The Importance of Literacy in the Classroom Then, Now, Always

I'm not sure how many of my class colleagues have had a first or second career, or even more. I am on my third. I thought I was going to film school for a masters in screenwriting and then I was introduced to house framing. I loved building and designing houses. Years before though I even used to think one day I might teach English at the high school or college level.

Well here I am teaching carpentry in high school with my B.A. in English literature. But what's happened is I've poured what I've learned as a professional carpenter/general contractor and writer/editor over the past 35 years into my classroom and shop. My bent on being a successful builder turned on the premise that expert technical skill is almost always trumped by expert technical skill combined with the ability to communicate well in your discipline (read content area). This has been my approach in my building career, and it is the lens through which I teach my students carpentry.

Before I began this class, my students were doing weekly reflective journals, reverse resumes, and study techniques demanding their ability to research text using the tools the textbook offers---the section subheads, skimming for key words, glossary, and index. However the last time I was in a high school classroom, I was a high school student. I was completely unaware of how much in conflict the way we teach literacy in the present day classroom was with how today's student is so wired for multiple media stimuli which can require reading, but at a much shallower level and shed of the higher order thinking demanded by the great themes in literature.

We are at a critical point in this conflict where the great themes themselves may be re-discovered by this generation if we as teachers infuse our content areas in such a way that it is not only relevant and therefore exciting, but that we make the environment in which our students learn one that allows this to happen. I love Gallagher's idea of a topic flood, filling the classroom with other options of content reading for students to explore as "high interest" reading without analysis, the word wall, QAR Chart, read alouds (with high school students no less!), and shared read alouds. All these strategies seem to slice across generational lines and engage my students in my content area simply because it helps them draw up their passions for carpentry and building.

I've mentioned before, my students are book-shy. To be clearer---they hate what they call "bookwork." They also seem to shut down when vocabulary is intentionally taught. Rather the new words need to be embedded in the hands-on work itself where they can see the words at work. It is then that they will accept,learn and use these words while in the act. So it seems different content areas gather different students with varying styles of learning. I have to truly recognize what works with my students in my content area if I am to get any traction that translates to engaged learning. This is quite a human adventure.

In the "If we are to find our way out again..." quote Gallagher is calling the "political worlds" the state curriculum/test-required worlds which instruct a teacher how to analyze literature for example. What he calls the "authentic worlds" are the classrooms in which we teach. He is saying we must have the courage to use our own sensitivities inside our classrooms to know when to emphasize what works for our students' learning and when to de-emphasize a state curriculum, for instance, that requires a book to be analyzed to death. He is also saying we must "do what is right for our students" by teaching them how to enjoy reading without so much contrived structure and analysis being imposed by the teacher. What is right is to teach students how to do this on their own---how to comprehend, how to figure out contextual clues, how to form their own opinions about what they read, and how to read for fun something that interests them and giving them the time to do it in school.

Kelly Gallagher's message is timely given how electronic media has changed reading and competed for its time. But for today's students to learn to associate reading as a positive way to spend their time, for them to experience its deep rewards, the weight of responsibility lays on all teachers as the ones who best can initiate the changes which must occur in the classroom---the "authentic world."

How My Content Area Sweet Spot Looks and How I Might Arrive There

My Carpentry II students are now completing their first hands-on project of the year---an 8' x 12' wood-framed floor joist system replete with subfloor installed by them, comprising 3-4 students per team. They are about to begin reading and studying how to frame walls in our textbooks. They now know that what they see in print, drawings, and photos will be their gateway to actually framing their first 2x4 walls on their floor systems, and later after that, framing a roof for the first time. By now they should understand that if they pay attention in the classroom they will be rewarded by precision and speed when it's time to return to the framing.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

This time when they sit in the classroom, they will sit with their respective team members and work together on the uptake concerning how to do it---frame walls. They will also have classroom access to periodicals---"The Journal of Light Construction" and "Fine Homebuilding"---with the sections regarding how to frame walls laid out. They will be given class time in their teams to read anything they like in these magazines, even that which is not related to framing walls. I'm curious to see what they choose to read, and if they'll choose to augment my lectures and the textbook by using these other sources.

Kelly Gallagher's READICIDE has stretched my concept of how to teach my book-shy students to use these resources to swiftly develop high level technical knowledge. They have now seen the real consequences of not paying attention in class when something real is built: mistakes are made, and work must be disassembled in order to correct it. This puts them in conflict with their own pride which is tied to what they are able to produce with their hands, not necessarily their grades. I may even leave out my how-to lectures and have them build their first wall using input from any classroom resources they choose. We'll see.

I love Gallagher's 50-50 approach to allowing classroom time for students to read both textbooks and related "high interest" material. Obviously the "high interest" stuff, in our case would still be related to the hands-on world most of them gravitate toward naturally.

I also love the idea of the teacher modeling the struggle to understand what a book is trying to get across to the reader. In our content area it might be a complicated process, for instance how to square up a framed wall before lifting and bracing it. Much of what my students must learn to do is recognize and follow a process full of specific techniques and methods. I believe ultimately for them, the best learning is in the doing. But I am certain they will learn more and faster using many resources they must read and comprehend. This will also fill in the gaps left by the curriculum and me. I too have learned, there are so many close in tricks-of-the-trade so-to-speak that the textbook fails to touch, that only I can demonstrate with the tools and the lumber if I catch them at the right moment. When that occurs, I usually stop everybody and call them over to see the demonstration.

One of the most enlightening parts of READICIDE'S chapter four for me was Gallagher's comparison between "good readers" and "struggling readers," (READICIDE, PP.103-105). Like teaching carpentry tricks-of-the-trade, there are strategies listed here that I personally use. I may never have thought about them as strategies worth imparting to "struggling readers" for some unknown reason until I became more self-aware through reading this chapter.

I believe I've touched the sweet spot in my classes when my students ask relevant, challenging questions, what-if and what-about questions for instance, that reveal they are actively engaged and thinking about the process and techniques they are learning. That's the good stuff. I'm still sometimes struggling to thread together how to get them there and keep them at will. READICIDE is helping me with this I am sure.

I wonder how many of you, own student colleagues taking this course, TED535, are teaching an elective requiring hands-on skills like myself. I'd love to hear from you. Please let me have the benefit of your comments on this blog or by email. I'd be honored to have your input.