CulturallyRelevant Pedagogy in the English Classroom

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Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy in the English
Classroom

• A Workshop with Tracy Wagner
• May 28, 2004
• The College of New Jersey

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In this workshop, you will

• Learn about culturally-relevant pedagogy in
  theory and in practice
• In theory learn the tenants of Gloria Ladson
  Billings philosophy of culturally-relevant
  pedagogy
• In practice see examples of how teaching through
  the lens of culturally-relevant pedagogy
  influences my daily lessons, curriculum
  construction, and teaching philosophy.

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A Short Intro to Me

• Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and
  Creative Writing from the University of
  Wisconsin-Madison
• Secondary English Teaching Certification from the
  University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Masters in Learning and Teaching from the Harvard
  Graduate School of Education
• English 9 and 10 teacher in a large urban public
  high school
• Writer, researcher, and activist
• White woman from a working-class background
  seeking to effectively work with urban students
  of color and effect social change through school
  reform
• And you?

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What is Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy?

• An educational theory pioneered by Gloria Ladson
  Billings
• The Dreamkeepers Successful Teachers of African
  American Children (1994). San Francisco, CA
  Jossey-Bass Publishers. (a)
• Towards a Theory of Culturally-Relevant
  Pedagogy (b)
• But Thats Just Good Teaching! The Case for
  Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy (1995) in Theory
  Into Practice (34) no. 3, 159-165. (c)

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What is Pedagogy and Why Should I Care?

• Pedagogy is the
• theoretical framework
• on which I stand as a
• teacher.

• Pedagogy is the lens
• through which I
• construct, conduct,
• and reflect on my
• teaching.
• Pedagogy builds who I
• am as teacher, and I
• come back to it again
• and again.

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Then what is Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy?

• Culturally-relevant pedagogy is committed to
  collective, not merely individual, empowerment
  (160c).
• It has three components
• Students must experience academic success
• Students must develop and/or maintain cultural
  competence
• Students must develop a critical consciousness
  through which they challenge the status quo of
  the current social order (160c).

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This looks like

• Teachers incorporating students home languages
  into the curriculum like writing poetry in home
  languages and then translating them into Standard
  English.
• Proud teachers who show enthusiasm and vitality
  about what was being taught and learned (163c)

• Teachers using their students cultures as a
  vehicle for learning (161c) like using rap
  music to teach about meter and rhyme in poetry.
• Teachers using students cultures as bridges to
  school learning.

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Teachers Who Practice Culturally-Relevant
Teaching

• View teaching as a art, not a technical
  skill.
• View themselves as a part of the community in
  which they teach.
• View themselves as giving back to this community.
• See a connectedness between themselves and
  their students.
• Foster a community of learners.
• believe that knowledge is continuously
  re-created, recycled, and shared by teachers and
  students alike.
• Build bridges and scaffolding for learning.

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So, what does this look like in practice?

• How can culturally-relevant pedagogy benefit my
  teaching? How can it benefit me as a teacher?

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Some questions you might be thinking about are

• Do I have to know the cultures of all my
  students? Thats a lot to know!
• What if all my students are white?
• What if I dont know anything about my students
  cultures?

• What if the book Im teaching doesnt have any
  characters of color?
• What if my students dont want to talk about
  race?
• Can I use culturally-relevant pedagogy with white
  students?

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A photo of the classrooms in which I teach

• Large urban public school
• Primarily lower-income students
• Primarily African American students
• Also white, Latino, and Hmong
• Many students who receive Special Education
  services
• Regular level label
• A wide variety of learning styles, life
  experiences, home languages, and academic skills

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A photo of the school in which I taught

• Heavily-tracked into self-contained Special
  Education classrooms Regular education ACAMO
  (Academically-Motivated) and TAG (Talented
  and Gifted).
• Only ACAMO and TAG students were seen by the
  school at large as wanting/going to attend
  college.
• Many of my Regular students were only passing
  my classand, then, with a A or B average.
• Students were regularly moved from other
  teachers classes to mine.
• Working with culturally relevant pedagogy allowed
  me to be a successful teacher of the students who
  were not seen as successful within our school
  environment.

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Teaching with a culturally-relevant pedagogy
allows me to

• Hold high expectations
• Teach challenging material in a way that is
  student-centered
• Create real world ties

• Use bridges and scaffolding to increase my
  students interest and knowledge
• Keep myself growing and learning as a teacher

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But the challenges of doing this in a new
classroom are

• The student demographics may be different.
• How does a teacher approach learning about
  her/his students cultures, in order to use them
  as a base for teaching and community-building?
• What if I have a class where the majority of
  students are white?

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Examples of how a teacher can learn about her
students cultures

• Giving a student survey, as in Fires in the
  Bathroom on the first day
• Giving a History of You as an English Student
  writing exercise on the first day

• Begin with a student-centered poetry unit, like
  Where Im From in Reading, Writing, and Rising
  Up
• Start early! Read newspapers, have lunch in a
  popular neighborhood spot, talk to community
  members.

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Example History as an English Student
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Example Where Im From poems

• Read models and analyze in groups
• Learn poetry terms that will be used throughout
  the year
• Brainstorm sheet
• Quiz on terms
• Rough draft
• Peer editing
• Final draft
• Read-Around
• Rubric for assessment

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Carrying culturally-relevant pedagogy throughout
the school year looks like

• Tying the literature to students lives
• Starting with students lives, then bridging to
  the literature
• Incorporating small and large group work

• Involving parents and the community in the
  classroom
• Keeping constant notice of what students are
  reading, listening to, watching on tv, etc.
• Learning about students cultures through their
  writing and work in the classroom

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Think about all the different contexts of
culture in your students lives

• Being a teenage boy or being a teenage girl
• Socio-economic status
• Tracking
• Cliques
• Race and ethnicity (and how these correlate with
  all of the above)
• Other examples?

• With some thinking, you can apply these
  categories of culture to almost any text you
  are teaching.
• Even though all of these apply, dont do them
  instead of including discussions of race and
  ethnicity.

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A few examples of lessons and units created with
culturally-relevant pedagogy as my base

• Mary J. Blige and Romeo and Juliet (English 9)
• Old School English 9 (English 9)
• Who is Singing this Song? (English 10)
• Other examples from English 10, or, how to teach
  with a culturally-relevant pedagogy in a class of
  white boys.

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Forever No More

• And translating
• Romeo and Juliet

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Old School English 9

• And Addressing the Grammar Basics all
  Students Should Know

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This theme continued into

• Homonyms
• Weird Sentences
• Titles and punctuation
• New Old School albums added to the classroom
  collections everyday
• Creation of an Old School English 9 cd

• Jeopardy test review with categories from the
  lessons, plus Old School English 9
• Extra credit on the test
• Prince poster
• Many students commented on this unit in their
  final exam

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Conflicts of this Unit

• Did all of my students know who the Isley
  Brothers, Earth Wind and Fire, and Prince were?
  No, probably not.
• Students pointed out what wasnt included in my
  Old School compilation (no Pink Floyd, Led
  Zeppelin, Ozzie, etc.)
• Dont want to reduce African American students
  culture into soul, rap, hip hop, etc. music.

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Who is Singing this Song?

• And Getting to Know my English 10 Class of White
  Boys

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Like the Where Im From poems, this unit
included

• Base of a published poem by a Japanese-American
  woman poet
• Learning of poetry terms that would be used
  throughout the year
• Reading students poems from the previous year
• Reading a poem Id written

• Writing workshop brainstorm, rough draft, peer
  editing, final draft, Read-Around, and assessment
  with a rubric

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This unit allowed me to

• Learn about my white students culture.
• Learn strategies to build bridges into other
  work during the school year
• Begin building community in my classroom
• Begin to break through the racial gender role
  of white boys not writing poems, not showing
  emotion, not working well in groups, etc.

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Other Examples from English 10

• Choosing Texts and Creating Curriculum Using
  Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy When the Students
  are White

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Revisiting questions from the beginning of the
presentation

• Do I have to know the cultures of all my
  students? Thats a lot to know!
• What if all my students are white?
• What if I dont know anything about my students
  cultures?

• What if the book Im teaching doesnt have any
  characters of color?
• What if my students dont want to talk about
  race?
• Can I use culturally-relevant pedagogy with white
  students?

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I write because

• I see it as part of my activism as a teacher and
  as a community member.
• It is my way to thank and commemorate the people
  who have made an impact on my life.
• It connects me to other professionals, providing
  community in a job that is often isolating.

• It fulfills me to always be actively writing.
• It provides me with a space for reflection.
• It allows me to hold my practice and my
  theory side by side, to see where things match,
  and to evaluate what went wrong when something
  doesnt.

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A few last thoughts

• Culturally-relevant pedagogy influences not only
  my lesson plans and curricular choices, but my
  every interaction with a student.
• Culturally-relevant pedagogy calls on me to think
  about my place as a white, female teacher working
  with students of color and in lower-income
  communities of color.
• Culturally-relevant pedagogy creates a lens
  with which I view my curriculum and teaching.

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Questions? Comments?

• Thank you for attending, and special thanks to
  Emily Meixner for inviting me.
• tjwagner12_at_comcast.net