“Erika’s Stories: Literacy Solutions for a Failing Middle School Student” by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan is probably the best article I’ve read all week.
It makes me feel uncomfortable. Nervous. Inept. For so many reasons.
Have you ever read something and it made you remember Socrates’s quote: “All I know is that I know Nothing”? Writing and teaching, I wonder. Really? But there is so much to learn.
The article, you ask? Stop with the self-pity and get on with it?
Well, Ma’ayan follows a teen, Erika, who appears despondent in class, “at-risk” even, but she’s actually a reader, writer, an intense communicator and thinker.
Ma’ayan tells her story and then reminds us of certain things like:
• “…the literacy [Erika] does have is deemed insignificant or dangerous” in school spaces.
• texts like contemporary realistic fiction “…can help students like Erika find connections
to in-school literacy practices and help combat disengagement.”
• Ignoring or avoiding those difficult conversations about race, sexuality, gender and the like doesn’t mean they are not happening. They are a part of the “hidden curriculum.”
Source:
“Erika’s Stories: Literacy Solutions for a Failing Middle School Student” by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan,
J o u r n a l o f Ad o l e s c e n t & Ad u l t L i t e r a c y , 5 3 ( 8 ) Ma y 2 0 1 0, 646-654.
It makes me feel uncomfortable. Nervous. Inept. For so many reasons.
Have you ever read something and it made you remember Socrates’s quote: “All I know is that I know Nothing”? Writing and teaching, I wonder. Really? But there is so much to learn.
The article, you ask? Stop with the self-pity and get on with it?
Well, Ma’ayan follows a teen, Erika, who appears despondent in class, “at-risk” even, but she’s actually a reader, writer, an intense communicator and thinker.
Ma’ayan tells her story and then reminds us of certain things like:
• “…the literacy [Erika] does have is deemed insignificant or dangerous” in school spaces.
• texts like contemporary realistic fiction “…can help students like Erika find connections
to in-school literacy practices and help combat disengagement.”
• Ignoring or avoiding those difficult conversations about race, sexuality, gender and the like doesn’t mean they are not happening. They are a part of the “hidden curriculum.”
Source:
“Erika’s Stories: Literacy Solutions for a Failing Middle School Student” by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan,
J o u r n a l o f Ad o l e s c e n t & Ad u l t L i t e r a c y , 5 3 ( 8 ) Ma y 2 0 1 0, 646-654.
