds inside classrooms where too many poor, African American adolescent students are denied quality, authentic reading and writing instruction.
References
Darling-Hammond, L., & Falk, B. (1997). Using standards and assessments to support student learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 79, 190-199.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research journa 32 (3), 465-491.
Mahiri, J. (1998). Shooting for excellence: African American and youth culture in new century schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
Watkins, W (1993). African American curriculum orientations: A preliminary inquiry. Harvard Educational Review, 63 (3), 321-337.
Watkins, W (2001). The white architects of African American education. Ideology and power in America, 1865-1954. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wilhelm, J. D. (1995). You gotta BE the book: Teaching engaged and reflective reading with adolescents. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wineburg, S., & Grossman, P (1998). Creating a community of learners among high school teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 79 (5), 350-353.
Alfred W. Tatum (atatum1@uic.edu) is a visiting program associate and doctoral student at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He also is a literacy coordinator at Henson Elementary School in Chicago, IL.
Copyright National Association of Secondary School Principals Oct 2001
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