Choosing Texts With Student Assets, Not Deficits, In Mind

“Are we reading today?” Amir* asked as soon as he stepped into the classroom one afternoon in March. 

“No,” I said, bracing myself for him and the rest of the class to celebrate.

“Aww,” he said instead, “Why can’t we read?”

I was stunned into silence. Here was a student who had hardly ever turned in work, who had never seemed interested in picking up a book before, now disappointed that we would not be reading. And he wasn’t the only one. Several students echoed his disappointment and pressured me to start the next chapter. What had changed?

I had been thinking about the importance of text selection for a while at that point. In meetings of the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) at De Anza High School (in West Contra Costa Unified School District), our Lead by Learning partners had been pushing us all year to identify school-wide learning goals. Rigor was at the top of our list. I knew it was important to get my students to read texts that challenged them. Still, even in a community grounded in the tenets of Public Learning, where I felt empowered to try new things, my attitude was, “I just can’t.” 

At the beginning of the year, I had tried using some grade-level texts – and the results were disastrous. Our first unit of the year was on a topic my students had said they were interested in. But when it came time to read articles on the subject, my students tuned out and glazed over. Their comprehension of the texts was not evident at all in their assessment data. I began to develop a deficit mindset about my English students, believing that long or challenging texts were out of their reach. 

So in the next unit, I tried short stories. I figured, the shorter the better! I thought that shorter would be easier, and I assumed based on past data that these students needed things to be easier.

Again, assessment data showed little student comprehension, let alone the deeper analysis I was hoping for. For example, after we read a story in class, many had already forgotten key ideas and points by the next class session. How would I get them to show what they understood in their reading? 

By the time we reached the spring, I felt like I was running out of time. I couldn’t have my students finish a year of English without reading a novel! But I was struggling to identify a novel that I thought would be “easy enough” for them, given what I perceived as low reading stamina and lack of engagement.

But then, in conversations with a fellow English teacher, I heard about how she had taught the novel All-American Boys with great success. The novel follows two high school boys in the wake of a moment of police violence. My English students, through some quirks of enrollment and scheduling, were over 90% boys. They had also shown an interest in talking about racism in the past. Could this book be the one? I’ll admit, I had my doubts.

Then, just a few chapters into the book, Amir made that comment that changed my entire perspective. “Why can’t we read today?” he said. I asked him why he wanted to read so much. Given that deficit mindset I had developed, I thought maybe Amir was asking for us to read so he could get a chance to nap, tune out, or avoid other work. I assumed, based on my previous challenges engaging students in text, that he didn’t want to try.

Instead, he said, “This book is pretty cool.”

His classmates agreed. They were excited by the drama of the first chapter, intrigued by the two main characters, and eager to talk about the real issues of racism and injustice. Their own life experiences and ideas started to come through as they made connections to the text. I started to realize that this whole year, I had been choosing texts based on my students’ perceived deficits instead of their assets. 

Over the next few weeks, the successes kept rolling in:

• My class, which suffered from frequent student conflict, was able to have a successful group discussion about the text.
• I heard students catching each other up and reminding their friends about what had happened in the book.
• In-class writing assignments grew faster, and students’ thoughts became more organized and clear. 

I nearly cried when Jordan, who had previously struggled to write more than a couple sentences at a time, turned in a complete and well-organized 5-paragraph essay at the end of the unit.

Nowhere was I more proud than when we reached the last chapters of the book. We had been following along with an audiobook so that students could process the text through both reading and listening. However, when I pulled up the audiobook for the last chapter, Ishaan said, “Why can’t we just popcorn read this one?”

Surprised, I polled the class to see who else was willing to read out loud. Almost every hand in the class went up. All but two students in class that day read a page of the final chapter. When we reached the last page, there was a palpable sense of triumph. We had done it. They had done it, had fully participated in reading, all the way to the end. 

What I know now is that it’s not the length or difficulty of a text that matters most; when I gave students a text that made them feel a sense of connection, of belonging, they became willing to put in the work to engage with that text. Moreover, when my text selection shifted from deficit-based to asset-based, my students started to shed the “I can’t” mindset too. That faith in their abilities led me to raise my expectations for their work, giving them more short and long form writing assignments. The products of their work rose to meet those expectations.

I wish I had learned these lessons sooner. All-American Boys may have been a success, but I wish it had been a stepping stone for us to reach more rigorous texts later in the year. I am, however, glad that I finally listened to my students and took them seriously when they told me what was working and what wasn’t. Now, I have a better sense of how to approach text selection – not by trying to simplify and make things easier, but by figuring out what will really make my students tick. I hope that the experience of reading, understanding, and responding to a novel has given my students the confidence and experience they will need to approach more challenging texts in the future. 

*Names have been changed for anonymity

Edie Sussman (she/they) is a third-year high school teacher who loves to get students excited about reading and writing. After graduating with an M.A. and teaching credential from UC Berkeley, they spent two years teaching in Richmond, CA, where they served on their school’s Instructional Leadership Team. This fall, they will start a position teaching English and Social Science at Coliseum College Prep Academy in Oakland, CA. Outside of the classroom, Edie is a home cook, game enthusiast, and avid dancer!

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