Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education

This was a very interesting and important article for me. It made me realize that as a teacher, I do not have to teach specifically to a test without making it my own and allowing the students to learn their own way in the process. I really found it interesting when the article talked about students learning more when they were able to connect the writing in their own lives. Particularly now, I feel the social justice unit ideas were very good ideas. It lets young students to see what race really is and realize everyone should be treated equally. I liked these units because it allows students to come to these conclusions on their own without being influenced by friends, parents, or anyone else who may be in their lives. They get to come up with ideas and opinions on certain issues by themselves. I believe that as a teacher this is a vital lesson in any English class.Allowing students to have their own opinions allows them to state ideas in class and write what they really want to write about. Allowing students to do this at at young age, allows students to form opinions on their own and stick to those opinions. Having a free thinking, free expression classroom without anyone being shunned or looked down upon is very, very important to me especially where we are right now as a society where so many students seem to be scared to share their opinions because they are scared of what others may think about them. I plan to make sure this point comes across in my classroom. Every student of every race should feel safe in the classroom, and part of having a safe environment is allowing every student to share their opinions and not be afraid of doing so.