From resistance to advocacy for math literacy: One teacher’s literacy identity transformation.

Spitler, Ellen. (2011/2012). From resistance to advocacy for math literacy: One teacher’s literacy identity transformation. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(4), 306-315.

As a literacy educator, I’ve encountered the kinds of resistance that Spitler encountered in the preservice secondary math teacher whose experiences she describes here. Secondary content teachers, and especially math teachers, often resist viewing themselves as teachers of literacy. Over the years I also have encountered resistance from physical education teachers and from music teachers. Even in fields where the reading and writing of print texts are considered important by secondary teachers, they sometimes resist, claiming that teaching literacy “isn’t my job.” One future history teacher I worked with pooh-poohed what I was teaching in a secondary literacy methods course, stating that, “this stuff is really just for the English teachers.” Another teacher disparaged the teaching of reading strategies and the ways of scaffolding student understanding that I proposed, protesting that “that’s just spoon feeding!” Probably every literacy educator who has ever worked with secondary content teachers has similar stories of resistance to tell. Although definitions of literacy are changing to include discipline-specific literacies and ways of reading, composing, and representing various kinds of texts, it is interesting to me that we still hear resistant statements from preservice and inservice teachers. They are the same kinds of statements that I heard when I began as a teacher educator in the mid 1980’s.

Spitler’s point here is that she managed to change at least one resistant math teacher’s perception of literacy and of content literacy instruction via some of the instructional activities she devised for her content area literacy methods course. The activities she describes here are not really new, and in fact in the 1980’s I was trying some of them out with my own students. Assignments described here include listing one’s own reading strategies, writing and sharing literacy autobiographies, creating visual representation of oneself, and creating lesson plans that are then taught to peers who pretend to be high school students. There is absolutely nothing new in any of that. I used to have students create personal “coats of arms” and share them as a community-building activity. I used to do the literacy autobiographies (and shared my own) and we peer-taught lessons. There were good results of all of those things, but ultimately I stopped doing them all. Time is just too short in the typical semester to spend on the kinds of activities Spitler believed were transformative for the teacher she describes here. My preservice teachers want teaching strategies they can take into the classroom, and they want to talk about how they can meet the increasing demands for accountability that teachers face, while still remaining true to what they believe is best for their students. We don’t have time for ruminating on our literacy identities. That comes when my preservice teachers actually try the best strategies for literacy instruction and see them work with real students. That’s where the real transformations occur, and that really is what occurred in the case described in the article; “Bob’s” real transformation occurred when he was an early career teacher, already in the classroom. Only when he was actually in the classroom could he truly see the value of content literacy instruction.

At my university, students are involved in authentic field experiences in real classrooms at the same time they are taking literacy methods courses, and I’ve found that has advantages. We do some peer teaching and role-playing, but my preservice students don’t really need that, because they are out there immediately, trying out the teaching strategies they have learned, and then coming back and sharing those experiences immediately. As they develop confidence with literacy strategies, I see them begin to get excited and begin to view themselves as literacy educators. We build community through our sharing of these experiences.

To sum up, I agree with what Spitler was trying to do; I just wonder if the activities she chose to achieve her goals were the most authentic, efficient way to go about it. If my students were not involved in concurrent field experiences, then I suppose the kinds of activities Spitler proposes would be an alternative way to help preservice teachers see themselves as literacy educators and part of a community, but to me, there is no better way to learn those things than direct, authentic experience.