NCTE Ch. 10: "Savory Alliances"--Jacqueline Jones Royster

Royster's chapter offers a fairly detailed and useful overview of  NCTE's founding, the development of its organizational structure, and the alliances and relationships it has formed with other professional and educational organizations. Opening with a brief history of NCTE's four founders--James Fleming Hosic, Fred Newton Scott, Edwin L. Miller, and John M. Clapp--Royster argues that these men's story lay the groundwork for what would become the "two primary frameworks within which NCTE was able to grow beyond the charter group: the organization's constitution and its organization into sections" (366). In addition to these two framing concepts,  throughout her chapter Royster emphasizes NCTE's group commitment to "democratic principles," professional alliances, and the group's focus on advocating for "the exercising of agency and authority by English professionals and their students" (362).

By way of exemplifying these values, Royster recounts the formation of NCTE's various sections and caucuses. Both highlighting the organization's commitment to diversity, while not ignoring the gender and racial discrimination in its past, she spends a good deal of time tracing the history of women and African Americans within NCTE. In closing she briefly highlights the many secondary and outside organizations which NCTE members have helped found and with whom NCTE has formed alliances in order to advocate for the good of educators and students.

Thoughts.

As I read Royster's chapter for a second time, I could not help but return to the same questions and concerns I've had since first reading it a year ago. Royster argues that NCTE's organizational structure which favors division without complete separation has allowed it to  grow as an organization, adapt dynamically to its members' needs, and provide a variety of outlets through which members could address their individual needs. While I agree that such division, "sectioning," and "caucusing" has undeniably enabled NCTE to grow, what troubles me is whether or not all this branching, without any effort to remember that all the branches are attached to the same tree, is really all that good for the organization and the profession.

        in addressing NCTE's response to changing historical contexts in the twentieth century (i.e. greater equality for women and minorities), Royster points out that a question that has perhaps plagued the organization from its inception is: "advocacy for whom in particular?" (377). And with this, I think she nails on the head  the trouble I see with NCTE's constant branching. After reading these histories of the organization, it seems that for a hundred years NCTE has been trying to negotiate who its constituency is, never wanting to exclude anyone but always also wanting to serve everyone’s best interest. As a result, as I see it, several of the sections (like CCC) have grown from branches into huge limbs with their own network of branches growing from them, and consequently seem to have forgotten that at their roots they're attached to the NCTE tree. The Community College Section is concerned with their issues, CCC has its own concerns,  the Conference on English Education has its constituencies, and NCTE "basic" concerns itself with secondary teachers. While each of these groups, I think, needs a place to voice and work on its own issues and concerns,  with no real space to come back together as a whole professional English Educators, each section seems to sort of forget about the others. Because (at least my impression is) not many university types attend NCTE and few if any secondary teachers attended CCCC, and likely only a little cross over happens within TYCA and CEE, as a profession, I think we sometimes fail to pool our resources. Because my impression is that NCTE  (the supposed parent organization) has become the home of primary and secondary educators and everyone else has their own sections, there's not really place for all of these folks to get together and really discuss the profession and education holistically.

Sometimes I Get Angry When I Read... Be Advised

STROL Ch. 1: "Cross Currents in Language Policy and Pedagogical Practices"--Scott, Straker, Katz

Summary:

In the opening chapter to their edited collection, Scott, Straker, and Katz both provide a chapter outline for their collection, and more importantly provide historical, linguistic, and policy  background that informs chapters that follow. Breaking history down into 5 periods (1740-1845, 1845-1905, 1905-1954, 1964-1980, 1980-to the present), they briefly analyze the linguistic concerns and trends of the period, as well as key legal cases that dramatically impacted language policy, education, and racial/ethnic rights in the US. The authors characterize our present conditions as marked by "intolerance for language diversity" as evidenced by the English Only Movement, and which is only reinforced by policies like NCLB (6).

The authors describe three major sources of present language diversity in the US: the dialects of African descendants, the languages of indigenous people, and the languages spoken by past and present immigrants to the US. The authors then explain the challenges created by polices like NCLB for speakers of these dialects and non-English languages.

Finally, before outlining the work of the books chapters, the authors briefly explain the intentions of STROL and a few of the ways in which it has been taken up. They also comment briefly on the five other resolutions which have extended and expanded the work of the original 1972 statement on STROL: the 1974 position statement on STROL, the 1986 Position Statement on English Only legislation, the 1988 Language Policy Resolution, and CCC and NCTE 2003 resolutions reaffirming STROL.

“The Hidden Linguistic Legacies of Brown v. Board and No Child Left Behind” –John Baugh and Aaron Welborn

Summary:

By examining NCLB alongside the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, in Brown v. the Board of Education, to desegregate American schools, Baugh and Welborn suggest that just as Brown v. Board, on its surface, promised equality to African American students but did not deliver, so too does NCLB perhaps further disadvantage African American students based on linguistic differences. Unlike other immigrants to the US, argue the authors, African slaves who were brought against their will to the country, did not have the same opportunities (socially and educationally) to be exposed to and acquire standard English, and as a result passed this limited access to Standard English onto the following generations of African Americans. Furthermore, they argue that the negative associations tied to AAVE only serve to further disadvantage contemporary speakers of the dialect.

        Bough and Welborn, continue on to explain the well-intentioned but inevitably detrimental educational policies that have resulted from NCLB. By linking school funding to student achievement on standardized tests (in spite of the “accommodations” made for several sub-populations), argue the authors, students with Limited English Proficiency and/or speakers of non-standard dialects of English do proportionally poorer on such tests and as a result attend schools that often receive harsh and unhelpful federal sanctions. In the end, Bough and Welborn argue that “because the native dialect of AAVE speakers represents a language barrier to full participation in school,” NCLB—with its focus on standardized assessment as a measure of school success--functions only to further widen the achievement gap.

LESSON LEARNED: Don’t read incendiary things before going to bed! RAAHHR!

RANT: I’m wondering if reading or hearing about the details of NCLB will ever fail to infuriate me and cause me to periodically have to stomp away from my reading in disgust. Why on Earth did anyone ever think it was a good idea to take money AWAY from schools  that preform less well. “Why, yes,” they thought, “if a schools students are struggling, I bet giving them fewer resources will solve the problem!”

NCLB is precisely the reason I am so skeptical of federally mandated education policy, because, as Bough and Welborn point out, it is nearly impossible for a federal policy to account for all of the local conditions (student populations, learning needs, community expectations, etc.) of every school (let alone student) in the country. Clearly those who decided LEP students should be able to learn English in three years, have never tried to learn a second language. And moreover, while it may be unrealistic to expect that every school could provide long-term (or even short-term) first-language instruction for all of its various LEP students, to ask these students to perform on a standardized test is absurd. I had the advantage of leisurely learning German over the course of a decade, free of any emergent pressures to become proficient or fluent, and after having lived in Germany for a year and a half, I still doubt I could pass the German equivalent of a State assessment! Bough and Welborn are right, of course NCLB is disadvantaging students with different language proficiencies and backgrounds—just as its disadvantaging most of the nation’s students!!

…OK.. Rant over…

More to the point…

While I agree fully with Bough and Welborn’s critique of NCLB—particularly their assertion that the biggest problem with NCLB is that it “mistakes measuring schools with fixing them”—I cannot help but disagree with their more specific argument about the speakers of AAVE. I begin to take issue with Bough and Welborn’s claim at the very root of their argument: their premise that “AAVE students need instructional methods that will enable them to acquire Standard English literacy” (51). Though I’ve long struggled with the issue of Standard English, I remain unconvinced that our goal as educators should be to further propagate it. By making Standard English our educational goal, we are only further reinforcing its embedded power and consequently devaluing other, equally legitimate, dialects of English.

Bough and Welborn argue that valuing dialect differences, “can help [students] not only explore their heritage and associate more deeply with fellow speakers of the same dialect, but also to overcome value judgment about “standard” language usage with a sense of pride in their community” (51). The trouble, however, is that this argument makes no blessed sense! If Bough and Welborn are still suggesting that, though educators should acknowledge and respect students linguistic differences, the goal of literacy education should still be Standard English, than the educational process itself will only reinforce to students that while their dialect might be “nice” and “cultural,” the language of academics and of power is not theirs! To explicitly teach the Standard, is to reify it!

Furthermore, Bough and Welborn argue that “the native dialect of AAVE speakers represents a language barrier to full participation in school” because Standard English is the dialect of academics (49). While they may be correct in asserting that  the Standard is the dialect of academics (a reality, which incidentally they are only further promoting), I am not sure I buy that being a speaker of AAVE inhibits students from participation in academics. Much of what I’ve read suggests that speakers of non-standard dialects have little trouble understanding spoken or printed Standard English. If educators, however, do devalue non-standard speech and writing, that would of course put these students at a disadvantage. But again, insisting on teaching them to speak and write in the Standard, only perpetuates the devaluing of a fully functional and eloquent dialect.

NCTE Ch. 4: "Teaching Language" --Stephen Tchudi

Summary: 

 In his chapter, Tchudi provides a seemingly comprehensive (and at the very least, extensive) examination of grammar and English language instruction in US education. Throughout this exploration of history, Tchudi, in his own words, focuses explicitly on three themes, including 

"[1]. NCTE’s ongoing efforts to understand social contexts for schooling and language, including the need to serve diverse student populations while meeting the expectations of the general public, the media, and school governing bodies who seek students’ mastery of “Standard” English; [2.] The integration of current or “modern” views of the nature of language itself, including grammars, usage, and sociolinguistics; linguistic scholarship; and the burgeoning volume of knowledge and understanding of the role of language in human consciousness and learning; [and 3., the] Discovery and dissemination of best practices in the learning of
language, including both first and second language learners and speakers of a variety of dialects and registers." (126).

In spite suggesting that his chapter is intended to focus explicitly on NCTE's role in the "hundred-year dialectic over language," Tchudi, provides an even more expansive overview the linguistic and pedagogical movements that effected language instruction over the years. Beginning with the now notorious role Harvard played in the formation of language and writing pedagogy in the US, he also highlights the functional grammar movement of the early twentieth century, the impact had by Hatfield’s 1935 An Experience Curriculum in English, the New English (and linguistics) of the 1960s and '70s, the emerging concerns over dialects and students' rights to their own language in last two decades, and the return to calls for explicit grammar instruction in the 1980's and even today. After highlighting what he calls the recent "backlash" against the "New English" curriculum and the concerns of government officials and even those within NCTE for the lack of explicit, Standard English-centered grammar instruction, Tchudi closes his chapter with  a bold move, suggesting, "As we celebrate the Council’s centennial, we certainly can regret that the grammar idol has been so difficult to topple. The
Council has much more interesting and vital ways to spend its time and energies than in responding to those who want to worship a discredited god" (160).

Some Thoughts:

Wow! I’m so glad we came back to read this chapter. Not only does it give what seems like a really thorough outline of the history of language and grammar teaching in the US, it also ends with quite the argument. I'm glad that he ended with a strong statement of what/where he thinks NCTE and its members should be putting their energy and its not on grammar teaching. 

Since taking a Sociolinguistics course years ago, as part of my undergraduate work, I have been deeply interested in the issues of language and grammar--both broadly (politically and within the larger culture) and as they play out in my own teaching. Tchudi credits "enlighten confidence in learning through rule study" and methods of language instruction borrowed from the teaching of Latin, as two of the primary pedagogical traditions from which our continued concern with grammatical correctness emerged (125(. I think, however, it must be something more. If it were just that we had inherited these traditions, than why, after decades of trying topple the tower of grammar correctness, have we remained unsuccessful? Clearly, this concern with a particular kind of "correctness" is serving someone's--those in power--agenda. Just as it did at Harvard and just as in the early debates over Black English, and just as in today's concerns with students not scoring well on nationally standardized writing assessments; defining "correct" writing and speaking--defining literacy--in a particular and fixed way, serves as a gatekeeping function that, I think, in many ways keeps power connected to "literacy" out of the hands of the "unwashed masses." 

That having been said, I think that while "Students' Rights to Their Own Language," was clearly a step in the right direction, Pritchard (who Tchudi cites) was dead on in his concern that the Resolution (and others like it) were/are "unclear about what kind of teacher behavior would result if the implications of the statement were carried out" (152-3). While agree whole-heartedly with concerns over students’ rights to their own language and am far from a proponent of grammar instruction and Standard English, I remain troubled about how to enact these beliefs in a classroom. For instance, when a black student who struggled deeply with the conventions of Standard English (and with writing that cohered enough to be understood) came to me and said, "fix my grammar. I want to write right," what should I have said? I suspected that some her problems in writing coherently came from what appeared to be a fight in her head between Standard English and her own natural dialect, resulting in her writing successfully achieving neither. However when I suggested she begin by trying to write as she talked to me (or wrote me e-mails), she said, no, she wanted to learn to do it "right." Who was I to 1.) ignore her wishes and pretended that real power structures aren't bound up in language and that a particular dialect does have cultural capital, and 2.) try burden her with attempts at lengthy explanations about these power differentials embedded in language and that she should consider questioning thee power structures? 

Moreover, if I can't even figure out how to enact this language-conscious pedagogy in my own classroom with twenty students, how are we supposed to encourage policy and assessment that reflects our knowledge of this "discredited god" of grammar instruction? Can we blame NCLB and other local and federal policies like it that reify the notion that there is only one correct English, when the pervasive national culture insists "writing is grammar" and as teachers we (or at least I) can't seem to figure out how to call this assumption into question without disempowering particular students by ignoring cultural and social realities?

Chapter 9: "NCTE and the Preporation of English Language Arts Teachers: Learning to Do Good Work Well" --Patricia Lambert Stock

Summary:
Stock, in her chapter, outlines--primarily chronologically--NCTE's work in developing teacher training programs and creating statements of standards and expectations that influenced national teacher education statements and policies. Drawing from the documents produced by a range of committees, conferences, and commissions, Stock suggests that a need to answer the question, "what is the field of English and English teaching?" as having driven much of this work in teacher training. Moving from NCTE's inception at the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, she outlines the ways in which NCTE's work in teacher development and conceptualization of the field of English has grown increasingly complex and broad, to include more than just work in literature, language, and composition.

Thoughts:
I have to be honest, this chapter simply wasn't all I had hoped for. Then again, I'm not exactly sure what I had hoped for... but this certainly wasn't it. I am surprised to see the way in which she has conceptualized NCTE's role in teacher development, sticking exclusively to a singular chronological representation of history, and drawing almost soley on the various manifestations of the Guidelines he Preparation of Teachers of English. This unidimential view of history and the contributions of the organization, seemed to fall flat in contrast to other chapters, like Yancey's, that paint such a rich, varried, and complex picture of history.

As I read, I couldn't help but think, there must be something more. What I'm not sure.. Perhaps what I was looking for was something a little bit more personal. What work have NCTE members done to develop and affect programs in teacher training? As I've worked with Robert on the NeWP project to interview board members and participants, one of our driving questions has been, what impact has involvement with NeWP had on these teachers live as professionals and how has lead them to become more involved and engaged educators who are passing great leadership and teaching skills along to those around them? From this question, I've heard so many great stories about people who've become department chairs, joined district-wide task forces, worked with and mentored per-service and new teachers, and even become involved with the state board of education. Given these NeWP stories, I can only imagine that NCTE's members have similar ones--ones that might provide a richer, more complex, and perhaps more meaningful picture of how the organization, through its members, has effected the development of the teacher training and the profession.

Here, Stock seems to define activism as formal documents and guidelines created by the organization, whereas I might be inclined to want to know what types of grass-roots activism was taking place around these documents and that might have been having an even greater effect on the types of teachers and teaching that was happening in classrooms.

Chapter 8: "In the Service of Student Learning: Literacy, Assessment, and the Contributions of NCTE" --Kathleen Blake Yancey

Summary:

Opening her chapter by asserting the necessary existence of "histories," rather than of a single history, Yancey explains that the history of  NCTE's relationship to assessment through two historical lenses: first, an account of six key moments in time when NCTE focused its efforts on literacy assessment, and second, four thematic concerns which she sees carried across all six moments include,"[A] call for efficiency as America increases its commitment to mass education;  The tension between scientific measurement and a concern for the development of students; The role of labor, both for the teacher in responding to student work and for the student, first, in inscribing text and later, in

composing; A provision of funds for assessment trumping funds for learning, a provision that collectively expresses a distrust of both teachers and students moments " (284). Yancey then identifies the six historical moments in which these recurring themes persist as, the early decades of the twentieth century when NCTE was founded, the 1930's during which time NCTE was forwarding "experience" based curriculum and the national culture of mass testing was first coming into existence, the 1950's which were marked by the Lay Reading Program, the 1970's and '80's which gave birth to process pedagogy, the 1990's and 2000's when national concerns turned toward standardized testing, and, finally, the present era in which she identifies issues of technology and multi-modal/new media literacy to be a primary concern.

Useful Summaries:

Moment Two: "In this moment, then, we see two differing views of assessment at odds with each other, one located in a systematic approach linked to standards and scales, the second located in natural experiences, everyday genres, and the teacher–student relationship" (290).

Moment three: "In sum, the episode of the Lay Reader Plan allowed NCTE to decide on a principle of teacher professionalism, forecasting the role of teacher response as central to student learning both then and into the future. As important, in the pages of English Journal, the Lay Reader Plan itself was allowed to compete in the marketplace of ideas, where because of teacher professionals and NCTE members such as Paul Krueger, it mercifully expired" (204).

Moment Four: "This moment in the history of literacy assessment, like the ones leading to it, had an inherent duality. NCTE was claiming the right both to define literacy assessments in new, innovative, and progressive ways and, in some cases, to conduct such assessments. At the same time, NCTE expressed its concern that, in the public arena, state and national policy was moving in more regressive ways" (297).

Activism:

Position statements, reports, resolutions, statements of standards, and journal publications (specifically those in English Journal). Example of a report doing real and useful good, is the Report on the SAT which "generated more attention than any other such document" and has helped lead to the steadily fewer number of schools require the text (302).  The CCC statement on "principles and practices in Electronic Portfolios," also lead to real change by helping teachers consider guidelines for evaluating new media work.

Thoughts:

What struck me most in reading Yancey's chapter was--as she points out--the way in which the four thematic concerns she identifies, continue to be worrisome today. In particular, I was drawn to the prevailing conceptualization of  American schools as needing to "efficient" and the disproportional amounts of money spent on assessment creation, rather than student learning.  I was surprised to see how early the "efficiency model" began. What I don't understand is why, after a hundred years, we insist on maintaining this manufacturing/business based model of education when it clearly isn't working. Don't they say one of the signs of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Early testing models designed to quantify student learning and achievement didn't seem either help students better learn or accurately represent their learning, so we seem to have thought, "oh, yes, well then more testing and standards must be the solution! yes, that will help, for sure!' I just don't understand how I can hear so many people--educators and "lay" citizens alike--rail against the inaccuracy, inequitableness, and evils of these tests and the business model of education that leads to their creation, and yet still, we continue perpetuate them.  Having just having finished Elspeth Stucky's The Violence of Literacy, I see in this assessment-crazed educational system, the truth in her assertion that literacy equals economy. We buy, sell, and trade in information, and we live in a culture that equates e position f this information with a particular type of literacy, so therefore we must "assess" our student's in order to see just how much literacy capital they possess with which to trade.

In seeing NCTE's role in helping to design an early set of Language Arts standards, I am left wondering whether or not in doing this work, NCTE is really doing the kind of advocacy work many of its members seem to want of it. Though NCTE is clearly an enormous organization whose members represent an almost limitless number of opinions and consequently to create policy and position statements that represent all of these opinions would be impossible, but nevertheless, I'm left wondering if this work in standards creation is doing more harm than good. Can we really say, 'this is what the standard of literacy should be everywhere in the country?" Aren't local conditions and contexts  critical in defining learning and literacy? And if this is the case--if helping to create standards, even if written by practicing teachers--is only serving to fuel the standard and assessment-crazed fire, then what work should NCTE be doing? What advocacy wok should these teachers be doing and how can they ever penetrate what feels like the great wall of assessment which policy makers have built up in front of themselves?

Chapter 7: "Working Toward Social Justice in the Classroom, School and Community." Carol D. Lee and Anika Spratley

Summary:

In their chapter Lee and Spratley explore NCTE's relationship to social justice--both its work toward social justice and the ways in which social justice has or has not played out within the organization--by examining the history of "language learning in instruction," the texts selected for instruction, and efforts to build "professional capacity for addressing diversity as a goal of social justice" (256, 269). For the authors, the debates over issues of social justice in the English classroom concern, " the language of instruction, the kinds of texts that should be taught and to whom, and how reading, speaking, and writing should be assessed" (254). In order Identify NCTE's work in this area, Lee and Spratley examine the organization’s history, its conferences, policy statements, publications, the development of sub-organizations, and key figures who were involved in this work.

In laying the ground work for their chapter, Lee and Spratley  identify three aspects of historical context which shaped NCTE's birth and development in the beginning of the twentieth century. They suggest that the rising debate over what should constitute literacy education and who should design its curriculum and policy, the advent and rise of testing, and the progressive education movement, all worked together to create the perfect conditions from which the organization could arise. Lee and Spratley then use the bulk of the chapter to recount the creation of various policy statements and the founding of several sub-groups within NCTE which serve to represent particular minority or topical issues. In the end, then, they conclude by giving an extremely shallow passing nod to NCTE's work with "youth with special needs, ...issues of sexual orientation, class, and war and peace" and end by commenting on their great hope for the future.

Activism:

It seems for Lee and Spratley, activism (specifically social justice activism) is primarily manifest in policy statements, conference proceedings, scholarly writing and research, and the creation of interest groups within NCTE.

Thoughts:

As a whole, I found much of the information/history that Lee and Spratley provide interesting (e.g. the early history of standardized texting, the interest early in the century of making students aware of language and dialectical diversity, and the range of resolutions and policy statements that have been created). More specifically, the  three areas of social justice work which they identify as sites of inquiry, struck me as interesting in couple of ways. Firstly I was happy to see their identification of "text selection" as a key pedagogical move which can impact social justice work. A week ago, I would have probably never considered the critical role texts play in helping or hindering social justice education. (Stupid, I know, not to think of, but I just don't think it would have been one of the first areas to cross my mind). This week, however, I have spent time in my Rhetoric of Women Writers class discussing who creates anthologies and what work those texts do in defining a field, a discipline, and set of intellectual and social values. This conversation, in combination with the recent book banning in Tucson, has left me thinking about the kind of activism (or lack thereof)that many teachers engage in as they select and argue for or against textbooks and other print and multimedia materials for their classes.

In opening their third section of analysis, Lee and Spratley, suggest " The teaching of English language arts isparticularly well suited for addressing issues of social justice for at least two reasons. First, literature offers a forum for interrogating the human condition, including how humans relate to one another. Second, writing promotes self-reflection, a disposition that can promote civic consciousness in a democracy" (269). This statement had struck me; I suppose I had never considered that "my" discipline was any better or worse suited to encourage students to grapple with issues of social justice. While I'm still convinced that every field and discipline offers ample room for a social justice-centered curriculum, I suppose I agree with the authors' comments on the particularly powerful role literacy instruction can play. However, I would argue they sell the power of writing instruction short. While it does allow writers time for reflection on , I would insist that it's more important role is to help students engage in critical thinking provide them with a toll of potential empowerment that will hopefully allow them to continue to seek and fight for social justice in their everyday lives.

Questions:

1. What real work or good do policy statements, resolutions, conference presentations, and the formation of caucuses really do? How can/do they change things? How do the ideas they espouse and the work they do ever make it those who make the decisions?

2. Should we really be equating awards for minority scholars and professional mentoring programs with work in social justice? (see pg. 273)