Earlier this week I observed a student teacher in an alternative certification program based out of San Francisco State University. The student teacher was teaching a vocabulary lesson to a diverse class of about twnety ninth-graders at Albany High School.

I was impressed with how the teacher who I'll call Gary taught the lesson, and how the students engaged the material. In a class period lasting about fifty minutes, Gary explored language with the students orally, in writing, and in pictures. Gary worked with students to have a kind of rote definition, a conceptual understanding, an application and an example of the term. Toward this end, he enabled students to incorporate popular culture references as examples of the terms they were studying; Gary redirected students' whose understanding strayed with poise and affirmation. He spent time with every student individually and worked with them as a whole class; Gary allowed for collaborative work in small groups and pairs, and also required independent attention from students. Gary allowed students to move around and he moved around himself. And he incorporated tactiles and visuals into the lesson.

Gary did all of this with a group of students with considerable calm and connectedness and no real disruptions. This wasn't the "honors" class, either. It was a very diverse class in an urban high school.

Gary is going to make a fine teacher. He already is. Credit also goes to Principal Ron Rosenbaum who recently presented on a panel at NCTE's 2007 CCCC Convention in New York. Ron was joined by teachers and researchers to talk about high school to college writing transition.

Puerto Rican Narratives, NCTE and IFC

Spike Lee introduced most of us to Rosie Perez. She danced with boxing gloves behind a beat and Chuck D’s rhymes. ‘Just do-ing the right thing’: a young Puerto Rican woman representing multi-ethnic Brooklyn. Now with the Independent Film Channel, Rosie Perez offers viewers a similarly engaging personal narrative with rich socio-cultural and historic documentation.

NCTE members and English teachers generally have been in love with Puerto Rican narratives for at least the last ten years. In Atlanta in 2002 Judith Ortiz-Cofer shared her narrative at the opening banquet of the NCTE Annual Convention. She appeared at our convention at least three other times since. Similarly, Esmeralda Santiago spoke at the Baltimore convention the year before and at least three other times. And Victor Villanueva, keynote speaker at the last NCTE Spring conference in Portland shared his narratives at NCTE many times in a variety of venues and roles. In fact, Victor’s book Bootstraps is an enduring classic NCTE publication.

These narratives often have a media component produced implicitly in some cases, and overtly in others with teachers in mind. Annenberg CPB gave us the award-winning The Expanding Canon and Teaching Multicultural Literature in Middle School. These teacher-professional development series feature Santiago and Ortiz-Cofer respectively. Annenberg CPB’s series for high school writing teachers includes Villanueva as an advisor, and Judith Ortiz-Cofer appears on camera as a writing teacher in each episode.

There is no shortage of candid personal or family stories evoking laughter, sighs, or tears in Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas! (I’m Boricua, Just So You Know!), directed by Rosie Perez for IFC. However, the richness of the archival images—moving and still, the artifacts, unflinching explorations of linguistic, literary, economic and military themes surrounding Puerto Ricans, their relationship to the United States, and the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States in this documentary sets it apart from the other texts. My friend and mentor Tony Baez nurtured me with many stories of his days with the Young Lords so I was especially intrigued by the treatment of this aspect of Puerto Rican history in the US. Scenes depicting performances from the Nuyorican Poets Café on the Lower East Side of NY offer a unique glimpsed into one of the premier literary movements of our time: spoken word.

Of course this film is not just for teachers. Indeed the general public has much to learn from and enjoy in this documentary. Because this film’s markets most likely include the general audiences, “indy buffs,” or Latino audiences, I highlight its instructional value for high school and college English teachers as a professional development experience and teaching tool. Writers and researchers will also find Yo Soy Boricua interesting and valuable for their creative and scholarly work. Hats off IFC; Thank you Rosie Perez!

MySpace

High School tensions often run high. Posturing, profanity, put downs—racism…When my students wandered into my room distraught, angry, stressed or otherwise defeated I always offered an ear, but sometimes I needed to give a bit of heart and mind. When a student came to express a sense of injustice at administration I put them in front of the computer and allowed them to compose and send an email from my account to the principal, dean of students, athletic director etc. Writing their thoughts via email enabled them to calm down, clarify their concern and address an authentic and appropriate audience. The issue under consideration was not always taken up formally; often it was enough simply to express emotion. And it allowed for an impromptu mini-lesson on style and grammar.

Last night I read a public comment from my son on his MySpace page. Dan is in the army and currently deployed in Iraq. He was angry at supervisors who felt that although he was doing well at his particular job and completing work in record time, when finished he and his colleagues were too casual with their remaining clock-time. His superior officers felt that he and his colleagues were not setting a good visual example for other soldiers. His anger was real and he expressed it with precision. He simply wanted to be judged on the work, not what he did when the task was complete.

While I was attentive to his concern, I was actually interested in the use of the online complaint, a well-written rant about a personal—or personnel—situation. It reminded me a bit of the above scenario with my high school students. As with my students, the substance of the fuming could have been addressed inappropriately to one of those superior officers causing him more than extra push ups; soldiers are “smoked” more intensely during war-time in a war zone. Instead, he turned to members of his online community, known and unknown to assuage his feelings.

MySpace has particular features whereby the writer can post an icon that expresses his or her mood at the time of writing (creative, confused, angry etc.). The icons serve as a kind of advanced organizer. What a way to crystallize feelings prior to articulation. Further, like blogs readers can post comments immediately to the writer’s commentary offering the possibility of immediate and authentic feedback.

There are many features of MySpace that both enable multimodal literacy and at the same time raise concerns for parents, caretakers and teachers. I encourage educators to explore possible pedagogical uses of MySpace. Educational researchers can explore the rich self-motivated multimodal literacy engaged through this online tool.

Strange Fruit Planted in High School Classrooms

Some time ago Tracy Holder, Producer of the documentary Joe Papp in Five Acts, handed me a copy of Strange Fruit a documentary of that song made famous by Billie Holiday. With apologies to the producer, Joel Katz—who I never actually met—I must admit that I didn’t look at the film until recently. Even after touring the exhibit Without Sanctuary at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta after the NCTE Annual convention a few years back, the film remained on my bookshelf. Without Sanctuary exhibited photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs of African American lynchings. The weight of historic pathologies come down hard and heavy at the exhibit and readers of this post should beware that this grotesque pathology is equally graphic on the web site link noted above. But it is a necessary exercise in visual literacy.

I took a look at the film for the first time with some of my teacher education students last spring and then again this past Saturday with another group of students. While the film does not avoid the horror of history, the narrative of the song is the focus as opposed to lynching specifically. English teachers should note that the song “Strange Fruit” was written by Abel Meeropol, a high school English Teacher who taught in the Bronx while writing a number of songs, plays and film scripts.

This is however more than an inspiration to the range of influence possible from our profession. It is also a story of interracial education and activism. The film recounts not only that this teacher, a Jewish-American, wrote the song, but also that he and his wife later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution. Further, the adoption was facilitated by none other then W. E. B. DuBois, author of the American Literature Classic The Souls of Black Folk, available in full text online at the Electronic Text center, of the University of Virginia Library.

My students loved this film and they plan on incorporating it into their curriculum. Hats off to the producers and thanks Tracy for putting the film in my hands. The film ends at the same high school where Meeropol taught, as an English teacher explores the lyrics of the song with his multiracial classroom. The class explores literary devices such as metaphor, tone, and allusion. They also explore history and contemporary events. This is educational media at its best. While it is among other things an exploration of literary history born in the classroom, it returns to the classroom to look at curriculum and instruction. This blending of education, electronic media, art and literature was broadcast on PBS but it is available through California Newsreel.

Richard Pryor: A Literary Life

It makes sense that the general media would pause to note Richard Pryor’s parting. But why should English language arts teachers of all levels and college humanities and composition professors particularly note Pryor’s passing?

Richard Pryor was a literary artist strongly influenced by the Black Arts Movement. We might note this in terms of his style, even going as far to say that he was a Black Arts Movement comedian. Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle tribute to Pryor noted that after a crisis of consciousness causing him to leave the stage during a Las Vegas performance, Pryor moved to Berkeley. Specifically, he hung out with Ishmael Reed, notable Black Arts Movement luminary. I called Reed this morning to ask him about his relationship with Pryor.

“We tried to keep him out of Hollywood,” Reed said. “We made his comedy political. Pryor was a brilliant man even with his dark side. He was reading my book Yellow Back Radio Broke Down and later used the content as inspiration in co-writing Blazing Saddles with Mel Brooks.” New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt says Yellow Back Radio Broke Down “is a traditional revenge Western shot full of holes and stood on its head.” Reed’s remarks about Pryor’s work with his novel sounds like a potential writing or research assignment to me!

While Ishmael Reed has often been likened to Mark Twain, in 1998, "Richard Pryor was selected as the first recipient of the new Mark Twain Prize for Humor, because as a stand-up comic, writer, and actor, he struck a chord, and a nerve, with America, forcing it to look at large social questions of race and the more tragicomic aspects of the human condition. Though uncompromising in his wit, Pryor, like Twain, projects a generosity of spirit that unites us. They were both trenchant social critics who spoke the truth, however outrageous." (http://www.kennedycenter.org/programs/specialevents/marktwain/)

Richard Pryor even appeared on Sesame Street exploring emotions--happy, sad, scared and mad. Ironic?! Not really. Pryor put his life on stage and on screen at every turn. Pryor engaged in a deeper emotional exploration with kids in the film he co-produced with William Greaves, Bustin’ Loose. In the film, Pryor and co-star Cicely Tyson rescue a group of orphaned ELD kids with various ethnic and racial backgrounds in an Odessey from Philadelphia to a farm in Oregon on a broken down school bus. Like any good writer, artist, or teacher Pryor infused everything he did with his autobiography. Not his formal autobiography Pryor Convictions and other Life Sentences, written in the last few years, rather his autobiography in a thematic sense--immediate, lived, and uncensored.

Beyond the literary significance of Pryor’s life and art for English language arts educators, this passing or rather the reflection brought about by this passing, offers an opportunity to note the rich possibilities for using popular culture in the classroom as generative, inter-textual opportunities for inquiry bringing all of the language arts to bear in a formal academic presentation or production.

Seamless content: The Future of Learning Today

This past June I enjoyed participating on two panels at the Alliance for a Media Literate America conference in San Francisco. The primary panel that I enjoyed included Tesa Jolles of the Center for Media Literacy and Ken Kay of Infotech Strategies, and, more importantly, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Part of Ken’s presentation explored the ICT Literacy Maps developed by NCTE, NCTM, NSTA and others. Specifically, Ken noted that the ICT Literacy Map for geography includes knowledge in the use of global positioning devices. Ken says that the crafters of this ICT Literacy Map believe that there will be no geography in the 21st Century without such devices. Later, in a conversation with P. David Pearson, Dean of the College of Education at UC Berkeley, we explored the instructional implications for geography that incorporates historical narratives about specific locations.

While the maps have clear disciplinary boundaries, there is a progressive, interdisciplinary thread running through them that is easily discernable. Enter Hewlett Packard: According to an article in the business section of the October 11 San Francisco Chronicle written by Benjamin Pimentel, HP has advanced this technology in such a way as to create an interdisciplinary tool bridging geography, history, art, and literature. The new device not only tracks your location, but narrates your movement. As you walk and experience new views—parks, murals, buildings or other landmarks—voices of local artists, writers, public servants, or private citizens explain the surroundings. Further, the technology is exploring ways for anyone to upload a narrative about a particular location for others with the device to experience.

How would this change our fieldtrips? Can you imagine having students—at whatever grade level—researching some aspect of a community near the school, walking through the actual location while listening to the device, and later uploading their own narratives that serve as an assessment “product” of their learning about the experience, specific content from multiple subjects or a single subject, and use of the technology ?! I am excited about the possibilities of such a device. Ideally, HP will engage the education community not just for potential pedagogical considerations, but also economics to ensure broad availability of such a tool in schools.

Students Teaching Teachers about Multimodal Literacy

As teachers, we have a need for Vygotskian communication, allowing us to lead from the zone of proximal development. Conversely many of us desire Freierian conversation whereby we are the learners simultaneous to or in concert with our role as conversational or relational leaders. As English language arts teachers, this is why we encourage life long learning through reading, viewing, thinking, and talking. And we are thrilled when we have the opportunity to maintain relationships with our students over time, or see them in some capacity long after the formal role of instruction has passed. This gives a chance to reflect on our role in facilitating their development and their role in facilitating our growth.

I revisited a few of my former students this summer. I attended Mari’s wedding as a speaker and member of the wedding party. I had a chance to see Ramonda, Mari’s Maid of Honor—or “Best Woman” as Mari refered to her immediately before the wedding—and her brother Frankie at the ceremony and later at the party. While there I saw Carlos, his mother and son, Jaquese. Of course I had the chance to visit with Mari’s and Ramonda and Frankie’s parents as well. Their life pathways and the kinds of literacy involved in their personal and professional lives was intriguing.

Eric, Mari’s husband, requested that his cousin read "The Beginning of Things" by Fatima Lim-Wilson, a Phillipina poet. I noted this beautiful piece in part because it was an affirmation of Eric’s ethnicity and because I was a multicultural literature lightening rod when I was a high school teacher. During the reception immediately following the ceremony, copies of Mari’s thesis film on DVD, submitted as part of her graduation in the MFA program at USC and copies of Eric’s CD for the Punk Rock band where he plays drums—on a recently completed European tour—accompanied photographs from Eric’s family over the years since before his birth. There were also little white pieces of paper, multiple pencils, and thumbtacks. Guests came to the table periodically to write blessings or advice for the newlyweds on the paper, folded it, and tacked it to the table.

Multimodal literacy was both suggested and enacted. Skill, Design, Production, and Content were involved in all of the different literacy modes present. And each instance of communication via film, music, photograph, and hand-written note was a meaningful expression of personhood and humanity. This was special stuff, not idle grocery lists or home movies. Although some know that seemingly idle, hand-written notes also reveal what it means to be human as well. And yet it was also common in that we all express ourselves during such times through multimodal literacies with increasingly complex and simple possibilities for extending, refining and nuancing communication.

Carlos is neither in a punk rock band nor did he attend film school. Aside from his day-job he runs an entertainment company called Soul Seductive. Carlos always used language carefully and skillfully and the title of his entertainment company is similarly intentional. The Internet enables him reach and interactivity. Currently he is planning an event with steppers during homecoming for the university students. Twenty-first century literacy is here. We don’t always fully appreciate the range of these new literacies that both change and don’t change traditional literacy. And when we do, our personal, social, economic, and political communication will have morphed, incorporating and changing what we must know and be able to do in order to interact with our world. Ideally, as teachers we will have the interest, access, and means to be both Vygotskian in that we will have a degree of knowledge sufficient to lead our students to the next step in their learning; and Freierian in that we will feel comfortable learning from them as well.