Students Finding Voice in a College Classroom:
Reflections on a Teaching/Learning Journey
Curriculum and Teaching, Vol. 23(1), 2008
Most students come to Developmental Reading classes considering reading a book to be a form of severe punishment. To counter such aversion, I developed a counter-hegemonic, inclusive and caring pedagogy that informs a curriculum relevant to the students’ lives allowing them to revalue reading and its potential for self-empowerment. By semester’s end many students describe themselves as readers, having begun to realize their inherent powers in negotiating texts.
Mohammed Ashraf doesn’t go to school.
From sun-up till moonrise
he measures, cuts, shapes, punctures and sews soccer balls,
which then go rolling out from the Pakistani village of Umar Kot
towards the stadiums of the world.
Mohammed is eleven. He has been at this since he was five.
If he knew how to read, and could read English,
he would understand the label he sticks on each of his products:
“This ball was not made by children.”
Eduardo Galeano (2006)
on Categories Publications
