Creating Meaning
Enabling Text
By. Alaina Kogler
“Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well.”
Robin Sharma
School Curriculum vs Enabling Text
Texts that are required in the school curriculum are meant to provide students with the literacy skills they need in order to raise their reading scores. While this sounds great if you take out the fact that everything is done to prepare for standardized testing, the texts are severally lacking. Many kids cannot relate to these stories and so they find them to be boring. They become uninterested and are far more likely to not create a deep understanding or think critically about them. Schools and teachers should include more enabling texts.
"An enabling text is one that moves beyond a sole cognitive focus such as skill and strategy development to include an academic, cultural, emotional, and social focus that moves students closer to examining issues they find relevant to their lives."
Enabling texts are important for students to be able to connect their real world life experiences to literature. They make connects to three themes; identity shaping, empathy, and personal connection. They allow students to relate to a character or situation and can help them in many ways. The students in the text talk about the books they related to or that held meaning to them and why. One said "I love The Skin I’m In (Flake, 1998) because it’s something that has to do with me and the girls in that book act like me." These texts hold significant meaning by creating a personal connection. The students saw herself in the character and it created a connection to draw them in and become engaged.
Enabling text can also help teach students about the social justice issues happing in and around their community. Teachers must talk about these things in order to create more well rounded students. Sure the kids must know how to read and multiply, but what about teaching them to think critically, show compassion, or advocate for what they believe in. Students should be aware of things that will affect them in their adult life and learn the skills to understand and deal with them. Kids are expected to know these things once they graduate but they are not being taught in schools. If children aren't exposed to social justice issues then they grow up without that knowledge and can be blind to the real world around them.
Video - https://youtu.be/5vc1lMoJFjg
Critical Literacy
Four Dimensions:
- Disrupting the commonplace
- Interrogating multiple view points
- Focusing on sociopolitical issues
- Taking action and promoting social justice
Personal Connection
I grew up in a small town with mostly people of the same race and social class. I read text about the poverty issues happening in other countries as well as the different cultures that exist in those countries. I did not learn about the poverty issues or different cultures that exist within and around my community. I grew up only knowing my small town and thinking everybody lived the same life as me. I was not exposed to social justice topics or anything that differed from the way my small community operated. I was blind to the real world around me and deprived of that knowledge because my teachers never strayed from the white washed curriculum that was in place. I did school because I had to, I was not interested in any of it. I couldn't relate to the text that was provided for us and I couldn't believe how the world really is until I came to college. I was deprived of that knowledge and had to relearn how the world operated.
Teachers Need to Stop Depriving Their Students of Real World Knowledge
Teachers need to use enabling text in order for kids to create meaning. Students should be reading books and text that relate to their lives and lived experiences. These books can be about gender, disabilities, race, and so many other things that affect real people. This could mean their grandparents, neighbors, cousins, friends, real people. Students need to understand the difference that people have and how to be inclusive of others.
Creating meaning through text will help the students become interested while learning about real world things. This will help them to enjoy reading, which will ultimately make them better readers. Its a win-win!!
Critical Questions:
- Do you think schools need to update the current curriculum and texts or do they still have purpose?
- If you had a teacher that included enabling text, how was that experience for you? What did you get out of it?
- If you didn't have a teacher that included enabling text, how did the standard curriculum go for you?
- What are some ways to implement enabling text? example: book clubs
- How can we make sure to be inclusive of all students lived experiences and support them with text in order to create meaning?
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI love how you related the readings to your real life experience and shared that with us. I shared my time growing up in a small town in the country and in Indianapolis. I had both perspectives and I could see the differences of how my friends from my different houses thought about the world. I do believe that teachers need to be adjusting their teaching around enabling text like you mentioned in your blog. If teachers are just teaching the curriculum now it just keeps our oppressing society going instead of using our voice and role to make a change. Personally I did not have a teacher that used enabling text while I was a student in elementary school. One way that I think you can use enabling text in your classroom is through teacher read aloud. This allows the teacher to choose different enabling text throughout the year and have a whole group discussion.
Hi Dani,
DeleteI agree that if we are solely teaching the curriculum and not including social justice issues that it further oppresses society rather than disrupting it. It is a disservice to the students and eventually society when they grow up and obtain a larger role in society and do not know about people unlike themselves. I agree that read alouds are a great resource for discussing these things!
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy how still to this day we are much more focused on getting the good scores on standardized testing and not on having meaningfully books and instruction that are culturally relevant and interesting to our students. I think there is a way to have enabling texts that can still benefit students when it does come to standardized testing if it is done correctly. I agree with you that enabling texts are great resources to teach our students about the social injustices in the world and can help them come to their own conclusions on what they should do. You want them to challenge the world around them. To answer your first question, I definitely believe that schools need to updated current curriculum. I think that we can use enabling texts instead of books that are just used for increasing test scores. Like I said before I think we can kill two birds with one stone when using enabling texts. Loved this blog, great job!
Hi Abby,
DeleteI totally agree!! There is definitely too much emphasis on standardized testing. Students are missing out on other important life lessons and becoming uninterested because of it. I agree that we can kill two birds with one stone with enabling texts. They can still help further the students knowledge of reading as well as teach important life lessons!
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI also grew up in a mainly white community. I remember being in school and reading "Charlotte's Web", "Because of Winn Dixxie", and "The Outsiders". These three are the main books I remember having to read in my classes. A common theme with these three books is the characters being white. The only real change is the social class of the characters and where they live (urban/rural). There were no real factors that divided them.
When I started my higher education I remember having a teacher tell us that sometimes parents don't have time to take their kids to the dentist and I was shocked. Not even a month later I was doing some service hours in a rural school and one of the first students who came up to say hi to me was missing half of her teeth. Not due to them falling out from new ones coming in, but her teeth were decayed. It opened my eyes to a world that I had never been exposed too. I had lived in my white bubble in my white school where we only read books about other white kids.
It's important that we introduce these topics to our children and I think that literature can help us expose our children to it and open their minds to this as well!
Hi Mara,
DeleteThank you for sharing your story! I think that is so important. I also grew up in this white bubble so to speak and wasn't exposed to people that weren't mostly like me. This also caused a culture shock for me when coming to college. I agree that it is so important to include these different topics so students can become inclusive from a young age and don't have to catch up later in life. Growing up exposed to others differences makes it easier for them to do when they become adults within our society.
ReplyDeleteAlaina,
As you did, I grew up in a predominately white town that is middle to high class. I personally never read about any issues with poverty, homelessness or racism. Coming to IUPUI was an eye opener for me when it comes to those crucial social issues. There was definitely mention and discussion about different countries however no education about our own country. When it came to texts in class we were able to pick our book club books however I do not remember there being any book that addressed social issues except for the overuse of social media by millennial's. Thinking before high school in elementary and middle school the same thing applied, there was no content on social issues around us.
I believe that some things we can do to bring enabling texts into our classrooms are definitely through book clubs as well as articles and read aloud time. Through book clubs we are able to allow students to choose a book that interests them. Introducing these students to the books through reading the first page of the book will allow them to make a choice of the book that they want to finish reading and hear the ending to. As the teacher it is our job to be mindful of what we are choosing as books for our book clubs. Providing enabling text through articles for students is another way to bring content into your classroom. Whether you choose to do a research project or have the students write a paper, using articles will always be a way to keep relevant and current text in your classroom. Another idea of how we can bring enabling texts into the classroom is through teacher read aloud's. Reading aloud to the students a enabling book and then having time for critical reflection and discussion after is a great way to get those conversations started in the classroom.
Hi Maddy,
DeleteI loved your ideas to include enabling text in the classroom! I love the idea of bringing in relevant articles in to discuss and think critically about. It also helps because they can be from within their community in order to make the information relevant and interesting to the students. Read aloud are a great idea as always, but I also loved how you mentioned the importance of being mindful when choosing book club books. Giving the students a variety of critical text for them to chose from, makes sure what they are reading is critical as well as interesting to them.
I noticed when I was doing my student teaching, that our lead teaching was reading a text that I believe was given to her by the school, as in she was not given an option when it came to choosing a text to read to her class. Do you have any thoughts about what you would do in the same situation? Lets say you where given a book by administration and told "teach this". What are your thoughts on drawing out critical literacy out of a book that may not lend itself to deep analysis?
ReplyDeleteHi Parker,
DeleteI think this is very situational. If the book doesn't seem to relate to the students and won't create meaning, I would love to talk to administration about changing up the book to something that would suit them better. If not, I would use my resources and ask other teachers teaching it or find online resources that may have already created lessons on this book that delve deeper. I would love to hear your take on this! What would you do?
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI thought it was really powerful when you said, "Sure the kids must know how to read and multiply, but what about teaching them to think critically, show compassion, or advocate for what they believe in." As teachers, I think that we focus so much of our energy on teaching our students the math and the reading skills they need for the "real world," that we often forget to include the social skills necessary for success in the same "real world." One of these important skills is something you mention towards the end of your post, which is our students having the ability to "understand the differences that people have and how to be inclusive of others." We can teach this to our students through not only the implementation of critical literacy that introduces social justice issues to our students, but also creating flexible groupings in all subject areas that encourages the inclusion of everyone and all ideas.
I wanted to answer the first question you asked about changing the current curriculum. I believe that we should adjust our classroom curriculum on an ongoing basis. The adjustments we make should reflect the student population that we have at that given moment, as this element of our classroom is ever changing. This requires us to take into account the prior knowledge that our students have and their personal backgrounds and experiences when designing our curriculum.
Hi Stephanie,
DeleteI love how you mentioned the importance of needing social skills as well as reading and math for the real world. Social skills are also a hugely important part of growing up and becoming successful! I also agree that we should be adjusting curriculum constantly. Different groups of kids will bring in different funds of knowledge to offer to the class. These kids should be experts and resources in the classroom and their lived experiences should be heard and represented.
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I can definitely relate to you about growing up in predominately white community and not really learning about much happening in the community around me. We read straight out the book and never strayed from that. Social issues were also never brought up in class and before coming to IUPUI I never knew that social issues should even be brought up in a classroom. I realize now how much my school focused on the test scores rather than the students feeling represented in the curriculum. I wish I was given more opportunity to think critically of the world around me rather than just read and answer questions in a book. To answer your first question I think teachers just need to be more comfortable with teaching outside of the book and know that it's to talk about something thats not in the book. Having a read aloud is a greta way to get a discussion going and hearing your students opinions and critical thinking. Another way to get some critical thinking going is having them bring in news articles about things happening in the community or any current event that we could discuss as a whole class.
Hi Alexis,
DeleteI had an extremely similar experience. I too wish these things were talked about in classes before I came to college. What was the wait for? It is important for kids to start critically thinking about the world before they become adults. I was so quick to believe everything everyone said because no one told me any different. It is important for the kids to have discussions and talk about different issues that affect them and the world around them. I love the idea of brining in news articles to bring the surrounding community in which they live, into the classroom.
I also grew up in a predominantly white town, without any critical text being taught in the classroom. We didn’t learn about homelessness or read books that branched out of the “white washed curriculum.” The books people typically read in my school were things like The Crucible playwright, The Odyssey, and Romeo and Juliet. I believe schools should update the curriculum based on what is happening in students' lives so that they will be able to actively engage in material and create personal meaning. Ways that we could do this could be allowing students to pick their books when it comes time to read. Some of the options could be the “classics” that are typically taught in schools, while other options should be related to students' lives and things that are happening in the world.
ReplyDeleteThis was Emily
DeleteHi Emily,
DeleteI agree with you that we need to branch out from the white washed curriculum. It is not an accurate representation of the history of the many different types of people living in America, just the Eurocentric history. It is important that the students feel represented and heard in the classroom. That's why I believe that the curriculum should be updated to represent many different types of people to be inclusive.
Going to Crispus Attucks in the heart of Indy, you might think our history and literature classes were woke given the history of the school, but unfortunately they weren’t. I really struggled with our texts and lessons because everything was very Eurocentric. I remember a classmate of mine going to the teacher and asking why she couldn’t learn about her own history and why couldn’t we read more books published by African American authors. The teacher couldn’t only respond with that that was the curriculum. I definitely would love to see a change in our curriculum today. I believe the old curriculum and history still needs to be taught but other histories and other authors outside of the Eurocentric world need to be taught, reflected upon, and used as much as the outdated ones are now.
ReplyDeleteSome ways I would like to see it used and how I plan on using it is in book clubs, allowing the kids to pick their books, allowing the kids to choose which topics in history they want to learn about. I think this not only hits those areas but also goes towards creating an inclusive belonging space.
Hi Breaira,
DeleteI love your point of view from an urban standpoint. It is appalling to me that the Eurocentric curriculum is still being solely taught in such a diverse school. I agree that this curriculum must be updated, even in schools like the one I grew up in. It's not an accurate representation of the people living in the US now, just a select group. I agree the old history should be taught as well as non-Eurocentric history aka don't only teacher black history during the dedicated month! Thank you for sharing!!