Savannah Kyler, Karen Mack, and Payton Shuman
Dr. Siegel Finer
English 220
31 March 2019
Literacy in Secondary School
Introduction:
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Why do teens hate high school? We could blame it on their hormones. We could blame it on their parents. We could blame it on anything that doesn’t make our public school system the bad guy, but despite good intentions it may actually be the fault of a school system that values all work and no play. Literacy is more important today than ever before, but according to many students their high school career has not had a very positive influence in their literacy lives. So, why don’t people recognize their secondary teacher’s influence in their literacy? This is precisely the question we will explore throughout this paper in order to determine how to make school a more positive learning environment for students.
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Methodology:
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We began our research by reading the literacy self-studies prepared by 16 advanced composition students at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. These self-studies were collected through D2L, a private IUP site allowing for class communication. We went into these studies with an open-mind, but, of course, as English education majors, we were immediately drawn to evaluating when students mentioned teachers and school and when they did not. We began to code these self-studies in ways that analyzed who and what these students considered to be literacy sponsors. After some further evaluating of these self-studies, we came to the sad realization that many students have not been positively impacted by their high school English teachers. As future educators we wanted to see people having positive experiences from the people who inspired us to follow this path. It was devastating to notice, and immediately left us wondering how it could be that these students were unaffected by their high school experience. We decided that the next step in our research would be to interview a high school teacher in order to understand the effect she proposes to have in her students’ literacy lives. Thus, we ended up having the opportunity to interview Mrs. JoEllen Harr, a teacher at Derry Area high school. This interview enlightened us to the good intentions of teachers and inspired us to find more research regarding literacy and the secondary classroom. We were able to make several conclusions regarding our research question after considering our own ideas and experiences, the provided literacy self-studies, Mrs. Harr’s interview, and several secondary sources.
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Description and analysis of data:
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The first claim our research led us to discover is that students are recognizing parents and elementary school teachers as literacy sponsors more than their secondary teachers. We found evidence in a large majority of the self-studies that parents and elementary school teachers are given more credit because this is how students get their start. The ways in which parents and elementary teachers get students reading and writing are also more engaging. These self-studies suggest that parents are the ones giving students more encouragement and positive feedback from an early age. Furthermore, these studies reflect that students were given much more choice in their reading and writing when being sponsored by parents or elementary school than in high school environments, which we found to be more education and standards based. In his self-study, Corey Mathers stated that he only enjoys reading about certain topics, and Marly Saddle stated that not having a choice in reading and writing was what frustrated her most about literacy as she progressed through school. Students appear to want more choice in what they read a write about, something that is lacking the further into the education system they travel. We also noticed in these self-studies that students’ literacy lives were influenced heavily by their parents in childhood, but as students progressed through school they seemed to care less and less about the literacy skills of their parents.
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Another thing we discovered is that literacy means more to students when it is directly relevant to their lives beyond academics. Students who note having effective secondary English teachers had the English teachers who made explicit connections to the real world. For example, in her self-study Suzie Lakes said that she was grateful for her high school teachers because they taught her the importance of clear, effective communication by grounding it in real life. Additionally, according to the article “Authentic Literacy Experiences in the Secondary Classroom,” a significant problem in the secondary classroom is a disconnect between teachers and students (Brunow, 62). Teachers have to take the time to get to know their students in order to understand how to make school relevant to students’ lives. Expert teacher, Mrs. Harr, of Derry Area High School states that in order to keep her students engaged in writing she creates writing prompts directly relevant to students’ experiences. For example, she explains that, “For the end of the year project students will be doing some reading and writing about the Johnstown flood, but I hope that they will be interested in this project because the goal is that they approach the flood in a way that reflects the career they are pursuing” (Harr, 2019). She describes the project by explaining that students interested in history will approach the flood in a historical way, students interested in English will apply their knowledge of the flood through creating stories, and students interested in engineering could come to express their understanding of the flood by considering the structural weaknesses of the dam, and so on.
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Furthermore, in our research we found overwhelming evidence suggesting that high schools are too critical of an environment, and that means that it does not encourage exploration. Brunow observed that one shortcoming of the secondary classroom is that there is not enough acknowledgement of diversity in the curriculum, and that getting to know students is taking a backseat to getting them to pass standardized tests. She states that “While ability gaps, background knowledge, race, and socioeconomics are not necessarily terms young adults and teens would use -- these are the markers for students that may make their learning experiences and achievement markedly different” (64). This claim also relates to the notion that teachers need to know their students better, but also brings up issues such as adjusting curriculum to students with learning disabilities as well as to advanced students. We found that in several self-studies students had negative experiences with reading and writing because of learning disabilities that they did not receive help for. Brunow also states that part of the problem is that we aren’t teaching reading and writing techniques in high school and students are being given books too advanced for them (61-62). Overall, our data shows and supports that high school may be too structured and critical of an environment to encourage students’ literacy. For example, in her self-study Rain Lynd stated that her high school learning experience was not enjoyable because her teachers were too strict and the curriculum was too structured, but she enjoys reading and writing now that she is at IUP because her professors have made it fun and more relaxed.
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Another finding we discovered is that students benefit from praise and encouragement and are greatly influenced by criticism that they don’t find very constructive. Several of these self-studies show that students need to hear they are good at reading and writing in order to like it. General praise however, is not as effective as personalized and specific praise. For example, Lynd also stated in her self-study that she always viewed writing as a burden until she was told she is a good writer, and then grew to enjoy it. Furthermore, in Saddle’s self-study she reported that she always felt insecure about her reading and writing abilities until her skills were noticed by a teacher who convinced her to join the Daily News Press Club in which she proved to be a very successful writer. We also found that in the same way that students are so influenced by compliments and encouragement from their teachers, they are just as influenced by the critique of their teachers. For example, in Mrs. Harr’s interview she expressed her own bad experience with her high school English teacher, stating, “When I was in 11th grade I had an English teacher who discouraged me so much that I didn’t go to college for 20 years after high school” (2019). She also stated that the main reason she became a teacher was to enable students to have a more positive high school experience than she did.
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The last finding worth exploring is that students resent the categories they are divided into based on reading and writing skills. While we found that typically academic competition begins in elementary schools, it is important to note that these competitive patterns carry over into high school and oftentimes students who are led to believe they are not a good reader and writer at an early age take this belief with them into the secondary classroom. Several students expressed negative views of literacy competition within their self-studies. Saddle remembers feeling insecure and embarrassed after being placed in a low-skilled reading group, Mathers felt as though the only students who were cared about were the ones in advanced groups, and Rayla Fog noted that her father grew so upset about her being placed in a low reading group that she was subsequently retested and placed in a new group as a result. Yet, one student, Zan Ciano, did report in her self-study that she used to enjoy reading competitions. This contradiction led us to ask Mrs. Harr about her views on literacy competition and she responded by stating that, “They are good for students who are already doing better than average. They encourage the interest of students who are already interested, but students who don’t really care don’t benefit” (2019). Our other data suggests that it is not only students who are not interested in reading and writing that don’t benefit from competition, but also students who are shy or insecure about their talents.
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Before closing this paper and presenting some ideas as to what this data suggests, we would like to take a moment to reiterate that all of our self-studies were deprived from an advanced composition class in which the vast majority of students are English or English education majors. Additionally, with the exception of one sophomore, all of these students are juniors or seniors, so they have had more literacy experience than, say, the members of a freshman composition class. While our data was triangulated using an interview and observation and secondary sources along with these self-studies, we think it is important to note that all members of this class are more than likely literacy success stories considering they have made the choice to further advance their English skills. Thus, we do believe that our research would benefit from the inclusion of more literacy self-studies that may more accurately represent the population of recent high school graduates who do not have an aptness for writing.
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Implications:
Our research suggests that high school English environments need to be more encouraging and exploratory in order to benefit students’ literacy lives. Our data shows that secondary teachers need to continue teaching reading and writing strategies in high school and continue to encourage reading and writing for fun. Our self- studies, expert interview and observation, and secondary sources all suggest that secondary students would benefit from the modelling of reading and writing techniques by the teacher as well as the implementation of classroom workshops and mini-lessons. Our research also shows that the best ways to keep students engaged in reading and writing is by keeping reading and writing relevant to their lives and by giving students plenty of positive feedback and by minimizing literacy competitions. We think one of the best ways to encourage students and keep literacy relevant to them is to keep classroom numbers small, and we also feel as though parents should remain involved in their children’s literacy lives as they develop into adults. If we learned one thing from this study, it is that teachers need to know their students in order to encourage the students’ literacy skills. We as educators need to build a healthy relationship with students in order to understand their preferences, setbacks, and attitudes towards literacy.
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