In Defense of the Kid Who “Doesn’t Do Their Part” in Group Work

There’s this kid James* in my fifth period class. Keeps his backpack on the whole time, doesn’t say a lot, sits by the door but never with his back to it, sometimes wears gold teeth.

Last month, I presented the kids with a definition of literacy — meaning-making using a shared symbol system — and we worked through each part of that. Meaning-making is reading and writing — and speaking, listening, cooking, dancing, driving, etc. Symbol systems? Marks on the page (written language) and noises we make (spoken language), gestures, art, style. We explored the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, and they wrote their own narratives of literacy in their lives.

This kid wanted to write about his love of guns and how he learned about them with his dad, that he and his dad had visited his grandfather in Arkansas, and that shooting together on his grandfather’s land had lowkey been the best experience of his life. That’s what he told me when I saw his blank document and asked him if he was thinking or stuck. He said, “I know what I want to write about, but I don’t want you to think that I’m some, like,” he got quieter, “dangerous person.”

I asked him if that had happened to him before, and he said, “Yeah, at my old school I had some issues with teachers. That’s why I came here. I wanted to have a fresh start.” I assured him that I definitely wanted to read the story he’d just told me and that it sounded kinda beautiful to me.