Huffing and Puffing: Overcoming the Literacy Gap with Children's Books

In a metaphor about disparity, if we were to compare our district’s literacy problem with The Three Little Pigs, would our students be the little pig that built his house out of sticks? The lucky students – the ones that survive our educational system – started building their academic literacy early, reading children’s books and having their parents read to them. Parental involvement in a child’s reading development has proven to increase student literacy in later years. However, access to fairy tales like The Three Little Pigs, nursery rhymes, and children’s books is limited, albeit assumed universal. Students in high school that are still tested as Limited English Proficient (LEP) often do not have the same extensive reading background or parents with proficient levels of English literacy. In Los Angeles, the population of LEP students is mostly low-income, minority students, making the literacy gap a social justice gap. If the metaphor extends, the future is bleak for the little pig that did not have enough time or resources to build a strong foundation. The Big Bad Wolf usually gets that one.

A California Teacher of the Year winner once taught my education class an engaging lesson on how to teach story grammar. The lesson requires students to have prior knowledge about the fairy tale, The Three Little Pigs. When I tried the lesson in my classroom, only half of my students knew the story. Educators often assume that students have had as extensive a background in childhood reading. However, many students are not born and raised in English-speaking homes or in homes populated by print materials.

When a high school student’s literacy is founded in reading at a young age, students with parents who are not proficient in any language are at a disadvantage. Literacy can be increased when parents participate in shared reading with their children. In the classroom, students face a number of literacy challenges from reading comprehension to literary analysis. Exposure to books at home would better develop their reading skills, which in turn, will better develop their skill set. Reading more will help students develop a decoding system, but that may not guarantee comprehension of what they read.

As a high school English teacher, accepting that early childhood experiences (or lack thereof) in reading have irrevocably affected their literacy is difficult. Understanding why students are grade levels below in reading is frustrating. Expecting parents with little education and no English language proficiency to teach shared reading strategies with their children is impractical. Our solutions to battling low levels of literacy may need to start with our current high school students’ parents and younger siblings. Change is generational, after all. After school, schools need to teach parents the necessary reading skills that need to be transferred from parent to child. Many schools have parent centers that can do more than teach life skills and English.

High school teachers can assign their students more projects that ask students to share their learning with younger siblings and students in the elementary school. For example, last year in my 9th grade English class, my students made their own children’s books on stories from the Odyssey and Greek Mythology. We then walked across the street to Gratt’s Elementary School to read our books to first and second graders. The younger students loved the visit and were impressed by the bigger students’ skill and knowledge about the stories. My students finally recognized that our two themes for the year – voice and agency – could be realized in themselves. Some versions of that famous tale of the three pigs have a happier ending. The wisest pig – the one that took the time to build a strong foundation – saves his unluckier friends by inviting them to seek shelter with him. We must recruit our older students to help younger students become strong readers and ultimately literate citizens.

I Am From . . . the poetry of my students

This year I am teaching five classes of 9th grade English. Each student wrote an "I am from" poem. Here is our class poem, built from their disparate and echoed lines . . .

I am from the ordinary things; ordinary places; ordinary feelings; ordinary life.
I am from the letters in the word “Latina,”
And brown skin, black hair and dark brown eyes,
From the hard work my grandfather did on the farms,
The effort that my dad put to finish his education for a better future for his and our lives,
From the mother that came across the border to make my life better.
I’m from California and hardworking ranch ancestors,
From tortillas and avocados,
From lumpia and pancit;
I am from aguas frescas, from mangoes and watermelons,
From tamales and pasole, cooking in the kitchen.
I’m from playing soccer with my family and going to church every Sunday,
From Santa knows you’re awake and put your tooth under the pillow.
I am from the ocean,
The seaweed, drifting, shifting, always restless,
From the alarm clock that won’t stop.
I’m from the love of El Salvador y Guatemala;
I am from the 15 de Septiembre.
I am from the heart-filling moments when everyone is together, united as one,
From stop fighting with your sisters, make up, and say sorry.
I’m from the proud . . . and the humble.
I’m from fights that never seem to end and from feelings you hold back,
From hola mijo and que onda.
I am from the rain and thunder, cold air and water that have not poured since last year,
From have pride in your culture and give respect to get respect.
I’m from love is patient; love is kind, and the whole verse of how love should be,
From photo album after photo album in the overwhelming bookcase,
Each with many faces in many places,
With a memory and story behind them all.
I am from home,
A place where I can find myself close to care, truth, hope, enjoyment, happiness, affection,
And love.

On Learning Spanish Para Mejorar Mi Trabajo

I went to Guatemala for three weeks this summer to relearn my long-lost Spanish language skills. Last year, when I (rarely) met the parents of my students during parent nights, school activities, and chance encounters at the neighborhood grocery store, I always said the same thing: "Hola, mucho gusto, lo siento pero mi espanol es muy horrible." I am not stupid (other than in Spanish). I know that the reason parents rarely attended school events is because of the big fat language barrier between the home and the school. Almost all of the teachers at my school do not know how to speak Spanish. Almost all of the parents do not know how to speak formal English. Their (fear? embarrassment? resistance?) towards school events matches my (fear! embarrassment! resistance!) towards calling parents at home, scheduling conferences, and making small talk during those chance encounters at Trader Joe's. "Hola, coma esta? Estoy bien, gracias. Si, yo estoy comprando mi comida para la semana . . . Bueno, mucho gusto. Hasta luego." [when, in my head, I'm screaming: Hi, how are you? I'm doing well, thank you. Yep, just buying groceries for the week. I am glad I ran into you; I wanted to talk to you about Edwin's recent behavior in class. As you know, he is such a bright student, his ability to read a passage and know exactly what the author is getting at is really impressive. He is one of the best students in my class at analyzing evidence. But despite his intelligence, he has not been doing any work in class. I am worried about his recent behavior: talking back to the teacher, refusing to complete assignments, distracting other students from working. Have you noticed any change in your son's behavior at home? Yes, I see. Well, I would love to speak to you later at your convenience. Maybe after school on Monday. Would you be able to speak on the phone? Excellent. Good to see you. See you later."]

There are a thousand things I can do differently next year to improve my teaching. I know because I had plenty of time to reflect in Guatemala, by myself and in English, which let's admit, is a medium that presents a heck of a lot more verb options for me than Spanish. Number one on my list of new and improved strategies: communicate with parents. If I could somehow communicate with parents using every euphemism and respectful tense I want to use, I would see positive changes in my classroom. Student motivation would increase and behavioral problems would dissipate. Those ellipses in my conversations with parents would fill with the words that rattle in my brain, lost in translation.

And so I went to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala for three weeks of Spanish immersion, living with a host family and taking 25 hours of one-on-one Spanish instruction per week. Can I have that Trader Joe's conversation in Spanish now? Hahaha. Excuse me. Jajaja. No, of course not. I improved my listening skills. I relearned verb tenses: conditional, imperative, reflexive verbs, past progressive, etc. I just did not have enough time to speak in these tenses and really cement them in my mind.

Next year, when I meet the parents of my students, I will be able to say: "Hi, nice to meet you, thank you for coming. My Spanish is not very good, but it's not bad either."

El ano proximo, cuando yo encontrare a los padres de mis estudiantes, yo podria decir: "Hola, mucho gusto. Gracias por venido. Mi espanol no es muy bueno, pero tampoco no es muy malo."

And we'll see what happens.

The Montebello-Born, Texas-Raised South Asian American Who Loves to Read

On the first day of school this year, while completing our “I am From” poems, I told my students that I was born in Montebello, California. “You’re from East LA, miss?!” Their voices were filled with admiration and surprise. I felt validated by my birthplace. For some reason, feeling so often an outsider in this community, I played up my Montebello ties – far more than my New York or Texas suburbia upbringing.

I was not lying. I was born in Montebello, CA in 1985. Two years later, my family moved to Rye Brook, NY because of my father’s job with Citibank. The next seven years were spent in idyllic suburbia. I do not know how to explain to anyone in my new life that, yes, our house did have white picket fences with an apple tree in the backyard and a weeping willow over the driveway. In New York, my parents carefully strategized my older sister’s and my language acquisition. My parents spoke Hindi and Gujarati (a Western Indian dialect), but they were adamant that my sister and I learned perfect English. So instead of speaking to us in their native language, they only conversed with us in English. My older sister showed a flair for English. A voracious reader, she would read to me every day. Her ability to assimilate in the classroom made my parents proud.

My mother was born in Gujarat, and my father was born in Uttar Pradesh, India. He came to America in 1971 to attend college, and my mother soon followed when she married my father. Despite living in America longer than they lived in India, they are both very culturally Indian. I, however, consider myself South Asian. In college, I had Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Afghani friends. Making the mistake of assuming they were Indian was a huge insult. It was safer to identify as South Asian. This experience is not unlike what I witness at my school. My Salvadorian students and Guatemalan students take offense if you assume they are Mexican. I have learned that the complicated history of India and Pakistan can be as divisive as the history of Central Americans and North Americans. In short, I refer to my students as Latino – a term both vague and inclusive.

My dad came to America in 1971 not knowing a single person. He came with a hundred dollars and a golden ticket. He loves to tell that story. He then goes on to say that the golden ticket was priceless – a college admission letter to USC. His whole life, and therefore my life, too, has been centered on the value of education. Our implicit belief in education as the means to success and happiness has determined a lot of the decisions we make in our life.

One of the biggest differences between my experience and what I see in my students’ lives is the importance of education. My parents assumed I would go to college. My dad even made a cheeky comment about not wanting to go to my sister’s college graduation (“isn’t that the point of going to college, anyway?”). High school was a GPA race to finish first. Each point on each test tormented us. So many of my students are apathetic about grades. Many are excited just to pass let alone argue that their 88% should really be an 89%.

I am respectful and proud of my English students’ ability to navigate a new language. They do it with more confidence than I could muster for my experiences at language acquisition. Having immigrant parents allows me better insight into their lives, but I do not pretend to know everything. Perhaps a more telling way of how I value the diverse backgrounds and languages of my students is in that “I am From” poem from the beginning of the year. I shared my poem with them:

I am from bicycles,

from Oreo cookies and marginal utility.

I am from the heat and swagger of Texas

(burning, big

it smells of barbeque.)

I am from the weeping willow,

the backyard apple tree

who sat three young girls

dreaming, scheming.

I’m from touching feet and fair skin,

from Kavita and Jane Austen.

I’m from the yell when angry

and the silent treatments,

from Dal Mein Kuch Kala Hai.

I’m from incense and aarti

taking off my shoes

entering a temple.

I’m from Montebello and Uttar Pradesh,

mangos and "chai" tea.

From the broken nose of my sister’s

crash at Macy’s

the lost hair of my father’s stress.

I am from the bookshelf in the white room

holding my best friends

torn covers, notes in the margin

I am from those pages

that have made me cry and let me fly.

I took some lines from the "I am From" poems of my students and combined the lines to make a class poem that I enlarged to fill a wall in our classroom:

I am from those moments

that when I laugh, I can’t stop laughing.

I’m from the loud and the rude.

From AplacateYa and

Toda Se Paga en Este Vida.

I am from quincianeras and Brown Pride.

I’m from the shut-ups and pass-it-ons

from quiet and forgets.

I’m from being impulsive at times and having

to scream almost everything I say.

From I have to work hard and always respect.

I am from the green, white, and red.

I’m from El Salvador, pupusas and tortas.

From believing in God and listening to elders.

I am from a family that is proud of

their nacionalidad.

I'm a Teacher

I think I had my biggest validation as a teacher this week. We each have our professional challenges and our personal challenges. On Monday, I overcame a significant professional hurdle, and on Thursday, my personal. About a month and a half ago, I lost my first student. I had her twice during the day. She was in my 12^th grade English class, and because she needed to retake some classes she failed in previous years, she was in my 9^th grade English class, too. Having her twice in one day allowed me to get to know her. She was very good at participating in class, volunteering answers and asking to read out loud. She has the most beautiful hazel-green eyes.

Around the time she left, we were writing persuasive letters in 12^th grade. Their prompt was this: Write a persuasive letter to a 9^th grader, convincing them to not drop out of school, using statistics, personal anecdotes, and interviews. Statistics show that 40 percent of ninth graders in our district do not graduate high school. I wanted my seniors to persuade my ninth graders that it’s worth sticking with school despite the challenges.

I was really getting on this girl’s case because she wasn’t getting her drafts in on time. I would hound her. I still regret this part. I would tell her every day, this is the easiest assignment because you’re living it. You’re a 12^th grader… how did you get here? Tell me your personal anecdotes – you’re an expert opinion. About a week later, she stopped coming to school.

Apparently, Cynthia was pregnant with her second child. The reason she was crying in class last week was because she just found out – and perhaps because I was on her case for not turning in a rough draft on the irony of her life. She didn’t come to school for a month and a half. However, each day her name would still appear on my attendance roll – I never dropped her name from my gradebook. Each day, I filled in the absent bubble and skipped over her name when submitting homework grades. I used her as an example of how I need to know my students more; how I need to try harder. I have to keep reminding myself that my students live lives that are so outside of my own experience that I need to keep expanding my perspective. My teachings can’t end with the four walls of my classroom. Cynthia hurt me because I made wrong assumptions. How many of my ninth graders will hurt me in the next two years? And how in the world do I prevent that from happening?

Monday. I am in the front of my 12^th grade class, introducing the day’s agenda and objective. I scan the faces of my students. There, in the back, between Daisy and Jose, is Cynthia. I won’t lie, I stared.

“Cynthia?! Hello! You’re back? Uh, we need to talk.”

She smiled, nodded, and gave me one of those “so are you going to start the lesson or what?” looks.

After class, we talked. Apparently, she’s back in school and that I should expect her everyday in my 9^th and 12^th grade English class. We are going to set up a system for her to make up the work she missed the last month and a half. She didn’t give me any personal information. I don’t know what happened about her pregnancy, but I won’t make the mistake of assuming anything. All I know is that I got the biggest second chance I could ask for. I will not mess this up.

Thursday. My mom visited my school. She came to spend a week in Los Angeles from her home in Dallas. My aunt brought her to my school to come see my classroom after the school day. After my detention kids left (I let them go five minutes early), I skipped down to the main office to gather my aunt and mom.

I’m observed often as a new teacher. Teach For America observes me, LMU observes me, my own school observes me. I have never been more nervous about anyone observing my classroom than I was when I had these two ladies in there. And here it is, “straight from the horse’s mouth” as Aldous Huxley would say (not that my students would know that quote since they obviously did NOT read Brave New World… bitter):

“Wow, Stu, this is a real classroom, you’re a real teacher.”

Bam. Done. Validated. You hear that… I’m a real teacher. My mom thinks so.

Chaperoning Homecoming

I have more school pride now than I did at my high school or at my college. I eagerly anticipated Friday’s football game against Santee far more than I ever cared about my own homecoming. [Go Cobras!]

After school on Friday, I went with a couple of teachers to a happy hour in a downtown bar. The two guys that I went with used to play high school football for their schools in LAUSD. Drinking some beers, they shared stories about their glory days, and how if these kids played their teams, they wouldn’t stand a chance. We all became increasingly nostalgic as the evening progressed. After a couple of hours, we were ready for the football game. Our current record was one win to many losses. No one is really to blame. Since we are a brand new school, this was our first year to have a football team, and we were still sorting out the kinks (and, er, the fact that all of our boys have soccer bodies, and the boys across town are big and mean). In short, no one was really expecting a win from the homecoming game. Mostly, we wanted to cut our losses short and prepare for the excitement of the next day’s homecoming dance. Who knew the game would have more action?

We scored first! And that’s all the on-field commentary I will give you besides that we won – big time. The play-by-play was a lot more exciting off the field. The Homecoming court paraded around the track field in convertibles. The crowd oohed and ahhhed. I stopped a fight in the stands. Stood right in the middle of two boys, and kept yelling “look at me, look at me, look at me,” until one of the boys actually, well, looked at me. I put both my hands on his chest and shook my head. By then, other teachers convened and the boys were removed. (Boy did I feel confident after that!). One of my students came completely trashed to the game. He was completely white and stumbling past the teacher section in the bleachers. He, too, was escorted out of the field. Ten teachers tsked.

After the big win, everyone was in high spirits and the teachers grew a little nervous at how their excitement might spill over into tomorrow’s dance. I was still too excited about chaperoning my first dance to care. A chaperone! Me! Another example of how I can’t possibly understand how I ended up here.

When I arrived at the dance at 8:30 PM the next day, the students were still pretty tame. They all looked incredibly beautiful. Not too many people on the dance floor yet. Those who were on the dance floor were all clumped in a massive heap in the middle. I dare not imagine what was happening in the middle of that grinding mass. Ew, visual pollution. Ms. Jodry and I were assigned dance floor duties since we were the “young ones” and because the administration likes to make fun of us whenever possible. We had fun, dancing on the sides and laughing at our students. A couple of boys (who didn’t know we were teachers), asked us to dance. After that, I took out my lanyard with keys and ID badge and displayed it proudly throughout the rest of the night. The faculty still makes fun of us for that. The later it got, the more kids joined the grinding mass in the middle of the dance floor. Everyone was starting to look really sweaty. Make-up was being smeared away, and couples were starting to fight and find other sources of entertainment. Cough, cough. I can’t believe I stayed until the end, when the lights come on and the kids see where all their friends ended up. New couples made, old couples fade. Ah, high school drama.

I sneaked off to my car, and drove to meet my old high school friend at a nightclub in Hollywood. By the time I got to Hollywood Blvd., the place was packed. The lines outside Les Deux were huge, parking was $25, and I was exhausted. I looked at myself in my car mirror. Twenty-two years old and too tired to stay out past 11 PM. Skipping the club scene to chaperone high school dances. Somewhere between graduation and now, I turned into a 40-year-old.

Halloween Is Never More Scary than in a Classroom

I like complaining about multiple preps. I usually start preparing for my 12^th grade classes, then I move on to 9^th grade classes, and before I collapse on my bed in exhaustion, I scrape some lesson together for my Pathways class. I always dream how nice it would be to teach only one class. Planning time would cut in half. I would have time to exercise and watch movies. I could watch bad reality shows on E! and Bravo like my roommate does! Halloween robbed me of my beautiful dream. Thank the planning Gods that I have three preps in one day.

On Halloween, which fell on Wednesday (the day I don’t have a free conference period), I created the same lesson for all of my classes – both 9^th grade and 12^th grade. Such a horrible idea . . . Halloween really can be a frightful holiday. It started off like a great day. Fun costumes, fun activities, candy! Each period it got progressively worse. It was like living in my own “Tell-Tale Heart” nightmare. The entire faculty at my small learning community decided to dress up in doctor-themed wardrobe. The day before Halloween, I ventured into the fashion district of downtown Los Angeles to find some cheap scrubs. I bought this flowery navy blue set for fourteen dollars. Then, I bought this kid-sized surgeon outfit from the 99 cent store. The top barely fit but the surgeon mask and cap were totally worth the 99 cents. I threw some red paint on the surgeon gown and in big black letters wrote: Warning: I’m a First Year. I wanted to be cheeky. If a student asked, I could wave off the question with a Meredith Grey reference. I bought lots of Toostie Roll-type candy and Starbursts and put it in a pumpkin basket. I placed orange and black butcher paper in the windows. My room had an eerie glow. I had my scary stories, my videos, my Edgar Allan Poe on tape. I was ready for the best lesson EVER. I was going to have fun, they were going to have fun, what could go wrong? How about the best lesson ever five times in ONE DAY.

Each period, my students were more hyped up on the candy they were consuming in each class. After lunch, those periods were disaster. Too much sugar, too little patience. My scary story that involved the overhead being turned on and off like car headlights stared getting really annoying for me. I couldn’t read it with the same emphasis or foreboding. The Tell-Tale Heart video started seeming longer and longer each period. By the time sixth period came along, I was so tired, and I had a splitting headache from all the sugar I was eating (come on, you don’t expect me to ignore the pumpkin basket on my desk). Moreover, after five lessons teaching the exact same thing, you start thinking that your students are getting really stupid. You forget that they haven’t sat with you through the lesson already. So when sixth period starts answering questions incorrectly or when they sit silently when prompted for an answer, you want to shake them. Hello?! Duh! Poe uses foreshadowing! Idiot!

My Halloween cheer wore thin. At 3:12 after my detention kids left, I quickly swept my room (using my 99 cent broom and dust pan . . . love that store!). The floor was littered with candy wrappers and spilt skittles. I packed my bag and left – perhaps the earliest I have ever left school. I somehow made it home, swallowed two Tylenol, and collapsed on bed still in my scrubs. Three hours later, I woke up and sat down at my desk to plan three very separate lessons for tomorrow.