Lois Letchford: Teaching Literacy in Black Lives Matter, The story of Twayne

17 Jul 2020 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:51

In this short YouTube monologue, literacy specialist Lois Letchford shares how she teaches reading to African‑American middle‑school students within the Black Lives Matter framework. She recounts the case of a 15‑year‑old student, Twain, who could read only ten words after ten years of schooling, illustrating the depth of the literacy gap. Letchford describes her multi‑modal instructional mix—starting with interactive poetry, picture‑rich texts, sight‑word drills, and decoding practice—while simultaneously exposing students to humorous literature. She details her use of Paul Jennings stories, first "Licked" (which she set aside because its nuclear family model didn’t resonate) and then "Mouthful," which she transformed by swapping gendered characters and pronouns so the boys could relate as sons and friends. This gender‑role reversal created an interactive, participatory reading experience that sparked laughter and deep engagement, demonstrating a transformative approach to culturally responsive literacy instruction. The video ends with a call to like and subscribe.

Chapters

Hello, I am Lois Letchford. I'm the Literacy Problem Solver, and this week I'm talking about Black Lives Matter and literature. I've taught a number of African American students, but one dearest to my heart was my 15-year-old, Twain. It was a struggle for him to come to me, but he did. He could read 10 words. in the 10th grade after 10 years in school. So it was an enormous struggle. I teach by beginning with poetry, which is interactive for them. Poetry and lots of pictures. I teach sight words. I teach decoding. But I also have my students engaged in literature. The first piece I used with them was one that I thought was very funny. It's called Licked. And it's adapted by— from a book by Paul Jennings. Licked is about a family that has a father and a mother and the father in work. My students are from single-parent families, so that story didn't go down well. So I put it away, and the next one I chose was this one called Mouthful, also by Paul Jennings. Very funny, but there's a problem here. Although the It's a single parent father. It's about his daughter and the daughter's friend. And I said to my boys, can I read you this story? And they said, no. And I said, but it's really funny. It's really funny. And Pedro said, yeah, yeah, I'll listen. I'll listen. Good. Well, they got to the end and roared with laughter. And I said, boys, the next step is I can't ask you to be girls, but what if we adapted this And I'll play a mother instead of a father, and you can be the boys. You can be my sons and the son's friend. How does that sound? That was transformative for me and for them and for our teaching and their learning. Just astounding. As we went through each part of this play and changed every single name from male to female and female to male, and then you're also changing the pronouns. I've got my students interactive and interacting with each part of the text all the time. They're hearing and hearing the words. I am reading to them and they are engaged in it and even changing some words. So that's how I started Twain and Pedro, but the next bit, the best bit, comes tomorrow. Thank you. Lois Letchford. Hit like, hit subscribe, and enjoy my little YouTube clips. Thank you.