The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 2 | Page 65

literate students. Johnston focuses his study
on accomplished literacy teachers and from
them finds that teachers must foster a sense
of agency in order to help students think
strategically and learn to problem solve
independently. Opening Minds, by Peter
Johnston (2012) builds on the language piece
from Choice Words, but draws attention to
how the specific words that teachers choose
affect student’s self-worth, as well as social
and emotional development, not only in the
classroom but also in daily life. Johnston
focuses on two individual beliefs and
behaviors; fixed-knowledge frame and the
dynamic knowledge frame. By changing our
language and focusing on the process, we can
encourage students to be strategic learners in
a dynamic knowledge frame.
Choice Words focuses on the critical role
that teachers play in the discursive histories
from which children speak. Teachers must
attend to children’s feelings by making
observations and responding accordingly.
Clay (1991) points out that paying attention
to these feelings is about building a learning
network that enforces self-monitoring and
self-motivation behaviors. Johnston builds on
Clay’s ideas by pointing out that teacher’s
conversations with students help the
students understand how actions and
consequences develop a sense of agency. To
create this sense of agency teachers must
teach children how to act strategically and
think critically. By engaging students through
language, teachers can convince students that
they are people who can achieve and
accomplish anything. Johnston finds three
parts to maximizing agency in the classroom.
First, teachers must believe that the language
that is being used in the classroom can affect
the environment. Second, the belief that one
has what it takes to affect the language, and
third, understanding that creating a positive
learning environment and building agency in
students is what literacy is all about.
In building agency teachers can provide
students with successful stories and
opportunities to tell themselves new stories.
Teachers can build powerful narratives that

show students what has gone well and what
students already know and can do with little
or no guidance. By naturalizing statements,
teachers are showing students that mistakes,
struggling, noticing, and creating are normal
and happen to all learners on a daily basis.
Not only must teachers help foster this sense
of agency, the teacher must help students
learn to be flexible and transfer the skills
from one situation to another. By asking
students “What-if” questions or making
connections to other information teachers are
helping build identities for students, ones that
have positive narratives. Students must take
an active role in learning, and t eachers can
use language to help control the way students
view learning.
Although our most powerful tool in the
classroom is our language, teachers must also
be aware of the cultural narrative that
students bring with them to the classroom.
According to New Literacy Studies, literacy
only makes sense in the context of social and
cultural practices. Literacy varies from one
practice to another and from one culture to
another. Literacy is always embedded in
socially constructed epistemological
principles. Johnston points out that children
have a well-learned cultural narrative that
has been formed from a very young age
through family conversation and experiences.
These cultural narratives help model the
possible forms that narratives can take in the
classroom. The way in which teachers and
students interact is already a social practice
and it affects the nature of the literacy being
learned.
To make changes in classroom
interactions, teachers must change their
words and beliefs. Teachers must create
meaningful activities that foster language that
promotes agency in students. Teachers must
rise above the challenge of high stakes
testing, curriculum demands, and policies and
think about who we want our children to
become. Our language helps children become
self-monitoring, self-thinking, and strategic
literacy learners.
©The Missouri Reader, 37 (2) p.65