acy Through Different Minds
Bria Anderson
University of Alaska Anchorage
Literacy Through Different Minds
Over the years literacy and writing has changed the way people perceive the world and those in it. The story “I just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose is an autobiography written about his journey through his high school education system. Rose explains his unfair struggle of being accidentally placed into a Vocational track and treading his way through two years of it. There is difficulty and pressure that school can bring on an adolescent but very few know the hardship of having your intellectual potential waved aside only from a simple mistake. Anyon and Knoblauch’s articles connect to Rose’s story through different scenarios …show more content…
It’s very common that the less advanced students weren’t valued as much as their more intellectual peers. It showed true in Rose’s narrative, the vocational students. As Mike Rose said, “Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water” (p. 2). It’s shown true in “ I Wanna be Average”, the students in the lower level are not held to a standard for their benefit as the average student in high school. As Rose points out, it’s not easy being a high school student with all the pressures of sports, home life, and school. Jean Anyon’s scholarly article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” on social class in relation to education backs up the theory that Rose was a less valued student in his first two years of high school. Our Lady of Mercy, the high school Rose attended, would mostly be considered a middle class school by Anyons justification of the social class. Although Rose would be considered working class just based on the annual income of his waitressing mother, the school he attended had a mixture of working class and middle class students. Through the case study Anyon conducted she inferred that the lower class students’ opinions were valued a lot less than any high classes and it showed in …show more content…
Cronin added in her article, “I am not teaching literature. First, my job is to teach students to understand literature” She takes an angle on the effectiveness of teaching in a way that the students want to be engaged rather than them feeling as if they have to be. As Rose could probably attest to this, he felt that he had to learn what the teachers required him to even if he was already in understanding. As he moved up from the vocational track he realized there were teachers that wanted him to further his understanding and excel to a higher potential. Macfarland and Cronin may have a similar outlook on how to effectively teach a classroom with the students’ latent learning potential in
Bria Anderson
University of Alaska Anchorage
Literacy Through Different Minds
Over the years literacy and writing has changed the way people perceive the world and those in it. The story “I just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose is an autobiography written about his journey through his high school education system. Rose explains his unfair struggle of being accidentally placed into a Vocational track and treading his way through two years of it. There is difficulty and pressure that school can bring on an adolescent but very few know the hardship of having your intellectual potential waved aside only from a simple mistake. Anyon and Knoblauch’s articles connect to Rose’s story through different scenarios …show more content…
It’s very common that the less advanced students weren’t valued as much as their more intellectual peers. It showed true in Rose’s narrative, the vocational students. As Mike Rose said, “Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water” (p. 2). It’s shown true in “ I Wanna be Average”, the students in the lower level are not held to a standard for their benefit as the average student in high school. As Rose points out, it’s not easy being a high school student with all the pressures of sports, home life, and school. Jean Anyon’s scholarly article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” on social class in relation to education backs up the theory that Rose was a less valued student in his first two years of high school. Our Lady of Mercy, the high school Rose attended, would mostly be considered a middle class school by Anyons justification of the social class. Although Rose would be considered working class just based on the annual income of his waitressing mother, the school he attended had a mixture of working class and middle class students. Through the case study Anyon conducted she inferred that the lower class students’ opinions were valued a lot less than any high classes and it showed in …show more content…
Cronin added in her article, “I am not teaching literature. First, my job is to teach students to understand literature” She takes an angle on the effectiveness of teaching in a way that the students want to be engaged rather than them feeling as if they have to be. As Rose could probably attest to this, he felt that he had to learn what the teachers required him to even if he was already in understanding. As he moved up from the vocational track he realized there were teachers that wanted him to further his understanding and excel to a higher potential. Macfarland and Cronin may have a similar outlook on how to effectively teach a classroom with the students’ latent learning potential in