Literature Review

Dating back to Dewey (1933) reflection has been seen as an important part of learning,

as it connects the world of experience and the world of ideas. This creates what Dewey

theorized as a reflective state of mind that leads to learning. This also falls in line with Langer’s

(1990) idea of envisionment building. In this theory, students and teachers have heard and

created stories for their entire lives and therefore already know how to understand new stories

they read or hear. The teacher just needs to create a space for hearing those stories and ideas,

and offer and the proper support through questioning (“Introducing Envisionment”, 2017).

Research offers a plethora of information regarding promoting literacy in urban schools by

helping students make connections in reading. Two themes emerged in this review of the

literature: understanding at-risk students and using best-practices to help students make

personal connections to the reading.

At Risk

According to the literature, the primary reason that students are in an "at-risk" category

is that they are disengaged (Blount, 2012; Lofstrom & Tyler, 2009; Shannon & Bylsma, 2003).

This can vary from alienation within the school campus to boredom in the classroom. Based on

the articles, we know several things about at-risk students. First of all, according to Hixon

(1993), students are labeled at-risk when:

They experience a significant mismatch between their circumstances and needs, and

the capacity or willingness of the school to accept, accommodate, and respond to them

in a manner that supports and enables their maximum social, emotional, and intellectual

growth and development (as cited in Shannon & Bylsma, 2003, p.1).
Traditional schools are educating the masses; most students can thrive and do well in a

traditional program. The students who do not fit the mold because of circumstances and/or

needs, and don't get support from their traditional schools, are the ones who start shutting

down and becoming disengaged. These students are then labeled "at-risk."

Although researchers cannot exactly pinpoint the breaking point that would lead an at-

risk student to drop out, Blount (2012) contends that dropping out is the most devastating

consequence of youths' frustration with the demands of school and outside stressors. The way

that traditional schools are structured can create an inflexible approach to education. Instead of

focusing on equitable education and giving each student what they need, traditional schools

may focus on equality and making sure policies are equally adhered to. Coupled with the rigid

nature of traditional schools, this approach fails to take into account the outside stressors that

students face. Those outside stressors have been the reason for a lot of the research in drop-out

prevention and recovery. Lofstrom and Tyler (2009) found that the decision to drop out is

affected by "a number of complex factors and is often the culmination of a long process of

disengagement from school" (p. 77). Lofstrom and Tyler go on to report that along with low test

scores, failing classes, and grade retention as being the biggest risk factors, students who have

early adult responsibilities are also at-risk of not graduating.

As Lofstrom and Tyler (2009) explain, programs that succeed in creating drop-out

prevention programs "lower dropouts through one or more of the four mechanisms: increasing

school attendance, increasing student engagement and learning, building student self-esteem,

and helping students cope with the challenges and problems that contribute to the likelihood of

dropping out" (2009). The students who drop out are those who do not have resilience and
allow their personal circumstances to overwhelm them, so the best programs mix academic

foundational skills along with personal coping skills. This sentiment is echoed in Blount's (2012)

research. She found that, as far as interventions go, group interventions that focus on social

competencies are the most effective interventions. These groups work on setting goals,

developing effective study skills, improving attendance, and coping with family issues or

concerns. In order for at-risk students to find success in any environment, their academic

shortcomings must be remediated along with personal growth strategies.

Many students actually report an increase in self-esteem once they drop out or leave

their traditional schools and move to alternative programs; Gallager reports that this is because

they are moving to a more positive environment that is not marked by failure and conflict, and

they are taking control of their lives (as cited in Shannon & Bylsma, 2003). Students who drop

out see school as a source of conflict and strife, and once they make the decision to leave the

school, they feel better about themselves.

Personal Connections

Research on reading instruction has found that the best readers are those who make

connections as they read (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001). It is the thought process as students are

reading that that allows for connections between what they read and their own experiences.

Most commonly, it is said that students make three types of connections to text: text-to-self,

text-to-text, and text-to-world (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997). Utilizing these connections to text,

students are able to make sense of what they read within their own worlds. When a student

begins reading an unfamiliar text, they rely on their prior knowledge to decode the text’s

meaning. The literature describes five ways to help students connect to the English Language
Arts curriculum: diverse literature, envisionment building, reflection, reader response, and

autoethnography.

Diverse Literature. Students who come from marginalized backgrounds are continually

asked to read cannon literature that does not reflect the world that they come from. There are

some universal themes within literature that transcend social status, but many readings are not

universally accessible. Take for example Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, a novel that is taught in

eleventh grade English classes throughout the country. As a child who grew up in poverty, there

was no way could I relate to the opulence and material access that was apparent throughout

the novel, no matter how hard my teacher tried. Texts should reflect a student’s social reality so

that students can read, relate to, and write about the text (Song, 2017).

Envisionment Building. Langer’s (1990) envisionment building is the partnership

between teachers and students to create meaning in reading. The theory is based on four main

points. First, students have been building meaning in reading, writing, and listening their entire

lives thus they already know how to create understanding. Secondly, proper questioning guided

by the teacher aids the understanding of literature. Next, students are expected to create and

expand their own understandings that they create. Lastly, multiple perspectives are useful.

Through the aid of the teacher-provided scaffolds, students are able to create their own

personal understanding of literature utilizing the same methods as they use in their personal

lives. With envisionment building, the teacher encourages the multiple perspectives that

students have, and through discussion, helps each student’s personal meanings evolve. There is

no need for consensus in envisionment building; rather, each student has his or her own
interpretation that can be explained through evidence from the text (“Introducing

Envisionment”, 2017).

Reflection. According to Dewey (1933), reflection connects the world of experience and

the world of ideas. By allowing students the space and time to reflect on what they are reading

and writing, students are given the space to make those connections that are vital for

comprehension and greater depths of knowledge. Reflection journals alone are not enough to

create the connections. Many times, students take the reflection prompts and summarize

reading to show basic levels of comprehension rather than actually interacting with the text.

Instead, reflection is a teachable skill; teachers should offer students appropriate support and

scaffolding to reach the personal connections necessary to make sense of the text. Using

scaffolded questioning throughout the reflection process can move students from basic

comprehension level responses to personal connections with the text (Correia & Bleicher, 2008).

Connection prompts. Connection prompts are used to assist students engage with the

text and make connections from the text to prior knowledge, personal life, or other texts that

they have read (Alamar, 2013). Connection prompts do not need to be written; they could be

used during discussions. Some examples of connection prompts include the use of prediction:

“If you were writing this, what would happen next?” This specific prompt allows the students to

take on the perspective of the author and use clues from the reading to guess what happens

next. Another type of connection prompt utilizes the students’ creativity to pose questions

about what they have read: “Does this book make you wonder about anything?” This type of

question can allow students to question the author’s decisions about certain elements in the

plot, or even clarify some questions that the student has about the meaning of the text. The last
type of connection prompt asks students to connect with the text directly with a personal

connection: “Does this book remind you of anything?” This type of prompt allows students the

space to use their prior knowledge, or experience, and connect that with the text (Alamar,

2013).

The connection prompts are not restricted for use only with the completion of the

literary texts, nor are they solely used with works of literature. These connection prompts can

be used across the curriculum to connection students with science, history, or math.

Reader Response. Reader response is an approach that aids in the comprehension of

text because it not only allows for multiple perspectives, but also supports the use of evidence

that supports each perspective. This aligns with the Common Core State Standards for Reading

and Writing (Woodruff & Griffin, 2017). This method takes into account, again, that students are

actively connecting what they are reading to their previous knowledge and experience.

Students should be writing often about what they read. These can be informal journals, like

dialectal journals, that have specific entries about thoughts, predictions, reactions, questions,

and other connections made while reading. According to Woodruff and Griffin (2017), these

responses should not be graded for English writing conventions, but rather focus on the quality

of the connections being made.

Autoethnography. Autoethnographies allow for learning about and understanding life

experiences in a way that benefits not only oneself, but also one’s community. This form relies

on students experience, but goes further than an autobiography because it forces writers to

explore their existence as it relates to society around them, and how they relate to society

(Carey-Webb, 2001). The use of autoethnography as a strategy is to humanize the experiences

of students. It allows students to identify their hardship, frame it within the context of society,

and motivate themselves and others to action (Carey-Webb, 2001). Autoenthnographies have

been used in urban classrooms as a tool for traditionally marginalized students to examine their

experiences and identities, and recognize societal relationships (Camangian, 2010).

In reviewing the literature, personal connections are important to aid in student’s

reading and writing, especially with students who are at-risk for not graduating from high

school. Personal connections can be made in a variety of ways. First of all, in order to ensure

that students from all backgrounds have the life experiences to actually connect to literature,

teachers should choose literature from diverse authors. Next, with envisionment building,

students are able to make the same connections that they have been making all of their life

through the teacher facilitating scaffolded questions. Furthermore, personal connections can

be made formally through the use of writing activities such as journaling, reader response, and

autoethnographies. With the use of personal connections, at-risk students will have the ability

to connect personally with both the reading material to aid in high levels of reading proficiency,

but also connect personally with his or her teacher to stay engaged in his or her education.
 References

Alamar, A. (2013). Building substantive engagement through the use of connection prompts.

Journal of Education and Training Studies, 1(2), 103-111.

Blount, T (2012). Dropout prevention: Recommendations for school counselors. Journal of

School Counseling, 10 (16). https://eric.ed.gov/?q=dropout+prevention

%3a+recommendations+for+school+counselors&ft=on&id=EJ981196

Camangian, P. (2010). Starting with self: Teaching autoethnography to foster critically caring

literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 45(2), 179-204.

Carey-Webb, A. (2001). Literature and lives: A response-based, cultural studies approach to

teaching English. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Correia, M. & Bleicher, R. (2008). Making connections to teach reflection. Michigan Journal of

Community Service Learning, 14 (2), 41-49.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the

educative process. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers 3-6. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

Introducting Envisionment-Building the Classroom (2017). Retrieved from

https://www.learner.org/libraries/makingmeaning/makingmeaning/introducing/

Keene, E. O., & Zimmermann, S. (1997). Mosaic of thought. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Loftstrom, M., Tyler, J. (2009). Finishing high school: alternative pathways and dropout recovery.

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Shannon, G. S., Bylsma, P. (2003). Helping students finish school: Why students drop out and

how to help them graduate. Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Olympia, WA.

Song, A. (2017). Critical media literacies in the twenty-first century: Writing

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Woodruff, A. & Griffin, R. (2017). Reader response in secondary settings: Increasing

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