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Teaching and Learning
The nature and context of instruction are what matter most in engaging
students in learning. Although policies at the school level and beyond affect
what goes on in classrooms, classroom instruction how and what teachers
teach is the proximal and most powerful factor in student engagement
and learning. In this chapter we discuss what is known about engaging
teaching, with special attention to the needs of students in economically
disadvantaged urban settings.
Teaching at the high school level is challenging in part because students
are expected to master discipline-specific knowledge that does not have
obvious relevance to real-life settings. What does the reading of a John
Donne poem or solving an algebraic equation have to do with adolescents'
lives or even their anticipated roles as workers and parents in adulthood?
The challenges are particularly daunting in low-income urban communi-
ties, where many students enter high school with low skill levels and limited
English proficiency, and lack stable resources in the form of family income,
housing, or health care. Any of these risk factors can increase the likelihood
that students will be unmotivated to engage productively in the intellectual
demands of the high school curriculum.
Research on teaching is vast, but concentrated on the elementary level.
Consequently, although a fair amount is known about effective pedagogy
for adolescents, the research base is meager compared to that which is
focused on younger children. Concentrating on studies involving students
in urban high schools limits the empirical base even further.
Despite the relative scarcity of studies on subject-matter teaching at the
60
1 1 1 1 1
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TEACHING AND LEARNING
6
high school level, there is evidence that can be used to guide instructional
planning (Alvermann and Moore, 19911. We discuss in this chapter what is
known about effective teaching in literacy and mathematics, focusing espe-
cially on research involving urban low-income students and students of
color. We selected these two subject areas because they are considered core
and they are instrumental to learning other subject matter. In the final
section of the chapter we discuss research on school organizational factors
and conditions of teaching that best enable the kind of teaching that re-
search suggests is most effective.
LITERACY
The teaching of reading, writing, and speaking at the high school level
ideally takes place in every subject matter. Students are expected to read
literature and write essays and creative pieces in English-language arts, and
to read textbooks and occasionally primary source documents in history,
social studies, and science. Although there tends to be little reading in
mathematics, mathematical literacy is required to understand and evaluate
public arguments (often in newspapers and magazines and on television
programming) and forms of advertising where numerical data are used as
evidence (Paulos, 1990, 19951. Many students come to high-poverty schools
with poor proficiency in reading and writing, and few urban high schools
are prepared to address the double challenge of meeting students' basic
literacy needs while teaching them to tackle the complex reading and writ-
ing tasks of the disciplines (Finders, 1998-1999; Jimerson, Egeland, and
Teo, 1999; Roderick and Camburn, 19991.
Gains have been made in mathematics achievement over the past de-
cade, but not in reading. On the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP), 17-year-olds today read no better than their counterparts
a decade ago. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores also have remained
flat. Furthermore, huge gaps exist among different ethnic groups. African-
American and Latino 17-year-olds taking the NAEP read about as well as
and have vocabularies roughly equivalent to those of white 13-year-olds
(NCES, l999b; Phillips, Crouse, and Ralph, 19981. Reading problems are
particularly pronounced in the high schools of large urban districts in low-
income communities (Campbell et al., 2000; Dreeben and Gamoran, 1986;
Education Trust, 1999; Guiton and Oakes, 19951. In the 35 largest central
cities in the country, more than half of entering 9th-grade students read at
the 6th-grade level or below (Grosso de Leon, 20021.
The poor progress in developing literacy skills may be explained in part
by adolescents' low participation in literacy activities. Based on NAEP
survey data, 25 percent of 17-year-olds currently report reading fewer than
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
five pages per day for both schoolwork and homework (see Education
Trust, 20011.
What Is Involved in Reading?i
Reading is a form of problem solving (Olshavsky, 1976-19771.2 When
good readers first encounter a text, they search for clues about topic, theme,
or perspective. They search their long-term memory for models or explana-
tions that can provide a filter for understanding the rest of the text. For
example, if the reader sees the word "bat" in the title or first sentence, she
searches her prior knowledge and reads on to find out whether this story
will be about baseball or animals that fly.
An abundance of research in reading documents the powerful role that
prior knowledge plays in reading comprehension. For example, if the title
of a story has the word "sine," and the reader has no clue what a "sine" is,
he will have difficulty making sense of the text. Readers need knowledge of
topics, vocabulary, and the structure of words, sentences, paragraphs, and
texts (e.g., stories versus expository texts). Stories may be structured as
mysteries, science fiction, magical realism, or satire. The structure of ex-
pository texts may be extended definition, comparison-contrast, or prob-
lem-solution. Consideration of these kinds of prior knowledge that students
bring from their lives inside and outside of school is crucial to teaching
reading comprehension.
Readers must actively construct their understanding of texts from word
to word within sentences, from sentence to sentence, from paragraph to
paragraph, from section to section, and even across texts. Whereas a liter-
ary reading may emphasize searching for multiple, nuanced meanings of
words, phrases, and whole texts, reading a scientific report does not involve
such degrees of freedom. Knowledge in scientific writing may be communi-
cated through words, mathematical formulas, graphs, or illustrations of
patterns and cycles. Concepts are often communicated through technical
vocabulary that has very specialized meaning in the particular scientific
domain. For example, the word force may mean one thing in physics from
the perspective of the Theory of Relativity and something qualitatively
different from the perspective of Quantum Theory. Reading primary source
documents in history requires the reader to question the potential biases of
1In order to address one area with some depth, we have elected to focus on reading, rather
than on the challenges of teaching written composition or speaking.
2For thorough reviews of what research says about what is involved in the process of
comprehending written texts, see the following: Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearson, and Barr (2000).
For more succinct reviews of the research on reading comprehension, see the following:
Fielding and Pearson (1994); Pearson and Dole (1987); Pressley (2000).
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TEACHING AND LEARNING
63
the author and to search across multiple texts to find other perspectives.
The structure of sentences in both historical documents (such as the Decla-
ration of Independence, the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, the essays of
Francis Bacon) and older literary works can be difficult to parse because
they are long and complex. Very different evidence is required to make
cogent arguments in support of Darwin's theory of evolution in contrast to
the claim that the character of Sethe in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved was
justified in killing her baby to keep the baby from being taken back into the
horrors of the African Holocaust of Enslavement. These are just a few
examples to illustrate the complexity of the task of reading in the disci-
plines.
The extraordinary access to information in this new information age
also has important implications for our definition of literacy and the skills
that need to be taught. The World Wide Web makes information available,
including technical information, that nonspecialists previously could not
easily access. But the information available on the Web is often not accurate
or objective. More than ever, students need to be taught to critically evalu-
ate information, consider its source and possible biases, and compare and
contrast claims from various sources. A literate citizen must now have a
higher level of critical and analytic skills than was true even a decade ago.
These forms of critical evaluation, reasoning, and making sense of
different kinds of texts in different subject matters should be the object of
literacy study at the high school level. But most secondary teachers, regard-
less of subject matter, have little formal training in the teaching of reading,
nor specifically in the problems of reading in the subject matters they teach
(Anders, Hoffman, and Duffy, 20001. Literacy skills are not taught in part
because many teachers believe that they are teachers of subject matter not
teachers of reading (Anders et al., 2000; O'Brien, Stewart, and Moje, 1995;
Romaine, McKenna, and Robinson, 1996), or they assume that students
with poor reading skills cannot tackle difficult texts. Rather than provide
instruction on how to develop the skills students need, teachers often give
them watered-down textbooks (Alvermann and Moore, 19911.
Literacy needs to be taught in urban high schools, both to ensure that
students have access to subject matter instruction and to develop their
literacy skills in various subject matters. By implementing existing knowI-
edge of motivation and effective pedagogy, we can provide instruction that
engages students and helps them achieve high levels of literacy (Ol~father
and DahI, 1995; father and McLaughlin, 1993; father and Thomas,
1998; Verhoeven and Snow, 20011. We summarize evidence on effective
strategies for teaching reading, then illustrate these teaching principles by
describing some exemplary programs.
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Effective Pedagogy
Literacy Teaching and Student Engagement
ENGAGING SCHOOLS
Few empirical studies explicitly link particular approaches to literacy
instruction with stuclent engagement and even fewer studies inclucle large
samples of ethnically diverse, low-income high school students (Verhoeven
and Snow, 20011. Consistent with the general principles of motivation
cliscusseci in Chapter 2, correlational studies reviewed by Guthrie and
Wigfielci (2000) inclicate that students who believe they have some control
over achievement outcomes and have a sense of competency are relatively
more motivated to react. Furthermore, studies have shown that students
who react outside of school become better reaclers (Anclerson, Wilson, and
Fielcling, 1988; Fielcling, 1994; Guthrie, Schafer, Wang, and Afflerbach,
19951. Most of the latter studies, however, have been with elementary-ageci
children.
in one of the few large-scale studies of aclolescents, Cappella and
Weinstein (2001) examined reacting resilience, using a cohort of 1,362
students in the National Eclucational Longituclinal Stucly (NELS) of 1988.
Resilience was operationally clefineci as turning around low reacting achieve-
ment in the 8th gracle by the 12th gracle. They clistinguisheci between distal
risk factors (e.g., low socioeconomic status, single-parent househoici) and
proximal risk factors (e.g., school environment, curriculum). By the 12th
gracle, only 15 percent of the students who haci been at risk for continued
low achievement in reacting in the 8th gracle haci acivanceci to intermediate
or acivanceci reacting proficiency, so the resilient group was small. As has
been founci in the achievement motivation studies cliscusseci in Chapter 2,
students' beliefs preclicteci their resilience. Students who believed they haci
the power to affect outcomes were more likely to show significant improve-
ment in their reacting skills. In a similar vein, eighth-gracle eclucational
expectations preclicteci resilience 4 years later, in conjunction with taking
rigorous acac emlc courses.
In the next section, we will describe the features of literacy instruction
that appear to promote learning. Although the studies reviewed clo not
assess engagement clirectly, it seems safe to assume that improved achieve-
ment involveci increased engagement. The features cliscusseci inclucle forms
of task structure, task complexity, grouping practices, evaluation tech-
niques, motivational strategies, and quality of stuclent-teacher and stuclent-
stuclent relationships.
Features of Effective Pedagogies for Literacy
The instructional approaches supported by research on literacy learn-
ing are dramatically different from what is usually seen in low-performing
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65
urban high schools. The high school English-language arts curriculum usu-
ally involves disconnected lists of books and readings of the same authors
(Alvermann and Moore, 1991; Applebee, 1993,1996; Applebee and Purves,
1992), and teaching remains largely "frontal" lecturing (Applebee,
Burroughs, and Stevens, 2000; Hillocks, 19991. Reading in the content
areas tends to be limited to textbooks and is not characterized by strategy
instruction (Alvermann and Moore, 1991; Bean, 2000~. Although more
innovative instructional practices and uses of technology are being imple-
mented in many schools, they are less common in urban high schools
serving low-income students and students of color (Irvine, 1990;
McDermott, 1987; Pillar, 1992~.
Based on the accumulated research findings regarding the teaching of
reading comprehension (Education Trust, 1999; Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw,
and Rycik, 1999; National Reading Panel, 2000; Pressley, 2000; Roehier
and Duffy, 1991; Snow, 2002), we abstract the following features of suc-
cessful pedagogy in literacy:
Personalized relationships
Authentic tasks
Capitalizing on cultural knowledge
Use of multiple resources
Rigorous and challenging instruction
Explicit instruction
Frequent feedback from assessments
· Integrated curricula
We elaborate on each of these features.
As discussed in previous chapters, the term personalized relationships
refers to the nature of relationships between and among adults and stu-
dents. The nature of interpersonal relationships may be socialized through
classroom structures such as small-group and whole-class instruction
through the norms for who can talk and about what. In addition to facili-
tating social connections, researchers have found that providing students
with opportunities to interact with each other, such as by debating impor-
tant ideas and working in small groups, increased the amount of reading
and thinking about texts in which students engaged (Alvermann and Hynd,
1989; Guthrie et al., 19951. The task of creating personalized relationships
between adults and adolescents can be more complex in low-income urban
schools, where many adolescents carry out adult-like roles (as parents,
caregivers for siblings, financial support for families) while expected to
fulfill more child-like roles at school, but may be more important for these
students than for more affluent students (Burton, Allison, and Obeidallah,
1995~.
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
Authentic tasks involve reading and writing activities that have some
meaning in the world outside of school. Students who have been disengaged
from academic work often do not see why the reading and writing they are
asked to do in school matters for their personal development, for their
future adult roles, or for the communities in which they live. Authentic
tasks that require the application of complex reasoning in real-worId set-
tings are more motivating and produce higher academic achievement (Lee,
Smith, and Croninger, 19951. Ideally, authentic tasks also must be funda-
mentally linked to problems and modes of reasoning within the academic
subject matter.
Studies also suggest the value of capitalizing on students' cultural
knowledge. All knowledge is cultural. The question is whose cultural knowI-
edge is privileged or made accessible in instruction (Moll and Greenberg,
19901. The lack of congruence between students' life experiences and in-
struction in most schools has been well documented, especially for low-
income students, students of color, and English-language learners (Banks
and Banks, 1993; Delpit, 1988; Gay, 1988; Hilliard, 1991-1992; Nieto,
1992; Philips, 19831. We also know that prior knowledge is crucial to all
acts of learning and especially to reading. Students sometimes have diffi-
culty understanding texts that are not related to their personal experiences
and cultures because they lack the appropriate prior knowledge of the
topic, or they do not know how to tap into relevant knowledge they do
have.
Lee (199Sa, l995b, 2001) addresses this challenge in her work with
low-income African-American high school students with histories of low
achievement in reading. She designed a framework for culturally responsive
curriculum and instruction related to literature, although the framework is
applicable to other reading and problem solving in other subject matters.
Lee's Cultural Modeling Framework for teaching literature identifies cat-
egories of problems in the high school literature curriculum that are consid-
ered generative. These include recognizing symbolism, irony, satire, using
unreliable narrators, and using specific strategies for rejecting a literal inter-
pretation and reconstructing a figurative interpretation (Rabinowitz, 1987;
Smith and Hillocks, 19881. The approach involves using students' cultural
knowledge to learn technical literary concepts. For example, students learn
figurative language by analyzing familiar literary forms, such as oral genres
of African-American Vernacular English, rap lyrics, and film clips. Lee
argues that speakers of African-American Vernacular English already have
a tacit understanding of these language forms, but do not activate that
knowledge in school-based contexts. Using culturally familiar material and
a specially designed curriculum, Lee's intervention was successful in getting
students with low standardized reading scores to tackle complex works of
literature. The conventions for instructional talk in Cultural Modeling class-
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67
rooms included the productive use of African-American Vernacular English
discourse norms. Similar approaches to discipline-specific and culturally
responsive pedagogies in literacy have been reported elsewhere (Ball, 1992,
l995b; Foster, 1987; Mahiri, 1998~.
The value of allowing students to use multiple resources or sources of
help to gain mastery was discussed recently by Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez,
and Tejada (1999) and is supported by an abundance of research on learn-
ing (see National Research Council, 19991. Such resources may include
support from peers, from competencies in languages other than English,
and from tools such as computers. Examples of drawing on multiple-
language competencies include English-language learners using their knowI-
edge of their first language to help them read and write in English, or using
skills in African-American Vernacular English to interpret literary problems
(Lee, 1993, 1997~. Other resources may include access to multiple modali-
ties (reading, writing, speaking, drawing, performing) for problem solving
or to represent knowledge (Gardner, 1993~.
The value of being able to use a native language is suggested by a study
by Timenez, Garcia, and Pearson (1996~. They examined the reading strat-
egies of a small sample of sixth- and seventh-grade bilingual students who
were successful English readers. These successful bilingual readers demon-
strated substantial knowledge about similarities and differences in the struc-
ture of English and Spanish. They actively used this knowledge, for ex-
ample, in looking for Spanish cognates in English words to help infer word
meanings. They also translated across languages as an aid in constructing
meaning. Perhaps most importantly, these successful bilingual readers held
a different conception of the purposes of reading than their less successful
counterparts. Timenez (2000) reports that successful readers saw reading as
a process of making sense of text, and they believed they could draw on
multiple-language competencies to do this. Less successful bilingual stu-
dents saw reading as saying the words correctly in English.
Moll, Estrada, Diaz, and Lopes (1980) found that students demon-
strated greater levels of participation in instructional talk as well as more
complex thinking when the organization of classrooms encouraged stu-
dents to draw on their competencies in both English and Spanish. Lucas,
Henze, and Donato (1990) identified eight characteristics of high schools
that are successful with language-minority students, all focusing on ways
that the school systematically structures opportunities to help students use
both languages as tools for their learning.
A key idea is that what a student can do with support is always greater
than what he or she can do alone (Cole, 1996; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky,
19811. The goal is to provide students with as many sources of support as
possible. In some cases, the task is simply to encourage students to identify
and use the resources they have. Students who work through problems of
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
academic reading and writing while drawing on multiple sources of support
should also develop confidence in their ability to learn (Alvermann,
Hinchman, Moore, Phelps, and Waff, 1998~.
The rigor and challenges of the literacy c?~rric?~?~m (across subject mat-
ters, not just the English-language arts) refers to whether students are asked
to learn new constructs from reading texts and writing about what they
read (rather than simply to remember facts), whether they are asked to
apply what they learn from reading and writing to novel tasks, and whether
they are expected to make connections across bodies of readings. Box 3-1,
taken from Applebee et al. (2000), provides an example of a rigorous
assignment in English-language arts. The assignment illustrates a rigorous
curriculum because:
· it focuses attention on a portion of text that is central to understand-
ing the internal state of a character and by extension to examining the
themes of the work as a whole.
· there are no simple right or wrong answers to the questions, but
there are constraints on a warrantable response based on the text itself and
the life experiences of the students.
· it asks students to make connections between their own life experi-
ences and those of a key character in ways that help to explicate the themes
of the work as a whole.
· it asks students to read, think critically, and communicate their
. . . .
reasoning In written form.
Explicit attention to strategies for problem solving is another feature of
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effective literacy pedagogies (National Reading Panel, 2000; Pearson and
Dole, 1987; Pressley, 2000; Snow, 20021. Although there is an abundance
of research on the effectiveness of explicit teaching of reading comprehen-
sion strategies in elementary school, much less attention is paid to this issue
at the high school level.
Strategies for teaching both reading comprehension and composing
need to be different at the high school level from what is effective at the
elementary level. In addition to generic reading, high school students need
to know discipline-specific strategies for asking questions, making and test-
ing predictions, summarizing, drawing inferences, using prior knowledge,
and self-monitoring (Beck, McKeown, and Gromoll, 1989; Dole, Duffy,
Roehier, and Pearson, 1991; Lemke, 1998; Rabinowitz, 1987; Wineburg,
1991; Wineburg and Wilson, 19911. Examples of discipline-specific reading
skills include understanding symbolism in literature, reliability in primary
source documents in history, and argumentation in the sciences. In addition
to generic reading, most students need explicit instruction to achieve such
competencies, as well as to fee! competent, which is a critical factor in
engagement.
Providing explicit supports for students to engage in complex reasoning
that involves reading, writing and speaking, comprehending and critiquing
difficult texts, and producing sophisticated texts are more effective than
scripted lessons or decontextualized drills. Scripts and drills are useful for
memorizing, but not for the complex reasoning required of reading in the
content areas (National Research Council, 19991. Strategies for teaching
discipline-specific literacy skills, however, have not been well studied.
Finally, students need frequent feedback from assessments to be able to
observe their progress and to self-correct. Feedback on progress toward
mastery can contribute to students' sense of competence and control, and
teachers need the feedback from assessments to plan instruction. Assess-
ments at the most local level schools and classrooms generally give the
most useful information because they are tailored to the curriculum and the
skills of the students at hand. Classroom assessments have the power to be
diagnostic and to provide students with immediate feedback on what they
can do and what they need to learn. Assessments at the departmental or
course level in high school provide opportunities for teachers to learn from
their practice and to target larger issues of curriculum and instruction.
The instructional approaches that teachers use can be facilitated or
constrained by the curriculum, which is often defined at the school or even
the district level. Applebee and colleagues (2000) describe curricula in which
the content (for example, texts selected for reading) is disconnected and
unrelated, and the relationships across texts are not well defined (for ex-
ample, survey literature or history courses organized solely by chronology).
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
The kinds of instructional strategies described in this chapter are most
likely to be found in schools that implement what Applebee and colleagues
call "integrated c?~rric?~," in which students continuously revisit the core
questions of the discipline across lessons and units of instruction within a
year as well as across years. (See Box 3-2 for an example.)
We turn now to four studies of literacy instruction at the middle and
high school levels to illustrate the implementation of these features of effec-
tive literacy pedagogies. The studies were conducted in urban communities
where students had very low skills when they entered high school. Three of
the four examples examine whole-school approaches to literacy instruction
across multiple sites; all four include schools in urban districts with ethni-
cally diverse and low-income student populations. Each reflects some na-
tional effort, either through an intervention that is national in scope or
through analysis by a national or regional research center. Furthermore, all
four include a large sample size and provide empirical data regarding stu-
dent outcomes in reading (at least) as well as process data regarding how
each feature was enacted. The findings of these studies are also corrobo-
rated by many smaller studies of individual or small clusters of classrooms
or teachers. Although an evaluation of these four programs is limited by
possible selection biases (of students, staff, or both), the major finding
across these studies is that the implementation of literacy pedagogies can-
not be limited to specific instructional activities. Instead, they require a
coherent adherence to a core set of principles.
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
students' personal experiences. Therefore, students learn to translate every-
day life experiences into the symbolic language of mathematics. Four key
components of the curriculum that teachers follow are
1. Physical Events (e.g., students take a trip a ride on a metropolitan
transit system, a bus tour, or a walking tour of their community)
2. Pictorial Representation/Modeling (students are asked to draw pic-
tures that visually mode! the event)
3. Intuitive Language/"People Talk" (students are asked to discuss and
write about the physical event in their own language)
4. Structured Language/"Feature Talk" (students isolate features of the
event such as start, finish, direction, distance on which they can build
mathematics)
The Algebra Project takes seriously the NCTM claim that students
need to be able to represent and communicate data in a variety of forms
(algebraic/symbolic, graphical, verbal, tabular). Thus, when students are
asked to represent the physical trip with a picture, it is similar to graphing.
When they are asked to use "people talk," they are being asked for a verbal
description of their graph. When they seek features of the event that can be
translated into structured mathematics language, they are being encouraged
to use mathematics as symbols.
Unfortunately this approach has not been rigorously evaluated. The
evidence suggests, however, that the approach has some value. The first
group of students who graduated from the project enrolled in high school in
geometry and many have gone on to medical school and other graduate
schools. In Arkansas, 7 out of the 11 cohorts of students that were followed
showed at least a 10-point increase in mean scaled scores on the SAT-9 a
year after being in the program. In all 12 Arkansas sites, there was a greater
than 10 percent increase in the number of students scoring at or above
proficiency on the state exam, whereas students at 8 out of the 9 control
sites stayed at their previous levels or declined (West and Baumann, 20021.
MESA Program
A comprehensive outreach program, Mathematics Engineering Science
Achievement (MESA), has been engaging Latino (primarily Mexican-Ameri-
can) and African-American students throughout California since 1970
(Somerton et al., 19941. The program is outside of the students' regular
school curriculum, but nevertheless provides evidence of the value of par-
ticular approaches to engaging urban youth in mathematics. Students sign
up for the program if they are enrolled in or willing to take algebra in 9th
grade, and they continue to take rigorous mathematics courses throughout
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87
high school. Most students earn average grades when they start, but they
. . . . . .
cave an Interest In careers In science or engineering.
Currently, MESA helps prepare nearly 20,000 students of color each
year for mathematics- and science-based careers. More recently expanded
to include sites throughout the nation, MESA takes regular mathematics
and science teachers and turns them into advisors who offer courses along-
side the traditional mathematics/science curriculum offered by schools. In
addition, 6-week summer enrichment programs and Saturday academies
help students deepen their understanding and prepare for college courses in
mathematics and science.
MESA is founded on the idea of partnering with parents, business
professionals, and community members to provide additional role models
and to mentor students. Using hands-on instruction (e.g., where students
build models of mathematical structures and processes), adults and older
students in the MESA program become resources for adolescents, helping
them mode! and visualize mathematics and science in ways that build a
solid foundation for college instruction. The MESA curriculum focuses on
themes that cut across disciplines (e.g., probability, measurement, matter,
environment), with the goal of preparing adolescents for a rapidly changing
environment. Students are also given leadership roles to develop their skills
in obtaining summer internships and jobs in the field. As an incentive, the
program pays a small stipend to students who earn a 3.0 or greater grade
point average while in high school.
MESA high school students are remarkably successful on traditional
measures of achievement, including SAT scores and college attendance
(Somerton et al., 1994), although it is not possible to ascertain to what
degree these positive outcomes are a result of the program itself. There is
clearly a selection bias in who enters the program, and research with an
appropriate control group would provide much clearer evidence of the
program effects. The achievement of the students in the program, however,
is so remarkable that it is highly unlikely that participating students would
have done as well without it. Although the program is designed as an
adjunct to the regular high school, most components of the program could
be implemented in the regular mathematics curriculum.
The QUASAR Project
The Quantitative Understanding: Amplifying Student Achievement and
Reasoning (QUASAR) Project is designed for middle school students. Since
the fall of 1989 the QUASAR Project has been implemented in six economi-
cally disadvantaged communities in California, Georgia, Massachusetts,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (Doty, Mercer, and Henningsen,
1999; Silver et al., 19951.
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
Key components of the project are curriculum development and modi-
fication (e.g., developing activities for particular classes); staff development
and ongoing teacher support (e.g., opportunities for teachers to continue to
learn mathematics); classroom and school-based assessment design (e.g.,
focusing on students' thought processes, not just the answers they produce);
and outreach to parents and the school district at large. With respect to
pedagogy, a classroom emphasis is placed on building communities of learn-
ers (cooperative groups, supporting mathematical thinking and collabora-
tion); learning to question and coming to understand others; building com-
munities of linguistically diverse learners; and enhancing the relevance of
school mathematics (building on students' experiences, relating mathemat-
ics to students' interests, and connecting mathematics to students' cultural
heritage). To try to connect mathematics to cultural knowledge, for ex-
ample, students in the QUASAR Project are encouraged to tell stories that
mode! the mathematics they are learning (fitting the oral tradition of some
cultural groups). In sites with a substantial African-American population,
students have been asked to write essays on Egyptian numerals and the life
of Benjamin Banneker. Mathematical discussions are promoted by asking
students to debate mathematical assertions and use mathematical argumen-
tation to support differing positions.
The evidence suggests that these strategies increase student engagement
and learning. In schools across the nation, the QUASAR Project has seen
significant gains in student engagement in classroom discussions and in
standardized achievement scores (tests of basic skills as well as conceptual
understanding; Silver and Lane, 19951.
As was found for literacy, a fair amount is known about the qualities of
instruction that engage high school students, and evidence from a few
programs suggests that these strategies might be applied effectively in urban
schools. There is still much to learn, particularly about implementing pro-
grams at scale in urban high schools. But the existing evidence provides no
support for the traditional textbook and worksheet instruction seen in most
schools serving low-income students and students of color.
SPECIAL NEEDS OF URBAN YOUTH
Our conclusions about effective teaching in literacy and mathematics
are based in part on studies conducted in urban high school settings, giving
us some confidence in their applicability to the students of concern in this
volume. There are, however, particular circumstances related to teaching in
schools that serve economically disadvantaged students, which need to be
considered in any effort to increase students' engagement in learning.
We have discussed the importance of connecting new knowledge in
literacy and mathematics to students' own interests, experiences, and cul-
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sure. In urban low-income communities, effective pedagogy also requires
attention and sensitivity to the out-of-school challenges that many students
face including racism, homelessness, violence, and lack of sufficient re-
sources to address mental and physical health problems. (See Chapter 7 for
an extended discussion of this topic.)
At the core of The Algebra Project (Moses and Cobb, 2001) and Lee's
Cultural Modeling (Lee, C.D., 2000) is the goal of attending "holistically
to the developmental, cognitive, and emotional needs of students. These
models address the complex agenda that Ladson-Billings (1997, 2001) ar-
ticulates in her call for culturally responsive pedagogy. They require atten-
tion to the very real risks and challenges faced by urban adolescents. In the
MESA program, for example, students are given opportunities to develop
their skills in dealing with foreign and sometimes hostile environments
(e.g., summer jobs in scientific laboratories where personnel are not accus-
tomed to people of color).
In addition to helping students cope with the challenges they face in
urban environments, teachers can empower students by helping them de-
velop leadership roles to promote change (Spencer, 1991, 1995, 1999;
Spencer, Cross, Harpalani, and Goss, in press; Spencer, Noll, Stoltzfus, and
Harpalani, 20011. Ladson-Billings (1994) writes eloquently on the impor-
tance of encouraging activism and political awareness in any effort to en-
gage low-income urban students in school.
What we are recommending expands the role of the teacher substan-
tially, from someone who focuses just on subject matter to someone who
focuses on students, including the larger context in which they live (Foster,
19941. This requires a commitment to addressing social injustices (Hilliard,
1991, 19951. Teachers' philosophy related to their role may be as impor-
tant as their lessons or the curriculum (Bartolome, 1994; Beaubocuf-
Lafontant, 1999; Gustein, Lipman, Hernandez, and de los Reyes, 1997;
Ladson-Billings, 1995; Lee, 1994; Shujaa, 19941. There is some evidence
that teachers who are philosophically committed to equity and racial justice
are less likely to have low expectations and more willing to adjust their
instruction to meet the needs of their students while maintaining academic
rigor (Ball, l995b, 2000a, 2000b; Lightfoot, 1973; Stodolsky and
Grossman, 20001.
Although no studies have shown the independent effects of a social
justice orientation, there is evidence that suggests its possible value. In an
evaluation of his National Science Foundation-supported (Mathematics in
Context) curriculum supplemented with units on social justice, Gutstein (in
press) found that 18 of his 24 7th-grade Latino urban students passed city
entrance exams for competitive magnet schools and all went on to take
algebra in 9th grade. His students averaged a gain of 1 month's grade
equivalent in mathematics for every month they spent in his class. Similar
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
success of students persisting in the mathematics sequence or enjoying math-
ematics has been found by mathematics professors who hold a strong social
justice stance (Anderson, 1990; Frankenstein, 1990, 19951.
Another challenge that is especially prominent in urban schools serv-
ing low-income youth is the low level of skills with which many students
enter high school. Although there is good evidence that even students who
are far behind when they begin high school can master the high school
curriculum and achieve high standards, these students are the exception.
The programs described in this chapter were all designed for students in
schools serving predominantly low-income students and students of color,
and they show promise of improving on traditional remedial methods. (See
also Chapter 5.)
In summary, it is important to acknowledge that teaching in economi-
cally disadvantaged urban schools involves special challenges; it is equally
important not to fall into a trap of low expectations, which often breed
formulaic teaching and restricted conceptions of subject matter (Boater,
2002b). There are far too few examples of urban high schools that hold
their students to challenging standards and engage them in mastering diffi-
cult disciplinary concepts and strategies, but such schools exist, and provide
the proof that schools can become such institutions. Complexity is no
excuse for retreat.
SUPPORTING TEACHERS
Teachers in urban schools face students who are trying to cope with an
array of challenges in their lives outside of school and struggling to learn
the skills assumed by most high school curricula. These teachers also often
face difficult working conditions large class sizes, little preparation time,
scarce resources, and now, pressure from high-stakes tests that are often
not aligned with their instructional program and goals. Teachers also have
to confront their own stereotypes related to race and social class. Given
these conditions and challenges, it is not surprising that the kind of ambi-
tious pedagogy described in this chapter has not taken root in most urban
schools. This kind of teaching requires considerable skill and sustained
support. Because of the sheer complexity of teaching and the special chal-
lenges of urban schools, the need for strong professional communities of
teachers is critical. Indeed, building teacher capacity and providing teachers
with ongoing, expert support may be the most critical factor in creating
urban high schools that engage all students in learning.
The same motivation principles that apply to student engagement are
relevant to teachers as well. For example, just as self-efficacy promotes
engagement in students, Stodolsky and Grossman (2000) saw relationships
between teacher' sense of efficacy and their willingness to adapt to the
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9
needs of their students. Ball (199Sa, 2000a, 2000b) has developed an effec-
tive program to help groups of teachers grapple with their assumptions
about diversity and about what it means to learn. Collaboration and group
work are most likely necessary for teachers to develop both the commit-
ment and the sense of efficacy to pursue rigorous standards in the often
difficult circumstances of urban school teaching.
Many studies have shown the value of a culture of collaboration in
fostering effective teaching practices (e.g., Coburn, 2001; Desimone, Por-
ter, Garet, Yon, and Birman, 2002; Hiebert, Gallimore, and Stigler, 20021.
For example, Louis, Marks, and Kruse (1996) found that teachers in schools
that had a strong teaching professional community (defined by a shared
sense of purpose, collaborative activity, collective focus on student learn-
ing, and reflective dialogue) engaged in higher quality teaching, and their
students performed higher on NAEP mathematics and reading assessments
when compared to teachers in schools with weak professional communi-
ties. (See also Louis and Marks, 1998.)
Some mathematics experts tout the value of "lesson study," a strategy
used in Japan for teacher collaboration. Stigler and Hiebert (1999) suggest
that mathematics achievement in the United States might be raised by giv-
ing teachers time and support to form teacher workgroups to plan, experi-
ment with, analyze, and revise lessons. For example, teachers can videotape
and analyze lessons they have planned together. The approach has been
introduced in some U.S. elementary and middle schools, and might be
adapted to be useful at the high school level as well.
In the area of literacy, there are many excellent examples of local
professional communities of teachers working in urban districts. Perhaps
the longest existing national mode! is the National Writing Project, which
promotes collaboration among individual teachers across school sites. Or-
ganized, funded projects, such as QUASAR, The Algebra Project, and
MESA, provide the practical training and social support required to imple-
ment effective and engaging mathematics teaching (Gutierrez, 2000a). There
are also many examples of strategies implemented at the city, district,
school, and department levels to develop the kind of sustained, professional
communities that support effective teaching.
Many studies point to the importance of the subject matter department
in high school teachers' ability to teach and to adapt to the needs of their
students (Gutierrez, 1996; Lieberman and Miller, 2001; Little, 1993;
McLaughlin, 1993; McLaughlin and Talbert, 1993, 2001; Siskin, 1994;
Talbert and McLaughlin, 1994~. Effective subject matter departments in-
volve teachers in collective goal setting; in aligning curriculum, pedagogy,
and assessment; in engaging particular students in certain content; and in
finding ways of addressing students' overall needs. These collaborative
efforts at the department level are associated with positive learning and
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
achievement for students (Ancess, 2000; Freedman, Simons, Kainin,
Casareno, and the M-Class Teams, 1999; Greenicaf and Schoenbach, 1999;
Lee, 20011.
Gutierrez (1996, 1999, 2000b, 2002b) has studied successful urban
high school mathematics departments and found that certain forms of struc-
tural organization and normative cultures (including beliefs) are associated
with teachers' willingness and ability to engage diverse learners. She found
that mathematics departments whose teachers did not view mathematics as
a static subject, used a rigorous mathematics curriculum, discussed lesson
plans and students, rotated course assignments, had a commitment to eq-
uity, and observed each other teaching tended to have students who were
actively engaged in the mathematics curriculum and scored well on stan-
dardized tests. Although they do not report data on student outcomes,
Stodolsky and Grossman (2000) likewise found in their survey of teachers
in 16 U.S. high schools that mathematics and English teachers who experi-
mented with the curriculum in order to engage diverse learners in the
classroom tended to work in departments that were collaborative and fo-
cused on professional development (see also Coburn, 2001; McLaughlin
and Talbert, 20011.
A strong sense of community at the department level may also diminish
the alienation that teachers often experience in large, urban, bureaucratic
schools. Talbert (1995) proposes that collaboration among teachers can
serve as a catalyst for increasing a school's commitment to meeting the
needs of students who otherwise have low priority (also see Wehiage et al.,
19891. Talbert and McLaughlin (1994) found in their analysis of survey
data for 253 teachers in 36 academic departments in 8 public high
schools that teachers' participation in a collaborative, innovative profes-
sional community predicted their expectations for student achievement and
their caring for students, controlling for their subject preparation and over-
all job satisfaction. Gutierrez (1996, 1999, 2000b, 2002b) and Stodolsky
and Grossman (2000) observed further that the teachers who engaged stu-
dents best were in professional communities committed to equity. Thus, a
teacher's workplace setting is critically important in supporting the kinds of
practices that engage students in learning.
Practices in schools and the broader community are also important. For
example, Valerie Lee (2000) found that high schools that had a communal
focus (reformed instruction, shared authority, collective commitment to the
personal development of students) produced considerable gains in student
achievement and nearly eliminated social class differences between stu-
dents. The school community is so critical to successful mathematics teach-
ing that in choosing its sites, the QUASAR Project requires a school climate
that supports teacher innovation.
Schools also have norms regarding what it means to teach and to learn,
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which can have powerful effects on instruction in classrooms and student
engagement. Researchers have examined, for example, norms for instruc-
tional conversations: "the kinds of questions to be asked . . ., the concepts
to be explored, the vocabulary through which these concepts were ex-
pressed, the relevance of personal knowledge and experience, and the na-
ture of acceptable argument and evidence" (Applebee et al., 2000, pp.413-
414; see Camden, 1988,2001; Lee, C.D., 2000; Marshall, Smagorinsky, and
Smith, 1995; Mehan, 1979; Nystrand and Gamoran, 1991, 1992; Tharp
and Gallimore, 19881. These norms often vary for different tracks. Studies
show that the students in lower track classes have significantly fewer op-
portunities to elaborate on ideas, to weigh evidence from multiple and
sometimes conflicting points of view, or to generate propositions
(McDermott, 1987; Nystrand and Gamoran, 1997; Oakes, 1985) the kind
of active participation in rigorous learning experiences that motivation
researchers have found to be most engaging. As Rosa, a 9th-grade student
from the Strategic Literacy Project (Greenicaf et al., 2001, p. 101), de-
scribes:
Um, usually in like a regular history class, like the one I had last year?
Which was just pretty much all writing? Okay, "read from page so-n-so
to so-n-so, answer the red square questions and the unit questions and
turn them in." And he corrects them and says, "You did this wrong, you
did this right. Okay, here you go." And that was pretty much the basic
way every single day has gone. So, from day one to the end of the year,
that's pretty much all we did. Answer the red square questions. And pret-
ty much it's been like that since I got to middle school...."
Urban schools serving low-income students are capable of much more,
as is illustrated in a real instructional dialogue that reflected disciplined
norms for reasoning in response to literature (see Box 3-4~.
As efforts are made to improve the support and circumstances teachers
encounter in urban high schools, parallel efforts need to be made to recruit
teachers with expertise in their subject matter. The best of circumstances
will not overcome deficiencies in knowledge of subject matter, of how
people learn, and of the developmental needs of adolescents. Realistically,
the kind of teaching described in this chapter is not likely to be imple-
mented on a large scale until teaching is made more attractive in terms of
working conditions that support career-long professional development, es-
pecially in urban schools. Equally important are improvements in preservice
teacher education that address preparation for the quality of teaching that
this chapter has described. Teacher training is beyond the scope of this
volume, but it is clearly a critical piece of any effort to improve teaching in
urban high schools.
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CONCLUSIONS
The findings from research on effective teaching of literacy and math-
ematics are strikingly similar. The evidence suggests that the instructional
program must be challenging and focused on disciplinary knowledge and
conceptual understanding. It needs to be relevant to and build on students'
cultural backgrounds and personal experiences, and provide opportunities
for students to engage in authentic tasks that have meaning in the world
outside of school. Engaging instruction gives students multiple learning
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modalities to master material and represent their knowledge, and allows
them to draw on their native language and other resources.
This kind of teaching is not possible if teachers do not have a deep
understanding of their subject matter, of how people learn, and of how to
address students' developmental needs. In addition, teachers need opportu-
nities to collaborate with colleagues, and access to ongoing, expert guid-
ance to advance their own knowledge and skills. Effective pedagogy also
needs to be supported by a coherent school curriculum and school norms
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS
that support student inquiry and active involvement in their learning, inter-
est in students as individuals, and respect for their cultural backgrounds.
Our intent is not to argue that simply providing "good" pedagogy is
sufficient. Our point is that "good" pedagogy is engaging and motivating.
We do not assume that if you offer rigor students will come. We are
confident, however, that if schools offer rigor and explicit supports for
learning that are responsive to the developmental needs and cultural back-
grounds of students, the majority of students will enter the academic game.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
urban schools
