From Juicy to Rooftop and Other Lines in Between: Teaching Remedial Reading to First Year College Students

I. Introduction My father has avidly played chess ever since I can remember. I have childhood memories of him moving, with precision, the hard plastic pieces across the board. I remember his eyes scanning his opponent's pieces and making his moves with miniature grunts and chuckles. One day my mother asked my father why he never played chess with a particular family member. My father responded that he does not want to play someone who does not challenge him. This story surfaced from the archives of my mind when I agreed to teach a remedial reading course for the first time to many students who were taking it for the second time. I knew this would be a challenge for my students and me. I learned from my father to embrace challenges because they have the power to push one toward excellence. This would be my first time officially teaching students whom I believed would be resistant and reluctant learners. Over winter intersession, I met with the coordinator of the Basic Reading Skills Program. Leading up to the meeting, I shared a plethora of ideas that I had for teaching this college remedial reading course. My ideas were non-traditional and veered off of the Program's structural path of reading instruction; I wanted to teach a novel and incorporate literature circles (Daniels, 2004) as a formal way of responding and interacting to the text. I did not want to use a reading textbook or crowd the course with the ubiquitous reading drill sheets. The coordinator was impressed with my ideas and wanted me to teach a section comprised of mostly course repeaters. I was looking forward to the challenge and was euphoric about my anticipated approach to the course. II. Step by Step: Establishing an Entry Point One of Whitney Houston's hit songs in the early 1990s, Step by Step, told of the speaker taking her/his time to get herself/ himself together. Like the song, I wanted to begin, step by step, building a relationship with my students. On the first day of class I greeted students with the song and lyrics to Juicy by Biggie Smalls a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. I asked students to rearrange their desks and form a large circle. I passed out a graphic organizer that I created to make real-world connections between the reader and text (see Figure 1). As the handouts circulated and the edited version of Juicy played, one student cheerfully commented, "I don't need the words, I know this." Another said, "Yeah, this is what I'm talkin' about." Others looked on in surprise and glee. I remember saying to myself, yes! I think I captivated them. I chose Juicy because of its rags to riches narrative quality. The song is the author's autobiographical journey from moving from the margins of society as a menace to secured fame with life's finest amenities. Although I am not a hiphop maven, Juicy is considered the hip-hop anthem or mantra. I assumed that hip-hop would be a favorite among my students because of its large global fan base of people from different hues and age brackets. After listening to the song and filling out the graphic organizer, I asked students to share their responses to Juicy. They all located and echoed images and words that pointed to Biggies's struggles and achievements. In an effort to have students make connections with Biggie and their relationship with reading and the course, students listed their struggles with the course, goals, and actions for achieving their goals on the graphic organizer (Figure 1): Following the activity, I asked students to introduce themselves by sharing their name and academic major. I led a mini-discussion about how they would like the class to be run. For most, this was their second time taking the class and I was eager to hear their ideas. I did not receive as many concrete and meaty responses as I had hoped. I felt the comments were disjointed and held comic overtones so I moved to my plan B. I asked students to take out a sheet of paper and write me a note about their reading strengths and weaknesses (Figure 2). …