Rationale
It seems difficult for some students to connect to the text. One reason why some African American students avoid reading or only want to read the banned urban books and / or don't perform well on the reading tests is that the text seems culturally insignificant to them, or is openly biased or exclusionary. Alfred Tatum, author of Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males, recalled how the poverty and turmoil in his life could have had a negative effect on his literacy development, but meaningful and responsive literacy instruction helped nurture, sustain and encourage him to value the wonderful world of the written word. Reading helped with his personal growth and development. Through reading, he discovered new concepts, people and places.
Dr. Tatum listed four major barriers that stand in the way of raising the test scores of African American males: First there is no clear strategy to help students succeed. There is no existing role for literacy instruction for African American males. There is no clear consensus on effective reading instruction for struggling readers past the primary grades. Fourth, culturally relevant curriculum and forms of pedagogy, together with other factors known to benefit the achievement of African American students are not valued when teaching strategies and skills. (24) Why is there a so-called achievement gap? High school students do read. They just read what is relevant to them and reinforces what they already believe. Because historically, socially, politically, economically and culturally African American students struggle to develop their identity, their images should be prominent throughout the texts they encounter in school and beyond, but the images they encounter should not just reinforce the urban stereotypes with which they are comfortable.
Dr. Tatum says the curriculum must go beyond reading instruction. The texts must address some of the psychological and emotional scarring of the war African Americans face to survive in the world. He quotes B. Kitwana as observing the following factors that still exacerbate the turmoil for African American students: globalization, economic neglect, mass media and popular culture, criminal justice, racial discrimination, crumbling Black communities and lack of fulfillment of civil rights promises. By contrast, an empowering curriculum, using worthwhile literature and encouraging critical thinking, is more likely to be found in higher achieving and non-urban white schools, according to Tatum's and Michael Smith's report on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
To empower students and, therefore, engage students, Tatum advises teachers to focus on activities that include: linking students with texts about issues that matter to them, using meaningful activities that address students' cognitive and affective domains, connecting the social, political, economical and cultural aspects of life to learning, developing skill and intelligence and nurturing the students' identity.
The gender perspective will take into account that African American females and males enter adolescence confused about their sense of identity. Their ideas about femininity and masculinity are connected to their sexuality and their appearance. It's not unique to African Americans, but the stakes are higher. (Tatum 43) Misguided notions, irresponsible decisions and destructive activities can be discussed by examining and questioning the role of the male or the role of the female portrayed in the text, as in Cinderella, excerpts from The Coldest Winter Ever, Macbeth and Their Eyes Were Watching God. By critically reading texts, students will not only extend the text into their own lives, but will stretch further by examining themselves, defining the roles played by characters, determining the meaning and the supporting structure of the text, and looking for the historical, biographical, political, social and ideological connotations.
Because young African Americans must live and learn amid turmoil, many feel they will never progress. Adventurous approaches to literature may help some students fix their lives and fix their "Chevys". Dr. Tatum describes his experience of "hooking" a young Black man, who was recently released from prison, to read Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall. He invited him to read it as a way of examining his condition. Later he was able to convince him to read sociology texts and books about the economic conditions surrounding him. Just when he became worried that the association of literature and life wasn't going to be effective, his protégé thanked him by saying, "Man, this is the nourishment that feeds the mind."(38)
There are those who say it should not matter what is being taught or how it is being taught. The outcome should be higher test scores, and African American students just can't succeed. But cultural access is relevant to achieving higher standards of learning. Education maintains culture. Literature is culture. According to Chinua Achebe, "Literature, whether handed down by word of mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality." He says literature has social and political significance, allowing us to critically analyze our experiences, actions and relationships. Culturally relevant reading will help students have a point of view from which to link their own lives with the material, to analyze and to synthesize, evaluate, view the perspective of others and later be able to take some reflective action. If the reader isn't at the center of the topic, there is no incentive to fulfill the basic human need for identity, purpose, power and knowledge of the world. Reading should parallel the experience of the child so that she uses her prior knowledge to aid in stepping over to new knowledge. She understands.
She understands and she is comfortable starting at her center, but reading should also stretch the vision, preparing the student for the unknown. What is life like beyond her immediate circumstances? In a typical urban city where the main industry for employment has long fled, the focus of the news is sports. The focus of the economically, socially, politically and educationally depressed, oppressed and suppressed community is sex, drugs and violence. Therefore, those are the topics that attract the students - drugs, violence, sex and sports. The illusion of success for all in sports appears to offer the power of conspicuous yet legal consumption that they equate with success. Deborah Appleman in Critical Encounters in High School states that adolescents are faced with a destructive, bewildering and confusing world via the media. They live in a culture that values image over reality and consumerism over humanism. She said that literary theory reconceptualizes the familiar and comfortable, forcing the reader to reappraise his own ideas and the ideas of the text and using critical lenses to guide, inform and instruct. (2)
As a bridge between their world and the educational environment, aspects of literary theory can provide students with a way to "see" their world differently and analytically so they can intersect the culture of the school and popular culture. Literary theory accommodates multiple learning styles across the content areas. Students are directed to discover what factors and assumptions have shaped their world and then evaluate the perspectives of others. Students begin to understand ideology - why they hold certain values and why others hold certain values. Literary theory gives students the tools to question and challenge ideology. Unless students have the tools and skills to recognize, question, challenge and evaluate the cultural influences and forces over their lives, they will remain powerless. Eventually students will be able to ask, "What is the truth about literature? Whose heritage is it? Who has control over it?"
George Orwell declares, "No book is totally free from politics." Drawing on the author's background and other works adds to and further informs the reader's understanding of the text. When the reader looks at the text from the perspective of the role of the woman or the role of the man, the characters, incidents and themes distinguish themselves for analysis. Is the woman the head or the neck? Drawing on Marxist theory, Appleman says, "Text is a social construction - Who constructed it? What's it doing? What are the systems that are at work? What ideology is the text based on? What are the issues of power, class, race and resistance that drive the text?" (62) After the reader questions, answers, classifies and organizes the text, she looks further, deeper and between the lines to find the ambiguities, the inconsistencies, repressed concepts that were not revealed at first glance. Alas, to unlock the text in this way the reader must read it more than once — to the dismay of many students until they realize that literature is not a fixed object. It is a process, not a product.
Reading, understanding, interpreting, analyzing, constructing, deconstructing, synthesizing and evaluating define literature. What is literature? What is it not? The Oxford Dictionary defines literature as literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the (from littera, meaning "an individual written character). The word "literature" as a common noun can refer to any form of writing. "Literature" with emphasis on the uppercase L refers to written work of exceptional intellectual caliber. Who does control literature? Harold Bloom says in How to Read and Why, "…If individuals are to …form their own judgments and opinions, they must read for themselves….Why they read must be for and in their own interest." The purpose of this curriculum is to impel students to read independently and critically, to go from the known to the unknown and to challenge themselves to read a variety of texts and genres. Although students may choose one text from any genre, is it in their best interest to read the so-called urban books? Do those books support or destroy the culture they inherit? Are those books really considered literature? Some say that they don't fit the standard by having poor grammar and syntax, a meaningless, nonintellectual, unbelievable story-line and inconsistent or unconvincing characters.
In a scathing essay Kia Gregory writes that such books reinforce stereotypical images of young people. They portray those who live in the "hood" as glamorous and stimulating. A subscriber to the Philadelphia Weekly responds, "It used to be what you heard in the barbershop. Now it's being passed off as literature." Kia laments that the so-called ghetto fiction silences serious authors. She says, "James Baldwin portrayed the 'hood', along with the glaring effects of poverty, racism, politics, sexuality and humanity. These are universal subjects with something to be learned, valued and gained." Writers defend their simplistic writing style by saying that they are reflecting their "voices." They plead that the more they write, the better they will become. Well, the more the students read, the better they will scrutinize their reading. Through multiple lenses students will be able to really see, critique and standardize their own reading. As Harold Bloom believes, "The use of reading is to prepare oneself for change; the final change is universal."
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