Principal 2
Language, Culture, Home Background, and Literacy Instruction
Accomplishing this Principal in the Classroom
Multicultural and democratic education is extremely important and must be implemented by all educators. As Don Leu states, “providing school reading instruction that builds on young children’s language, culture, and home background enhances their chances for success in learning to read and write” (13). All students should feel included, respected and safe in their school. Beginning on the first day of school I will explicitly explain and teach my classroom code of conduct in regard to the school’s three “B’s”; be respectful, be kind and be safe. In such a diverse school there come many diverse cultures, backgrounds and languages. My classroom will be an environment where all cultures, beliefs, values, languages, etc. are appreciated and respected. It will also be a place of sharing, in which I will facilitate an open environment in which everyone can share their appropriate and respectful opinions without feeling vulnerable. By sharing they are exposing their peers with a new view point, which will enable them to create unique opinions of their own.
At the beginning of the year I would like to start my journey in getting to know my students not only as learners but as people with unique culture, language and home backgrounds. One of the best ways to introduce and communicate about culture is through literacy. Literacy can provide an opening to a whole new world that a student may have never considered before. By engaging in a culturally diverse text, students can inhabit new and exciting experiences. In my classroom I will select texts that value everyone’s cultures in the classroom and also introduce new cultures beyond what are represented. My students will learn how to become tolerant and welcoming citizens inside and outside of school.
At the beginning of the year I would like to start my journey in getting to know my students not only as learners but as people with unique culture, language and home backgrounds. One of the best ways to introduce and communicate about culture is through literacy. Literacy can provide an opening to a whole new world that a student may have never considered before. By engaging in a culturally diverse text, students can inhabit new and exciting experiences. In my classroom I will select texts that value everyone’s cultures in the classroom and also introduce new cultures beyond what are represented. My students will learn how to become tolerant and welcoming citizens inside and outside of school.
Common Core State Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.9, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2: I believe these are consistent with this principle because by comparing and contrasting one author’s presentation of events with that of another, students can analyze if the story of the person’s background changes depending on the point of view of the author. This will teach them that when you learn of another person’s background you think about that culture, language or home life in relative terms to your own. This represents a mixed belief of what readers and writers must know. Humans use background knowledge to understand new concepts, this is innate, however we need to acknowledge that we do this. I will teach my students empathetic thinking, how to set your own beliefs and background knowledge aside for a moment to consider someone else’s situation from their point of view clearly. I will facilitate student explanation/sharing of their own experiences through free writing about their culture, language and home background. They will also be asked to write an informative response about a culture, language or home background that they learned about.
Instructional Practices
MULTI-LINGUAL INSTRUCTION
I would like to incorporate different languages into my classroom routine. I will do this in two ways. The first will be done in the first class of the day, in ELA. Before starting my lesson, I will ask students to share a language they would like to great each other in. Once a language is chosen the students will say hello to the class in that language and share one thing they are proud of themselves for. We will record the language and the greeting in that language on our chart to make sure we don’t use the same one twice, and when students cannot think of new languages I will suggest less common ones. The aspect of written language is commonly forgotten by many teachers. Making the mistake to assume that all language uses the same alphabet of letters is not inclusive of all backgrounds. I will incorporate written languages from the Braille, Mongolian, Arabic and Japanese alphabet/symbol systems. I will have them write a sentence of their own with a translated key of the given languages alphabet as a reference. We will do this activity as a class every Friday at the end of reading class. It is important to expose students to the idea that written language is communicated in a symbolic method and that the symbol only has meaning because a group of people gave it a sound to represent, different symbols can share similar or different sounds. I do not foresee many issues in incorporating this instructional practice into my classroom. In the beginning of the year I will send a letter home to parents explaining that we will be discussing language, cultural and home backgrounds in our literacy instruction. If any parent has an issue I will talk to them privately to come to a reasonable solution for their child.
PEN PALS
My sixth grade students are currently part of a program put on through EastConn that connects an urban district with a rural district through field trips. I believe that this connection can be made stronger with the use of online pen pal websites. In addition, this can be used as a Segway into introducing the concept of connecting with pen pals from around the world. By continuously keeping in written contact with their pen pals discussing their cultural, language and home backgrounds my students will become accustomed to drawing similarities and differences between the two cultures represented. The Common Core Standards aim to create meaningful real world applicable learning experiences for students. I would take time to introduce the culture of their pen pals through various texts and read alouds in order to facilitate this transition. I would like to also introduce and model using email to my students. They all have student email addresses made by the district, under Gmail, that they can be given access to. Technology and collaboration with others go hand in hand in todays society, which is why this practice is important. Internet safety and accessibility is a major concern for all lessons using computers, however one that explicitly uses an email account to converse with foreign peoples must be thoroughly considered. I already know that the majority of my students do not have equal access to a computer at home. Therefore, all pen pal communication will be prepared by students and monitored by the teacher twice a week during reading class. I will explicitly re-teach and model internet safety, which they are already learning through EastConn’s program. I will send home a letter explaining exactly what the students learned about how to be safe online. Both the student and their pen pals must cc me on all emails, my students may only open emails I have prescreened. I will check all accounts at the end of the day and if there are opened or sent emails that were not approved they will lose the privilege of having a pen pal.
NETWORKING WITH PARENTS
Building good relationships with your students’ parents is crucial to the multicultural education of your class. I see this done by my cooperative teacher expertly and plan on taking this practice over when I begin student teaching. My cooperative teacher holds beginning of the year conferences in which she likes to simply meet the parents to get to know them and in turn her student’s home background. I’m going to be given the chance to do this during parent conferences in December. In my own classroom I would meet with parents to understand the various backgrounds of my students. I would then invite guest speakers from the underrepresented backgrounds in my class to read aloud an appropriate text of their choice that they feel expresses their culture and explain to the class why. Having a real connection to the culture they are learning about makes this activity a lot more meaningful to the students. With this activity I will have to make sure that I get permission from the school and parents for the speaker to come in.
I would like to incorporate different languages into my classroom routine. I will do this in two ways. The first will be done in the first class of the day, in ELA. Before starting my lesson, I will ask students to share a language they would like to great each other in. Once a language is chosen the students will say hello to the class in that language and share one thing they are proud of themselves for. We will record the language and the greeting in that language on our chart to make sure we don’t use the same one twice, and when students cannot think of new languages I will suggest less common ones. The aspect of written language is commonly forgotten by many teachers. Making the mistake to assume that all language uses the same alphabet of letters is not inclusive of all backgrounds. I will incorporate written languages from the Braille, Mongolian, Arabic and Japanese alphabet/symbol systems. I will have them write a sentence of their own with a translated key of the given languages alphabet as a reference. We will do this activity as a class every Friday at the end of reading class. It is important to expose students to the idea that written language is communicated in a symbolic method and that the symbol only has meaning because a group of people gave it a sound to represent, different symbols can share similar or different sounds. I do not foresee many issues in incorporating this instructional practice into my classroom. In the beginning of the year I will send a letter home to parents explaining that we will be discussing language, cultural and home backgrounds in our literacy instruction. If any parent has an issue I will talk to them privately to come to a reasonable solution for their child.
PEN PALS
My sixth grade students are currently part of a program put on through EastConn that connects an urban district with a rural district through field trips. I believe that this connection can be made stronger with the use of online pen pal websites. In addition, this can be used as a Segway into introducing the concept of connecting with pen pals from around the world. By continuously keeping in written contact with their pen pals discussing their cultural, language and home backgrounds my students will become accustomed to drawing similarities and differences between the two cultures represented. The Common Core Standards aim to create meaningful real world applicable learning experiences for students. I would take time to introduce the culture of their pen pals through various texts and read alouds in order to facilitate this transition. I would like to also introduce and model using email to my students. They all have student email addresses made by the district, under Gmail, that they can be given access to. Technology and collaboration with others go hand in hand in todays society, which is why this practice is important. Internet safety and accessibility is a major concern for all lessons using computers, however one that explicitly uses an email account to converse with foreign peoples must be thoroughly considered. I already know that the majority of my students do not have equal access to a computer at home. Therefore, all pen pal communication will be prepared by students and monitored by the teacher twice a week during reading class. I will explicitly re-teach and model internet safety, which they are already learning through EastConn’s program. I will send home a letter explaining exactly what the students learned about how to be safe online. Both the student and their pen pals must cc me on all emails, my students may only open emails I have prescreened. I will check all accounts at the end of the day and if there are opened or sent emails that were not approved they will lose the privilege of having a pen pal.
NETWORKING WITH PARENTS
Building good relationships with your students’ parents is crucial to the multicultural education of your class. I see this done by my cooperative teacher expertly and plan on taking this practice over when I begin student teaching. My cooperative teacher holds beginning of the year conferences in which she likes to simply meet the parents to get to know them and in turn her student’s home background. I’m going to be given the chance to do this during parent conferences in December. In my own classroom I would meet with parents to understand the various backgrounds of my students. I would then invite guest speakers from the underrepresented backgrounds in my class to read aloud an appropriate text of their choice that they feel expresses their culture and explain to the class why. Having a real connection to the culture they are learning about makes this activity a lot more meaningful to the students. With this activity I will have to make sure that I get permission from the school and parents for the speaker to come in.