CHAPTER 1

LITERACY IN MIDDLE AND SECONDARY

SCHOOLS

READ 4351, Dr. Veronica L. Estrada

Double Entry Journal
List everything you Reading in
remember about Elementary School
reading in school Reading in Middle/Jr.
using the following High School
headings: Reading in High
School
Adolescent Literacy

 Middleand secondary
school students’ reading
and writing abilities are
currently, and have
been, of much concern
over who is responsible
for what. This debate
continues.
Adolescent Literacy
 The issue essentially is that  These skills do not develop
beginning at the upper at the same rate for all
elementary grades, and students.
continuing on into middle
school (or junior high), a  In a class of 30
steadily increasing amount sophomores, we can expect
of information is
transmitted through the reading levels from 2nd
medium of written text; grade to grade 16 (college
consequently, increasingly senior).
refined reading and writing
skills at each level are
necessary for continued
learning in nearly all
Discourses—James Gee
(2002)
 Discourses are ways of thinking,
acting, speaking, believing,
valuing, and interacting that
one encounters and must manage
to understand or assume roles.
 That is, one learns the discourses 
appropriate to specific social
situations and roles, and, to be
successful in each situation/role,
shapes one’s language, viewpoints,
and behavior accordingly.
 Within the context of discourses,
adolescents construct different
identities (who and what they are
as students [math, English, music
student], children, athletes,
siblings, musicians, friends, and
so on.
Thus, the different experience,
familiarity, and facility that each
individual has with the many
discourses of school (subject area,
gender, in/out crowd, teacher-
student, textbook reading
discourses) must account for the
wide disparity of students’ literacy
abilities in school.
In classrooms, we recognize which
students have mastered the discourse
of academic culture….
 They are the ones that  They frame their
step back from the texts statements with
they are reading and dispassionate, third
connect them to others.
They discuss ideas and person rhetoric and
themes without support their ideas
referencing their with evidence such as
emotions or basing their direct quotations or
opinions on likes or recognized scholarly
dislikes and they don’t works, which they
display emotional know will resonate
involvement with a text with their teachers.
or an argument.
The Effect of Tracking
 No one can deny  Tracking systems,
the wide range of honors programs,
students’ literacy and “basic classes,”
abilities no matter how they
are conceived and
 Experienced implemented do not
teachers know that successfully deal
the wide differences with the differences
in literacy abilities in students’ reading
persist in secondary and writing abilities.
Multiliteracies
 The texts created by  “Content teachers must
engagement with
electronic texts and
resources, magazine
reading, video texts and
games, and written and
oral correspondence with
friends. These multiple
literacies have a
profound influence on
adolescents’ lives.
move away from a
dependence on didactic,
text-bound modes of
teaching that place
adolescence in passive
roles. Recent research that
includes adolescents’
voices and views shows the
sharp divide that exists
between their lives outside
school and inside school.”
(Bean, Bean, & Bean, 1999,
p. 47)
The Millennials
 Preadolescent and  They were born in the
technological age and
adolescent accept multitechnogies and
students born multiliteracies with
unstudied ease. By the
between the years time the eldest millennials
1982-1998 during reached middle school,
digitally enhanced movie
the presidencies of and TV commercial action,
Reagan, Bush Sr, the Internet, self-serve-pay-
at-the-pump gas stations and
and Bill Clinton. ATMs were common aspects of
everyday life.
Digital Natives…….M. Prensky,
2001
They have spent their entire lives surrounded
by and using computers, videogames, digital
music players, video cameras, cell phones,
and all other toys and tools of the digital
age. Today’s average college grads have
spent less than 5000 hours of their lives
reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video
games (not to mention, 20,000 hours
watching TV). Computer games, email, the
Internet, cell phones, and instant messaging
are integral parts of their lives. (p. 1)
Millennials…. M. Hagood, L. Stevens, D.
Reinking (2002)
 “For adolescents, literacy is multimodal,
and rather than receive information from
static texts, they actively create meaning
dynamically across diverse media… such
as combining computer technology with
pencil art, programming codes with photo
layout and web design, and music lyrics
with dance movement. (p. 75)
Defining Literacy….Charles Ester
(2003)
 A pragmatic definition of literacy…
 The use of the written language to get
things done in the worlds in which one
lives (2003, p. 665).
 Alternative languages in Iming—such as
POS (parent over shoulder) is noting short
of “brilliant,”according to David Silver.
“The kids are altering the language to suit
 Linguistic Diversity
 Schools have students with widely disparate
achievement and abilities.
 Immigrant students and other bilingual students come
to school with widely varying oral fluency in their first
language and proficiency in first language literacy and
so have diverse linguistic abilities to support their
progress in achieving English language fluency and
literacy.
 For these students, and others, we need programs and
classes that provide support for developing English
language fluency and literacy in content areas while at
the same time maintaining students’ primary language
Middle and Secondary
Students
 All of them –need additional literacy instruction to
extend and refine the reading and writing abilities they
already have. For this instruction to be most useful,
classroom teachers, not reading or writing specialists,
must provide it for them. It is, after all, classroom
teachers that are subject area specialists, who know,
understand, and expertly see the discourses of each
discipline. Classroom teachers are able to develop
students’ literacy abilities without sacrificing attention
to content subject matter—in fact, subject matter
instruction is considerably improved by attention to
reading and writing.
The Role of Middle/Secondary Schools
and Teachers
 To think deeply in any subject area, students must
learn the language (discourse) in that subject area.
 Literacy skills that serve students well in middle and
secondary school are different from those in
elementary, so secondary school teachers are
responsible for those skills.
 English Learners are learning content area material in a
language that is not their native language so they need
special guidance in learning the language, the skills,
and the content of subject areas. Therefore, it is the
subject area teacher that is responsible for that
instruction, not the ESL teacher.
Think, pair, share
 Think about one aspect of Chapter 1 that
you thought to be the most insightful for
you. Write a paragraph or two about this
insightful new learning.
 Pair up with someone in the class—it
may be someone to your left or right or
across the room.
 Share your writing with your partner and
Thank you for participating in the Professor Led
discussion!

Thank you for participating in the Professor Led

discussion!