9-17 warm up

1. What kinds of reading and writing did you see students doing in school? Why do you think Rose chose these assignments?

Rose had the students respond to pictures of famous people and of themselves. I think that Rose chose these assignments in order to get the students interested. English is kind of a 2-dimensional subject (a lot of stuff written down on paper). Pictures were a good way to grab students’ attention, especially students who struggle with English because it gives them something else to look at other than the daunting blank piece of paper. Also, writing about pictures of yourself and the people you know makes writing feel relevant. Writing can sometimes feel very far off because it is housed in old hard cover books that seem stagnant and centuries old.

3. What did you notice about the language schools used to refer to the students Rose featured in this chapter? How did this language mark students as “insiders” or “outsiders” to school? How do you think these labels might have influenced students’ literacy development later on?

If you are tracked into a lower class, you know that you are in the “stupid class.” Schools don’t fool anyone- everyone in that school knows who the smart students are and who the dumb students are. This dividing line does just that, it divides people into groups- the smart and the dumb (and by implication the good and the bad). Although teachers don’t say so, students know that teachers would rather teach the smart students. This makes the students in the lower tracks resent school because the teachers (not all, but many) resent having to teach them. So why try? The school admins have already labeled the low track students as being not as intelligent, so why try if the school has already made up its mind? This affects literacy development because knowing that you are in a low track automatically de-motivates you-this has an effect on literacy development for obvious reasons.