50 Literacy Strategies for Culturally Responsive Teaching, K-8

Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt, Wen Ma

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781412925723, 9781412925716
• eBook ISBN: 9781452284804
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

"The authors provide practical approaches to literacy instruction that are desperately warranted. They offer a prescription for using strategies, selecting text, making home-school connections, and building learning communities aimed at benefiting all students. In short, this is a text that is long overdue."
--Alfred W. Tatum, Assistant Professor
Northern Illinois University

Make literacy MEANINGFUL in your classroom for students of ALL cultures!

This book will allow teachers to use innovative strategies to promote engaged, inclusive literacy, and raise their students? appreciation for the cultural diversity in their own classroom communities. This resource celebrates awareness of individual, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity, and addresses all aspects of studies within the context of culturally responsive teaching. Field-tested with K-8 teachers, each strategy is described for use at beginning, intermediate, and advanced grade levels, and also helps teachers to individualize and accommodate special needs students.

50 Literacy Strategies for Culturally Responsive Teaching, K-8 addresses all aspects of language arts, reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and integrates math, science, and social studies, all within the context of culturally responsive teaching. Ways to include families and community members further strengthen the strategic effectiveness.

The six major themes of this text cluster a wealth of easily adapted and implemented strategies around:

• Classroom community
• Home, community, and nation
• Multicultural literature events
• Critical media literacy
• Global perspectives and literacy development
• Inquiry learning and literacy learning

This invaluable resource will allow every teacher to transform the classroom culture to one in which all cultures are valued and literacy becomes meaningful to all!

1

Classroom
Community:
Getting to Know
Me, Myself, and Us

STRATEGY 1

Autobiography: All About Me

Autobiographies, assigned at the beginning of the school year, not only help the teacher know the student’s family background, but also the likes and dislikes that motivate. Sharing portions of autobiographies within the classroom also stimulates students to get to know each other for the development of a classroom learning community. As a result, research strongly suggests that students benefit academically and socially in such a community (Garcia, 2002; Heath, 1983; Slavin, 1990; Schmidt, 2005). English Language Learner (ELL) students find this strategy particularly empowering (Cummins, 1986; Igoa, 1995). They may bring information to the classroom not found in texts as primary sources. This can inspire a greater depth of understanding and appreciation of the curriculum.

ELA Standard: 9

Beginning Learners—All About Me

1. One or two students are given brown grocery bags to take home and fill with their favorite things. Suggestions are family pictures, toys, clothing, or gifts from grandparents or other people they care about.
2. During the daily sharing time, the student takes one item at a time out of the bag and talks about it. The item may be passed around or put on a special table for the day.
3. After the sharing, the rest of the class may ask questions for the student to answer.
4. When the students finish questioning, they write about their classmate and make a picture about him or her. These writings and drawings are shared throughout the day.
5. At the end of the day, the student takes home the class’s written records in the form of a book with a cover designed by one of the classmates.

Intermediate Learners—Life Timeline

1. Students are given a roll of paper to create a timeline of their life stories.
2. They place significant remembered events along the line.
3. They may draw pictures or add snapshots of the events.
4. The may add a measurement line (like an EKG) along the timeline that depicts the highs and lows of their 12 years. A dip occurs with the loss of a grandparent. A peak occurs when given the first cat or dog.
5. Hang the timelines around the room.
6. Each person gets to tell his or her story.

Advanced Learners

1. Students write their autobiographies, starting from their earliest memories.
2. Students include family history, education, religion, holidays, celebrations, travels, pets, friends, victories, and defeats.
3. Students may want to share a special family artifact, like a military uniform, pottery, jewelry, toy, quilt, or recipe.
4. Students compare and contrast their stories with the biographies of famous people from several ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Web sites of these famous people can inspire more research and a greater depth of understanding.
5. Discuss the biographies and explain what is admired about the people’s lives.

Curriculum Connections

This strategy lends itself to any language arts or social studies program for beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners, at the start of the school year. From the beginning of class course work, students can situate themselves in specific eras studied during history and literature classes. Beginners start to think of themselves as part of a community. This relates to the study of community helpers. Intermediate learners study other nations and cultures within the United States as well as around the world. For advanced learners, who have the opportunity to be involved in social studies and English interdisciplinary thematic units, the autobiography is especially powerful. Autobiographies serve as a means for comparing and contrasting the past, present, and future with historical and literary periods.

Teachers’ Comments

“Students like to talk or write about their favorite topics, themselves, and their communities. Even students with difficult family histories show pride in their discussions.”

“What might seem unmentionable to us may be spoken or written without fear if the classroom is safe.”

“Knowledge gained … places greater responssibility on the teacher, but gives a deeper understanding for working with students.”

STRATEGY 2

Biography: What Do You Like?

Interviewing classmates to discover what they like at the beginning and throughout the school year would help students get to know each other and start an appreciation of each other. Television has provided many models for interviews, so students enjoy trying this themselves. The interview process also acts as a means to promote inquiry learning, where students are active classroom participants who connect with their learning environment and formulate questions (Chaille & Britain, 1991; Slavin, 1990). After the interview, using multicultural crayons, magic markers, paint, or other art forms, students may draw or color the persons interviewed, showing the individuals enjoying what they like. The pair helps each other throughout the process. Questions might include asking about favorite foods, television shows, music, games, people, places, holidays, or academics. Actually, students are not only learning about others but also participating in a form of character education related to compassion and empathy, higher-order processes (Berkowitz, 1998).

ELA Standard: 9

Beginning Learners

1. The teacher models the activity by selecting a student and asking the student what he or she likes. The teacher then writes a sentence and draws a simple picture showing one activity or thing the student enjoys.
2. Next, the students are paired and the students ask each other about the things they like.
3. Together, they select what to draw.
4. Then students may write/dictate a sentence about the person to be placed under the drawing.
5. Students may introduce their buddies and read the sentences and talk about the pictures.

Intermediate Learners

1. The teacher explains the interview process and models it with students.
2. Students and teacher create interview questions. Examples follow:
   • What foods do you like? Why?
   • What places do you like to go? Why?
   • Who are your favorite people? Why?
   • What is your favorite television show? Why?
   • What is your favorite thing? Why?
   • What is your favorite game? Why?
   • What is your favorite part of the school day? Why?
3. Students interview their partners and write the information.
4. Students draw pictures of their partners enjoying their favorite things, using multicultural crayons, paints, or magic markers.
5. Students write a paragraph about their partners.
6. Pictures and paragraphs are placed on a bulletin board, either inside or outside the classroom.
7. Time may be taken to read and discuss each person.

Advanced Learners

1. The teacher may model the interview process: What does a good interviewer do? What does the interviewee do? Lead a discussion concerning the importance of listening carefully to the person and writing what he or she says is important. The teacher can demonstrate by interviewing a person in the class, such as a teaching assistant, principal, parent, another teacher, or a special guest from the community.
2. Class discusses appropriate interview questions and composes a lengthy list of about 10 or more questions concerning “likes.” Students are paired for interviews and the process begins, allowing for about 5 to 10 minutes for each interview depending on the size of the class.
3. Using multicultural media, such as magazines, students create a poster (2” × 3”) of the person interviewed. Drawings, photos, etc. may be used to celebrate the person interviewed. Students work in pairs throughout the process.
4. Then the “likes” biography is written/typed and placed under the poster. Class discussion of each poster follows.

Curriculum Connections

This language arts or social studies activity includes reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing. Students will be able to monitor their own stories as well as be a special person among other special people. This is a positive way to build classroom learning communities where people actually know a lot about each other and are presented in a positive light. Of course, students may want to categorize the likes of certain people, showing how we are similar and different in our likes.

Teachers’ Comments

“ELL students like this opportunity to share. Their parents sometimes join them.”

“This is a nice way to get students to know each other. They’ve seen interviewing on television, and pretend to be Oprah or some other famous person.”

“This strategy can be completed by all students, no matter what their learning differences, and they like it.”

STRATEGY 3

Physical Differences

By age three, children notice human differences and actually realize what is most acceptable in society. Numerous studies have shown that children are well aware that being from European American or the white culture in the United States gives one a better chance (Barrera, 1992; Jensen, 2005; Tatum, 1992). Therefore, the appreciation of different perspectives and different physical appearances is important to emphasize in the classroom where reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing are developed (Schmidt, 1998a).

This strategy focuses on the physical dimensions of diversity among people. Making the noticeable differences in height, skin tone, and hair and eye colors explicit to students, they may come to be more consciously aware of the great diversity existing among their peers and in U.S. society at large. Although some may be initially uncomfortable talking about physical differences, open and explorative discussions by the students, with the teacher’s guidance, may help the young minds to accept themselves and to accept each other as they are. Accepting attitudes as such may help students’ social and emotional development. While implementing this strategy, the teacher needs to guide the students to be sensitive to others’ feelings.

ELA Standard: 12

Beginning Learners

1. The teacher may begin by showing a picture of the Houston Rockets star Yao Ming and ask the students to guess his height (7 feet, 6 inches). The teacher may then use a yardstick to indicate how high 7 feet, 6 inches is on the wall, then invites volunteers to tell their height (or to measure their height using the yardstick) so as to show how much shorter the volunteers are in comparison to Yao Ming.
2. The teacher explains that people differ not only in height, but also in skin tone, hair, and eye colors.
3. The teacher asks the students to look around at each other and tell all the different hair colors they can find or think of, and the teacher will write down all the color words. For example, auburn, blond(e), black, brown, brunette, chestnut, golden, grey, red-haired, sandy, etc.
4. The teacher then asks the students to tell the skin colors they can find or think of. Again, the teacher will write down all the words for skin tone. For example, albino, black, dark, fair, freckled, light, olive, pale, tan, white, yellow, etc.
5. Similarly, the teacher asks the students to come up with words for eye colors, which the teacher writes down on the board. For example, black, blue, brown, gray, green, hazel, etc.
6. The teacher then explains that, although people have all these different physical features, we can still work together and become friends.
7. Finally, each student shakes hands with other classmates and says, “Let’s be friends.”

Intermediate Learners

1. Repeat Steps 1–7.
2. The teacher adds that the different races living in the U.S. tend to have different physical characteristics. For example, people of European backgrounds often have pale skin tones and a variety of hair and eye colors, whereas people of African backgrounds tend to have black or dark skin, hair, and eyes, whereas many Asian pe...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Authors
• 1. Classroom Community: Getting to Know Me, Myself, and Us
• 2. Home, Community, and Nation: Making Contributions to Literacy Learning
• 3. Multicultural Literature Events: Motivating Literacy Learning in Content Areas
• 4. Critical Media Literacy: Exploring Values
• 5. Global Perspectives and Literacy Development: Understanding the World View
• 6. Inquiry Learning and Literacy Learning: Beginning to Know Research 105
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Resource A: Standards for the English Language Arts
• Resource B: List of Cited Youth Literature
• References
• Index