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Elizabeth Holding.Pdf MULTIPLE VOICES IN A SECONDARY ENGLISH CURRICULUM BY ELIZABETH HOLDING DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in Secondary and Continuing Education in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaiGn, 2013 ChampaiGn, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Mark Dressman, Chair Associate Professor Donald Hackmann Professor Marilyn Johnston-Parsons Professor Sarah McCarthey ABSTRACT This qualitative study, featuring one American high school English department, analyzed why a secondary school chose certain literature for its English curriculum. The featured school had experienced a significant demographic change and had failed to meet AYP for 7 years. This study examined why the school continued to use many of the same materials it had used for 15 years and the impact the recent emphasis on reading instruction had on the literature program and the teachers. The study also considered the impact that the teachers’ background, the English department’s history, and the collective memory of English education in the United States all had on the selections. Additionally, this study investigated the ways in which the pressure to meet NCLB standards influenced the literature selection process. ii Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 11 Chapter Three: Methodology .................................................................................................... 33 Chapter Four: Findings.............................................................................................................. 51 Chapter Five: Conclusion......................................................................................................... 105 Appendix.................................................................................................................................... 118 References.................................................................................................................................. 121 iii Chapter One Introduction Langston Hughes in his poem “Theme for English B” first published in 1951 described the tension that an African American student felt when he turned in a paper to a White teacher. The student in the poem acknowledged that his White teacher had changed the way he wrote and that what he wrote would change his instructor as well. Did the instructor understand how much he or she had been changed by this interaction? Did the instructor know how much he or she had changed the student? So will my page be colored that I write? /Being I, it will not be White. / But it will be/ a part of you, instructor. / You are White--/ yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. / That's American. / Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. / Nor do I often want to be a part of you. / But we are, that's true! / As I learn from you, / I guess you learn from me--/ although you're older--and White--/ and somewhat more free. / This is my page for English B. (Rampersad & Roessel, 2001, p. 410) In many ways, Hughes could be describing the tension in a 21st-century English literature curriculum that White teachers develop and students of color study. In the poem, Hughes acknowledges the difference between the White teacher and the African American student in the same way that those tensions permeate some English curricula today. Previously and presently, the racial make-up of a school’s faculty has often influenced the construction of literature programs. In my experience, teachers wanted to reach all students and meet their needs, but sometimes administrators and faculty members did not know how to do that, and sometimes they did not know that they needed to make changes to accommodate the needs of non-White students. Both as an English teacher and a researcher, I am concerned with how secondary school English departments, faced with the issues surrounding changing demographics and the 1 needs of students of color, modify their literature curriculum. As Luke (2004) confirms, schools need to focus on the needs of their culturally diverse population to create meaningful instruction for their students in light of changing demographics. Expanding on that research, this study focuses on how one school, whose student body had changed from predominantly White to over 60% Latino and African American, was in the process of reworking its literature curriculum in an attempt to meet the needs of its newly diverse student population. As I approached this subject in my research, one of my concerns was the material that students were reading. When I think back over my 37-year career as an English teacher and my time as a high school student, I am surprised by and concerned at how little I see changing in the actual materials that teachers use in the classroom. English education is a conservative profession. Although researchers have called for changes in curricula and pedagogy, too often teachers have not made those changes part of their classroom practice and schools have not promoted those changes (Hillocks, 2009; Luke, 2004). As a researcher, I am interested in the motivations teachers have for using the same materials as well as those motivations that compel them to make changes. Another concern I had as I came to this project was the impact of teachers’ blindness to the overwhelming presence of White perspectives in many literature curricula. Many White teachers assume that their White view of American culture is preferred by everyone and present their view with little or no recognition of the fact that other voices exist within American culture (Darder, 1997; Steele, 2003). This privileged point of view is often damaging to both White and non-White students (Appleman, 2010). As the United States rapidly becomes more diverse (Nhan & McGill, 2012), White students need to understand other perspectives (Appleman, 2010). At the same time, non-White students need to have their points of view reflected in the 2 English curriculum so they experience acceptance and affirmation in the classroom and in the school community (Appleman, 2010). In considering the factors that made a school retain certain materials or find new ones, I considered the influence of historical perspectives on those decisions. I was interested in how the history of English education shaped those White perspectives dominating the English curriculum as well as how that history gave schools and teachers permission to modify perspectives in literature curricula. This study also grew out of my need to understand how an English department made curriculum decisions. I wanted to comprehend the decision-making process in a high school. As a teacher, I have served on curriculum committees both at the district and department level, but I was so involved in making decisions that did not always reflect on the process itself. I also recognize that moving into the 21st century, English departments and their curricula need to change so that all students receive instruction that prepares them for work or further academic study (Luke, 2004; Yagelski, 2005). I was interested in how a school made literature choices. I wanted to know what factors a department considered as it reevaluated the choices it had previously made and how it decided to choose new materials. Significance of This Research Project Many students today face difficulty reading the required texts in English classes (Luke, 1998). That problem has resulted partially from student disinterest in academic reading (Alvermann, 2004; Elkins & Luke, 1999) the abundance of new technologies that constitute alternative forms of reading (Alvermann & Heron, 2001), schools’ fixation on conventional methods to approach literacy (Elkins & Luke, 1999), and a limited sense of what constitutes appropriate materials for English classes (Applebee, 1993). Since many students have reading problems, it is important to discern why schools continue to use the same texts and then to 3 evaluate whether or not those choices serve the needs of the community as well as the students (Skerrett, 2010). All students in the United States need to succeed in English. NCLB has asked schools to consider the achievement of all students, not just those who are White (Meier, 2004). Since the implementation of this program, schools have had to report the yearly progress of all of their students. The poor achievement of African Americans and Latinos documented in these reports has forced schools to focus on the needs of these students and attempt to change curricula to address the causes of the poor achievement. This study thus considers how one school in a suburban community with rapidly growing population of African American and Latino students and White faculty modified its literature curriculum to raise the achievement levels of it diverse student body. It can serve as an example for other schools facing similar problems. Understanding the problems that one school faced as it made changes to its literature curriculum can aid other schools as they face similar situations. By understanding the underlying attitudes of the faculty and the beliefs they held about the literature curriculum, the practices used by the school at the center of this study became more transparent. All schools have different problems, but the analysis of one school
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