A Conversation with Theresa Rogers

Dr. Theresa Rogers talks to us about politics in the lives of young people, adolescents’ multimodal responses to the world, and engaging young people in critical literacies to help them prepare for unknown futures. Dr. Rogers is known for her work in the areas of adolescent/youth literacies and critical perspectives on literature teaching. Her recent articles and the book, Youth, Critical Literacies and Civic Engagement: Arts, Media and Literacy in the Lives of Adolescents, focus on the critical and creative work of youth across communities and schools -- a multi-year study located in Vancouver, Canada. She is currently working  on a  project on spatiality, mobilities and critical literary interpretation. She is a Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia where she teaches courses in adolescent literacies and literature teaching and continues to conduct research with teachers and youth. Her work can be found at https://ubc.academia.edu/TheresaRogers

To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Jan. 3). A conversation with Theresa Rogers. (Season 3, No. 15) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/F5C6-81FA-3144-28AB-FC29-Q  

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:00

In education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. In each episode I talk with a top education researcher or an expert educator about what they have learned from years of research and experiences. In this episode, Dr. Teresa Rogers talks to us about politics in the lives of young people, adolescents multimodal responses to the world and engaging young people in critical literacies. To help them prepare for unknown futures. Dr. Rogers is known for her work in the areas of adolescent youth literacies and critical perspectives on literature teaching. Her recent articles and the book youth critical literacies and Civic Engagement Arts, Media and literacy in the lives of adolescents focus on the critical and creative work of youth across Communities in Schools, a multi year study located in Vancouver, Canada. She is currently professor of language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches courses in adolescent literacies and literature teaching and continues to conduct research with teachers and youth. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite drink. And join me your host, Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Terry, thank you for joining me, welcome to the show.

Theresa Rogers: 1:47

It's nice to be here. Thank you, Lindsay.

Lindsay Persohn: 1:49

So from your own experiences and education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now.

Theresa Rogers: 1:58

So for me, it's less moments than a time when there was such a rich constellation of ideas. And for me, I was lucky enough to experience that while I was in my teacher training program, so I was a master's in a master's program. And it was the very early 80s. And all cognitive psychology was just becoming a really fundamental area of research for us in literacy, and scholarship. And the focus, of course, is people all are quite familiar with now is how readers construct meaning. And it doesn't seem revolutionary now is an idea. But of course, then it was quite a new way to think about how kids were making meaning in the classroom. For those of us who always were inclined to listen to kids, gave us a good excuse to really listen to what they were saying and listen to how they were making meaning. So I also came across the work of Don Murray, at that time, and he wrote this great book called The writer teacher's writings, which is really the same kind of thing. It was really looking at how kids compose meaning. And so together, those ideas of really listening to what kids are saying, in print and text, in conversation in the classroom, really set the stage for the way I taught when I became a teacher. And I worked with adolescents. So I really felt like they have such a wonderful array of ideas, aspirations, passions, commitments, and being able to really listen to those and take them seriously and work with those ideas, was really liberating. I think, for me, it made teaching quite a joy. The second big moment for me really was when I then started my doctoral program, and came across all the work in response to literature reader response theory, and got interested in looking closely at how adolescents interpret literature. And I want to say that one person who influenced me, probably in a way that I now realize is more fundamental than I realized at the time is Louise Rosenblatt. And that is because if you look at her first book, which is called literature's exploration, most people know her, her second book, but this book really comes out of her own experience in World War Two where she was worked in intelligence. And she really was concerned about democracy, rightly so experiencing that World War Two, and she was worried about it in the United States as well as is in the world. And of course, it was kind of prophetic. We think now when we think about how we're dealing with the fragility of democracy right now. But so, so the notion that dialogue was the center of literature teaching, but really, she was also thinking that it was the center of a democracy what keeps a democracy strong, so so that was profound for me and reading, not just her work, but all of the work of the reader response theorists like the working cog Psychology opened up the possibilities of looking closely at how young people are interpreting literature. What strategies are they using? How can we build on what they bring to us, rather than telling them, you know, the old reading of the poem and then saying, What does this mean and having stricken looking faces across the classroom, but really helping them develop their own strategies for for reading literature and making making meaning out of it. And I was lucky enough to work with Alan Purvis on his book, second edition of his book, how porcupines make love, where we really were able to take, take those ideas and make them really practical. I don't know if anybody even read that book anymore. But at the time, it was a quite a popular book for secondary English teachers. So so those were really huge influences on me. And especially as that work moved into a more critical and cultural framing, which is where I would situate my work. Now, we have such a rich array of critical perspectives that we can now bring to the teaching of literacy and literature in the classroom, including many of the recent theoretical perspectives, such as feminist perspectives, cultural material perspectives, post humanist and ecological and dare I mentioned critical race theory, which is, of course, a huge issue right now, which I'm happy to talk about, if that's of interest.

Lindsay Persohn: 6:28

I'm sure it would be of interest. You know, it's a it's certainly a topic that has made some splashy headlines, and I think is largely misunderstood in many circles. And I, it could be very helpful, I think, if you were to share a bit of what you know, and what you what you've done, or on critical race theory, and what teachers might be able to use as a way to understand not only this moment, I think, in our social history, but what is critical race theory actually mean when we're talking about a critical perspective of literature, not necessarily the popular understanding, or misunderstanding,

Theresa Rogers: 7:05

all right, I'll be brief, because you may have people that can talk about this at a deeper level than I can, but while I want to say is that, of course, critical race theory came out of a law school perspective. And it really looks at the way racism is structurally embedded in our laws and our institutions. And it has been broadened out for educators to look at it as a way of thinking also about structural racism in our institutions and our laws. I don't think people are teaching this in the elementary schools, they just aren't. So I don't know, that's such an interesting play by conservatives in the US to say, to make us all so frightened, you know, kind of a scare tactic. Oh, my God, we're teaching our kids critical race theory. I don't think that's happening. But the perspective that racism is embedded in our institutions in our in our history, as you know, I speak to now from Canada, but I grew up in the United States, is really an important concept, I think, as students get a bit older, and it's a useful way of looking at, I'm sure across the curriculum at a variety of texts. And certainly, I've used it in literary study to look at how structural racism is reflected and represented in literary works, and how we can tease that apart to look at it more closely. I think that's a really rich learning experience for young people. So I don't know what to say about how politicized it's become in the US. It's really a shame.

Lindsay Persohn: 8:40

Yeah, because it really is just it's a lens for examining materials. And right, as you said, I don't think that there's anyone out there who's teaching this theory of law in elementary school classrooms. But, you know, it seems that we all have a common goal that we want children and adolescents and, of course, even adults to be thinkers, to look critically at text and to identify what's there and what isn't. And, as I said, I think CRT is just one more lens that we can do that through. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you sharing that with us. So Terry, what do you want listeners to know about your work?

Theresa Rogers: 9:18

So I suppose it's quite evident. But what I really want people to know is that there is this kind of small p i call it small p politics, running through my work from the beginning all the way from the beginning, till now. So I think this is probably reflected in my most recent book in 2015, where I wrote a book called Youth critical literacies and civic engagement. So again, that theme of democracy and critical literacies runs through that entire project, where I looked at how young people marshall the various resources of Arts, Media and literacy to say what was on their minds and the youth I worked with, in communities in this case, were experiencing one group was experiencing homelessness one group had experienced violence in their lives. And so they were working against violence with other youth. And so these resources, as I call them of Arts, Media and literacy, critical literacies, and various multimedia multimodal resources, supported their ability to talk about their experiences, their hopes, their aspirations, as well as to speak back to the policies, the systems and so forth that, that they wanted to change. What was so amazing about the work, I thought from the beginning was the way they engaged in humor and parity and other critical approaches to seeing what they wanted to say. So they worked on poetry zines, various visual artifacts. And so just to give you an example, one of the young women created a kind of an ad. And it mimicked that famous MasterCard ad, if you remember it from the late 90s, I think, where she wrote, she had a visual of a young person sitting on the street. And then she had next to a text, slice of pizza, $1 a pack of smokes $5 This is a while ago, your own place to live away from the streets priceless. And I just thought that was so effective on so many levels, that, you know, it's so few words, and in incorporating that ad genre, in such a clever way, was just really amazing. And so that's the kind of work they produced. And the youth on the streets in particular, they talked back against assumptions that we might have, like how the community in the streets were kind of home and community to them, at least temporarily. And many of them had aspirations to, to conduct more traditional, if you will, lives with work and family and so forth. But at that time, they wanted to advocate for them where they were at that moment, and where they were at that moment was living on the streets, because the situations they left were not good. And so we needed to understand why youth end up living on the streets, even temporarily. And so they would really, and we made films, we did all kinds of things. And it's all, it's all archived in the book. So for instance, one youth made a film about why there needed to be various kinds of resources for them in the part of the city that they were inhabiting. I don't know if you know, Vancouver, in British Columbia at all. But there is what they call the Downtown Eastside, which is a catchment area for many people who unfortunately, have addictions to drugs, and they're homeless and other issues in their lives. And so the youth were saying to go down there was triggering for them, and that they really wanted resources in the community that they were residing in. And there were all kinds of statements like that through again, that was through a film that were really policy statements. And If only, if only we would listen, again, listen to young people, they had lots of really important things to say. And sometimes they did get onto radio shows and other things to get closer to the powers that be and they did. One, at one point, they created a play, and they performed it. And so they did get out into the community. And they didn't have real public's viewing and listening to their work, which was great. I just feel like there should be more of that. They were so acutely aware of the broken promises, if you will of our society. And they had so much to say that we should be listening to for the end of this quite a long project. I just really felt like I wanted to advocate more and more for bringing some of these ideas and skills back into the classroom. I feel like and again, this is my concern about the fragility of democracy, and how do we create citizens for democracy to make it thrive. And one way to do that is to have critical literacy practices in our classrooms. Here, what young people want to say here about their ideas for what should change, and give them ways of expressing that through multiple modalities. And because I mean, I still believe that schools and public schools in particular schools are the cornerstone of our democracy, our democracies, were different ones right now. And so I think we just have to keep remembering that. And I just think about that a lot when I listen to the news in the US and how schools have become such a site of political battles in

Lindsay Persohn: 14:44

schools have certainly become contentious places, particularly in the last several years, I would say. But, Terry, as you were describing that project, I was envisioning how that might play out and in classrooms and I see so much utility in this idea of identifying a problem that's meaningful to us that impacts our lives. And certainly, you know, if we're just getting started on this, you can confine that to the gates of school the fences of schools these days, and ask kids and adolescents, what it is that they really care about. And what it is that's either positively impacting them, and they want to shine a light on or things that are that are bringing them down or keeping them from succeeding at school. And as you highlighted the advertisement, the mock advertisement that the adolescent did in your project, and you know, I could see that being a really powerful part of a communication tool, between school administrators and students to so they really can show what it is that they need from the leaders at their school in order to encourage civic engagement, not only now, but for the future, but to show them that they do have opportunities to, as you said, Talk back against assumptions and stereotypes, because I think that that's also something that that happens all too often in schools, we assume a lot about kids. And I know, at least for the adolescents in my life, they're pretty awesome. But that's not always what we think about them as a group. So I really appreciate you highlighting the way that we can bring their voice to the work that policymakers are doing, and whether those are policymakers within schools, communities, states countries, you know, certainly young people are our stakeholders, and we know that they're the next generation. So yeah, bringing their voice in and hearing what they have to say is so important.

Theresa Rogers: 16:33

You're absolutely right. I think I think that this kind of critical engagement, public engagement, civic engagement, there's so many terms for it is, is starts really locally, absolutely projects in schools, where students can engage with their administration or even with their local communities, and really look at what's going on in their communities and local about what's, what kind of change is good. What kind of changes is still needed? You know, and I think, like many of us more and more about the climate, as well. I mean, that's definitely a topic that I think we can engage in, through I can through all of these multimedia resources and the critical tools that we have at our disposal, they're just such a rich set of tools to help kids say, again, what it is they want to say what they want to change, really listening to them, is what I would like to see going on in in classrooms.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:31

Now acknowledging that we are in fairly different settings. I'm in Florida, you're in British Columbia, there's definitely some differences there. I'm wondering if you have any tips or tricks for any teachers who might be listening to this, who may feel the tensions and pressures of standards and standardized testing, and any tips on how to navigate those pressures while offering opportunities for young people to share their voice and share their work?

Theresa Rogers: 18:02

We have testing here, right? Of course, of course, the testing is a little bit different. It's a little more expansive, and what what gets tested, although it really is a channeling tool for students getting into university. So again, I mean, that itself, it's something that young people could look at and examine and how is it that schools and curriculum is structured to, you know, this work goes back decades now to really, you know, put students in different classes, if you will, and to just create different trajectories for different students? I mean, you can look at those kinds of issues, right, in your own school invite critique of it. I'm not saying that you can change the system overnight. I mean, I don't know that even the tests that go on here, although there is much more conversation here in Canada about abandoning testing altogether, I don't know, there's still also a very strong political force from the right, that we'll always want to keep those kinds of things in place. Because it's a sorting mechanism, isn't it? That's what we want kids to know. That's how these kinds of things get embedded on our institutions. And that's the analysis, do the analysis of it at the same time as maybe you have to deal with it. But do do the kind of analysis of there's all kinds of issues like that, that we can use. And we have all these critical tools and lenses we can now use to really support students to say what it is, again, they want to say and how they want to see the world change.

Lindsay Persohn: 19:38

I think that's a fantastic recommendation to take that that challenge that real world challenge of classroom teachers and turn that over to students find out what they think about it and what their possible solutions are, how they might envision the world a bit differently. So thank you for that.

Theresa Rogers: 19:54

I mean, one thing I've always thought about right from the beginning of my career is you know, the whole notion of authority like to yours have such authority. But how do you give that authority back to the students in your classroom? How did they become the authorities. And so you can still manage beautifully a classroom, but you can give the knowledge the authority for knowledge building and knowledge creating and meaning making back to the students in your classroom.

Lindsay Persohn: 20:21

So, Terry, given the challenges of today's educational climate, we've certainly touched on a few here, what message do you want teachers to hear?

Theresa Rogers: 20:29

I think, again, the more the more they think critically, the more we encourage critical thinking in our classrooms. Again, this was way back to the beginning of my career, encouraging people to think about the world, whether again, it's about climate, economic equity, racial equities, really challenging them with these big ideas, and give them a chance to delve into them, give them many, many multimodal tools to express themselves. I've worked with all kinds of young people, some who have in quite severe learning difficulties, but can create a beautiful film, maybe they can't read it slowly. But they can create a beautiful film, one case, a young person created a film about the Holocaust. Nobody gave him any credit for it for any kind of accomplishments in the classroom. And then he got intrigued by what happened during the Holocaust. And he created a film because he had great audio visual skills. But he couldn't read so people didn't know. And so just so give them the right tools at the right time. I know that's a big ask of teachers when you have 25, 30 however many students in your classroom, but if you can make those things available, and give them the opportunity to answer big questions, ask big questions, answer big questions, I think you're gonna have a rich classroom base.

Lindsay Persohn: 21:55

Thank you for that. And I think that highlighting that opportunity to work with different types of tools, offering those to students and letting them discover, you know, what's the mode in which they they communicate best? Or how do they want to share their message? You know, I think it's easy to get locked into thinking about, well, it used to be paper and pencil, maybe it's now you know, just words on a digital screen. But with music and movement and the world of editing, you know, claymation, you know, cartoon, there are just so many ways that we can tap into different kinds of knowledge that students have, it does feel like we are selling kids a little short if we only give them one way to communicate through words. So I appreciate reminding us of that.

Theresa Rogers: 22:44

It makes me wish I was back in the classroom with secondary students. I have to say, I kind of envy teachers who have all those tools at their disposal now.

Lindsay Persohn: 22:51

there are a lot of exciting opportunities. Absolutely. Terry, thank you so much for your time today. And I thank you for sharing your thoughts. And thank you also for your tremendous contributions to the world of education.

Theresa Rogers: 23:04

Well, thank you, Lindsay. It's been a pleasure.

Lindsay Persohn: 23:06

Thank you. Dr. Teresa Rogers is known for her work in the areas of adolescent and youth literacies and critical perspectives on literature teaching her recent articles and the book youth critical literacies and Civic Engagement Arts, Media and literacy in the lives of adolescents focused on the critical and creative work of youth across communities and schools through a multi year study located in Vancouver, Canada. That project ranged from working with youth experiencing homelessness in the city, to an after school community program where students created videos against violence to a devised theatre production of a secondary school. In all cases, the young people in the project engage in arts media and various literacies to engage with the public and in their communities. engagements that she argues are central to the role of education in democratic societies. Teresa also co authored and CO edited now classic books on literature teaching, including how porcupines make love three reader texts cultures in the literature, classroom and reading across cultures, and several recent articles on spatialized perspective on analyzing and teaching young adult literature. She's the author of numerous articles that have appeared in venues such as reading Research Quarterly Journal of literacy research, children's literature and education pedagogies Journal of adolescent and adult literacies language arts, English teaching practice and critique, and the Oxford research encyclopedia. Dr. Rogers is currently professor of language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia. To connect with Theresa online visit UBC dot academia dot u backslash Teresa Rogers. That's u b c.acadmia.edu. Will backslash t h e r e s a r o g e r s. For the good of all students classroom caffeine aims to energize education research and practice. If this show provides you have things to think about, don't keep it a secret. Subscribe, like and review this podcast through your preferred podcast provider. I also invite you to connect with the show through our website at WWW dot classroom caffeine.com where you can learn more about each guest. Find transcripts for many episodes, explore episode topics using our tagging feature, support podcast, research through our survey, request an episode topic or a potential guest or share your own questions that we might respond to through the show. You could also leave us a voice message or a text message at 1-941-212-0949. We would love to hear from you. As always, I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me