Literacy for All!
What's going on at McDougle?
Getting Kids Moving
Questioning Strategies
Understanding By Design
If you're interested in Understanding By Design, or any of its component parts (like Essential Questions or authentic assessments), I would love to nerd-out with you. Just let me know and we can chat about how you can begin with the end in mind!
Student Six: Engaging Students' Cultures
One way teachers at McDougle are helping to connect to students' lives is in Jennifer, Lindsey and Kerry's unit on Change--they noticed that their Latino/a students wanted to read some culturally-relevant texts, so they incorporated a speech by Cesar Chavez into their unit, and have had amazing results! Way to go, guys!
Try to remember the Student Six when planning for your kiddos. Here's a quick reminder:
1. Visibility: Making every student feel acknowledged and included in the classroom
2. Proximity: Using physical space to engage students and reduce perceived threat
3. Connecting to students’ lives: Making linkages between classroom content and student experiences and perspectives
4.Engaging students’ culture: Incorporating positive elements of students’ culture into classroom learning and community building
5.Addressing race: Talking openly about racial dynamics and how they impact the student experience
6.Connecting to the larger world: Helping students identify their future paths and using classroom experiences to guide students toward their personal goals
Wrapping up with IFL!
Many thanks to Karen, Cat and Patti for being so awesome and enthusiastic while we navigated this unit for the first time. I'm really looking forward to working with the 7th grade ELA teachers next semester as we try it out with their kids!
To show the kinds of insights and skills students gained during this experience, take a look at this paragraph by one of our wonderful 6th graders: