Katy's student Majid...

Katy, this question is directed toward you... I wonder how much Julia conferenced solo with students after school, when they didn't have to worry as much about their reputation and saving face. I know Julia and David had conversations (about James-- were there others)?, but did they talk one-on-one about his progress and where he wants to go? I wonder if you could conference with your student Majid after school, so he is less preoccupied with being with his buddies.

Response to Karen's outline of presentation

Hi!?

Karen, thanks for starting the conversation about our presentation. In terms of student work, I could bring in folders from my book club groups (9th grade), but I was not as go-with-the-flow as Julia-- I had some questions and issues that I encouraged students to discuss, so perhaps this wouldn't be the best representation of a student-led book group.

Maybe we should rotate through 2 or 3 groups instead of jigsaw? So every participant sits at a "station" that you outlined (Read aloud, Teacher-led, etc.) I don't think they can visit more than 3 stations, and then at the end we can open it up to how the work they did in the station related to the Lewis reading they did for class.

Does this make sense?

Discussion from last week's class

In class last week, we began discussing the format of this assignment.

From what I can recall, we decided we will be jigsawing and each person (some may be paired up) will be in charge of presenting one of the 4 classroom practices that Lewis studies in her book:

1.) Read Aloud

2.) Peer-Led literature discussions

3.) Teacher-Led literature discussions

4.) Independent Reading

We also decided to discuss some of these themes (maybe based on each individual presentation, some will be more relevant than others.)

THEMES

• Social Class and Power
• Gendered-leadership and regulating of
• Teacher's vision/ideology of literacy and how she creates it
• Gender & ability as power (roles in the classroom)
• pg. 62- Vision vs. reality (ranking students)

Maybe what we can do is have everyone respond with what they feel they would be most comfortable "taking the reins of," though we will all certainly help each other out. For instance, Katy did an awesome job transcribing her students conversation, which could be considered a read aloud discussion. From there, Katie might want to look at the themes in relation to her own practice.

Also incorporated in these groups could be interactive activities that bring these themes to life. For instance, conducting a read aloud with our classmates, but with an "agenda." (Knowing you will be favoring some opinions over another) or asking everyone about their own perspectives in their classrooms. Maybe we could have someone show a video of a class discussion and one of the groups can analyze it.

Just throwing some ideas out there.

See you all tomorrow!!

More comments on Katy's "A Thought On the Social Dynamics Issue "

This is in response to Katy's comment and Karen's response. I can't comment on Karen's comment for some strange reason so I'm posting here.

I like the points that both K and K raised here.

I'm also wondering what else Julia could have done for James and Jason. I'm not sure if she has more difficulty with boys in general, or if she doesn't do enough to help students who are not academically gifted the way that her other students are (Nikki, David, MacKenzie). David may be adversarial with Julia, but he seems present in the discussions and is engaged with the text. How can she help the readers like James and Jason who are not reading with the same level of engagement?

Another Transcript

This is another partial discussion about the same book, conducted in much the same way, but with a different group of kids.  Usually the difference between the two groups is that this group is much faster and more eager to have discussions and respond to one another without my prompting.  But this is also a group where a few kids often dominate the discussion (the kids below Sedeke, Khiara, Shaday, and Zamia are often very frequent contributers.  Kevin, Kina, and Ebony are less so.  Amanda's participation varies a lot.)

Unidentified kid: How did they go broke, but they weren’t broke… (with prodding to explain, the question turned out to be how did the neighbors have money to give if they were broke?)

Teacher: What do you guys think?

Kina: Because I think the people who had money, gave what they didn’t need to the people who did need it.

Kevin: Even if you have a small amount of money, it’s millions of people…well not millions but a lot.

Khiara: They didn’t have much money.  I was observing what they looked like, in the pictures what they had on, they looked like they didn’t have a lot of money. (Pause) But I mean sometimes people look like they have money but don’t or they do, but they don’t look like…(Pause) I think that’s a good way to make money

*I found Khiara's comment really interesting because she started to really get into addressing the question of what poverty means, but then backtracked into just saying she liked the idea of rent parties when she couldn't quite express herself and no other kids picked up on it.

Amanda: Most people aren’t really that nice (told story of friend’s house burning down and not getting enough help) Most people want to be rich and have everyone be slaves around them.  They’re [the people in the book] lucky.

Sedeke: I don’t think 10 cents a day is enough. [this is the salary the child got]

Zamia: Now people are stingy and won’t help.  Back then they helped each other.

Ebony: Nowadays people just want to get money for themselves.

Shaday: I disagree with that.  Because some people do help other people.  Like your husband if you’re married, he will help you.

the "illusion of choice"

Hi everyone,
Something we talked about a few weeks ago was this idea that Julia tried not to reveal which level her students read at in an effort to protect them and not embarrass them. We discussed how this was idealistic but not really possible because students notice the reading groups, book choices, etc., so even if it's not made public- they still realize this.

Later Lewis refers to this as an "illusion of choice" and refers to Valerie Walkerdine's work, where Walkerdine explores "student-centered" or "progressive" classes. Walkerdine argues that students can quickly understand what it means to be "a good student" in these progressive classroom settings, and learn to "read the discourse and position themselves within it" (90). I thought this was such an interesting point-- and it reminded me of how Lewis noticed that while the girls did each others' hair during read alouds (and this was ignored by Julia), the boys who wanted to draw were shut down. It seems as though equality in the classroom isn't really possible because the teacher's vision takes precedent. Is drawing for boys the same as hair-styling for girls? I'm not sure, but it seems that if we take this "illusion of choice" one notch further, we can see that it's almost an illusion of equality that Julia strives for. Or is she striving for something other than equality?

Partial Transcript of Class Discussion

This was a whole-class discussion of the picture book Rent Party Jazz by William Miller which tells the story of a boy (Sonny) who meets a musician (Smiling Jack) who teaches him about rent parties to raise money for rent during the Great Depression in New Orleans.  The community comes together to help him and his mother.  I read the book to them with a very minimal intro about the Great Depression (because the purpose was to start building context for the G.D. for a later novel).  They wrote in journals and/or turned and talked briefly at some stopping points other than these whole-group discussions.

Discussion midway through the book:
Teacher: What are you thinking?
DeAndre: It was a hard time for them.
Crystal: The owner was unfair.  You know how some owners today give you a day or a week longer to get the rent?  It's not fair, he wants his money fast and in a hurry.
(Many class "yeah" responses)
Jaihad: Maybe the party can be for other people, he also deserves more chances than just one, so then people know it isn't fair.
Teacher: Can you say more?
Jaihad: Like, it's not just for one person or for one family.  It could be rent parties for everyone.
Ky'asia: Maybe when the man Smiling Jack was little, this happened to him too.
Destiny: (To Crystal) Some landlords aren't like that.  Some landlords are friendly with the people who live in the house, and they give them more time or help them pay the rent.
(Some class "yeah" responses)
Crystal: That's still unfair!  (She goes on to explain why it's unfair for landlords to have some tenants they support and others they do not.)
Journee: Landlords today, they sometimes - well, he should do this, he should give them more days to get the rent together, because that way at least he still gets his money.

Discussion at the end of the book:
Teacher: What are you guys thinking now?
Ha'Lija: I want to compare what I wrote first to what I wrote just now.  I wrote it was a hard time and people were arrogant and didn't help others.  Then at the end I wrote it was still a hard time but people were helpful.
(I pushed for response from class)
Destiny: She's right, sometimes people help and sometimes they don't.
(Looooong pause)
Teacher: You know, in 5B [the other class] they discussed some about whether this would happen today.
Journee: I'm in between.  In some neighborhoods, it might happen, but also people might come to the party and not give money.  (She went on to differentiate between family/friends and just neighbors).  And there are some bad neighborhoods where people can't go outside to parties.  But then again, people might give money if it's a life threatening situation just because they know it will help you.
Majid: Most neighborhoods, people wouldn't help.  They don't care, they don't even know each other.  But in my neighborhood, they know each other.
Teacher: Would your neighborhood help you like that?
Majid: Yes.  I know everyone in my neighborhood.
Samantha: Some people might take money out of the bucket.
Angel: You can't really trust all the people.
Ky'asia: I think when Sonny gets older he'll do the same thing.  He'll learn the trumpet and help people.
Jewel: You know that saying, that what goes around comes around.  I think that if Sonny and his mom get rich, and have money, they'll help other people later.
Majid: You know that show, Everybody Hates Chris...(Spun off into a long story from the show that sort of related)
(Discussion became overlapping responses based on movies/shows)
Teacher: Okay, so we're going to wrap up, any other thoughts?
Journee: Some people just say, "Rent's your problem, not my problem."

My intention in this discussion was for it to be student-led (primarily) and for me to take less of a directive role.  For that reason I tried to keep my questions really open.  I hoped that it would help acclimate my students to the time period but I didn't have really specific goals beyond that.  I wanted to see where they would go with the book.  Initially what I was most interested by was the fact that at first, the class got very engaged with the idea of the unfairness of the landlord, and by the end of the story there was a lot of back and forth about different neighborhoods.  The sense seemed to be that other people are generally bad, but the people they know are generally good.

In terms of social dynamics, there were 6 boy conversational turns (2 of which prompted by me to add on) and 13 girl turns.  The class consists of 9 boys and 15 girls, and 2 boys were out that day, so the dynamics would inevitably be shifted somewhat but it was still something that stood out to me.  Crystal, the girl who brought up and continued to press the unfairness issue, is not usually a student who participates much or has a lot of academic capital in the classroom (although she is reasonably popular socially), so I was surprised to see her so engaged.

Other thoughts?  I will post the transcript from 5b tomorrow if you want to see both...and we can maybe discuss how this fits in with the Lewis book.