For students interested in gaining a voice and agency, especially in their school, it became essential to question and disrupt the name of an administrative policy negatively affecting adolescent life
Students who are able to gain a voice in the school can fix stestemic or problematic policies. Students can get a voice in how to change something to make them more culturally relevant. This could be something like restorative justice polices.
, histories, and future (Palos et al.).The concerns expressed by students of Latinx, Southeast Asian, and Punjabi descent mirrored what H. Samy Alim and Django Paris describe as a “saga of cultural and linguistic assault [that] has had and continues to have devastating effects on the access, achievement, and well- being of students of color in public schools”
This is all cultural groups who are not white. Especially in the huge influx of immigrants during the 20-40s They were forced to speak English so many of these future generations lost their home language. Hundreds of languages have gone extinct since the 1900s. Especially in the United States a students achignvemt can be drastically effected if they don not speak English
same tragedy and offer opposing accounts, whose version is the most accurate? In this case, perception is truth.
History can often have two different interpretations of what happened. EX. The War of 1812 and The Civil War. Often because history is written by the victor. The losing side may feel like they won or misinterpret the facts of what started/ fighting for. Thus potentially changing what students learn and how they interpret what happened in history
he news blared about the riots in response to law enforcement brutality and racial injustice toward Rodney King in an unjust world. The images of human violence were fresh on our minds as readers and viewers of media.
This is similar to the BLM protests were some of them ended riots. Those protesters were met with riot police. Which had a larger portion of African American participants. This is stark contrast to the shutdown protests which had a larger white portion of participants. Even though some of those protesters had assault rifles and stormed the Michigan capital. They were allowed to protest and were not met by police. In the media they tended to show the riots more than the peaceful protests that happened. Creating a sense of fear and chaos even when 99.9% of the BLM protests were peaceful.
draw from their local knowledge and situate that local knowledge in broader contexts, they make visible the unseen historic and systemic forces that produce places and determine access to resources within them
This can be really powerful for students. They can see how maybe the increase in violence in their neighborhoods could be attributed to the lack of resources or having to fight for them.
Kara also required her students to explore food options available in a one-mile radius around their school to determine whether they were part of a food dese
This can get students to realize what food places are around them. It can get them to think deeper about what healthy food is or is not around them.
want them to be able to see themselves as change agents.
She is helping students realize that they can make an impact within their community. This is crucial for students to realize they can be change makers within their communities as well as in broader spaces. Doing this can help them change their communities
n one of the first activities of the unit, students wrote and performed spoken word poems about their neighborhoods (e.g., important/noteworthy intersections). However, they also complicated negative stereotypes of the South Side; for example, one student, Malcolm, wrote
This is fantastic that students are getting to think critically about a topic. She gave them an opportunity not only to write something but also to preform it. This can help to give ownership of their written The students have the ability to express feeling or thoughts they have about the community. The students feelings seem similar to the perceptions that they get from media and from other people in the city.
se books by Native writers all year round.
I dont think this is just the case for Native writers. This should be for all culturally relevant writers. Having those authors within the classroom gives them a sense of ownership. It is important for those cultures to be represented within their classrooms
eachers can make choices that do justice to Native stories by choosing books written by Native writers.
Teachers and schools should make every effort to have culturally relevant text written by authors from that culture. This gives a more accurate representation of the culture and the people within in.
500 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States today, each with distinct systems of governance, languages, locations, material cultures, religions, and, of course, stories!
and yet most classrooms curriculums do not recognize or rarely acknowledge Indigenous tribal history. In history if it is taught, it usually starts around the time the settlers arrive. Most people do not know if there is any tribes near them.
being specific helps non- Native people learn that we are far more diverse than what the terms “American Indian” or “Native American” evoke.
Yes. Individuals need to know and be aware of the vastness of indigenous people across the United States. The term "Indian" was created around the time of Columbus because he though that he landed in India and wanted to quantify the people that he saw. We need to refer to Indigenous people by there tribal name and not as one solid group. Since there are differences between each tribe.
literacy instruction should be re-sponsive to students’ identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender expression, age, appearance, ability, spiri-tual belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic sta-tus, and community environment) and languages/dialects as they affect students’ opportunities to learn.
This helps students connect to their learning. It can empower them as well because they feel that their culture and themselves are valued/ represented. Representation is important because it makes the students feel like their voices are heard.
lack girls are often character-ized as Jezebels, Sapphires, aggressive, or sexualized to the point that they are deprived of having any in-tellectual currency and curiosity
Why are black girls hyper sexualized? Over-sexualizing children makes them grow up too fast. The oversexulization of black youth is done through literature and media. When these girls are constantly being told something and being judged because of their looks and how they should act. It changes how they feel about themselves.
The CFT model encourages these girls to take traditional fairy tales and rewrite the narrative from their perspective.
This can empower students and allows them to take control of different narratives and make them their own. They are also able to frame their experiences and perspectives into stories.
Black students are rarely afforded opportu-nities to see themselves within the texts that they are reading, or if a Black character is referenced, it is often through slave narrative or racial subjecti-fication. As with Huckleberry Finn, Cinderella, and Snow White,
Why dont we have "classical" literature books where there are strong leads characters that are not white. The only books I read in high school english class that had African American or Latinas in them. Students need to see characters in books who look like them that they can relate too
How we making sense of our world by writing . . . mapping the community, getting in a room with strangers, listening, presenting stories.”
People are able to communicate and describe their history through writing. It is one way that stories are news are communicated to others. To further spread their knowledge. It is also a way for them to share information about their culture or history.
Our struggle to live never matters to other people,” is poi-gnant for a number of reasons. First, it points to his belief that Black lives and, by extension, Black history, struggle, and liberation, do not matter to others, or to say it more explicitly, to many White people
This is extremely noticeable during all of the police killings of African American people, especially George Floyd. It is hard for some white people to realize that when they are saying that Black Lives Matter. They are not saying that your life doesn't matter. But when there is a systematic and unjust aggression towards someone just because of your race. That is the difference. People need to know that their lives matter as well as their history. If their lives do not matter then their history is not valued. For example why is black history only really taught during February and not spread and integrated into the normal curriculum?
Our narrative process of listening to, documenting, and analyzing their stories allowed us to access rich layers of data about how they voiced and storied their experiences in the world
Would testing data vary if they were culturally relevant to students? Is the method that we are collecting data on students if they were stories that they can relate to?
How students are able to share the world around them allows them to experience the world as well as interpret the situation based on prior experiences
cision, educational outcomes for many students of color in our nation’s public schools are still directly connected to a system of inequality. This system is marked by unequal access to a rigorous curriculum, skilled teachers, quality educational resources, and modern-ized learning facilities
Chicago this is clearly evident. Chicago is an extremely segregated city. Veteran etchers are less likely to want to teach in lower income areas because of the lack of resources. There is a higher percentage of experienced teachers teaching in the north side compared to the south side. Because of this the teachers who are teaching on the south side are less experienced. They are more likely to provide a less rigorous education because of the lack of teaching experience and knowledge. This also creates disadvantage because part of a schools funding is tied to test scores.
Black youth are not simply consumers of media, but they are also challenging and resisting societal narratives that have been written about them by “producing counter-knowledge through the manipulation of media tools” (Morrell, 2008, p. 158)—in this case, YouTube. According to Morrell, youth-produced media have always contributed to social change and making young people aware of injustice
Before and especially since the BLM movement there has been an explosion of African American content creators of media including; YouTube and TicToc. Where they are sharing their experiances. Through social media people are also able to connect to other over similar experiences.
he suffered from mental illness”
No white people are ever considered terrorists. Because some people can not get their minds around someone looking like them doing such a horrific act. So they have to somehow find a reason to explain why they did it. But it is easier for someone who does not look like them (being white) to accept that they could do something horrific
When the victim or criminal is White, the media tend to use photos that paint a positive picture of the victim’s lif
They want to create sympathy for the white person and create anger or hatred for the person of color. Which then further creates a generalized sense of criminalization of all people of color.
ritical Perspectives: The Media Ain’t Never Loved Us
The media typically has a white stance. They are more likely to be given sympathy or trying to find the reason why behind it? White criminal offenders are talked about differently than those of color. They are talked about in more aggressive terms and more likely to be blamed/ talked about negatively.
English teachers may be both stymied and fearful about addressing the civic, healing needs of classrooms.
I think this may be because teachers don't want to express their political views in fear of upsetting their students families. They are wanting to remain A-political became not all of their students are from the same political party as them. But providing a diverse set of opinions lets them address the civic and hear the "other side". This environment that you create within your classroom allows students to feel safe and can provide a healing space. Having a place where all students feel like their opinions are valued.
English teachers and teacher educators address issues of trauma and healing in our classrooms.
Teachers have to teach kids who have experienced trauma Before, teachers can have students talk about their trauma they need to create a positive classroom environment . Teachers can have students write about their trauma so that it can help them process what has happened.
In this way, SEL must address what it means to cultivate belonging in a broken world.
SEL has the power to help children feel safe and secure within a classroom. SEL has the students take a moment to just breathe, relax and reflect on their day. When students feel safe and secure they are able to better able to learn.
it is the oppressive and symbolically violent use of the essentials of our discipline—words, rhetoric, and modes of communica-tion—that sticks to us most in the ongoing aftermath of the election
This can make it hard for students to relax. In the news, students are hearing that Trump is still refusing to concede It can reinforce the trauma that students have been facing the past fe years. Which, it can make it harder for the students to feel safe and secure within the classroom. Making then harder for the students to successfully learn anything
moved in the right direction when I stopped believing that I was the one who knew and they were the ones who needed to know. I became curio
Having an open opinion about a topic or year gives you freedom to move around depending on what happens during whole class discussions. This allows for conversations to happen naturally and not be so structured. For a more genuine dissuasions. Potentially allowing for a new book or structure of the class depending on particular interests
Students have written imaginative stories set in nightclubs where jazz greats came to play and their grandparents met and fell in love, cafés that once held the laughter of Black voices, or the basements of an elder’s home where neighbors organized
This helps students not only learn about the history of their city but also learn about their families history. When writing about and sharing with the school/class it gives their peers an opportunity to learn more about them as more.
try to make my literacy work a sustained argument against inequality and injustice.
Knowing this students and trying to make the curriculum and teaching is culturally relevant. This can make the students more welcomed in the classroom because they see themselves represented. You also need to make sure that students are able tp connect to the material. Talking about the students trauma that students have experienced can not only help them process it but learn how to develop therr writing abilities
When I stopped attending to test scores and started listening to the music of my students’ voices and seeing them as “more than a score,
This would be ideal. However, in some schools/ networks it makes it harder for this to be accomplished. All students deserve to be thought of, something besides a number. But that is not the case, in a test centric educational environment. Testing should be used to help inform teaching but not to only structure all of your teaching to the test.
spoken word poetry
Spoken word poetry has exploded in popularity in recent years. I have seen it help students who were disengaged connect more to the material/topic. It allows students a time to express their viewpoint/ emotion in a way that their writing may not. It allows the listener to become more engaged with the material/topic because they are both seeing and hearing what is happening rather than just read it. This can be a bridge to help re-engage students who may have lost interest in writing. To write their own spoken word.
) holding time and space—whether in classrooms, community centers, or online—to support youth literacies, and 2) listening to and valuing the perspectives of youth writers
This is not only important for writing but for all literacies. It gets students to listen to other perspectives that may differ from their own. It can make them more open to accepting or at least acknowledge the other viewpoints. Giving students a time to express their feelings also allows them time to process the world that is happening around them
Parents and community members understood writing to be the timed writing tasks for standardized exams or the demonstration of the conventions of writing on school assignments,
I think that this isn't just related to this community. From my experience going through school and teaching students. Writing is not a strong focus in most literacy curriculums in primary grades. They teach letters but less so on how to develop a paragraph. Which then jumps when they get to middle school to them being expected to write these long paragraphs during testing (ANet). Students are not given the option to write about a topic that interests them. This can decrease the love for writing and propel this narrative that writing is really only needed for standardized tests
[T]he more radical a person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it.
I think that it is because radical people tend to want to gain new knowledge so that it can further their point or view. But this can limit a persons view point because they maybe only looking for articles that will relate and not challenge their viewpoint.