I Can Fly: Teaching Narratives and Reading Comprehension to African American and other Ethnic Minority Students / Edition 1

by Angela Marshall Rickford

Overview

I Can Fly highlights the critical importance of narrative structural analysis in teaching reading comprehension, while providing a system for constructing comprehension questions that are grounded conceptually in the structure of the stories that the students read, from both a practical, and theoretical, orientation. The author presents the idea that folk tales and ethnic literature provide excellent material for the teaching of reading, particularly to multicultural or minority populations, by increasing the cultural congruence and motivation for multicultural students through their inclusion of language, illustrations, situations, and perspectives in which they see themselves reflected. These conclusions arise from a two year study in a middle school classroom in California with low income, 'at risk' students, most of them African American, but including Latinos and Pacific Islanders.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761812807
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	02/18/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.46(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Angela Marshall Rickford is Assistant Professor in the College of Education at San Jose State University.

Table of Contents

chapter 1 Foreword chapter 2 Preface chapter 3 Acknowledgments chapter 4 Introduction chapter 5 Conceptual Framework and Literature Review chapter 6 The Research Site: Community, Classroom, Students chapter 7 Culture-Based Classroom Discipline and Organization chapter 8 Structural Analysis of the Six Study Narratives chapter 9 Research Design and Methods chapter 10 Quantitative Results: An Overview chapter 11 Narrative Genre and Literal Meaning Questions chapter 12 Interpretive Reading and Critical Evaluation Questions chapter 13 Effect of Story Length in Higher Order Questions chapter 14 Creative Reading Questions chapter 15 Creative Reading Questions, and Effect of Ethnicity and Gender chapter 16 Summary, Implications, and Conclusions chapter 17 Appendix A: Stories and Comprehension Questions chapter 18 Appendix B: Teacher Interview Protocol chapter 19 Notes chapter 20 References chapter 21 Index chapter 22 About the Author

Editorial Reviews

The book does serve a noble purpose—it stimulates motivation to solve a persistent problem in the development of reading ability of an important population.

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

"The book does serve a noble purpose—it stimulates motivation to solve a persistent problem in the development of reading ability of an important population."

Journal Of Adolescent and Adult Literacy

In tune with Paolo Freire's philosophy linking literacy with disassembling class barriers, Rickford (education, San Jose State U., CA) seeks to reverse the dismal statistics on US schools' failure in teaching minority students to read. From her case study featuring African American folktales and contemporary Black narratives, she presents a structural analysis of the texts and tips for the teaching of culturally congruent texts in multi-ethnic inner city, middle school classrooms that challenge students to achieve higher-order skills. Appends the study's stories and comprehension questions, and the Teacher Interview Protocol. Paper edition (ISBN -1280-6), $32.50. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

The book does serve a noble purpose--it stimulates motivation to solve a persistent problem in the development of reading ability of an important population.--Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

"The book does serve a noble purpose--it stimulates motivation to solve a persistent problem in the development of reading ability of an important population."--Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

From the Publisher