#dialectical journal

How are scholars defining literacy? What has changed? What happens? How can we apply critical thinking skills to better navigate today's information landscape, separating fact-based content from falsehoods in order to identify credible information?

In the past, we have always defined literacy as "the ability to read and write" (Gee, 2015). In the 1980s and '90s, scholars had begun to think differently. New Literacy Studies had come to agree that literacy didn't exactly mean much without cultural context. 

Discourse patterns, or the way a person speaks (and eventually writes), are "among the strongest expressions of personal and cultural identity"(Gee, 2015). What this means is that for a reader to understand what they have read, they also need to be able to understand the context the writer is coming from. Gee describes the Scallons' study of different cultures, which exemplifies how the different world views have effected their literacy (2015). 

Shirley Heath, too, analyzed similar differences among social groups, discussing how the way a person takes knowledge from "Literacy Events" can completely shape their life. 

As Literacy events are more than reading, so too, is Literacy itself. A Literacy event becomes a discussion. In order to be truly literate,  a person needs to be able to engage with the text. 

As a part of our readings in Reading Academy, I was introduced to an article by Louisa C. Moats entitled, "Teaching Reading is Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and be able to do" (2020). In the article, Moats points out that Reading is "associated with social, emotional, economic, and physical health" (Moats, 2020, p. 4). She discusses the Simple View of Reading, which states that Reading comprehension is "the product of word recognition and language comprehension." She says that "Without strong skills in either domain, an individual's Reading comprehension will be compromised" (Moats, 2020). I tend to think of my EL students often in this respect. 

Unless a child is able to put what they have read into context, they are merely saying the sounds. This doesn't mean that they are literate. Sure, they may be able to read, but they are not comprehending, and therefore, not truly literate. 

"...The ultimate purpose of reading...is to learn, enjoy, and understand" (Moats, 2020). Moats tells us that "as a student's subject-matter knowledge and vocabulary grow, so will their capacity to think critically "(2020). I often wonder about people who don't like to read. They always make it very clear how useless reading is for them. And, I suppose,  if they can't connect with what they are reading, then it isn't worth much. Personally, I find I can connect with everything I read - fiction and non-fiction. I feel that if you aren't doing that, then you are doing it wrong. 

It's not the sounds that you can produce while looking at a piece of text. It is the thoughts that you produce as a result of the text. 

                                               References

Gee, J. (2015). Chapters 8. In Social Linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (5th ed). essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.   

What strategies can help improve and support critical thinking skills? How do critical literacy practices support research? How can taking a critical perspective help us to better understand the paradox in literacy? What role does culture have in our studies?

Chapter three of Social Linguistics and Literacies focuses on the literacy crises. Literacy is not just a matter of the ability to read and write, but “…being able to use one’s literacy skills… to produce knowledge…”(Gee, 2015, p. 41). With the rise of neoliberalism, it became more and more important to educate our children with the ability to move beyond reading and writing. What good is fluency without comprehension? What good is writing without the knowledge how to argue a point? Which best the question: how do we teach critical literacy?

Life for a child changes when they walk through the doors of school on their first day and step into their fourth grade classroom. The have officially moved away from the goal of learning how to read and into a new path of learning what to read—learning from what they read and into a new path of learning what to read –learning from what they read in an academic setting. “Reading to learn” is the so often used phrase.

It's interesting to me that history had shown us the gap that occurs between children in poverty and children outside of it. “Children living in high-poverty areas tend to fall further behind, regardless of their initial reading skill level.” (Snow et al 1998:98)

Unfortunately, the poor are more likely to struggle with literacy, and in turn, critical thinking skills. As a result, they are often stuck in a cycle of poverty handed generation to generation. Without critical thinking skills, they are bound to fall victim to the same problems that caused poverty in their ancestors. And so on, and so own.

This becomes worse in children of minorities. A black boy in poverty being taught by and educated white woman is more likely to struggle in school because of the fact that he may be afraid of the possibility of being racially profiled. “…the pervasive culture of inequality that sometimes deskills poor and minority children” (Gee, 2015, p.54) is something that hangs over their heads on a daily basis. It’s no wonder so many minority and impoverished children deal with anger and anxiety.

So how does culture relate to all of this? Well, to start, “different types of texts…call for different types of background knowledge and require different skills to be read meaningfully” (Gee, 2015, p.59). “One has to be socialized into a practice…” (Gee, 2015, p.60)

I’ll use myself as an example. From a very young age, I have attended church services. At my church, we had Sunday School in the mornings, regular service, then children’s church. Sunday School was taught in such a way that educated people would come together and discuss a particular Bible story. Not just read it, but analyze it. Evaluate it. They would break it down to the bare bones from historical context, cultural context, and word choice to original language translations.

In children’s church they taught us the stories and gave us the “moral of the story”. In regular service the pastor gave lectures about the stories. In Sunday School we discussed the stories as a group. We were encouraged to take risks and listen to recordings of what the pastor lectured. We said a mantra at the beginning of every lecture: “This is my Bible, It is the Word of God. I am what it says I am. I can do what it says I can do. I am a believer, and not a doubter. I am a doer, and not just a hearer. My life is the better after having heard the Word of Faith. Faith cometh by hearing and I know that my life will not be the same.”

By the time I reached high school, English was my favorite class. I moved up through the “ranks” to Honors, AP, and senior year I took English I & II at the community college. It wasn’t until my freshman year at college that I made the connection. When I took a British literature course and was asked to analyze a piece of poetry I realized—this is exactly what I used to do at church.

When I talk to people who remember me back when I was ten, twelve, sixteen and attending that church, they remember that I always had either a notebook or a chapter book in my hands. I wrote unending stories and read books as if putting one or both down would be the death of me.

For me, literacy was exactly that. Reading and writing. Getting my thoughts on paper connecting what I read with my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Sharing stories for others to enjoy and analyze, too.

The NCTE’s Position Statement on writing instructions in school hurt me deeply. Writing as “a gatekeeping device, which contributes to achievement gaps and other inequalities” ( Calhoon-Dillahunt, et. al, 2022, p.1) is the opposite of what I’ve always hoped it would be. But the more I read from the article, the more I knew it rang true. As much as I loved to write, I always hated writing essays in school. Not because I felt I wasn’t good at it, but because I felt my style of writing was no good for academia. I know that “habits of white language” is often exactly what makes children shy away from writing altogether.

Worse, still, as I looked for an article to accompany my readings for the week, was my hope for my students. As I am an ESL teacher, I looked for something that was specific to the population of children I generally serve. What I found was an article from Studies in Educational Evaluations, entitled: “Does explicit teaching of critical thinking improve critical thinking skills of English language learners in higher education? A critical review of causal evidence.” (El Soufi, et al, 2019)

In hindsight, I should have really paid more attention to the abstract, and less attention to the title. In a nutshell, “the evidence is not strong enough to be conclusive” was a phrase that I got tired of reading. ( El Soufi, et al, 2019,  p. 141)

The issue was that of over 1794 studies, NONE of them were done properly. The article concluded by saying the following: “In general, we believe that the ability to think critically is a very useful skill and should be taught…” ( El Soufi, et al, 2019,  p.152) Thanks, guys. Real helpful. As far as how, well… the only thing that even remotely seemed to be helpful was explicit instruction.

But I have hope. That article I read was in reference to ESL students who are already in college. It’s one of the reasons I prefer to work with littles—their brains are still growing. If I can catch the early, perhaps I can make an impact the way my church family did with me.

So I went back, and I found another article from TEA that was given to us as part of our study in Reading Academy. It had a whole slew of different “scientifically based literacy practices and approaches” (the name of the article) from providing that explicit literacy instruction to using “exemplar texts to support student metacognition of the writing process.” (Texas Reading Academies, 2021, p. 3)

So, maybe, just maybe, if Reading Academies is being taught all over Texas, we can begin to get more data on the most successful strategies to teach critical thinking. So far, my money is on explicit instruction.

                                               References

Calhoon-Dillahunt, C., Coppola, S., Warrington, A., & Yagelski, R. P. (2022, August 29). Position statement on writing instruction in school. NCTE. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-writing-instruction-in-school/

Gee, J. (2015). Chapters 1-2. In Social Linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (5th ed., pp. 1–37). essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Soufi, N. E., & See, B. H. (2019, January 4). Does explicit teaching of critical thinking improve critical thinking skills of English language learners in higher education? A critical review of causal evidence. Studies in Educational Evaluation. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191491X18302748?via%3Dihub

Our Driving Question: How can we, as members of the educational community, propose solutions to the paradox surrounding literacies practices in higher education and beyond?

This First Journal is in reference to the Introduction and chapters 1-2 of my textbook, entitled: Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (5th Edition). Following my first reading assignment, I considered the Driving Question of the course as well as my own teaching philosophies and began to plan how I would answer this question....

The author, Gee, describes “the traditional view” of literacy as cognitive. Their goal has been to analyze literacy as a sociocultural approached topic, complete with the addition of digital literacies as a new part of our culture in the 21st century. The focus is on Discourses - ways of behaving and thinking - as it refers to Literacy. How we talk, how we understand life to be, is all shaped by our culture. 

Culture, in of itself, is what shapes a person. Depending on the person, they may have what is known as “social languages”, or “different styles of language used for different purposes and occasions” (Gee, 2015, p. 5). It is all affected by a person’s identity (or, more often identities). A person’s identity can also affect the level and style of their education. This often comes about as an achievement gap: between poor and rich, minority and majority, English-speaker and non. According to Gee, even digital literacy is used to “sustain inequalities and to create acquiescence to an unjust status quo” (Gee, 2015, p. 6). Gee has come to the conclusion that “...equality and democracy are both morally right and possible” because of Antoine de Tracy’s Elements d’ideoloie. “What we think and how we act is due to our upbringing and environment...” (Gee, 2015, p. 10)

In their explanation of Ideology in Chapter 1, Gee sites the ideas of many historical figures, seemingly coming to the conclusion that equality is the best policy. Or, perhaps, it would be more true to say that I have come to that conclusion because of this chapter. 

In chapter 2, Gee explores meaning as a matter of consent and power, the explanation being that for two people to have a conversation, they have to consent (to agree) that they mean the same thing, with the person in power more likely to decide what their meaning is. 

So, with all this in mind, what is my goal as an educator? I believe it is to bridge the gap between students and teachers. That a student understands our meaning is essential to their ability to grasp concepts. I feel that, as educators, we have to learn to give students the power to create meaning. This will allow us to put what we want to teach them in terms that they understand. 

                                                References