Productive teaching: strategies and effectiveness

Productive Teaching

A Culturally-Based Cognitive Apprenticeship

The article puts forth the idea that those who teach literature in schools are giving students too much of their own interpretations and stating them to be correct, rather than allowing the students to think for themselves and find other ways to interpret the literature. Since this attitude toward telling the students what is right instead of letting them learn seems to be very prevalent in schools that have large minority populations, the author of the article chose to look at ways that this could be changed. Taking culture into account was very important, as was finding something that could stimulate the students intellectually. Otherwise, they would not learn. Theoretical arguments for using a cultural approach toward learning are also discussed by Lee as she works her way through the issues that surround and plague the teaching of minority cultures in many schools. The main idea of the article was to show that these students could be taught more easily and would do better in school if they were taught in such a way that references to their specific culture became part of what they were examining. Teaching African-American fiction to these students in literature classes was utilized as a way to determine whether this culturally-minded idea would make any difference. Lee's study showed that this culture teaching method improved the student's abilities a great deal and got them more interested in literature and school.