Culture, Literacy, and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind

by Carol D. Lee

How can educators improve the literacy skills of students in historically underachieving urban high schools? In this timely book, the author offers a theoretical framework for the design of instruction that is both culturally responsive and subject-matter specific, rooted in examples of the implementation of the Cultural Modeling Project. Presented here, the Cultural Modeling Project draws on competencies students already have in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) discourse and hip-hop culture to tackle complex problems in the study of literature. Using vivid descriptions from real classrooms, the author describes how AAVE supported student learning and reasoning; how students in turn responded to the reform initiative; and how teachers adapted the cultural framework to the English/language arts curriculum. While the focus is on literacy and African American students, the book examines the functions of culture in facilitating learning and offers principles for leveraging cultural knowledge in support of subject matter specific to academic learning. This much-awaited book offers important lessons for researchers, school district leaders, and local practitioners regarding the complex ways that cultural knowledge is constructed and plays out in classroom life, in the life of a school, and in the life of a whole-school reform initiative. “This is an intellectually stimulating and beautifully written volume that brings forth the authentic voices of urban youth as they seamlessly meld with Lee's exquisite and nuanced theories of culture, pedagogy, power, and learning.”
Gloria Ladson-Billings , University of Wisconsin and Past President, AERA
“This powerful book provides a living roadmap for tackling the achievement disparities that persist for ethnic minority and poor children in U.S. schools. This is a book that will open its readers’ eyes to the concrete possibility of an uncompromising education that could work.”
― Deborah Loewenberg Ball , Dean and William H. Payne Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally - a book on urban literature education that puts its own theories into practice. I've never read of a pedagogical approach that I would agree with in its entirety, but Lee comes fairly close. Particularly useful is that she provides readers with transcripts and classroom examples that illustrate her approach & allow us to track student growth throughout her project.

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read
Just didn’t hit the target is aimed to find
She interrogated a set of assumptions which constrict our ability to understand the valuable resources young children bring with them to a place we call school
She acknowledges class biases and invisible walls that hold access from the ones who need it most
Worth reading if you have spare time

[Crystal Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this book was a bit too convoluted for me, filled with a zillion academic theories. Some good points about creating cultural classroom models in the English classroom. What I did not like, was the fact that the book began with a sensational narrative which created a stereotypical view of the violence in urban schools, and then turned into a dissertation thereafter. It was almost as if violence in urban schools was used as bait for the reader. I am not convinced that Lee's Cultural Modeling is any different from Cultural Responsive Pedagogy, although she claims (over and over) that it is...

[Grace]

Didn't finish reading it.