Engaging the Disciplines: Supporting Multiple Forms of Literacy Engagement With Elementary Black Boys

• In Event: Researchers Building: Advancing the Literate Identities of Black Students Across Multiple Sites and Spaces

Abstract

Far too many approaches to literacy instruction playing out in urban classrooms across the nation continue to suppress and devalue the literacy achievement Black boys. (Husband, 2012; Scuirba, 2014). This action research study details my experience as a reflexive literacy educator and researcher in my work with elementary-aged Black boys during my journey as a doctoral student. During this time, I developed a keen interest in the ways that schools as organizations engage students from diverse backgrounds in literacy learning.
This experience helped me to forged a dual identity as a teacher and researcher. I had many questions for myself as I engaged in this complex role as teacher-researcher. How might I support students to make connections to texts across various disciplines? How might students make connections to the content in ways that deepen their engagement with a particular discipline? While the exponential-growth literacy model does offer a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction for all levels of readers, I found myself pondering how to conceptualize engagement with the content beyond reading and writing. I aimed to expose the boys to disciplinary content in a way that they may lead them take up new ways of thinking and doing the sciences, law, mathematics or any of the 10 academic disciplines they were exposed to.
This led me to analyze my instructional videos and student artifacts for connections between my pedagogical moves and students' forms of engagement with disciplinary content. To do this, I conducted a multimodal discourse analysis of my instruction of a literacy lesson through the lens of the multiple forms of engagement framework (Gresalfi and Barab, 2011).This framework is fruitful for designing disciplinary learning experiences that engage learners in multiple ways while also recognizing the ways that various forms of engagement influence student learning.
Preliminary findings provide insight to ways in which educators can engage students in literacy learning experiences that are of significance by foregrounding multiple forms of engagement with disciplinary content. Further, designing literacy learning to consider multiple forms of engagement creates additional opportunities to maximize the learning experience for all learners, regardless of individual ability level.

Author

• Shawndra Allen, University of Illinois at Chicago