Y&M Magazine - Resource of the Month

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up:
Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word
by Linda Christensen
published by Rethinking Schools, $12.95

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up Cover Reading Linda Christensen’s book made me want to teach writing again. It reminded me how deeply words affect how we understand the world as well as how we express our worlds. And as I was reading this account of one woman’s 24 years in the classroom, I also read that African-American poet Gwendolyn Brooks died at the age of 83. Brooks, one of this century’s most political and visionary poets, also knew that words matter, particularly to the young people who have the fewest of them. "We Real Cool" from her early book The Bean Eaters is a classic expression of the consequences of that reality:

We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Think gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up speaks to some of the same issues that Brooks saw confronting young African-Americans of the fifties. If students leave school without the ability to imagine and express their imagination, they "die soon" – in whatever form that may take.

Christensen has written some overtly "political" chapters about language. "Teaching Standard English: Whose English?" explores the overlay of grammar, pronunciation, and learned attitudes toward those who deviate from the norm. She recognizes that it doesn’t help students not to know the norm, and it also does not help them to accept that it is the higher standard without being able to question and compare. "Asking my students to memorize the rules without asking who makes the rules, who enforces the rules, who benefits from the rules, who loses from the rules, who uses the rules to keep some in and keep others out, legitimates a social system that devalues my students’ knowledge and language. Teaching the rules without reflection also underscores that it’s OK for others – ‘authorities’ – to dictate something as fundamental and personal as the way they speak."

This book is also a teachers’ aid and gives useful suggestions for how to counter the wrong kind of lessons. In this instance, Christensen uses comparison and contrast to let students draw some of their own conclusions about the energy, value, and beauty of language. The class creates tapes and texts with examples of "standard" English and "home" English. "Most kids like the sound of their home language better. They like the energy, the poetry, and the rhythm of the language. We determine when and why people shift. We talk about why it might be necessary to learn Standard English."

For ten years I taught creative writing in a maximum security prison in upstate New York. Many of the problems Christensen describes in teaching in the public high school resonated with those I encountered in college-level classes among men of disparate ages and educational backgrounds. My students were older, some only minimally so, but the suggestions for helping students begin writing, for using writing to create community and unlearn myths that keep them from their own wisdom – these would have been wonderful for me to think about as I created lessons.

I particularly appreciate that Christensen understands and expresses the many things that writing can do without crediting it with "fixing" it all. Writing (and verbal expression) may help students develop a sense of self, but it won’t repair their damaged homes and communities. It won’t make life simple or easy. It won’t heal wounds. It will, however, give students a tool with which to tackle reconstruction. Without it, we all "die soon."

This book helps teachers who want to teach for change and action. It joins a small collection of books about using pedagogy for social justice by writers like bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Ariel Dorfman, and others. Reading, Writing, and Rising Up is an welcome addition to a continuing conversation.

Reviewed by Judith McDaniel. Judith is a poet and a former college teacher. She directs the American Friends Service Committee's Peacebuilding Unit.

2000. 186 pages. $12.95
Published by Rethinking Schools
1001 East Keefe Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53212
phone: 800-669-4192
web: www.rethinkingschools.org