Complicating College Readiness: The Hidden Literacies of Academia
By Concetta A Williams and Sonya L. Armstrong
Williams, Concetta A. and Sonya L. Armstrong. “Complicating College Readiness: The Hidden Literacies of Academia.” Illinois Reading Council Journal, vol. 45, no. 2, Spring2017, pp. 22-28. EBSCOhost, remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=121698389&site=ehost-live.
Summary:
An article written by college professors Williams and Armstrong in which they lay out a foundation to spark an argument regarding the tremendous concern surrounding literacy among college students. Specifically emphasizing the importance of it on first-year college students, for whom it is assumed that academic literacy is common knowledge, or that they are at least “college ready” the majority of the time by first-year college professors. a traditional assumption then becomes that literacy instruction, with the exception of first-year composition, is unnecessary at the post-secondary level. Under these assumptions, both professors bring forth three effects;
- These assumptions negate a life-long literacy perspective that posits that literacy development is a “womb to tomb” endeavor, as said by Alexander (2005)
- They also reflect a narrow conception of literacy that contradicts a broader sociocultural perspective (Gee, 1996)
- Lastly, they impose limitations on literacy development by isolating instruction to a single course context, usually English composition, which then overlooks a disciplinary literacy perspective.
Yet, by the use of the words written by scholars in the past, such as Bartholomae, Gee, Ogbu among others, we learn how important it is that professionals, in the case of academia, professors, have the opportunity to set up as what they refer to as apprenticeships. Providing students with what it is that they want them to do and how do they want them to perform/ demonstrate it.
Evaluation:
This specific article is relevant to my topic because it focuses on the literacy of college students. it became of relevance to me firstly, because I placed myself in the position of a first-year college student, and even though I am now in my second year, there is definitely an ongoing struggle of transitioning and adjustment in regards to performing as an academic student, proficient enough to perform in a specific context given. I identified with a few lines, “ As students struggle with their interpretation or invention of academic contexts, they do so in the heat of the moment. Furthermore, they struggle with defining what it means to be successful in college (Sommers, 2015). They make these literacy missteps in the very environment that is judging them based on how they write, read and speak (Williams, 2014).” This turned my focus to making my work specific to college students and their literacy proficiency. Because of the fact that I found myself in the same place, with the ongoing question of how do I write this? or How do I analyze this specific text? I want this to be a foundation for this ad assignment. In it, the rationale will focus on a method of improving literacy among college students. (because it is an ongoing change/adjustment all thought a student’s academic career.)
Reading Fluency and College Readiness
By: Timothy v. Rasinski, Shu-Ching Chang, Elizabeth Edmondson, James Nageldinger, Jennifer Nigh, Linda Remark, Kristen Srsen Kenney, Elizabeth Walsh-Moorman, Kasim Yildirim, William Dee Nichols, David D. Paige, Wiliam H. Rupley
Rasinski, Chang, Edmondson, Nageldinger, Nigh, Remark, . . . Rupley. (2017). Reading Fluency and College Readiness. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(4), 453-460.
Summary:
This article speaks about a study conducted at Kent State University in Ohio by various professional candidates of said university. Its primary concern is to come to the core of what being college ready may mean. Therefore, they start a study on first-year college students, who participated voluntarily, taking introductory courses. A total of 81 students were to read a 12th grade/early college level passage orally so that the researchers would be able to determine word recognition accuracy and reading fluency. They would later be asked to answer a question about the passage. as student read the passage, the researcher made marked any word recognition errors, where the reader as by the end of one minute and the total time it took the participant to read the entire passage. The overall results of this study reflected that word recognition accuracy and automaticity are important factors for reading and academic success for all middle, secondary, and post-secondary education. Yet, these results conclude to be very limited as this study had an array of limitations. Its female to male range was almost nonexistent being it that only one male participated in the study out of 81. Another factor was the fact that each of these participants were students meeting an academic performance level of 21 on their composite score for the ACT for admittance to the university. Therefore, this study would only be sufficient enough to reflect information of a similar audience.
Evaluation:
Although this study clearly states that it is limited, I still believe that it supports the fact there is a problem among first-year college students. Being college ready does have its variance from student to student and although it is only reflective of a small population, it proves to be existent throughout the nation while it was conducted in Ohio. There also exists a possible( starting) solution from where one can start taking an approach to having students improve their reading fluency and thus improve their comprehension. Therefore, when reaching college, there is a trace of improvement since middle education.
Dismantling the Developmental Educational Pipeline: Potent Pedagogies and Promising Practices That Address the College Readiness Gap
By: Laurie A. Henry, Norman A. Stahl
Henry, Laurie A., & Stahl, Norman A. (2017). Dismantling the Developmental Education Pipeline: Potent Pedagogies and Promising Practices That Address the College Readiness Gap. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(6), 611-616.
Summary:
This article is brought forth by two educators who bring their perspective to the table. They start with a dismantling of the Common Core Standards designed in the 1970’s whose view rested that they would increase student achievement, help close the achievement gap and lessen the need for college developmental courses. Yet, it is while in this same era where first-year college students are being challenged through the developmental program divided between the opportunity for academic enrichment and a barrier to college completion. The commentary later goes on to establish what some of the possible implementations for a solution may be and offers real results for specific programs such as the summer bridge programs, Transition programs, and Alliance programs among others implemented by both secondary and post-secondary institutions.
Evaluation:
This commentary becomes extremely important to my project 3 rationale because it offers a possible solution to the college readiness gap. Of course and as it outlines, it is not something instantaneous, but its methods have proven effective to those who have applied them, with time, there have been results. Furthermore, this article explicitly outlines a problem, defines the current program, and offers a solution to which I had come to a conclusion beforehand, therefore it is an article that I have a lot to agree with.
Text-Based Writing Assignments for College Readiness
By; Lidndsay Clare Matsumura, Elaine Wang, Richard Correnti
Matsumura, Lindsay Clare, Wang, Elaine, & Correnti, Richard. (2016). Text-Based Writing Assignments for College Readiness. Reading Teacher, 70(3), 347-351.
Summary:
Without reading no more than the introduction of this article, I got the feeling of what it would offer me. It furthermore outlines the use of cognitively demanding writing assignments at the college level to be used by college instructors in order to increase reading skills and comprehenion of the students, even when these could have been at a low starting achievement.
Evaluation:
What this article fails to acknowledge, from my personal point of view, is that it is a method that would not work for a majority of students who simply aren’t college ready. Attaining literacy can be attributed n great part to reading, but if introduced right away to demanding material, it will be almost as pressuring a dry fruit for juice simply there is no platform that the student could start r to rely on to reason out. I do not entirely disagree with this article, but it is definitely not an option that I would apply to first-year college students who all of the sudden feel like strange material is being thrown at them, significantly because this was my case when I first entered college.