Linking Literacy and Popular Culture. Ernest Morrell

Teaching Popular Sports

"Athletes, for instance, have been shown to have higher graduation rates and better grades than their non participatory peers," (pp. 105).

"In fact, athletes, more than any others , have found ways to work together across multiple lines of difference including race, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status," (pp. 105).
The question I have: Why? And how to do we get to help students see why this takes place?

"I took Calebs comment to mean that he could not read and relate to texts in a manner that would earn him academic credit," (pp. 107). I work with a third grader named Jasmin. We work on inferring from facts and developing a main idea using context clues. Sometimes she says: "Mr. G, I can't read." Sometimes I get discouraged when she says that because she can read well, but from Morrell to Caleb, I now understand why she had trouble coming up with and inference from a fact or a main idea from a context clue, comprehension is her off-set.

"Teens are often more motivated to play for a particular coach than they are to complete the literacy tasks required in secondary classrooms," (pp. 113). Of course there are youth who don't necessarily enjoy watching sports. Give students the option to find something about sports that they like and turn it into a form of literacy in the classroom.