Breaking the Silence: Recognizing the Social and Cultural Resources Students Bring to the Classroom

In many of today's schools, literacy is treated as an autonomous skill assumed to be learned in the same way by all students. Oftentimes, learning is treated as separate from other aspects of children's lives, and issues of class, identity, access, race, and social relationships are ignored. However, in Breaking the Silence, you will enter classrooms in which teachers capitalize on students' interests and cultural knowledge as they invite them to use literacy in personal and purposeful ways.