In Search of Funding: Providing Open Access to Secondary Discourses

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In Search of Funding Providing Open Access to
Secondary Discourses

• Stacey Shubitz
• Teachers College, Columbia University
• P.S. 171, East Harlem
• Literate Lives A Human Right
• Whole Language Umbrella
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Friday, July 13th, 2007

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Primary Discourses

• Primary discourses are taught early in life as
  part of peoples primary socialization (as
  members of particular families within their
  socio-cultural settings).
• Primary discourses constitute the first social
  identity discourses are a part of each persons
  knowledge base.
• Everyone learns a considerable amount about
  language as they develop through interaction with
  their primary discourse.
• Most of the information people learn about
  language through their primary discourse is
  acquired subconsciously.
• People either accept or resist their primary
  discourse later in life since primary discourses
  form initial understandings of
• who people are.
• how people behave in and out of public.
• the sorts of things people value, do and say in
  and out of public.

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Secondary Discourses

• The secondary discourse refers to all other
  social and cultural discourses outside the
  primary discourse.
• Secondary discourses are learned, as part of
  ones socialization, within groups and
  institutions outside of ones peer group.
• Secondary discourses are those learned by people
  when they become part of groups after their early
  home experiences.
• Businesses, churches and schools are examples of
  groups for which one must learn a secondary
  discourse.

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Secondary Discourses, cont.

• Secondary discourses involve the social
  institutions beyond the family, including
  classroom settings. 
• Students may acquire language from their
  secondary discourse and add it to their primary
  discourse. 
• A persons discourse becomes more complex and
  acquires more layers the older one becomes.

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CRITICAL LITERACY

• Guiding Question
• How do I provide my students, who come from low
  SES/working class backgrounds, with access to as
  many secondary discourses as possible?

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DECONSTRUCTION

• Patrick Finn, author of Literacy with an
  Attitude Educating Working-Class Children in
  Their Own Self-Interest, encourages teachers in
  working class schools to give their students
  access to the same experiences as students in
  affluent professional and elite schools.
• Bottom Line Working class students need access
  to secondary discourses!
• The question becomes How do you make this happen
  when funds are scarce?

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DECONSTRUCTION

• The stigma of being poor is overwhelming and can
  place families in a position of endless denial so
  as to not carry the burden of shame that is
  placed upon them by the larger society (Jones,
  2006, 22).
• Students should not have to accept a handout or
  be punished by staying behind.

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RECONSTRUCTION

• Making families pay for trips, when they could
  barely afford basic school supplies, is not fair.
• Why shouldnt they have the same enriching
  educational experiences as middle class and
  affluent students have?

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SOCIAL ACTION

• SOLUTION Seek out funds or partnerships so that
  students can obtain secondary discourses.
• DonorsChoose
• Field Trip Factory
• Junior Achievement of New York
• Local Organizations
• Partnerships with local organizations (e.g.,
  WABC-TV)

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Take advantage of local organizations and
resources

• Free Field Trips
• Examples
• Brooklyn Botanical Garden
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Museum of the City of New York
• New York Botanical Garden
• Poets House
• No-Cost Excursions
• Examples
• Libraries
• Parks (e.g., Central Park)
• Zoos (many have a free day for schools)

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Field Trip Factory

• Free community-based field trips in the following
  disciplines
• Animal Habitats and Responsibility
• Farm Fundamentals
• Health and Wellness
• Materials and classroom activities are provided
  online, free of charge
• http//fieldtripfactory.com

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Partnerships

• Junior Achievement
• http//www.ja.org/
• Career Day
• Classroom Course Volunteer
• Local Business Week
• WABC-TV
• Holiday Gifts
• Tour of the Studio

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DonorsChoose

• Teachers write proposals for materials or
  experiences they want their students to have.
• Citizen philanthropists fund those experiences.
• From March 2005 present, my fifth grade
  classroom has received nearly 25,000 in funds
  from DonorsChoose.
• DonorsChoose will serve 48 states starting on
  Labor Day.
• www.donorschoose.org

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Field TripsSample Proposal Titles

• Bridges and Boundaries African-Americans and
  American Jews (The Jewish Museum)
• East Harlem Kids Meet Van Gogh, Kandinsky, and
  Picasso (Guggenheim Museum Tour and Studio
  Session)
• George Washington Stood Here (Fraunces Tavern
  Museum)
• How the Other Half Lived (Tenement Museum and
  walking tour of the Lower East Side)
• Positive Discipline Celebration (End of the Year
  Party at the Little Shop of Crafts)
• Slavery in New York It really did happen! (NY
  Historical Society)
• Vegetable Lady Seeks Farm Fresh Food for East
  Harlem Students (Union Sq. Farmers Market)
• WILD Poetry (Bronx Zoo Poetry Class)

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Literacy ResourcesSample Proposal Titles

• African-American Author Study (Jacqueline Woodson
  Books)
• CHICK LIT (books with strong girl characters)
• Empowering the Voices of Ten Girls from East
  Harlem (seed money to publish a book of student
  writing)
• Eve Bunting Author Study (Eve Bunting Books)
• Literacy Crisis in East Harlem ? We Need Books by
  Hispanic Authors!!! (chapter and picture books by
  Hispanic authors)
• Poems Dont Always Have to Rhyme (poetry books)
• Social Issue Book Clubs for a GT Class in East
  Harlem (multiple copies of books)
• Socks Belong on Feet Not on Hands! (Word Study
  Supplies)

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Classroom SuppliesSample Proposal Titles

• Are Renoir, Hockney or De La Vega Hiding Inside
  of My East Harlem Fifth Graders? (art supplies)
• Black Hole Backpacks (book baggies and parent
  communication pouches)
• CLIP IT GO! (clipboards)
• Communal Supplies for East Harlem Fifth Graders
  (supplies)
• Cursive Crisis (books and supplies needed to
  teach script)
• (Re)Filler Up! (printer cartridges and paper)
• Special Delivery with a Mailbox Organizer
  (classroom mail box)

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Special ProgrammingSample Proposal Titles

• Hurricane Katrina Help Kids Start School with
  Dignity (philanthropy project for KIPP NOW School
  relocated to New Orleans)
• OHM! Yoga in East Harlem (yoga classes)
• The Worlds A Stage (theater residency)

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Other Organizations

• Adopt-A-Classroom
• www.adoptaclassroom.com
• Grants Alert
• http//www.grantsalert.com/gsft.cfm
• This site links to corporations that provide
  grants for educators.
• Teachers Network
• www.teachersnetwork.org

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QA

• Ask away!

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Closing Thoughts

• As an educator in a working class school, I have
  come to realize I am unable to change the
  socio-economic status of the families whose
  children I am privileged to teach.
• However, I pledge to continue helping my students
  gain access to secondary discourses by taking
  advantage of local resources and writing grant
  proposals so I can give all of my students the
  rich educational experiences I believe they
  deserve.
• What do you pledge to do? What will your next
  steps be?

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References

• BOOKS
• Finn, P.D. (1999). Literacy with an attitude
  Educating working-class children in their own
  self-interest. Albany SUNY.
• Gee, J.P. (1990). What is literacy? In
  Mitchell, C. Walker K. (Eds.) Rewriting
  literacy Culture and the discourse of the other.
  Westport, CT Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
• Jones, S. (2006). Girls, social class
  literacy What teachers can do to make a
  difference. Portsmouth, NH Heinemann.
• WEB
• http//www.literacyandtechnology.org/v1n2/wsu/klau
  s.html
• http//www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID1232
  0
• http//findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3785/is_20
  0407/ai_n9419922/pg_4
• http//links.jstor.org/sici?sici0380-2361(199924)
  243A13C943AEFLLAS3E2.0.CO3B2-7