Research Term Paper - The Exposition

“What are the most common challenges student readers and writers come across at all

stages of writing and reader and how can we actively fix these problems?”. I believe all students

have common gray areas in literature that can be fixed through institutions and school teachers if

the areas are being actively observed, researched, defined and worked against. Observing these

common issues through a cultural lens changes multiple aspects on how teachers can strategize

to promote advancing through literature despite cultural differences and learning deficiencies.

Childhood and early stages of learning how to read and write at home preps children for

school teachings of literature. I remember growing up in my predominately white neighborhood

in North Carolina with two parents who had a mix of the sounds of the Caribbean and Brooklyn,

New York. I was taught basic phrases and how to read and write from workbooks. I knew all the

vocabulary from Dick and Jane like the back of my hand. I remember writing the alphabet on

worksheets in cursive and print. My father would gift me poetry books from black authors like

Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. I remember studying Angelous poems and writing styles

and being fascinated with them as a young girl. Angelou used a lot of literary devices like

apostrophes, anaphoras, repetition, end rhymes, similes, metaphors, imagery, and alliteration.

She would write about her childhood, family and experiences of racism that I could relate to. I

also grew up hearing different dialects and phrases of patois that I adapted into my language of

English that made me culturally stand out at school.

English and Writing teachers have a big impact on students and how they learn and

interact in a haelthy way towards peers and literature. I have vivid positive memories of reading,

writing, or activities that involved them that teachers turned into fun ice breaker activities where
we had to ask classmates questions and write their names and interests to learn names and a little

bit about each other. My earliest memory of reading and writing was as a baby reading Dr.Seuss

and writing cursive in guided practices. The formats and requirements frustrated me most about

reading and writing as I learned and progressed through school. Free writing and getting to

choose the topics, or authors is what pleased me the most about them. I specifically enjoyed

reading Nancy Drew, Baby Mouse, and Geronimo Stilton. I was a part of my elementary school’s

book club, and I remember winning a free book from the book fair once for checking out the

most books in the year than anyone in my grade.

Writing and reading literature in wide arrays of genres and forms can sharpen students

skills in literature. I remember completing many writings in the past. I have written informative,

creative, funny, timed, short, long, mysterious, and many more genres. I have done many

readings as well. Biographies, fantasies, poetry, fiction, horror, dramas, thrillers, and more. My

most memorable writings were my 5th-grade graduation speech, my first trip to Grenada writing

in elementary school, and my college application essay. My most memorable reading was The

Hate U Give and reading Amanda Gormans Inaugural speech/poem. I could relate and

understand everything she carried herself so well and the speech came out beautifully. Only six

wordsmiths have read in the U.S. Presidential Inaugurations, and only four presidents have heard

them so this was such an accomplishment. She is a young black girl and her speech embodied me

and many black people worldwide who saw a brighter future ahead for us with Joe Biden and

Kamala Harris in office.

Teacher led techniques for students can help create a template and organized way for

students to take in and comprehend literature at all stages in their journey as students. I think my

feelings about and habits of writing and reading come from visualizing, activating schema,
questioning, inferring, determining importance and monitoring for meaning and synthesizing. I

got these habits from school through English class, this is how students at my school adapted

their habits. These habits helped me both as a writer and reader. Me growing up learning how to

read and write helped me build a base to move up from. My past in English class has made me

the unique kind of writer and reader I am today. I have worked on organizing my thoughts in

charts and layouts before writing. I have learned how to write opinionated, fact based, fantasy,

fiction & nonfiction and many more genes.

In order to work through a cultural lens of evaluating and defining my research question,

I researched intel from multiple sources on why students have literacy issues and ways to combat

them. In Grace Tatter’s article English Learners and Reading Challenges; Helping educators

gain new tools to assess, intervene, and support struggling readers (and language learners) she

identifies that the two most common struggles for students is the lack of instruction and support.

I had instruction and support from both my parents and teachers throughout my experience as a

student and I know without this guidance I would have more issues with my comprehemstion in

literature. Tatter makes the excellent point that whether the issue roots from an actual learning

disability in reading or if it’s more of an academic learning skill issue it still needs to be

addressed. Tatter feels as though students need support as they are tasked with absorbing skills

and content in English while they’re learning the language. As we observe common literacy

challenges for all students through a cultural lens this is important to note. I learned from

immagrant parents who knew English but with a dialect to it. This caused mnor issues for me in

English class growing up, so to consider students who might not have English speaking parents

or understanding teachers/ circumstances to help guide them is an issue. The source lists the best

practices for identifying reading disabilities in English learners as of right now. These practices
include; assessing language and literacy in the non-English language, using informal and

dynamic assessments that allows English learners to demonstrate what they know and how they

learn, using multiple measures that cover oral and written language competencies, and actively

consulting the manuals of all standardized tests administered in schools to investigate how

English learners are represented in the norming sample. (Tatter, October 2018, p.1)

Students and Teachers are both valuable components to a brighter future for literacy

comprehension and skills for students. In Elizabeth A. Gruenbaums book Common Literacy

Struggles with College Students: Using the Reciprocal Teaching Technique, the Reciprocal

Teaching technique is introduced and explained. Gruenbaums explains it as so, “The Reciprocal

Teaching (RT) tech- nique involves a group effort between instructors and students, and among

students with their peers, focused on bringing meaning to text.” (Gruenbaum, Spring 2012,

p.110). This technique is a dual technique that involves both the teacher and the student to

enhance student comprehension and meta comprehension. This technique can help address

research and writing skills as well by using the summarizing technique RT suggests to help

students in using headings and keywords. This allows the students needs to be the full focus of

the teacher without making the situation seemed forced or targeted. This use of a technique that

all students would learn in their curriculums would focus on the student’s needs and create

interventions and activities to help based on this. RT encourages student interaction because it

allows students to lead discussions and facilitate their learning through peer feedback and

tutoring. RT allows instructions to actively model skills and strategies by giving specific and

concrete examples of good reading behaviors, research strategies and providing examples of
stellar writing. Overall RT encourages self-monitoring for students to advance in reading and

writing. RT introduces one solution to a common problem to most students.

In the book Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers Strategies for Classroom

Intervention, 3-6 By Dorothy S. Strickland, Kathy Ganske, Joanne K. Monroe, the authors

explore factors like linguistic and cultural differences, learning disabilities, and students' lack of

motivation to understand settings in which students are most likely to be at risk for failure. The

main topics advice the reader to think about being more encouraging and sympathetic to the

students needs and abilities when it comes to writing and reading. The idea of diversity and

capability of students based on their life experiences and surroundings as children are big factors.

Through a cultural lens this should be the main focus in order to aim for being inclusive,

accepting, including, inviting, being strategical, and thinking about all the variables needed to be

instructive in decision making. Classroom implications include the teacher being an explicit

reading model, book rich classroom environments, opportunities for choice, opportunities to

interact socially with others, opportunities to become familiar with lots of books, appropriate

reading related incentives, and overall creating situations that inspire reading and writing.
References

Gruenbaum, E. A. (2012). Common Literacy Struggles with College Students: Using the

Reciprocal Teaching Technique. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 42(2), Spring

2012. (peer reviewed)

Tatter, G. (2018, October 19). English learners and reading challenges. Harvard Graduate

School of Education. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/10/english-learners-and-reading-challenges.

Strickland, D. S., Ganske, K., & Monroe, J. K. (2002). Supporting struggling readers and
writers: Strategies for classroom intervention, 3-6. Stenhouse Publishers.

Peer review- Danielle McCollum

Part C

Some changes that need to be made were some of the vague topic sentences in the beginning of your
paragraphs. I felt that sometimes there was repetition when it came to you discussing your own personal
experiences with reading and writing. I feel like that could be changed with adding some more specific details
about your struggles and triumphs like you did in your first body paragraph. Also with some of the
paragraphs that involve a source, you have to make sure to make a claim or provide a topic sentence that will
properly introduce the quote. There also needs to be a clear analysis that follows the quote and wraps up your
idea. Your sources seem valuable and cohesive, just need to make sure that there are two peer reviewed
sources and a minimum of 4 sources. I felt like I ended this paper without getting the full grasp because there
was no final summarization of the topics that were discussed. Just make sure to add a short conclusion that
wraps up your ideas and closes out your statement. Good job!

My feedback to peer review

It did seem like my peer put some thought into giving me feedback. They provided good commentary
on my main mistakes on my paper. They used the ladder of abstraction, rhetorical source reading strategies
and prompt requirements to highlight what I could work on. The main issues were typos, and repetitive
sentences I could delete. I could also shorten my own personal experiences and tie in more sources to
highlight my research question and theme of my paper based off the feedback I got. This made me rethink the
organization of my essay, I am going to definitely go back and put in my other sources then tryb to connect
them all to help the paper flow and connect overall to my theme.