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Girls, Social Class, and Literacy: What Teachers Can Do to Make a Difference
Using stories from her own life as a girl in a workingpoor family and illuminating narratives from students living in a highpoverty neighborhood, Stephanie introduces readers to critical literacy and equips them with the tools to begin tearing apart stereotypes and creating new understandings about students, families, ourselves, and one another. This remarkable book is at once powerful and poetic, provocative and informative.
Lucy Calkins Be prepared to have your heart examined, perhaps bruised, and ultimately strengthened for the social action that is the reason Stephanie teaches and writesand the reason every educator must read this book.
Jo Beth Allen, author of Sociocultural Playgrounds: Teacher Research in the Writing Classroom A must-read for teacher study groups preparing to tackle the impact of poverty on elementary education.
Barbara Comber, Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures University of South Australia Girls, Social Class, and Literacy is a compelling and provocative look at the debilitating effects of classism on young girls, as well as a pragmatic and powerful examination of the transformative effects of sensitive, smart teaching on children whose lives and education are too often a reflection of their economic status. Stephanie Jones shares the insights of a five-year study that followed eight working-poor girls, offering you unusually sharp insight into what its like to be underprivileged in America. With critical literacy as her tool, Jones then helps you peel back your ideas of the poorand of your own studentsto see them, and your role in their lives, more clearly. Just as important, using reading and writing workshop as an instructional framework, she describes how to validate and honor all students realities while cultivating crucial critical literacy skills. Youll find out why giving children the option to find and talk openly about disconnections with childrens literature (as well as connections) and to write on topics of their choosing (even difficult ones) can have a large, positive impact on students as they speak and write about their reality without shame or fear of judgment.
As the gap between rich and poor widens in America, more and more children from working-poor families enter schools. You can make a difference in their lives by rethinking how you look at social class and extending to all children the same opportunities to share their experiences through reading, speaking, and writing. Read Girls, Social Class, and Literacy and ensure that in your classroom the education every student receives is not proportionate to their financial worth, but rather to their human worth.
Lucy Calkins Be prepared to have your heart examined, perhaps bruised, and ultimately strengthened for the social action that is the reason Stephanie teaches and writesand the reason every educator must read this book.
Jo Beth Allen, author of Sociocultural Playgrounds: Teacher Research in the Writing Classroom A must-read for teacher study groups preparing to tackle the impact of poverty on elementary education.
Barbara Comber, Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures University of South Australia Girls, Social Class, and Literacy is a compelling and provocative look at the debilitating effects of classism on young girls, as well as a pragmatic and powerful examination of the transformative effects of sensitive, smart teaching on children whose lives and education are too often a reflection of their economic status. Stephanie Jones shares the insights of a five-year study that followed eight working-poor girls, offering you unusually sharp insight into what its like to be underprivileged in America. With critical literacy as her tool, Jones then helps you peel back your ideas of the poorand of your own studentsto see them, and your role in their lives, more clearly. Just as important, using reading and writing workshop as an instructional framework, she describes how to validate and honor all students realities while cultivating crucial critical literacy skills. Youll find out why giving children the option to find and talk openly about disconnections with childrens literature (as well as connections) and to write on topics of their choosing (even difficult ones) can have a large, positive impact on students as they speak and write about their reality without shame or fear of judgment.
As the gap between rich and poor widens in America, more and more children from working-poor families enter schools. You can make a difference in their lives by rethinking how you look at social class and extending to all children the same opportunities to share their experiences through reading, speaking, and writing. Read Girls, Social Class, and Literacy and ensure that in your classroom the education every student receives is not proportionate to their financial worth, but rather to their human worth.
- GenresEducationNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2006
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82 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 31, 2024
read for class but i thoroughly enjoyed reading it and actually annotated the book heavily which is different for me. focuses a lot on how society expectations influence students and how many educational issues are based on social class discrepancies. really insightful and interesting! not your typical boring teacher book.
June 6, 2020
So much of the second half of this book that’s focused on critical literacy and the social justice work we can do as educators is speaking into this moment of time we are in now. I loved diving deeper into ideas of deconstruction, reconstruction, and social action in looking at texts. And what has really stuck with me is critically looking at texts and asking students where they feel disconnected rather than always seeking for the connections. I learned a lot here and it made me want to be in the classroom now more than ever.
April 13, 2019
Brilliant and informed ethnography from four years of working with low-SES female students who are so much more than that label - they are proud, engaged, excited, lonely, connected, loyal, communicative, and a thousand other things. This book was so informative and will help me as I continue my work as a teacher.
December 17, 2012
This was a powerful, wonderful book which I would recommend to every teacher. Although the book concerns a group of elementary school level girls, the content is relevant and accessible for teachers at all levels. The book is theoretical, providing some of the most concise and readable discussions of critical theory for teachers that I have seen, but it is also practical, with exercises teachers can do to interrogate their own practice. Although the book focuses on "what teachers can do to make a difference," the author does not confine this to in-school interventions, but acknowledges that the problem is much greater than what goes on in our classrooms and that political action is needed. She gives concrete suggestions for us to "Do one tiny thing. And then do another. And another." She points out that "Apathy doesn't help you get the next meal on the table, the rent paid, and the kids to school in the morning, but pushing forward when many obstacles are blocking your path does." True that.
April 13, 2014
Wow! Stephanie's book inspired me to get students to focus on great conversation. I find it hard at times to get kids to talk about books and write their thinking about books with out study guides or pre-formatted graphic organizers. This book made my year. It changed my teaching this year and helped me lift the level of conversation at our high-school dining room table (fishbowl)! Thank you.
June 8, 2010
A fabulous book for every teacher no matter what subject or grade. I took a class from Stephanie and she is so awesome. She does a great job of teaching you how to create a community in your classroom. She comes from an poor-working class family herself and is very aware of the silence in classism.
March 3, 2008
If you are interested in education and the class structure in this country, this is a very interesting book to read. It is very well written and skips a lot of the jargon used in most books like it.
June 12, 2009
A must read for any teacher.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews