By the Rubric of Rhythm, They'll Read

Chapter I

What’s Going On?

Background of the Problem

Reading Illiteracy:Background of the Problem

At the time this study was conducted, there were an estimated 8,166,353 African American children attending public schools in the United States, and more than half were represented as students placed at risk due to their below basic literacy skills, particularly in the area of reading (United States Department of Education 2009). This number reflected approximately 4% of the ethnic population of students attending public school. As of 2013, the percentage of African American students had decreased 1 or 2 percentage points (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Many of these students have special education labels that are only applied because these selected learners require more assistance and time than teachers have during the course of the day. This label appears to be directly relational to the systemic constraints of time that teachers must dedicate to each subject. Additionally, students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) have multiple challenges, included among them learning disabilities. An IEP is a legal document which includes the input of the general classroom teacher, special education teacher, the student, the family, and practitioners who will support the special needs of the student.

For these students, alternative methods must be made available to their teachers, including ways to implement curricula that promote social and interactional contexts, as well as individual agency/engagement for all students, specifically those with mild intellectual disabilities. Such curricula appear to be a necessary complement or alternative to the rigid structure of the antiquated methods of measuring learning effectiveness as identified by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD 2006). These measurements include the inability to memorize many lines or the inability to work well in group situations, among other measuring tools.

After fifty-eight years since March on Washington, the passing of Public Law (PL) 94-142 and the influx of technology, selected African American learners are still represented as underachievers in the area of reading, particularly those ages 4–8.

PL 94-142 is a federal law that was enacted in 1975 as a part of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) which guarantees all students with disabilities (ages birth to 21) the right to a free and appropriate public education designed to meet their individual needs (Gariguillo & Metcalf 2008). Teachers remark, It is only when students are engaged in the learning process that the intended tasks in a classroom can be achieved (Ward, Witherspoon & Houston 2013). The subject of reading has borne the brunt of the ineffectiveness of the sole use of traditional narrative texts historically (Boykin, et al. 2000). Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the founding of the national Head Start (1964) program, where African American learners excelled in the reading readiness process (United States Department of Education, 1970), the progress for this population of students in this group has been meager.

As mentioned earlier, alternative approaches (e.g., Boykin 1995; Davis 1998; Gaines 2002; Heath 1978; Welsh-Asante 1993) to learning progress have been found to be effective for African American learners. Unfortunately, the current systemic structure has not continued to build upon and expand the resource base for these kinds of diverse approaches across the mainstream of classrooms in urban public schools. Moreover, the enforcement of the mandates, which the laws specify has been seriously lacking, and the overriding systemic constraints when implementing diverse teaching and learning pedagogy has continued unabatedly (Cartledge & Dukes 2008). Additionally, because state and local school districts are able to manipulate mandates of the law which do not specifically outline their responsibilities, they tend to barely meet the requirements for the students, while fulfilling their legal obligations.

It is not that the system has not implemented texts which are engaging to students. Instead, such systems are just not in place as mainstream standard reading materials to be used on a daily basis. Since critical discourse allows the researcher not only to critique a paradigm but also to create original solutions or to alter existing modalities, this investigation examined using poetry as an alternative text to the traditional narrative texts currently used to teach, to assess, and to articulate the student’s intelligence strengths.

The setback in reading literacy for selected African American learners with mild learning disabilities becomes even more unsettling when reading below basic is not treated as a special need until a student has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) within the current systemic framework for receiving additional help. According to Public Law (PL) 94-142, an IEP is a document which is developed in conjunction with the parent(s)/guardian(s), and is an individually tailored statement describing an educational plan for each learner with exceptionalities. It is required to address (1) the present level of academic functioning; (2) annual goals and accompanying instructional objectives; (3) educational services to be provided; (4) the degree to which the pupil will be able to participate in general education programs; (5) plans for initiating services and length of service delivery; and (6) an annual evaluation procedure specifying objective criteria to determine if instructional objectives are being met. (Garguillo & Metcalf, 2008)

It is only under these circumstances that a student may receive consistent specialized services in public schools. For African American students who may need extra help, the current practices alone are not effective (National Center for Educational Statistics 2011). An exploration of the discourse on the history of public schools, whereby Charles Mann, also known as the Father of Education, in the early 1800s, sought to create an educational system for Caucasian children as a way to keep them off the streets for truancy purposes (Cremin, 1957; Bennett, 1968). During his years as Secretary of Education, Mann published 12 annual reports on aspects of his work, programs, and the integral relationship between education, freedom, and Republican government. At that time, African Americans were not considered in the educational paradigm because it was illegal for them to be literate.

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had passed, public educational privileges for African Americans were still not equal. In defense of the system, however, discrimination based on race, color, religion or sex was addressed in the language used in the legislation, but the implementations of anti-discriminatory legislation were not immediately forthcoming. Consequently, the lack of priority to enforce the implementations stated by the law continued the discourse of underachievement and inequality which still predominates today.

As stated earlier, Public Law 94-142 requires all children to have a free and appropriate education (FAPE), which includes their cultural, familial, and communal environments through teaching and learning, specifically those with special needs. However, an exploration of such subjects reveals these contexts are not readily available through the sole use of the traditional narrative text which is currently being used to teach and assess students with mild learning disabilities. Rather, traditional narrative texts, told in short story format, were written in prose form were used. The only studies which found positive effects on African American students using narrative texts were those where the language of the text was renegotiated (language adapted to communicate using various learning styles) into multimodal (various ways to communicate, i.e. written/oral, audio, and visual) possibilities (Asante 1997; Asante & Welsh-Asante 1993; Boykin & Mills 2011; Swanson & Mayben 2011).

Moreover, the public school system adopted standardized testing and classification (labeling) as a way to categorize students with special intellectual needs, and African American children became the predominant population in the categories of ADHD, mild learning disabilities, and reading below basic (Hardman, Drew, & Egan 2001). Although over the years, the name was changed from handicapped to disabled to discredit the stigma that came with the label, still, students were often ostracized and left out of the mainstream student population. If this was among tested populations, the general course for all races of students in this population showed African Americans as lagging behind in the area of reading literacy (Hardman, et al.). As for African American students with mild intellectual disabilities, the need to focus on engaging them prior to teaching and assessing them is essential for the reading readiness process.

The positive effect of the renegotiation of text for all students, specifically African American students with mild learning disabilities, is engagement, according to the research of Asante, 1997; Asante & Welsh-Asante, 1993; Boykin & Mills, 2011; & Swanson & Mayben, 2011. When students can connect to a text, their involvement with the learning process is deeper than when they are asked to just respond based on what they read, thereby limiting the ways in which they can communicate meaning and understanding. Engagement represents the pivotal point from the articulation of the message to the intended receiver that impacts the communication dynamic in a classroom of learners. It is the integral component to be encouraged for success in the reading readiness process. If the attention of children is not grabbed, as Rickford (1993) writes, then the teaching and assessment using narratives or any text will be difficult for these challenged readers.

Next, alternative approaches which have been successfully implemented within the discourse of underachievement and are in alignment with those used in this investigation will be highlighted in the following section and discussed in more detail in the literature review. The focus of the research was a child-centered curriculum versus the systemic-centered paradigm, which is more widely used in urban public schools (Ward, Houston, & Witherspoon 2013). Therefore, it is essential that studies be examined that use multimodal approaches to engage African American students in the reading process and help to understand how they provide students with a multiplicity of ways to communicate understanding and meaning.

Alternative Approaches to Traditional Narrative Texts

Presenting Alternative Approaches

The successful uses of traditional narratives (short stories written in prose) by various scholars (e.g., Asante & Asante Welsh 1993; Boykin 1995; Cho 2010; Gaines 2002; Halliday & Hasan 1989; Harris & Trousdale 1993; Parks-Lee 2001; Parn 2006) among others, have occurred by renegotiating the written/oral text. In most of these cases, renegotiation has included the fusion of movement, dance, drama, imagination, technology, repetition, rhythm, meter, and tone into the curriculum that have made previously reluctant readers in those studies more inclined to participate in the learning process. Using innovative ways to communicate the text offers the students a multiplicity of modes to communicate meaning and understanding because it builds on the students’ existing strengths as a basis for such engagement and acts as an important prelude to the learning process, specifically reading.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983, 1993) outlines many different learning strengths that students possess; the application of these strengths to the teaching and learning processes is often absent in the curriculum used to teach and assess children. Gardner focuses on verbal, nonverbal, musical/rhythmic, kinesthetic, logical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and spatial intelligence strengths. According to Gardner, a person may have a combination of intelligence strengths, which attest to the need for diverse learning approaches, which are not linear but inclusive of what the students and teachers contribute to the communication dynamic. More specifically, by creating curriculum based on students’ intelligence strengths, the opportunity to affect the individual agency/engagement and social and interactional contexts addressed by this investigation becomes more proficient than would be possible using rigidly structured approaches.

Additionally, with the onset of technology (television, Internet, digital applications, and social media, authors) Hughes (2007), King-Sears & Swanson (2011), and Mills (2011) found functional methods and uses which had positive effects on reading engagement in response to the multi-literacies argument. Using alternative approaches to teaching and learning by renegotiating traditional narrative texts to include audio and video images, sound, music, and Claymation movie collaborations invited the outside world and imagination of students into the classroom. Therefore, incorporating the students’ prior knowledge, exposures, and interactions placed them at the center of the curriculum construct, and they became more connected and therefore engaged in the reading process.

Unfortunately, these are only isolated cases of published success that provide the alternative approaches to text needed for African American learners with mild intellectual disabilities attending urban public schools. Additionally, of those publications, very few specifically identify poetry as a mainstream text but rather traditional narrative texts which have been implemented in multimodal capacities. Harker (1978), Olshansky (1995), and Xerri (2011, 2012) among other identified scholars, found success using poetry as a multimodal text to encourage reading engagement as an alternative approach.

However, the need for more literature specifically addressing poetry as a mainstream text, as an alternative to the sole use of traditional narrative texts, is necessary. My research seeks to continue to build upon the research base and options for poetic texts, which offer the cultural references familiar to African American learners, particularly those with mild intellectual disabilities. What is significant are the tenets of poetry, the arts, and technology have been the effective factors undergirding the reading of traditional narrative texts to engage the targeted population of learners this study.

Although some achievement with engagement has been found using traditional narrative texts, as mentioned above and discussed later in the literature review, my research focused on using poetry as an alternative text. This is largely due to the tenets of poetry (rhyme, repetition, meter, and tone) are embodied in the foundation of the literary genre in which targeted audiences are most traditionally, historically, and appropriately engaged and this type of pedagogy enlists the student’s prior knowledge to make connections from their worlds in and outside of school.

The discourse of underachievement needs more alternative texts to expand the knowledge base for teaching and assessing selected African American learners, which will actively engage them in the learning process through the incorporation of their diverse learning styles and their cultural, familial, and communal schema. Lumumba’s Playground and Laughing and Learning with Language (Ward 2007) were the two programs used in this investigation as alternative poetry texts, rather than traditional narrative texts alone in urban classrooms, specifically for the encouragement of reading engagement for African American learners with mild learning disabilities. These programs were created to become an extension of the effective texts and knowledge base which already exist, to captivate what students brought to the intervention, while serving their special needs as learners and to stimulate their engagement in the reading readiness process.

Alternative Versus Traditional Learning and Teaching Engagement

Currently, the discourse of underachievement is built around having students assimilate to systemic requirements, rather than creating a system which provides multiple opportunities which stem from what the children bring to the classroom environment. Furthermore, in a system which solely uses traditional narrative texts as the mainstream approach to teaching, learning, and assessing reading, options for diverse learners are limited. Alternative literary texts and genres are currently used mostly as creative activities to enhance the reading of narrative texts. Additionally, research in classroom discourse directly related to using poetry as a literary genre is limited. As introduced earlier, there is a predominance of studies using traditional narrative texts which have proven to be successful, but very few that specifically use poetic texts as a mainstream teaching tool when teaching, learning, and assessing reading for selected African American learners.

Poetry as a communicative text addresses the need to satisfy various phonetic, syntactic, and semantic constraints, and yet even with an immense amount of information from which to choose, traditional approaches of natural language still seem to break down when trying to stifle it one way or another (Thompson 2009). Thompson describes the poetic process as being one with a communicative intent that is not a linear but a circular process. The same holds true when interacting with African American students with special needs, particularly mild learning disabilities, in urban classroom environments. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1993) addresses diverse learning styles which embraces the need for a variety of texts and multimodal applications of teaching and assessment. Current constraints can be renegotiated whereby standardized teaching and learning materials are not fixed in their approach, but have a multiplicity of applications to reach many diverse learners (Ward 2012).

My research presented Lumumba’s Playground (LP) and Laughing and Learning with Language (LLL) (Ward 2007) to introduce alternative texts, specifically poetry, into the community of learners as curriculum to engage students in the reading readiness process. LP is a half-hour educational children’s television program with a cast which consists of a mascot character (Lumumba), eight multicultural children, and Griot Nada (the teacher). The pilot show teaches children to let their genius fly while fusing poetry with technology, music, dance, drama, and movement (polyrhythms) to teach basic reading literacy skills and life lessons.

LLL (Ward, et al.) is a packaged literacy program containing skilled level readers, CDs, DVDs, activity books, and lesson plans to be used in any teaching and learning environment. It is also fused with polyrhythms to teach interdisciplinary subjects, specifically reading, to engage students in the reading readiness process and to assist them with becoming more competent readers. Although the use of these programs in this investigation are specified for African American learners with mild intellectual disabilities, their scope is multicultural and interdisciplinary for learners of all ages and settings.

By creating a learning environment where the reciprocation of dialogue is inclusive of all learning styles, the engagement in the classroom conversation will provide more input from the students as individual learners. When students can realize the value of their contribution to the classroom of learners, their reluctance to participate can be catalyzed toward active engagement (Ward, Houston, & Witherspoon 2013).

This investigation also utilized some of the methods of Hovland (1938), who implemented rhythm, length of time, meter, and tone to teach phonetic pronunciations of letter and syllable sounds (with Caucasian learners), also known as rote learning. The tenets listed above in Hovland’s study are part of the foundation of poetry as described in this research. In additional studies, this phonetic learning style is argued to be one of the foundational methods in the use of phonics for teaching reading using traditional narrative text.

I sought to identify modes of communication whereby students with mild learning disabilities were motivated to participate in the reading readiness process and how it occurs. What was most essential to understand was that it was not just the engagement of the participants, it was what they did, how they acted, and what they created from the methods used to teach and learn.

This approach was designed around what students brought to the classroom versus what they did not. Most importantly, it used students’ cultural, familial, and communal lives as the foundation for the curriculum, which was also used in engaging and assessing their reading readiness. Individual agency/engagement was the crucial component in the reading readiness process and how it affected the social and interactional contexts in the classroom was what this study sought to understand. Investigating the process of using poetry as an alternative text required exploring a set of key questions that might help to explore the significance of using poetry as an alternative text.

Research Questions

The questions that guided this investigation examined how social and interactional contexts occur and how individual agency is communicated:

They included: (1) How does the use of poetry as a communication multimodality affect individual agency/engagement for reading readiness for African American learners with mild intellectual disabilities?

(2) How does engagement affect the social and interactional contexts for teaching and learning in the classroom for African American students with mild learning disabilities?

(3) What additional benefits for classroom dynamics result from using multimodal texts of poetry to engage African American students with mild learning disabilities?

The Passion

My interest in exploring this topic stemmed from what ministers of the Christian faith call a spiritual calling or God-given talent to write and produce written/oral curriculum texts, and educational rhythms for audio and visual texts which have been used throughout my artistic endeavors and during motherhood. Secondly, it has been my desire to continue the discussion of the state of underachievement in reading readiness for selected African American learners and the texts which are used to teach them on a scholarly platform. Additionally, the aim is to advocate for the enforcement of Public Law 94-142. This law calls for a free and appropriate education that includes students’ cultural heritage.

1996 was the year I began to use poetry as a way to communicate to inner-city youth by producing stage productions, which I wrote, produced, and directed. The production, Cherie Ward-One Voice: Empowerment Poetry Echoing Realities of Life, my second solo stage production, included dancers from Anacostia High School, a District of Columbia Public School, under the direction of Carol Foster. This production merged their dance movement with the spoken word, along with a live jazz trio. The student’s reactions were amazing. One of the female student participants commented, Spoken word really adds so much dimension to our dance. Moreover, the responses from the audience, including parents and sponsors, echoed the overriding point. The dance performance by the children helped to convey the lessons and life experiences I performed.

It was a collaboration that was educational, informative, and entertaining, which proved to be a moment of realization. Also, it was a time of clarity as I understood this collaboration with the children was something that could be built upon. The production was then edited for a one-hour television special, which was later nominated for a Gracie Award by the national organization Women in Film and Television. The education of young people then became the center of my artistic and academic efforts. This is an example of how a script became a multimodal text for a stage production, using music, dance, and drama, and then renegotiated into a television (audio and visual) production.

In the classroom, this kind of production has been a valuable tool and skill set because it enables me to create alternate discourses which can diversify the current texts and curriculum in such a way that children in urban classrooms have connected to. As a DCPS teacher (K-12) and a professor of higher learning, the tenets, practices, principles, and techniques put forth in the text have provided a universal language for diverse communities of learners whom I have taught.

For the purposes of this investigation, participants received reading interventions where the language was negotiable and applicable to many learning styles. The styles were interdisciplinary, multicultural, and targeted to particularly selected African American learners with mild learning disabilities. In the content of the appendices (2-7) the written/oral curriculum and audio and visual texts, which I created and implemented, are reflective of my passion for the reading process and proficiency of this group of learners.

Moreover, the ability to renegotiate poetic texts has been evident since being selected as one of 30 writers for the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum’s Using Art to Inspire Writing series. Over a four-year period, the museum conducted docent-led tours for a private group of poets and narrative writers to create original works based on various exhibits, which were then published and performed for the general public.

The poetry I penned was presented in all four of the museum’s publications in the following exhibits: Beauty, City Lights, George Segal, and Rodan. My contributions were the largest body of poetry in each of the groups. The negotiation of the art forms viewed in a museum (visual text) to be reinterpreted through written and spoken word (written/oral and audio texts) is where I have excelled. These efforts have clearly delineated and shown my sincere desire to utilize these same abilities to affect reading readiness for all children, but specifically, for African American learners with mild learning disabilities who attend urban public schools.

Additionally, I have continued to perform poetry in the areas of radio, television, and stage for more than 30 years in venues ranging from coffee houses and jazz clubs to Tedx talks/Town Hall Meetings to self-produced stage productions at the Lincoln Theatre, Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium, the Walter E. Washington Convention, and the John F. Kennedy Centers; a one-hour television special created for WHMM-TV 32 (now WHUT-Howard University Television) which was nominated for a Gracie Award. Other published works include the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum’s Using Art to Inspire Writing series, self-published books and an educational television pilot, Lumumba’s Playground, which won a 2012 Telley Award. Live performances, which were interactive, had to be renegotiated throughout the shows, based on the diversity of the audiences and their feedback. The same principle applies in a classroom with children, and as the teacher, even if a lesson plan for the day has been outlined, he/she encounters the possibility that its implementation may take a different direction than originally intended. This renegotiation can be seen in Session Six (Appendices F & G), which will be discussed later in this text.

Language must be negotiated in all communicative interactions because of what the individuals involved bring to the dialogue. In fact, communication in a classroom should be such that the children’s schema is infused into the daily curricula (Boykin 2000; Ward, Houston, & Witherspoon 2013). Utilizing creativity, writing, producing, directing, and editing skills on a daily basis for a significant portion of my professional careers in radio, television, film, and stage, has added invaluably to the enhancement of the types of multimodal texts that can be created, altered, and constantly renegotiated intertextually for classroom use. This book documents recognized successes, utilizing all the modalities during the investigation.

As an English/Language Arts teacher for five years, and a long-term substitute teacher for two years in the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) system, I have experienced and witnessed firsthand the political restraints surrounding the past and current history of the discourse. My concerns include the fact that so many children are underserved in the area of reading readiness because of the discourse of underachievement in reading readiness. Furthermore, the constrictions which are placed on teachers due to the scripted daily tasks required by the system cause many of them not to have the extra time it would require to create or ascertain the intertextual and creative options for them to engage their diverse learning groups with varying reading levels.

With this understanding, I have created and produced tailor-made multimodal texts to accommodate the special needs of selected African American children who are in compliance with DCPS common core reading standards (www.dcps.dc.gov, 2014). More alternatives are provided through (Laughing and Learning with Language and Lumumba’s Playground) which are accessible tools for teachers and students, to foster reading engagement needed to begin the process for reading readiness for these learners in urban schools.

Moreover, possessing a PhD in Communication, Culture, and Media