Examples of more effective provision We identified two examples of more effective provision. These examples resonate with the social practice model of literacy (i.e. New Literacy Studies research).
The first example is a strategy that Jill had employed. She is a recently qualified teacher (one of our previous postgraduate students) who is teaching in a community setting. In her view, effective literacy teaching meant working
with things that they know so that they don't think 'Oh I can't do it.'
Reflecting on the interests and previous knowledge of her students, she developed lessons around Grime, a genre of urban music. She approached it, she said,
as a step-by-step process…. At first the students just wrote a few lines... the language was urban slang…I wanted them to write about themselves or as a story.
Through this activity she was developing their skills in spelling, in consciously making particular word choices and in creating rhyme. The group also checked the accuracy of each other's work because everyone had to write their lyrics on the board.
She invited her cousin in and
he did a 16 bar with them.… He put a lyric together. He got them looking for rhyming words for the line ends and especially he got them to look at the hook.
The students understood that at the end of the activity they were going to go to a studio to make a recording. Such an outcome ties in to earlier discussions in this paper around the students' perceptions of the relevance of class work (and again to New Literacy Studies research). Jill also reflected on the group's motivations:
A lot of them were good at graphics and drawing so they did the cd cover. And they enjoyed that.
This example illustrates a socially situated approach to literacy teaching. Jill sought to foster the students' ownership of their learning and reengage them by drawing on their informal literacy practices. The focus was on making meaning and on producing something, in this case a recording. It was underpinned by a desire to boost their confidence and to instill an understanding that their own literacy practices (outside of educational settings) could have relevance and support their development within more formal literacy learning. As Hamilton(2010: 13) suggests: 'Many of the literacies that are influential and valued in people's day-to-day lives, that are widely circulated and discussed, are not seen as having a place in educational institutions.'
Jill came from the same area as her students. She thought that this was very beneficial. It enabled her to understand their backgrounds. She felt it supported her in establishing a positive relationship with them as she was “one of them”.
In the second example, the teacher also came from the same area as his students. This example relates to the only instance we saw in our study of young people from the “sustained” category (Spielhofer, et al., 2009: 2) and therefore likely to highlight negative previous experiences of education. The provision was in a dedicated unit in Treetown College. It was particularly noteworthy because the teachers had designed the curriculum themselves. The scheme of work did not lead to the completion of external assessments. In the first year,
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