Gavin L . Mol i tor

Seatt le Pac ific Univers i ty

Culturally Responsive Teaching:English 10 Curriculum & Instruction

Multicultural Education - Curriculum

Multicultural education for a culturally diverse population of students requires curriculum materials such as novels, short stories, poems, essays, news articles, and other works including film and other media that covers a broad variety of cultural topics and ideas presented and cross-examined from a multitude of perspectives.

Multicultural Education - Instruction

Multicultural education requires varied and differentiated instructional methods that meets to the needs of each member in the diverse population of students by considering the multitude of ways in which students learn by constructing and sharing knowledge, which includes visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles, collaborative and individual student efforts, and opportunities for students to share and connect school with their home cultures.

Multicultural Education - Objectives

To foster a growing acceptance, respect, and appreciation for diversity among students and across all cultural lines such as class, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation

To develop student understanding about different cultural traditions, values, histories, conflicts, and contributions to the American and global societies and a sense of empathy for the plight of others

To help students become citizens of a society unified and characterized by its diversity

The Classroom - Student Population

The student population at WHS in 2009-2010 was identified as…

Ethnic Demographic CaucasionAsianHispanic or LatinoMulti-RacialBlack or African Amer-icanAmerican Indian or Native AlaskanHawaiin or Pacific Is-lander

The School and Community

WHS does not have a proportionally diverse population and there is both a sense of entitlement and a lack of cultural awareness common to affluent, largely-white communities. This presents a significant purpose for initiating and improving multicultural education in the school and for building connections to the students’ lives in the community and larger society.

Literature and Students in the Classroom

The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, presents an opportunity to explore Hispanic and Latino culture.

This unit focuses on growing up in the margin between cultures, gender roles, and socioeconomic differences.

It is supplemented with poems by such authors such as E.J. Vega and Julia Alvarez, as well as essay excerpts about discrimination by Cherry Moraga and about education and bilingualism by George I. Sanchez.

Literature and Students in the Classroom

Within the unit are opportunities for students to…

…analyze the nature of personal/cultural and mainstream academic knowledge about Hispanic and Latino culture

…engage in meaningful discussions about ethnicity, gender, poverty, and cultural pluralism

…and to write about and orally share stories about their own home culture

Literature and Students in the Classroom

Assessments:Presentations of research and analysis

regarding personal/cultural knowledge and mainstream academic knowledge

Analytical writing about cultural themes presented in the unit

Collaborative Socratic seminar discussions

Creative writing of a personal, culturally relevant, coming of age narrative

Literature and Students in the Classroom

John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me provides and opportunity to focus on the Black Civil Rights Movement, transformative knowledge, and the contributions of numerous Black authors and artists such as Langston Hughes.

This unit will put Rosa Parks’ experience into a better perspective within the late 50’s and early 60’s by using the autobiographical excerpts of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Rosa Parks, and other prominent men and women who helped shape social change.

Literature and Students in the Classroom

Within the unit are opportunities for students to…

…collaborate in small group research to construct knowledge through differentiated projects that allow for student-selection within a range of relevant topics

…engage in lively discussions about discrimination, racial conflict, empathy, and the transformation of society

…and explore and analyze the culture and attitudes present in the school and in the community

Literature and Students in the Classroom

Assessments:Research projects and presentations

about transformative knowledge through the exploration of a variety of contributions to American society by prominent Black figures

Collaborative Socratic seminar discussions

Personal journaling about home, school and community cultures.

Literature and Students in the Classroom

Other literary units with a focus on multicultural education include:

Of Mice and Men – Understanding past and present attitudes towards people with disabilities

Inherit the Wind – Understanding different traditions, values, and cultural perspectives about the origins of the world and humankind with a distinct focus on Asian, Native American, Hawaiian, Biblical, and Evolutionary origin stories.

Reflections on Culturally Responsive Teaching

Through this course, I have become even more passionate about teaching students to understand, respect, and value diverse cultures and people. As an English teacher, the stories about the Navajo and Hawaiian language revitalization and cultural empowerment efforts presented in James A. Banks’ Multicultural Education: Transformative Knowledge & Action struck a significant chord with me as the world faces the loss of many smaller languages and cultures under the growth and intrusion of modern society.

Reflections on Culturally Responsive Teaching

I believe that culture and community are defined largely by the stories we share with one another and pass down from one generation to the next. Through transformative knowledge and efforts to improve the literary and historical canons taught in schools, educators can help realize the true ideal of Pluribus Unum and recreate our nation as a truly unified body of diverse people.