The reading that resonated with me most this week was ““Dear Tupac, you speak to me”: Recruiting Hip Hop as Curriculum at a School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens” by Heidi L. Hallman. I think that this reading demonstrates that pop culture literacy is inappropriately undervalued in educational settings. In education classes, we read a lot about the difficulties of connecting with students and engaging them with the course material. In this article, Hallman’s examination of “out-of-school” literacies demonstrates that not only should elements of pop culture be incorporated into the classroom, but they can also serve as effective and creative modes of entry into the curriculum.  I was particularly interested in how being able to write about Hip Hop songs and artists inspired the pregnant and parenting teens to express their own feelings and stories through verse and prose; the songs that spoke to the students seemed to serve as better models for self-reflection than a form of traditional in-school literacy, such as a textbook or one of the novels in the educational literary canon.

The connection between Hip Hop and autobiographical expression also reminded me of an English class I took last semester on Jay-Z, which was called “Shawn Carter: Autobiography of an Autobiographer.”  This class marked my first experience in which out-of-school literacies, which I did not have, were valued over in-school literacies. Although I felt out of my element through much of the semester, I learned about the connection between Hip Hop and identity and developed a better understanding and appreciation for rap lyrics and artistry. I also witnessed the high level of engagement and participation that results from allowing students to employ their pop culture knowledge in a classroom setting. I found the class discussions to be both provocative and highly relevant; they seemed like more advanced and academic versions of conversations my friends and I were having. Learning about Hip Hop also gave me new tools for expressing my own identity and prompted me to conceptualize my  autobiography in a different way.

Although I grew tremendously as a writer and listener in the class on Jay-Z, it didn’t occur to me that high school students might also benefit from a course that employs Hip Hop music until I mentioned the class to one of the senior high school students in the classroom that I observe. He was so excited about the prospect of taking an entire course on his favorite rapper that he told me that he would apply to Vassar with the solely based on that class. It was exciting to see a student become passionate simply about potential course content. I think that my experience with the student, in addition to Hallman’s article, demonstrates that if educators crossed the line between in-school and out-of-school literacies and brought pop culture into the classroom, it would open up the curriculum and student involvement in new and exciting ways.

Harvey Daniels’s article on exchanging weekly letters with his students really resonated with me.  Although the concept of reading and writing letters to 50 – 100 students is daunting, I was able to imagine myself undertaking this task even before I had finished reading the article. As I work towards my teaching certification, I frequently encounter new concerns about engaging my future students, but it is not often that I read about a strategy that I immediately want to try. Because my educational background and funds of knowledge derive from a white upper-middle class upbringing and private schools, one of my primary concerns as a future teacher is that I will not be able to connect with students from a variety of different backgrounds. The idea of forging bounds through writing letters seems like a viable solution to this concern because I can connect with my students by demonstrating genuine and sustained interest in their lives rather than through superficial similarities that may not exist.

As put forth by Daniels, other positive outcomes of this student-teacher correspondence are it “allows the teacher to model good writing, to create a just-right text for each child to read, [and] to see and assess each student’s writing skills” (Daniels 128). I imagine myself as a teacher being a stickler for grammar, so I see these letters as an opportunity to demonstrate proper grammar and punctuation while not having to edit the students writing. I also appreciated Daniels’s advice to “write informally” and allow students to see crossed out and misspelled words. I think that allowing the student to see the teacher’s thought process makes the teacher seem more human and less like a knowledge dispenser.

The final aspect of Daniels’s article that I appreciated was the strategies for giving students both positive and critical feedback within the letters. He makes the point that when students receive feedback in this private manner, “it is less likely the kid will react defensively or feel a need to act defiant in front of peers” (Daniels 140).  This also allows the student to reflect on his or her behavior and devise a strategy for improvement. In this way, the teacher gives a student agency over his or her classroom conduct; an individual’s behavior can consequently improve as a result of his or her own choices, not the reprimands of the teacher. I realize that implementing this program on a large scale may overwhelm teachers, but I definitely want to try it when I teach because I think that the rewarding relationships that emerge from these letters far exceeds the effort.