Why literacy?
On International Literacy Day, educators at THENCE participated in a mini write-a-thon sharing stories about why we believe International Literacy Day is important. What resulted was a great set of ideas and some personal narratives. Here I start with my own, stay tuned for a personal narrative from Dr. Schlatter, THENCE founder and CEO.
-Andrea Patterson, CCO at THENCE
I think about literacy often. My experience with it, how I support it within my daughters' learning, and how it's developed within schools. I think of the pillars of literacy, especially speaking.
As a stage actor and arts educator it is the number one tool I utilize in communicating both "story" as well as information. In 2008, myself and another teaching artist were invited into a middle school in Harlem, NYC to support their ELA (English Language Arts) classes. As the lead actor/facilitator, I was asked to dramatize the main character in a story being read by a class of thirty one 6th graders. At the time, seventy percent of them were reading at a 3rd grade reading level.
The demographics of this one class held students that spoke five different languages other than English. The combination of all these factors was challenging to say the least—thirty one sixth graders, with seventy percent reading at a 3rd grade English written-reading level while a great number of them spoke English as a second language. To add to that, a fourth of the class had a wide range of IEPs addressing behavioral and neurological differences.
As the teaching artist in residence I was tasked with portraying the main character in the assigned class reading by acting out scenarios from each chapter, to more tangibly convey the conflict within the plot. Afterwards, I posed a series of questions meant to spark conversation for students to make inferences about the text.
Despite other ardent efforts made by the school district to raise test scores in reading comprehension, it wasn't until the end of the third semester of our second year in residence that students were able to make stronger text-to-self and text-to-world connections. Applying devised theater into their efforts to improve literacy among their students proved to be wildly successful. By year's end not only were there notable hikes in literacy scores, but their verbal communication improved, their enjoyment and most importantly to me, their confidence in expressing themselves also improved.
Low literacy and test scores has been and remains a pervasive issue in school districts country wide, but through the use of applied theater where characters are being brought to life, the gap gets smaller and smaller. For one class, (that is but a microcosm of schools nationwide) the use of moving bodies, tonality, and emotion help tell stories even when barriers such as language fluency and behavioral/cognitive differences are present. The power of applied theatre utilizes one of the most essential pillars of literacy: speaking. Speaking and listening therefore building a bridge with the potential to connect learners to reading and writing.