Challenges in Senior Class Literacy

I literally broke down

in the middle of class because

I'm teaching seniors.

These kids are leaving

high school and going to college, hopefully, after

they finish.

We had

two paragraphs to read,

one sentence

complete to write.

I gave them

the sentence stems.

I basically completed the sentence for them in the model.

These are seventeen

and eighteen-year-old kids,

and they couldn't fill in four words.

Four words.

I gave them the scenario.

We annotated together.

I gave them the answers before we even had the

problem,

and they couldn't do it.

I don't know.

I simply

don't know

where the problem is.

This is only day two,

and I have seniors who simply

cannot

read

and seniors who cannot write.

They cannot write. They can reason.

They have the ability to defend their reasoning

if it's talking to their homeboy,

but applying that to a written text, two

paragraphs,

and they couldn't do it.

Our young Black men,

our young Brown men,

our young Black girls, and our young Brown

girls...

Oh, God.