syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 11.11.07

Diversity in the Language Arts Classroom

Purpose

As teachers most of us will be working with students in a single classroom that represent multiple demographic populations, especially if you choose to teach in the Hampton Roads area. Because of this diversity, an effective teacher has to discover strategies for responding to state and local standards while also creating pedagogies that acknowledge the different backgrounds with language and language arts education that the students bring with them. In this class we will discuss strategies for this negotiation process, as well as how to create pedagogical opportunities from this diversity.

Before Class

• Read Hinton "'Sturdy Black Bridges'" [BB]
• Read Hagemann "A Bridge from Home to School" [English Journal, 90.4]
• Read Lyman & Figgins "Democracy, Dialect, and the Power of Every Voice" [BB]
• Read Kubota & Ward "Exploring Linguistic Diversity through World Englishes" [English Journal, 89.6]
• Submit Unit Plan with Rationale to the instructor as a hard copy at the beginning of class.

Discussion–Four EJ Readings

• What issues, concerns, or questions did these readings raise for you as a future language arts teacher?
• As a class, we will define the concepts from the following articles:
  • black feminist literary theory–Hinton
  • gatekeeping–Lyman & Higgins
  • pedagogy of overt comparison–Hagemann
  • World Englishes–Kubota & Ward

Activity I–Developing Grammar Pedagogy from Student Writing

In four groups, address the following prompts:

• What role do the differences in demographics, student populations, and language play in teaching language arts?
• Each group will be assigned a concept from the board. Think of different activities or assignments you might implement in your language arts classes to respond to this concept as an issue of race, gender, and class differences. You may want to approach this by asking each other: how do the assignments and activities for the unit we are developing for the class respond to this concept and these issues?

Record your responses. We'll save twenty-five minutes for debriefing and discussion.

Activity II–Peer Review of Unit Plan

Pair up with one of your peers and exchange your unit plans. Read through your peer's unit plan making notes of what your peer has done well and what your peer should address on a separate sheet of paper. DO NOT WRITE ON YOUR PEER'S UNIT PLAN.

When you are done reading your peer's unit plan write your peer a hand written letter explaining what s/he did well and what you think s/he should address before submitting the plan in her/his portfolio or presenting it to a potential employer. Make sure you support your arguments with evidence from the text of the plan.

When you are done writing the letter return it to your peer who will staple it to the back of her/his unit plan and submit it to the instructor.