Literacy and African-American Boys: Shifting the Paradigm

1. Literacy and African-American Boys: Shifting the Paradigm University of Wisconsin Reading Research Symposium June 26, 2009 Dr. Alfred W. Tatum University of Illinois at Chicago atatum1@uic.edu

2. In Memoriam By Alfred W. Tatum June 11, 2009 2:09pm He couldn’t kill the president So he killed my dad Does that make my dad a hero I don’t know But I know what it makes me - fatherless Give me the strength To love again To live For my dad’s sake For the sake of this nation

3. Pots for Shirley

 By

Alfred W. Tatum

2/3/09
12:45am

 I don’t wash pots
 do laundry
 mow lawns
 I don’t is what I told mommy
 is what I told daddy

 I don’t but I wish I did

 My life is moving way too fast

 I don’t is what I said

 I do 
would have saved me

 I hate the letters n & t

 They destroyed me.

4. Neformalna drama je relativno novi termin. Kojim se opisuje niz “na pozoritisu zasnovanih” aktivnosti posebno vrijednih u obrazovanju mlade djece. Vazno je znati o cemu govorimo kada se pozivamo na neformalu drama, jer, kao sto je poznati kanadski teoreticar dramskog obrazovanja Richard Courtney istakao, termini koje upotrebljavaju edukatori u razlietim zemljama i razlietim nastavnim nivoima razlikuju se i cesto su izvor zabune za ucitelje. Neggeo teuie ejar? Neformala drama i ________________? Gageut Richard Courtney?

5. Defining Our Times Accountability NCLB NAEP AYP Diversity Language Shifting Demographics 5

6. Defining Our Times Standards Professional Organizations State Standards Content Area Standards Gap Focus Reading achievement gap Racial achievement gap Opportunity gap Preparation gap 6

7. Malignant kinshipUndercurrents Social Class Poverty Race Impact Dialogue 7

8. Literacy is a work in progress. However, NRP and other policy documents shepherd in institutionalized practices that de-legitimize responsive literacy instruction, particularly to students experiencing some form of turmoil, that fails to aim at an agenda of reawakening their minds in order to redirect their actions. We have no clear platforms for progress.

9. What is Our National Agenda? • Major accomplishment? “I increased some kids’ scores.” (efficiency) • Is this lesson part of a meaningful plan or strategy? (legitimacy) • How does such a lesson mobilize an adolescent student? A group of adolescents? • As long as we subscribe to narrow goals we will remain vulnerable as a profession.

10. “We have 50 different standards, 50 different goal posts. And, due to political pressure, those have been dumbed down. We want to fundamentally reverse that. We want common, career-ready, internationally benchmarked standards.” U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan

11. Current foci emerging from policy documents fail to account for the day-to-day realities of students (high performing, average, and low-performing), but particularly for adolescents and adults living in economically disadvantaged urban and rural communities where long term economic projections are not paramount because of immediate concerns engendered by poverty, violence, or other conditions that cause individuals to feel dehumanized and devalued.

12. “There’s been a lot of rallies [meetings/conferences] but no one is doing anything about it” Crane High School Chicago, IL African American Male in a pool of blood

13. What are we going to offer this student when he returns to school? • A fluency strategy • Leveled text • Remedial reading class • Research-based strategy • Test prep (then) • Choice • Technology • Standards/evidence -based practices • Something more What does this student need in school? A)healthy psyche B) A roadmap C) Something deeper to compete with what’s happening on the outside (now) D) Text and opportunities to write (now) - There is a story here that he does not quite understand or will have difficulty making it through)

14. Poor Decoder/Limited Vocabulary Who are you? I ‘ont know. What do you what to be when you get older? What? How long do you want to live? Huh? Do you love yourself? Nope. Why not? I just don’t. Do you care about these questions I am asking? Not really.

15. Why are you here today? My mother made me. What do you see when you look in the mirror? I see me. Who are you? I’m Daiquan. What does that mean? It don’t mean nothing. Daiquan means nothing? (no response) How old are you? I’m ten.

16. Out of School Literacy Overload In-School Literacy Under-load The Imbalance Students often lack sufficient texts in-school to help critique, understand and compete with the texts they are exposed to on the outside of school.

17. Key Questions • Do we have the capacity to reconnect our young males to texts - both the reading and writing of texts - a capacity guided by a clear conceptualization of the roles of literacy instruction for these young males being educated in this nation? • Are our efforts strategically comprehensive enough for the young males, particularly those who are most vulnerable because of cultural-ecological forces that have the potential to interrupt human development? • To what extent has our research and pedagogy been instrumental or neglectful to do both?

18. 1. Look for a conceptualization of literacy instruction strong enough and clear enough to guide literacy efforts in this nation to influence research trajectories and methodologies, instructional practices and pedagogies, and curriculum orientations. I am particularly interested in paying attention to the life outcome gap on a larger scale?

19. 2. Examine our field’s current operating paradigms and the emergence these paradigms. • Examine historical precedence, namely as it relates to the relationship between African American males and texts, both fiction and non-fiction texts with the goal of reconnecting today’s African American adolescent male with texts in meaningful and sustaining ways.

20. Vital Signs

21. In Search of a “More” Anatomically Complete Model Policy Where are we paradigmatically? Why What’s Our Paradigm/Ethos? Rescuing and Refining Usually Well-Defined Usually Research-Based Usually Skill/Strategy Focused Just one critical piece Standards What? How? P.O.C Teacher/Principal/LC Preparation & Teacher Professional Development How? Effective Leadership & P.O.C = path of convenience

22. “More” Complete Framework The role of literacy instruction for adolescents Theoretical Strands Curriculum orientations Approach to Literacy Teaching Use Comprehensive Framework for Literacy Teaching P.O.C Instructional Strands Policy Mediate Text to Support Reading, Writing, and Human Development Strengthen Assessment Profile Preparedness Strands Professional Preparation For Teachers and Administrators Professional Development This model also gives attention multiple conceptualizations of literacies/identities, some of which are situated within power structures such as class, gender, and race (Collins & Blot, 2003; Street, 1995) and identifying approaches to support teachers responsible for structuring the day-to-day activities of their students.

23. Neither effective reading strategies nor literacy reform efforts will close the life-outcome gap unless meaningful texts are at the core of the curriculum and educators know how to mediate such texts giving attention to reading and writing (Tatum, in press)

24. Paradigm/Practice Intersection We do not have a clear [conceptualization] of literacy instruction for adolescent in the United States that translates into classroom practice. [Our national imagination is grounded in standards and test scores absent of clear ends.] Without a clear definition of literacy instruction, overwhelming and embarrassing inconsistency in literacy instruction occurs and can be expected to continue across schools. Literacy experiences and how literacy instruction is conceptualized and practiced are characteristically different for adolescents attending schools in economically depressed environments and adolescents from affluent homes attending schools in affluent neighborhoods? …Arguably, poorly conceptualized solutions to the adolescent literacy crisis … will continue to manifest in different literacy experiences and life outcome trajectories for adolescents on opposite ends of the economic continuum. (Tatum, 2008)

25. Placing Three Rs Under Consideration to Restore Confidence in Literacy Instruction • Recovery • Resilience • Reconciliation

26. Limited reading skills cause [adolescents] internal anguish. The pain many of these [students] experience may cause them to openly state, as I heard on a documentary on Douglass High School in Baltimore, “F*** academics, that’s for them nerdy mother*******. I am going to keep it gutter.” This type of thinking cannot be interrupted by providing explicit skill and strategy instruction alone. There is something deeper at work here. We have to think deeply to counter a mindset that causes one to embrace the notion of “I am going to keep it gutter.” (Tatum, in press)

27. Building Textual LineagesVital pathway to recovery/resilience/reconciliation • Currently, there is an absence of useful research data on the impact of texts, both literary and non-literary, on adolescents’ resilience inside of schools and outside of schools and how to use texts such texts in schools. • We need to begin to examine the impact texts have on nurturing resilience in adolescents.

28. African American Males and Texts The impact of text on the lives of African American adolescent males cannot be underestimated if the history of text and its influence on African American males are examined. Historically, texts have been central in the literacy development of African American males, with the connections among reading, writing, speaking, and actions eminently clear (Tatum, 2005).

29. Textual Lineage 1965-1975 Brown Carmichael Cleaver Newton

30. Textual LineageReading Edith Hamilton Mythology Shakespeare Macbeth Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

31. Textual LineageWriting K.K.K Research Paper Total Investment

32. The Severing of Text LineagesOne of the Great Tragedies of American Education

33. Enabling Text –moves one to be, do, and think differently. Disabling text –reinforces students’ perceptions of being struggling readers and writers and incapable of handling challenging, meaningful texts. Opportunities to display dysfunctions and be “identified” Dichotomy betweenEnabling and Disabling Text

34. What does this student need in school to nurture his R/resilience? • A healthy psyche (now) • A roadmap (now) • Something deeper to compete with what’s happening on the outside (now) • Text and opportunities to write (now) • What are we going to offer this student to help him R/recover? • A fluency strategy • Leveled text • Remedial reading class • Research-based strategy • Test prep (then) • Choice • Technology • Something more

35. Today I want to introduce you to a new concept“disaster capitalism” and how it affected one of America’s most storied cities The news racing around the shelter that day was that Richard Baker, a prominent (very important) Republican congressman from this city, had told a group of lobbyist, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did (referring to Hurricane Katrina).”… “I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with the clean sheet we have some very big opportunities.” … lower taxes, fewer regulations (controls or laws), cheaper workers, and a smaller, safer city - which in practice meant plans to level the public housing projects and replace them with condos. Hearing all the talk of “fresh starts” and “clean sheets,” you could almost forget the toxic (deadly or poisonous) stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles down the highway… I call these orchestrated (planned) raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with treatments of the disasters as exciting market (money-making) opportunities, “disaster capitalism.” From TheShock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, pp. 4,6

36. Example of a disempowering text orientation For word study instruction, the teacher called out the words Agatha, Demarco, Adeline, Emilia, and pumpernickel. The students repeated the words. Then the students took turns reading aloud. He then had the students respond aloud to the assessment questions at the end of the text. They provided wrong answers for a majority of the questions. For each incorrect response, he provided the correct answer. The students were reading from a text that held little to no significance in the way that it was discussed. They were not provided with any explicit strategy instruction. The whole process was deadening for the students and me. The students were not becoming better readers or learning new information. This is borderline criminal.

37. Problems of Pandering With Text/Literacy Instruction • Does not suggest an urgent need for more and better education • Reconciles them to failure • Fails to restore confidence in the literacy education offered in this nation • Suggests that we have unlimited time with unlimited resources • Classic problem of economic

38. Textual forces

40. I like the part when it say, “We got to let our own light shine.” It was the first slavery book I read in the 8th grade with a group

42. Using the Text to Teach the TextMonitoring Comprehension and Building Schema About 75 million people died of the bubonic plague during the 14th century. Half of the population of Italy fell victim to the ______________________. The plague caused high _______________, swollen glands, dark splotches on the __________________, and spitting of blood. Most _________________ who got the disease ___________________ within a few days. The disease was ________________ from the fleas and rats. Lack of sanitation and poor _________________ account for the continuous plague epidemics throughout the 14th century. So many people died so ___________ that it was difficult to bury them in the _________________ way. The dead were ____________ without the usual prayers and ceremony. Dozen of people _______________ buried in a single big grave.

43. A,E,I,O,U count to 1 count to 2 • Split consonant between vowels • bal / lad • Move one consonant between vowels to the next syllable • te / na / cious • Split neighboring vowels • jo / vi / al • Do not separate blends or word groupings that need each other • ous, qu, bl, cl, dr,

44. This absence of research is contributing to policy, curricula and pedagogical misalignments that are not effective for these young males. The lack of research on African American male adolescents contributes to three major issues: • Many educators are failing to increase African American male adolescents’ engagement with text, and subsequently their reading achievement. • Specific texts and text characteristics that engage African American adolescent males are strikingly absent (Tatum, 2006). • 3) Educators find it difficult to integrate reading instruction to use texts to counter in-school and out-of-school context-related issues that heighten the vulnerability level of African American males.

45. Life Course Perspective Life course perspective (Mizell, 1999) aligns neatly with cultural-ecological theories that have an analytical bend toward out-of-school and in-school contexts, students’ identities, and structural barriers that exists in a highly stratified class based, race-based society. This perspective requires a broader conceptualization of literacy instruction for African American male adolescents who can be both resilient and vulnerable at the same time.

46. Major Barriers Stand in the Way of Addressing the Literacy Needs of all Adolescents • No clear strategy has emerged on how to attain this goal • No clear definition of the role of literacy instruction • “Scientific Casualties” - Numbers can determine their fate • Situated paradigmatically (role of courage here) • “Minimalists” or “Maximists” • Educators disagree on how to provide effective literacy instruction for struggling readers • Educators and policymakers have focused on skill and strategy instruction while ignoring curriculum orientations, forms of pedagogy, and other factors found to be effective in increasing the reading achievement of students of color

47. Where do we go? • Design research and shape pedagogy to look at the intersection (s) of the vital signs that have emerged from multiple disciplines • Interdisciplinary Depth • Theoretical grounding • Focus on responsive pedagogy These increase the potential to shift the paradigm for advancing the literacy development of African American adolescent males.

48. 5:37am after a sleepless night on August 10, 2008 Checkmate Alfred W. Tatum He taught me how to play chess when I was younger To make all the right moves The rooks, the knights, the pawns, the bishops I could castle and use my Queen to protect myself All of these thoughts flashed in my mind when the car pulled up beside us It’s 12:15 am I am eighteen, sitting on the passenger’s side No where to move, no strategy I thought about learning chess when I was younger The young man in the other car lifts his hands – checker hands, TIC, TAC, TOE hands I was no match for him I thought my scholarship letter would save me – it was my next move My buddies scream first I’m hit next Checkmate – game o v. .

49. It’s not just about students’ literacies, it’s about their lives. Tatum, 2005