RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
Teaching Matters
| 44| Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 |
Abstract — Teachers and university researchers in one high school
contextualized learning experiences for struggling readers, making
room in the classroom for disengaged students’ voices, their literacies
and their curiosity. Questioning about what would happen if literacy
learning was structured around not standardized test preparation,
but instead one “disinterested” student’s interests, the authors took
a first step in making their classroom a successful learning space for
all students. The growing numbers of students who struggle with
test-driven literacy instruction suggest that we “rethink” our work as
teachers in some fundamental ways. As we consider the impact our
teaching will have on students’ futures and on our own outcomes
as a people, finding ways of connecting academic experiences with
relevant “outside of school” literacies becomes of great importance.
Meeting Joshua
Joshua (all names are pseudonyms) was a high school senior
who, after three tries, had yet to pass the state-mandated reading
test and now faced the possibility that he would not graduate
high school. He was enrolled in a project that I was involved in
at the university where I served as an administrator and reading
professor. The project, “Reading Buddies,” paired low-performing
high school students with at-risk elementary children. We
were visiting the elementary school where these high school
students would read picture storybooks to non-reading first
graders. In the breezeway of the school sat a magnificent
dugout canoe that stretched nearly fifteen feet. The high school
boys were admiring the canoe when one of them turned to
me and asked, “How did they make these things anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I guess they cut
down a tree and chiseled out the inside.”
Joshua rolled his eyes. “No, they didn’t,” he said quietly.
“Canoes like this one are hundreds of years old. The Indians
used canoes for thousands of years and made them before
they had the tools to chop down trees or chisel anything.”
The boys snickered. “So,” taunted one.
“How did they make them, Joshua?”
“With fire.”
Joshua proceeded to tell us, in vivid detail, how native
Americans would locate the right tree, near the waterway, fell
it by burning, and then use fire to hollow it and flatten the
bottom, and primitive tools, like oyster shells, to smooth the
wood, mud to seal it and bear grease, perhaps, for periodic
seasoning. It would take six or seven men days or even weeks to
make one canoe. He also explained to us that some high school
students in Florida discovered more than a hundred canoes
near Newnan’s Lake and some of those canoes, representing
the world’s largest such archeological find, are on exhibit in the
Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.
I listened, amazed. This was a boy who, on paper, was
a failing at-risk student. Yet, he possessed knowledge
of this subject that would rival that of a university
professor. He used a technical vocabulary to explain the
canoe-making process, which he understood well.
“How do you know all of this?” I asked him, incredulous.
“I’ve done a lot of research in this area- native
American culture. If you want, I could send you
some web links so you can read up on it.”
His low test scores and failing grades aside, Joshua exhibited
significant literacy skills that fell clearly under the radar of
traditional school assessments, particularly those high-stakes
assessments by which students and schools are judged. As
Apple (2005) points out, the focus in contemporary U.S. schools
on high stakes standardized tests reduces the fullness of life
so that “only that which is measurable is important” (p. 11).
It is no wonder then that it is harder for some students to
connect to thin curriculum and the concomitant skill and drill
teaching (or drill and kill, as students often call it) it engenders.
Perhaps it is our struggling learners, for whom contextualized
learning experiences would offer a richer and fuller learning
experience, who are most disadvantaged by this reality.
Contextualized learning is nothing new. In fact, it dates
back to John Dewey who, at the turn of the 20th century,
advocated a curriculum and a teaching methodology tied to
the child’s experiences and interests. One of our problems in
schools is that what we want students to learn is detached from
real-world referents. Because learning is decontextualized, it
often holds little meaning, especially for struggling students.
Despite his reading test scores, Joshua loved to read about
things that were interesting to him. Over the six months that
I worked with Joshua’s teacher, I observed Joshua reading
Sharon Draper’s The Battle of Jericho, as well as Elie Weisel’s
Night. He was an everyday newspaper reader, mostly sports.
But, he also became interested in several articles about an
engine failure incident on a Qantas Airbus 380, a double-decker
plane that, amongst other innovations, touted a luxurious
interior. Beneath his quiet exterior was a boy who had plainly
From Canoes to Titanic: Contextualizing Reading
Instruction for Struggling Readers
Patricia Wachholz, Armstrong State University
Julie Warner, Georgia Southern University