Children's Stories

My children's story was inspired by three things, my seven-year-old son, an academic competition that took place almost three decades ago, and the preamble from a piece of text. 

Thirty three years ago, as a student at Doolittle East Elementary, I was training for an academic competition in the Chicago Public Schools district 11. We had to compete against the math and science powerhouses in our district. Our coach, Mrs. W., told us that we could not afford to come in second. We had to be the best, and we were. We crushed the Asian, White, and African American competition. Although others were surprised, we were not. 

Often times, people confuse striving for the best as conceit or arrogance. It was just our way of thinking. The members of that academic team have gone on to serve society. My main man, DRD, now works for the federal government in Washington, D.C. after earning a law degree.

Why strive for the best? I read a preamble that contained the following words:

We live in a world where millions die from easily preventable diseases… and still more face hunger as a daily fact of life. We are locked inside a worldwide economic system that dispenses crumbs and extends privileges to a relatively small number, while forcing billions to seek desperately for work that more often than not numbs the mind, crushes the spirit and destroys the body.... We walk through our days in a world where the lives of countless children are ground up and destroyed...as victims of poverty and humiliation...their potential crushed, or their lives cut short.


I WANT TO BE...

by

Alfred W. Tatum
July 26, 2009

I want to be 
the fastest

I want to be
the smartest

I want to be
the strongest

I want to be
the coolest

I want to be
the richest

I want to be
the happiest

I want to be 
the healthiest

I want to be
the nicest

I want to be 
the sharpest

I want to be
the neatest

I want to be
the proudest

I want to be the 
the worldliest


I want to be 
the awesome-est

I want to be 
the best

person ever. 

My seven-year-old loved it. He added the line, I want to be the awesome-est. 

Let's not be apologetic for what we want for the generation that follows.

We will write children's stories to help kids:

1. Appreciate their unique qualities
2. Trust their instincts
3. Enjoy the process of becoming
4. Employ their imaginative gifts
5. Fumble, make mistakes, and recover
6. Become the master of their young lives rather than servants to adulthood
7. Experience a new word
8. Find mentorship in your words
9. Participate in shaping their own events
10. Live more fully, at least for a moment, as a result of your words
11. Love being young

12. Hear rhythms

The following children's story was written by a former student of the Clinic. He wrote about the 2nd Grade Blues. This is a wonderful and inviting title for a children's story. I look forward to reading your children's stories. 

2nd Grade Blues

2nd grade blues…

Finger painting, in my world, I got the blues…

Just, struggling to ride my bike that I always use…

Today, after hearing the sudden ring of the ice cream truck, I trip and fall…

Had to work, out my workbook today, couldn’t even play with my friends, I wish I could see them all…

Just got the brand new light-up, spider-man shoes, all I was trying to do was show them off outside, scuffed em’ up…

A day in school, and got a timeout, because I told my teacher to shut up!

I went to lunch, and spilled my apple juice on the floor…

This girl ate all my cookies, and still wanted more…

I lost my show-and-tell toy…

I found out it was with this boy…

I went home, only to be in trouble with my dad…

He said, my teacher said I was just being bad…

I went to my room and stumped my feet…

It was so loud you could almost hear it from the street…

My sister went to go tattle tale…

I got yelled at again, I felt so pale…

I got the 2nd grade BLUES!!!!!

The Common Core

Making the Common Core Not So Common: A Directive for Literacy Leaders

By

Dr. Alfred W. Tatum

University of Illinois at Chicago

The dissenting voices against the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are beginning to grow before the full implementation of the standards. There is a call for states to abandon the standards and the associated assessments. Heeding the call, the state of Alabama is withdrawing from two testing consortia aligned with the standards, PARCC and Smarter Balanced. Legislation was introduced in Indiana to drop the standards.

Two major arguments are surfacing from democratic and republican leadership. One, the standards are creating a pipeline for private industry to access taxpayers dollars. Two, the common core is laying the foundation for a national curriculum. Other arguments include the financial costs states will incur to implement the standards and the lost of local control for designing curriculum.  Still, many from the 46 states who have adopted the CCSS agree with the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief of State School Officers that higher standards are needed to prepare students for college and careers.  Despite the opposition, states are gearing up for the assessment of their students beginning in the 2014-2015 school year.

While others engage in hot political and economic debates about the CCSS, it is important for leaders of the education of African American and Latino boys to ask two fundamental questions:

1. Will the CCSS yield the promise for African American and Latino boys that reshapes the trend for college and career readiness to be on par with the best young minds in the nation?

2. Or, will the CCSS serve as a metaphorical noose that hangs young African American and Latino boys from data sheets until the next best reform effort comes along?

I offer these questions because they are not raised in the larger debates about the CCSS, and the voices of African American and Latino leaders were noticeably absent in the development and push for CCSS. I anticipate many states will opt out the standards within 5 to 7 years because many of their students will fail to meet the standards and they will be penalized as a result. Following groundswell adoption by many school districts throughout the U.S., reform efforts have a way of leading to educational carnage before being ditched. There is precedent for this with the No Child Left Behind legislation that was designed to yield educational parity. Similarly, two years ago everyone was on the Response to Intervention (RTI) bandwagon that is being squeezed out in favor of the current reform mandate because the promise of RTI did not manifest.

After 45 years of reading reform legislation and initiatives, many colleges and universities are experiencing their lowest enrollments of African American and Latino males. Reforms efforts without a strong conceptualization and committed leadership to move beyond the narrow aims of these efforts will not reverse the trend of underperformance among many African American and Latino boys or push our best minds to higher heights. Essentially, we are underserving boys at both ends of the academic spectrum, that is, our high performing and low performing students. It must be clear that the CCSS are a proposed lever of change that ignores the depth of the needs of many young African American and Latino boys. As I have offered elsewhere (Tatum, 2013), the absence of sanctioned standards is not the root cause of the reading and writing outcomes for African American and Latino boys. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the implementation of the CCSS will be at the epicenter of their academic success.

Our boys need a common core that is not so common. The call to read fiction and nonfiction as a pathway to social and economic parity and as a pathway to manhood was the resounding call among people of color, African American males in particular, almost two hundred years ago. A demarcation between reading fiction and nonfiction did not exist until modern-day school leaders authorized reading less nonfiction and easier, leveled texts to the detriment of many students. Historically, the focus on reading was driven by reading the best texts available, texts that stimulated intellectual development and shaped pathways for progress and human liberty. For example, Frederick Douglass’ life was forever changed after he read The Columbian Orator. My life was forever changed after reading Dick Gregory’s Nigger. Many of our students are not encountering life-altering texts, texts that restore their confidence in reading and writing as tools of protection, human development, and identity formation. This will continue with CCSS if we are not careful. Again, our common core has to be not so common.

What will make the common core not so common? I share the following for literacy leaders to consider.

1.     While the CCSS call for increasing complexity in what students read, leaders of African American and Latino boys must do it in a way to build agendas to improve and enhance the condition of African American and Latino communities.

2.     While the Common Core State Standards call for including rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills, leaders of African American and Latino boys must do it in a way that allows boys to make meaning of their identities.

3.     While the CCSS call for writing logical arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning, and relevant evidence, leaders of African American and Latino boys must do it in a way that produces texts that allow boys to define their lives and define their times. (See aaamsli5.blogspot.com)

4.     While the CCSS call for growing students’ vocabularies through a mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading, leaders of African American and Latino boys must do it in a way that charges boys to use language to reclaim authority over their lives and counter threatening circumstances.

5.     While CCSS call for having academic discussions and being able to deliver formal presentations in a variety of contexts, leaders of African American and Latino boys must cultivate speakers and thinkers who share knowledge and promote ideas en route to a literate way of life.

Many of you reading this post learned and prospered without the presence of the CCSS. This suggests that they are not absolutely necessary for our students’ personal growth and intellectual development. However, we had teachers and leaders who moved beyond the common toward something extraordinary and worthwhile – something that was not so common. Although I embrace the CCSS, I advocate for a Common Core (+). Leaders who accept this premise will do well by our young males. Those who do not should prepare to pull out the ropes because you will hang our young males from data sheets when it is your protection they need.

Tatum, A.W. (2013). Common core state standards: Structuring and protecting

equitable pathways for African American boys. In S. Neuman & L. Gambrell (Eds.), Quality reading instruction in the age of common core state standards (pp. 75-89). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 

The American Flag

•American Flag

•By

•Alfred W. Tatum

•February 11, 2012

• 

•“Oh, say can you see”

•There trapped in the flapping stripes

•Crimson flowing from cracked fingernails

•Trying to grip the words of Jefferson

• 

•But the southerly winds of Baltimore

•Rips through the stars, swatting a few more away

•Young Bodies flung back toward the Atlantic

•To join their kindred spirits

•Near the ocean’s floor

• 

•By the dawn’s early light

•What so proudly we held

•Holding on to the white stars

•In the northwestern corner

•Burning through the flesh

•Of those orphan hands who saw the glimmer of light

•Now fading as they black out

•And the hope of Lincoln and Roosevelt dims 

 

 

•Through the perilous fight

•As the bombs and bullets burst through the air

•Shattering American democracy

•That maims son and daughters of this republic

•in the playgrounds of Chicago and in kindergarten classrooms

•in our safest neighbors

• 

•Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there

•Held by hands

•Tired hands

•Hands that found energy

•As they clasped

•To save a young nation

•Open to fresh wounds

•That they knew would heal

• 

•The flag still stands

•So must we.

Informational Pieces by UICRC Student Authors

Children's Stories by UICRC Student Authors

Short Stories by UICRC Student Authors

Poems by UICRC Student Authors

Short Stories by UICRC Mentors

Children's Stories by UICRC Mentors

Poems by UICRC Mentors

Our First Blog Post - Young Writers Arriving