Expanding Indigenous identity in the South Australian Accelerated Literacy program: Participants in academic and literate discourse

Chapter 7

Expanding Indigenons identity in the South Australian Accelerated Literacy program: Participants in academic and

literate discourse

Bronwyn Parkin

The identity versus equity dilemma Formal education is a socially construeted phenomenon, ineorporating values and goals of the society in which it is being carried out. In Australia, one of the overarching goals is for all students, including the most disenfranchised, to become welcome, contributing, valued and valuable members of the social, political and economic life of our society. It is very difficult to achieve that goal if students are not literate; reading, writing and talking with a range of audiences is so important to social inclusion in this society. To achieve active citizenship in the wider world and to become in some ways agents of their own futures, students need not only to successfully decode written, aural and visual texts, but also to become critically literate; critically thinking human beings who ean operate strategieally in many contexts to reach their own defined goals.

The long-term goal of soeial inclusion requires students to recognise the need for, and gain control over, a range of discourses for different contexts and audiences; for their interactions with, for example, their workplace, welfare, their children's teachers, the medical clinic, and government agencies. In particular, for success at school and for access to higher levels of employment and political negotiation, students need increasing control over powerful academic or literate discourses, both oral and written. And they need to feel eonfident of this process. This confidenee is particularly important for Indigenous students. As Chris Sarra, Principal of Cherbourg sehool, and recently Australian ofthe year, says, Indigenous learners have to "believe they could be as smart as any other child from any other school, and develop into strong, young, black, powerful people" (2003, p. 5).

However, Indigenous learners, on the whole, face particular difficulties in becoming successfully literate in useful ways. Indigenous leaders all around Australia are speaking out about the shameful differences in outcomes between Indigenous and non-indigenous learners. The Preliminary 2004 National Report on Sehooling in Australia identifies 71 % of Year 7 Indigenous students reaching the relevant reading benchmark compared with 91% of their non-Indigenous peers (DEST, 2005, p.25).

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If this situation has any chance of improving, students have to attend school for long enough and regularly enough to consolidate their learning. One response to this issue is that schools are trying hard to be places where Indigenous students will want to be; where culturally different ways of being and communicating are acknowledged and affirmed. Educational systems in which teachers care about the wellbeing of their Indigenous students continue to put in place stmctures to support and welcome those students, to keep them engaged with school, and to affirm their home ways of knowing and talking.

In South Australia, alI schools with 10 or more Indigenous learners employ an Aboriginal Education Worker to support community and student wellbeing, and an Aboriginal Education Teacher to support the learning of literacy and numeracy. Many schools have a Nunga room, where Indigenous learners can be supported in their learning or where they can retreat to the schoolyard becomes too difficult. Annual Aboriginal Culture Days are held, at which districts and schools celebrate Indigenous heritage through dance, cooking, storytelling, football and craft, and the Aboriginal flag is ceremonially raised. Identity is one of the South Australian Education Department Essential Learnings, and affirming Indigenous identity is an important component of that. A high proportion of state school teachers have participated in workshops to raise awareness of the history of South Australian Indigenous groups since white people arrived. Field trips to traditional Indigenous areas such as the Flinders Ranges and the Coorong are nm regularly for students to learn about the traditional ways in which Indigenous groups local to those areas lived.

Part of this affirmation of heritage is a growing recognition of Aboriginal English as the home dialect of many Indigenous students. The teacher association ESLE (English as Second Language Educators) has developed a website dedicated to increasing teacher knowledge about Aboriginal English and its important role in strengthening identity. Workshops have been developed to help teachers understand language differences and how these might affect the uptake of reading and writing. Language dialect initiatives such as the Deadly Ways to Learn Project (EDWA, 2000) and Making the Jump (Berry, 1997) support the premise that working with Aboriginal English will lead to positive outcomes in the taking on of standard Australian English and improved literacy outcomes.

Many positive outcomes have been reported from this growth in awareness for educators, students and community. The issues of educating Indigenous students are firmly on the agenda, and all teachers are being given the responsibility for making a difference. Because of the raised profile of home dialects, there have been anecdotal signs of an increased pride in communities and students about speaking "lingo", something they were once ashamed of.

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The retention of Indigenous students to the end of secondary school has improved significantly (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). Teachers have a much greater awareness of dialect difference as opposed to dialect deficit, as well as a growing awareness of Australian history since settlement and the injustices that are our legacy.

However, this same growing cultural awareness and commitment to cultural inclusion and affirmation within the education system has also led to the development of a complex attitude towards taking on new "white-fella" learning. Because our Australian contact history includes many stories of the imposition of "white-feIla" language and values and the neglect of human rights, some contemporary educators are apprehensive about being seen in the same light. At the same time as teachers work towards that long-term goal of social inclusion, there is also a certain level of ambivalence amongst some about pushing new discourses too strongly, about expanding the language repertoire of Indigenous learners. What right do they have to impose new discourses on Indigenous students? Are schools not undermining their Indigenous identity by doing so? Indigenous identity and certain "home" ways of using language have become so inextricably bound that successful outcomes in literacy are jeopardised even furthcr by sensitivities around taking on "white­feUa" ways.

It would be surprising to hear those questions posed for rcfugces and immigrants who are perceived to see access to education and the acquisition of standard English as crucial for their futures. However, the historical and political situation in Australia, with strong memories of an Indigenous stolen generation who have lost their first language, unsettles the situation for teachers of Indigenous students. If Indigenous peoples are Australia's First Nation, should teachers be active agents in trying to educate Indigenous learners in "white-feUa ways" at aU? This position is exemplified by well-intentioned teachers whosc endeavours at affirming student identity incorporate the belief that they must therefore accept and affirm the language resources, both oral and written, that students already have when they come to school.

It could be argued that Indigenous education has two simultaneous goals: firstly to maintain a strong Indigenous identity based on the eultural differences with respect to mainstream Australian culture, and secondly, through that strong identity, to work towards equitable learning outcomes, including literacy. But there is a problem. There is no evidence that the first goal, the important one of social inclusion, supports the aehievement of the equally important second goal, that of academic inclusiop.'f]'he problem is exacerbated because working towards thesc two goals at the same time creates an impossible dilemma for Indigenous communities, students and educators, as Martin Nakata, director of

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Indigenous Academic Programs at lumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney explains: "We have in our heads an organisational schema that is based on our 'difference', that theoretically we are trying to resolve these differences at the same time as we are trying to maintain them" (Nakata, 2002, p.ll). In other words,rir cultural identity is based on ccrtain behaviours and ways of talking, and successful school outcomes require the acquisition of additional behaviours and ways of talking and writing, these new ways of being can be seen as threatening cultural identity even though they may lead to successful school lcarning.

Nakata questions the outcomes of taking on a position that both maps out and accommodates difference, that encourages teachers to "teach to it" in a way that carefully ensures that the differences are maintained. Such a notion reinforccs an essentialist idea of Indigenous identity, one which depends on being different. Nakata counters this attitude by stressing the need for openness to change. "We are constantly engaging with changing ideas and knowledges from outside our community as we shape and reshape our worlds" (2002, p.25).

Nakata's notion that Indigenous peoples are agents in shaping and reshaping their world bcgs thc question of which identities are to be privileged over others. Indigenous students in urban Australian schools may see themselves, depending on the social context, as Indigenous, netball er, footballer, American­style rapster, chorister and so on. In this world of increasing cultural globalisation, many choices arc available to them. To meet the previously identified goals of schooling, it is vital that the social context of schooling offers students additional identities which incorporate a perception of themselves as successful readers, spellers and writers, identities that they value, and can call on when needed.

The importance of academic discourse Academic discourse is crucial for success in school, and useful in the outside world. As Gee points out, we are all members of many discourses, and part of our growing awareness as social beings is how to choose from the range of discourses we have in our repeltoire in particular social moments (Gee, 1996, p.7). Taking on academic discourses does not replace the discourse of home and community, but adds to it in that Indigenous students acquire the skills to acl'lv"lv participate in new areas of work and community.

why is academic discourse so important? Firstly, academic discourse, or accurately discourses, is the realisation of the ways of thinking that have

de'veJ.op"d over time in particular western diSCiplines. Pragmatically, students access to that discipline-specific language to become proficient and, in the term, influence the discipline from within:

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The justification (for teaching new discourses) would have to be that we had picked a Discourse that was substantive, important in its own right, or we had picked on one that these pmticular students ... need for their futures (Gee, 1996, p.7).

Secondly, the abstract concepts that academic discourses offer are useful cultural tools: the meta-language and meta-thought provide students with a significantly different way of making sense of their experiences. Like Wertsch (1998, p.39), I would argue that "decontextualisation ... and abstract concepts offer( ed) new, more powerful perspectives on reality ". Of course, this position is subjective. I acknowledge that I am deeply embedded in the thought and language offered by this discourse. However, to my mind the ability to stand apart from experience and reflect in abstract ways, to critique and analyse, are learned and powerful thinking skills.

Accelerated Literacy pedagogy: Social and academic inclusion The recognition that social and academic inclusion are different, but that both are impOliant, pressures teachers to think again about finding a pedagogy which not only encourages social success, but also works as a tool for academic success. Accelerated Literacy pedagogy, developed by Dr Brian Gray and Wendy Cowey, now of Charles Darwin University, is a pedagogy refined over many years to support Indigenous students towards the successful acquisition of academic discourse through respectful social inclusion in classroom talk and life. The pedagogy is designed to invite students respectfully into taking on new ways of talking and thinking, and to use their first success to lead on to wider academic success.

The program works with age-appropriate highly literary narrative texts, typically for ten weeks at a time, and uses the study of those texts to develop in students a meta-language and meta-cognition which is continually built on in the study of subsequent texts. Unlike other programs of its kind, Accelerated Literacy does not work with low-level reading material, but with literature that demonstrates quality examples of literary resources that students can appropriate for their own writing. Narrative has been chosen as the primary teaching genre because it is of high interest to many students, and the complex narrative stmctures support the learning of a meta-language which can then be used to analyse other impOliant genres in the school curriculum.

Accelerated Literacy works on many aspects of literacy learning at once, It recognises the impOliance of automaticity in decoding and encoding of words so that brain-power is freed up to work on making meaning from written tcxt (Prcssley, 2002, p.167). However, tcachers in the program understand that phonemic awareness and automaticity in decoding are not, by themselves

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sufficient to provide students with insights into how and why authors write as they do. They also recognise the importance of explicit teaching of the writers' techniques commonly employed by authors in narrative to convey meaning and impact on the reader, such as character and setting descriptions, the use of contrast, the building of suspense and the ability to describe what is happening inside characters' heads. There is a certain universality in these techniques in western narrative. How an author influences the reader is not secret; particular techniques are used frequently in literate writing. Teachcrs understand the value of focussing on specific aspects of text until the nature and purpose of particular writing techniques have been internalised by students to the extent that they can articulate and use the same techniques in their own writing. The process includes important hypothesising about author intent and careful analysis of text, including hypothesising about why the author has chosen particular words, and why helshe has put them in that particular order as well as the effect this word choice and word order has on the reader. The resultant conversations are rich and enthusiastic.

The reason that teachers are, often for the first time, successful in apprenticing Indigenous students into literate thinking and discourse, is two-fold: firstly systemic functional grammar is used as an effective tool for language analysis (Halliday, 2004), and secondly, the program draws on Vygotsky's (1978) understanding of child development to inform their pedagogy. Vygotsky's notion of the Zone of Proximal Development, that area of intense co­constmcted learning extending far beyond where the child can function independently, highlights the importance of a culturally knowledgeable "other" as an important resource in a child's learning.

It is cmcial that the role of this "other" matches the learning needs of the students concerned. The use of "display" questioning using who, what, when, where, and why questions, has dominated western classrooms for decades. While these questions are an important pedagogieal tool for extending students whose cognition and language are already congruent with school learning, the use of these "high level" questions as a method of apprenticing students who exist outside the conventional discourse must be challenged. Asking students many times a day to display ways of thinking, knowing and talking that they do not have does not help them to acquire the associated learning. Gray and Cowey have developed additional components to augment the traditional questioning sequence which provide access for all students into the hidden prior common knowledge implicit in teachers' questioning (Rose, Gray and Cowey, 1999). The use of preformulations before a question, and reconceptualisations to reframe answers act as tools to develop shared knowledge in the class; they act as tools of inclusion, rather than exclusion.

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These strategies underpin the Accelerated Literacy program. An Accelerated Literacy sequence begins with students and teacher viewing the text as readers, identifying the writer's techniques, and examining the impact of these techniques on the reader. One of the first goals is fluent reading of aspects of the text, as well as an initial understanding of the author's purpose. The sequence then moves to viewing the text from a writer'S perspective, with close work on phonemic awareness and spelling, followed by a series of writer's workshops, where students begin to appropriate the author's techniques in their own writing.

Criticism has been made of the Accelerated Literacy program because the choice of texts used within the program is not culturally inclusive. Texts are selected because of the literary resources they offer to students for both reading and writing, not because of the cultural content (Barnett & Walsh, 2005). This criticism can be answered by arguing that narrative provides insights into the world of others, that one of the important reasons for reading is to understand other peoples' perspectives. In addition, the Accelerated Literacy program intends that students view an author's choices as mOdelling possible techniques which provide resources for them to draw on in representing their own student worlds. It is at this point in the teaching/learning sequence, when students begin to compose as writers, and think about how they can use these common techniques in their own writing, that notions of identity re-appear.

Students expressing identity with new literate resources From my perspective as a teacher in this program, because of the way Indigenous students have represented their own worlds in new and effective ways within the Accelerated Literacy program, I believe that Indigenous students are expanding their identity to include notions of themselves as being successful readers and writers. Previously, teachers would complain that Indigenous student writing sounded like "yarning" written down. If yarning, that is, oral recount, is the resource that students have internalised, why is that surprising? By drawing attention to highly literary writers' techniques, and through allowing time to experiment with these resources, students are able to make choices about how they express their own experience, drawing on powerful techniques from their growing repertoire.

The examples provided below demonstrate ways that Indigenous students have represented their worlds as they participate in the Accelerated Literacy program. These samples of student writing show how students are taking on and using new literate resources in their own writing. At the same time, I believe the samples also demonstrate how students continue to make choices about their identity, including affirming their identity as Indigenous students. While I am aware of the danger of stereotyping, some common themes about

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Indigenous identity appear in literature: autonomy or independence of children, and affiliation with or responsibility for, and strong links to, family (Mal in, 1990, pp.314-316), and a strong link to, and often a sense of being a custodian of place or country. These themes are common in published Dreaming stories and contemporary literature such as Noonuccal's Stradbroke Dreaming (1993). It needs to be reiterated here that, while such elements may be part of Indigenous student heritage, a legacy from their families, each student makes their own choices, conscious or unconscious, about how they will represent themselves using the literary resources available to them. To present some or all of these common themes as the foreground of their identity is but one choice for these students, as shall be· seen below.

The northern metropolitan state school which these students attend has a growing Indigenous population. Its reputation has spread, and many Indigenous parents want to enroll their children where they know they will be valued and safe. The school has a strong Aboriginal Education team consisting of Aboriginal Education Worker, and two part-time Aboriginal Education teachers. All of the school's welcome signs are written in the local Kaurna language as well as English. Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri languages are taught within the school. Those aspects of the school lead to Indigenous students holding their heads high. But the school also recognises its responsibility to support students in being successful in new contexts. As well as Aboriginal culture days, Indigenous students, along with their peers, participate in the Rock eisteddfods, they sing in the Schools' Music Festival. However, the school recognises and has worked hard on ensuring that social cohesion and inclusion arc thc foundation of strong academic inclusion. The staff have been committed to Accelerated Literacy for many years.

The first two examples J present in the tables below come from one boy in two consecutive years of school. While his sense of Indigenous identity is very strong, this boy certainly did not begin by seeing himself as a reader and writer. These examples show how his independent writing developed over twelve months in the Accelerated Literacy program, and demonstrate his increasing repertoire of literate resources. I have presented the student's written narratives in the middle column of the table. In the column to the left of the narrative, I have identified some of the "written-like" grammars and literary techniques that the student is demonstrating. In the column to thc right, I have attempted to identify themes appearing in the narrative which might be construed as demonstrating values important to Indigenous communities, values such as autonomy, affiliation, respect for elders, and relationship with the land.

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Literate resources JOE THE GO-KART RIDER (Year 2) Identities

n'r ! !

Expansion of topic Joe the go-kart rider was very poor. He Aspirations

sentence to explain just only had enough money to buy a go-kart. as a go-kart

how poor he was, and why His Mum and Dad died. ride!: he was pOOl:

Strong sense Grammatically complex He was 20 years old so he became a of affiliation to

sentence: four clauses. go-kart racer to make money to buy a family. both including two relative house and food and furniture. immediate and clauses: explaining why he extended. became a go-kart racer, and why he wants to make As he got more money he was sharing Autonomous money. money with his relations. They did not behaviow;

live on the streets any more. perhaps Two sentences begin with inevitable time clauses. These because main clauses stage the events As he got richer, he got to choose what character was

ill the stOlY. Same go-kart he wanted to race with and so OIphaned. meanings. different word he shared money with other poor people choice support cohesion of thanks to that idea. Generous of text. spirit and

willing to Use of cod a: "thanks to share what he that idea" tojinish off the had with story. others.

Literate resources PIZZA HEART ATTACKS (Year 3) Identities

Humorous and creative title One time a young child called Alfred Author is

Opening paragraph Wallace lived with his Mum and Dad on writing as the

introducing characters ([nd a farm. He ate vegetables and meat; son of this

setting. Expansions to cabbage, carrots and sprouts, sausages character:

provide interest. and and rissoles. He got the same meal all the main contrast healthy, ifboring the time. character food with pizza later. takes the Summarising sentence at When he was 24, he got a job and moved name of the

end of paragraph. to the city. For the first time, he had boy~'fathe,;

enough money to buy a pizza. It was tasty who was Staging of events with time and he bought it all the time. His favourite sometimes in

clause in two sentences. was mushroom. bad health. Two expansions on pizza: partly why he bought it. and his He bought it until he was 48 years old. because of favourite. Sudden Iy he felt sick and he went to a his eating

doctor. The doctor said "Do not eat a habits.

Use of adverbs of time 10 piece of pizza again." expand on meaning.

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Appropriate choice of

modality in doctors

instruction: "Do not!"

Resolution of stOlY is a complex sentence of two clauses, and includes a moral to show us what happens if we eat too much pizza,

Unfortunately Alfred did not listen and ate a piece of pizza. All of a sudden he died He weighed lIS kilos. The next day he got cremated because he was too big.

Moral and

responsible

leader in the family: has the job of making sure his father gets the message.

RespectJulof elders: tells indirect moral tale.

The following excerpts were written by two Year 7 Indigenous girls after studying Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. As part of the Accelerated Literacy program, the students worked together in small workshops, focusing at sentence or paragraph level, refining and practicing their use of a new resource. One of Rodda's resources which the students have appropriated here is to begin the story with a problem; for Rodda,a significant event in the life of the village. Another is the strong use of contrast in fhe resolution, emphasising the feeling of being safe at last.

Literate resources The people of Berri Identities Begins sentence with lime One morning all the Aboriginal This girl had recently

phrase to stage the S/Oly. people of Berri looked out to moved Fom the

Expanded nOun group discover that the river that was Riverfand and still

Expanded ciause with ciosg by the camQ and gave them still visited regularly

several bits acting as a water had stoQned flowing. Strong sense of links noun: to discover what? with, and reliance on Emphasis through use of No beautiful river was flowing country.

"no" at beginning of sentence down from the hill. ' Identifies with Aboriginalltre from nrevious era.

The homecoming Use 0/ simile. It seemed like a dream come true Where does this one

that they were here safe in the come from with

Emphasis through castle, with the stone beneath castles, dragons,

adverbial phrases to tefl us their feet and the warm heat of the witches and dogs?

"where" and "how". fire on their faces. They shut their Television? Movies?

Extended noun groups for eyes tightly and they were still Evidence of western

image!Y· deep in the forest with the dragon, literCllyexperiences?

witches and the dogs, the fear Identifies in part with

Use of contrast 0;/ present, and longing. "Rowall of Rin ": ie safe, with memOly of dragon appears in what has already original stOlY. happened, ie jeat:

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U<;e of nom inai is at ions. But when they all opened their Strong sense of

eyes again, the fires was still affiliation with "loved

Expansions for emphasis. here, their loved ones and the ones" and home.

smell of food cooking beside them. Repetitionjor emphasis. It was true. They were here. They

were home at last.

Finally, here is the writing of a Year 6 boy who has been working with Accelerated Literacy for several years. His class had been studying Storm Boy by Colin Thielc (1963). Thiele offers elaborate descriptions in his orientation to establish a strong sense of place. This young author has closely appropriated the grammars, resources such 'as similes and metaphor, and stmcture to develop a description of his neighbourhood. I especially appreciate this because it is a suburb which is often described in less than positive terms, usually in relation to a drug bust or murder investigation ..

Literate resources Bush Boy (Year 6) Identities

Metaphor Bush Boy lived between the Dam and Strong sense of

the Little Para Golf Course. His home identity I,vith place.

Use of noun group at was the long, hairy jagged arm of grass beginning of sentence and tree that curves away towards the for emphasis, followed busy highway. A windy strip it is, dusty by expanded and rocky, with two-story houses to contrasting noun one side and the spectacular scenery of groups. the bike track on the other. People call it

the Little Para Trails.

Expanded noun Bush Boy lived with Waterfall Bob, his Filial identity,

groups with relative father. Their home was a rough misty although not the

clauses. shed made of wood, sticks and smooth main theme of this

sheets of steel from tin cans. It had f! piece.

dirt floor, a rnistX bit of glass for a Good example of well- window, and a little crooked door made constructed paragraph: of sticks and wire. It was mild in Spring topic sentence, and hot in Summer, it sweated when the expansion, evaluation sun beamed from above and sizzled on asfinai sentence. the tin roof. But bush Boy loved his

home.

Metaphor to When Bush Boy went walking along the Identifying with

demonstrate rocky trails, or over the bike jumps, or in nature.

relationship between the golf course, the animals were not Bush Boy and the afraid. They knew he was a friend. The animals. ducks sat in a line, like soldiers waiting

for orders with their heavy beaks

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drooping, and shook their feet happily in greeting; the kookaburras laughed and talked; the bees stung the air into strips as they buzzed their small heads up and down; and the frog stood in silent dignity like a soldier being given a medal as Bush Boy went past.

Useo/"But" in theme But one evening Bush Boy noticed Standing in moral position to mark some of the trees demolished and in judgement. complication. devastation. Three or four vandals had Careful choice 0/ verb snuckinto the quiet park. They "slaughtered". discovered a few kookaburra nests -Attempt at adverb, then they slaughtered three of the tall complex sentence with birds nesting there. Later on they had several aclions squashed everything intentionally with happening their shovels, punching and yelling and simultaneously. picking up the yellow eggs and throwing

them about until most were smashed. Then they had gone off giggling.

Conclusion Indigenous students with a strong sense of self will make their own choices about which identities they will choose from their available repertoire. Many students will draw on, and be proud of, their Aboriginal heritage, supported by schools ensuring that impOltant cultural events, practices and knowledge are affirmed and included in school life. They may, as in most of the examples above, continue to affirm in their writing the strong values of Indigenous cultural life. They may, like one student, choose to represent a fantasy world that has evolved from books and movies. The Accelerated Literacy program has broadened the language repertoire, both written and oral, which students can draw upon to express their own worlds as they perceive them, including, but not limited to, important values of strong affinity with community, family and country.

Social inclusion in school life is a necessary foundation in Indigenous education, but it is not sufficient in itself. In the Accelerated Literacy program, a pedagogy has been developed which provides academic inclusion for all students, building on, but not limiting itself to, social inclusion. The choices that students make about how they represent their identities, communities and worlds are beyond our control. Those choices are not clear-cut. However, having a substantial linguistic repeltoire to draw on will mean that those choices are real ones for them.

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