Warm Up #2: Rose Ch. 5-6

1. What kinds of reading and writing did you see students doing in school? Why do you think Rose chose these assignments?

Rose had the students at El Monte simply write about what first came to their minds after viewing certain pictures. He told them not to worry about spelling or grammar errors. He chose these assignments in order to build confidence in each “troublesome” student’s writing skills and to facilitate practice in regards to their writing capabilities. Rose discovered that these “remedial” students had amazing writing skills that few other teachers had acknowledged. In fact, the students were most likely discouraged by the other teachers and consequently chose to conceal their full potential.

3. What did you notice about the language schools used to refer to the students Rose featured in this chapter? How did this language mark students as “insiders” or “outsiders” to school? How do you think these labels might have influenced students’ literacy development later on?

El Monte’s elementary school avoided using terms that referred to students as less or more intelligent than others. However, the students were well aware of what these terms implied; for instance, one student informs Rose that he was in the “dumb” math class until the teacher realized it was too easy for him and then he was placed back with the “normal” students. Additionally, the school performed tests that labeled some of Rose’s students as “mildly retarded.” Of course, the students were not aware of these labels but Rose discovers that many of them were most likely mislabeled. These terms that the students have come to realize the meaning of do in fact mark students as either “insiders” or “outsiders” because the ones marked as “remedial” are treated as different or less intelligent by the others (including teachers). This can affect the students’ literacy development because many of the “remedial” students were not receiving the attention they needed from other teachers and were dumped onto other professionals; and furthermore, were discouraged to the point of losing concern or care for their own education.