Title: 21st Century Learning Design
Teaching Inner-City Youth in the 21st CFentury
Author Name: Briana K. Barganier
1. Introduction
Teaching inner-city youth in the 21st century is a topic I would like to explore. As a high school teacher in Atlanta, many new teachers struggle to realize the challenges when teaching inner-city youth. However, a solid Instructional Design and Technology plan using 21st century standards and curriculum could benefit teachers and the students in a significant way. Many times inner-city youth are faced with numerous challenges in and outside of the school. Knowing these challenges will allow the teacher to incorporate Social Emotional Learning into a new and energized 21st Century curriculum. Using IDT to teach inner-city youth will be a game-changer as students will become more engaged and take ownership of their learning, as they will no longer be challenged to learn using old teaching methods.
2. Overview of the Case
Teaching inner-city youth is a challenge as many come in grade levels behind. However, teaching in the 21st century can be less cumbersome and very rewarding. This research will focus on teaching English to inner-city high school students. Research shows that many students come into class grade levels behind. I often wondered what type of literacy instruction were the students have given over the years as many of my students come to me grade levels behind in reading and writing. Sadly, some of the students I teach are still reading at the elementary grade levels. Analyzing various research for my presentation also allowed me to reflect on my teaching styles and what changes I could make to make my lessons more culturally relevant to my students. Using various online tools including sites such as The Creative Educator – 21st Centruy Classroom has allowed a shift in teaching my students.
The notion of multiple literacies has several implications for thinking about literacy (Harste & Vasquez 2017). When I first started teaching, there was no mention of multiple literacies in teaching English. Over the years, this has changed to one definition and broken down literacy into multiple components. Moving from the one size fits all definition to focus on specific types of literacies allows teachers to focus on what literacies will help their students the most at that time. According to the text, What Do We Mean By Literacy Now, the author states, ‘Two of the most recent insights are ‘multiple literacies’ and ‘literacy as social practice.’ There are multiple literacies instead of one literacy (Street, 1995). Gone are the days when teachers should teach the same novels and literacy lessons to all students no matter their environment. Teaching at a predominately African American school, I need to teach relatable text to my students, to which the research agrees. Different cultural groups have different ways of making meaning… Literacy means different things to different groups (Harste & Vasquez 2017). As Harste stated in the text, ‘Thinking about literacy as social practice can be revolutionary.”
3. Solutions Implemented
We have to find ways to surround kids with great reading-fiction, nonfiction, poetry; classic and contemporary literature; multicultural, male and female authors (Allington 2013); analyzing this text resonated with me. Teaching just the classics is no longer needed; however, mixing text to include all that Allington stated is needed to develop literacy learners. Honestly, I never sat down until now and looked at what I teach during a school year. Stepping away from the district-made curriculum and choosing relevant literature and including all the genres mentioned is essential in teaching in the 21 st century. Not only do we need to change the shift from to the 21st-century teacher, but also the 21st-century librarian. Allowing students to read a mixture of books includes “a balance of easy-to-read, just right and challenging books (Allington 2013). Admittedly, I would choose only grade-level text, as I thought that was needed to move them up to grade level.
Many times educators tend to teach what they want and are familiar with. As I began taking classes at Georgia State and analyzing the literature given to me on teaching Literacy I began to take what I learned and apply it to my classroom.
The results have been short of fantastic, the level of engagement is eye-catching, and the love for reading that my students now have has been tear-jerking.
Before my switch in teaching, I would teach what the district wanted us to teach across the county. I remember teaching the novel Night by Ellie Wiesel for years. I will admit teaching about the Holocaust is essential, as its part of history, but I never taught text that my students could relate to; it was never added to the curriculum. However, with the switch in my school system, and administrators allowing teachers to have more freedom of control, I have begun teaching relatable Literacy to my students. I emphasize many of the 21 st-century that Haste mentions — meaning-making, language study, and inquiry-based learning (Harste & Vasquez 2017). Analyzing, Identifying Promising Literacy Practices for Black Males in P-12 Classrooms: An Integrative Review has allowed me to identify elements in my classroom that needed to be changed in order to reach my students at a level they were comfortable with.
One meaningful change I made while reading the required text in my teaching was making sure that my students could see themselves in the literature I chose for them. “Nonetheless, it is now obvious that need to expand the canon so that all participants can see themselves in the literature, not as ‘other’ but as the main character (Harste & Vasquez 2017). When I began this, students began to see themselves in the storyline; they now had background knowledge of the events that’s were taking place. This was important when I tried to engage my African American males; they seemed to be the hardest to hook. My males hated reading, and yes, they hated it, and sadly they scored the lowest in reading. As research stated, the field of education is saturated with studies documenting African American males’ poor performance and achievement throughout their school year (Tatum 2015).
Teaching in inner-city Atlanta for over ten years, I noticed that my males performed better when they could engage in relevant talks and readings; however, when they could not see themselves in or had background knowledge about it, they became disengaged and sometimes disruptive. Being a smart and cool African American male was not a good image, or so they thought. In the article, Black Boys Matter: Cultivating Their Identity, Agency, and Voice, the author discusses ways teachers can make their classrooms more welcoming and supportive learning spaces for Black boys. These adolescents must also deal with negative stereotypes in and out of school, a scarcity of positive role models, and a lack of culturally competent instruction and direction (Tatum 2015). I remember having one coworker, an African American male; he would come into my classroom while reading novels and reading with the students, and engaging in the lessons with them. The girls did not see that as a big deal, but the males were shocked that they saw a black male reading and analyzing text. The lack of role models who do such positive actions, hooking my males, is more of a challenge.
4. Outcomes
Identifying 21st-century strategies to work with inner-city students is essential to understanding the mind of inner-city students thoroughly. According to the Reading Process text, Constance Weaver states, “In recent years, those interested in how the mind operates have postulated the existence of cognitive schemas… a schema is simply an organized chunk of knowledge or experience, often accompanied by feelings. ” Knowing and understanding what our students know in their schema and choosing appropriate material will allow them to become better readers. I decided to add this lesson to the PowerPoint presentation in order for those who view it to see how the brain works. Many times, we teach novels, and the kids are not engaged. They lack engagement could be because they do not have any background knowledge of what is happening. For example, teaching Things Fall Apart to a majority of African American students. Even though the novel has characters that look like them, the character’s dialogue and culture are different from what they are used to and know.
One novel I chose was the Hate U Give. I made sure that every student had a copy of the novel. When they saw it, the first thing my students said was how thick it was, and they could not see themselves reading something so thick.
Before and during the reading, I provided background information for the students to understand the context better. Research states that, on the first reading with students, a teacher might want to explore what connections the students are getting out of the text (Harste & Vasquez 2017). Making sure the students had background knowledge before reading allowed the students to understand the chapters better.
One change I made this year was allowing the students to hear the audio while reading aloud instead of doing the old fashion. As research has stated, “opportunities to listen to books we choose to read to them and with them, is needed… with the understanding that we learn to read by reading (Allington 2013). As I began reading the books with the students in chapter one, the student’s persona changed; they became hooked. The way I taught the novel was groundbreaking as people observed inner-city youth engaged in a novel. I had parents email me or see me in the hallway, saying their child asked them to buy the book or rent it from the public library to have a copy at home. Even when the pandemic hit, my students still wanted to continue reading on Zoom. With this type of level of engagement, I knew all the research I was reading was correct, teaching relevant text, where the students could see themselves as the protagonist, allowed the students to understand the text much better. We read all 35 chapters of The Hate U Give, and my inner-city sophomores began to have a love for reading.
Teaching the novel The Hate U Give, with the events going on in the world, allowed my students to think critically and take action about local and national events. Unlike before, where they would follow the bandwagon and say what others wanted you to say. They now knew about actions and events that lead up to the way people feel about things today. Teaching the students relevant, relatable history, such as the Black Panther 10-point Program, Civil Rights, or even analyzing lyrics, the students could re-theorize issues, change their perspectives and take thoughtful new social action (Harste & Vasquez 2017). Teaching The Hate U Give gave my African American males a different outlook on racism and police brutality. Modifying a curriculum based on such texts and creating a responsive environment can foster meaningful discussions among students against an educational backdrop of standards and accountability (Tatum 2015). As mentioned on the site 21st Century Classrooms, Connect with Hard-to-Reach Learners, When students are empowered to make connections between what they are learning in the classroom to the world outside, learning and growth are then actually taking place. Instead of listening and doing what everyone else in the “hood” is doing, analyzing the events in the novel and the associated text I taught with it allowed the students to see that violence and retaliation are not always needed or needed at all. I did not have to tell them this; they learned it through text analysis. As Tatum stated, “these texts can provide students with the capital they need to be resilient in environments in which they were previously vulnerable.”
5. Implications
Critically analyzing the texts will allow me to change and tweak how I teach my students in the future. There were several takeaways that I can implement now. These same takeaways, I also presented to my colleagues to have success in teaching inner-city youth. Years ago, I taught with workbooks, whether for reinforcements of a lesson or test prep; however, according to the text, What Matters When Working with Struggling Readers, workbooks are no longer ideal. This text also highlighted two key ideas: eliminating paraprofessionals from teaching Reading and eliminating spending money on computer programs. Even though I do not have control over either, it is still great information to have, especially if I decide to go into a leadership position. Some strategies mentioned in the text, Engaging African American Males in Reading, can be used for all students, but especially by males. These included engaging students in authentic discussions, addressing students’ cognitive and affective domains, and taking into account their cultural characteristics. Also, connect the social, economic, and political to their education while teaching. The author also mentioned resolving the either-or dilemma of focusing on skill development versus developing intelligence by offering both in challenging the males. Furthermore, just reading and providing relevant text to the African American males I currently teach is needed (Tatum 2015).
As I began to reimagine teaching 21 st-century learners, I must consider that students in the 21 st century will have to be able to interrogate text to understand how authors position readers (Harste & Vasquez 2017). One of the only ways to be successful is to ensure my students see themselves in the text. One of the most powerful quotes is, “. . . For the most part, studying language in terms of what work it does and how it does it has been left out, as has to provide daily opportunities to inquire into problems of personal and social relevance to learners.” No wonder, then, that students learn more about literacy on the streets than they do at the chalkface (Harste & Vasquez 2017). My mission now is to change the way I teach literacy to my students by incorporating culturally relevant text and inquiry-based instruction. This should allow my students to grow as scholars and become readers and analytical thinkers.
6. Bibliography
“21st Century Classrooms.” Creative Educator, https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/21st-century-classrooms.
“21st Century Librarians & Computer Teachers.” Creative Educator, https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/2013/articles/Role_of_Teachers_and_Librarians.
“Addressing the African American Achievement Gap: Three Leading Educators Issue a Call to Action.” NAEYC, https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/may2018/achievement-gap.
Allington, Richard L. “What Really Matters When Working With Struggling Readers.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 66, no. 7, 2013, pp. 520—530., doi:10.1002/trtr.1154.
Angie Thomas, https://angiethomas.com/the-hate-u-give/.
“Black Boys Matter: Cultivating Their Identity, Agency, and Voice.” NAEYC, https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/feb2019/black-boys-matter.
“Connect with Hard-to-Reach Learners.” Creative Educator, https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/v10/articles/Connecting_with_Hard-to-Reach_Learners.
Franklin, Ruth. “Chinua Achebe and the Great African Novel.” The New Yorker, 19 May 2008, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/26/after-empire.
Freeman, David, and Yvonne Freeman. “Effective Reading Instruction for ESL Students.” ESL Magazine, 4 , no. 2, 2001, pp. 14—16.
Harste, Jerome C., and Vivian M. Vasquez. “What Do We Mean by Literacy Now?” Global Conversations in Literacy Research, 2017, pp. 14—28., doi: 10.4324/9781315182360-2.
Identifying Promising Literacy Practices for Black … – Eric. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1253935.pdf.
Tatum, Alfred W. “Engaging African American Males in Reading (Reprint).” Journal of Education, vol. 195, no. 2, 2015, pp. 1-4., doi:10.1177/002205741519500202.
Rief, Linda. “The Power of Reading: Practices That Work.” Voices from the Middle, vol. 8, no. 2, Dec. 2000, pp. 49—59.
Weaver, Constance, and Constance Weaver. Reading Process. Heinemann, 2009.