Implementing a Culturally Responsive Curriculum in a Faith-Based

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Making Culture Relevant: Implementing a Culturally Responsive

Curriculum in a Faith-Based School

Jennifer Schmidt

A curricular project submitted to

Sonoma State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

Education

Committee Members:

Dr. Perry Marker, Chair

Dr. Karen Grady

Lyle Bennett, M.Div.

May 12, 2016

By Jennifer Schmidt

Authorization for Reproduction of Master’s Thesis

Permission to reproduce this thesis in its entirety must be obtained from me.

DATE: May 12, 2016 Jennifer Schmidt

iii

Making Culture Relevant: Implementing a Culturally Responsive Curriculum in

a Faith-Based School

Thesis by Jennifer Schmidt Abstract

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to develop and implement a unit of culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based setting and identify the problems and issues that might arise with the intersection of faith-based directives and culturally responsive curriculum.

Procedure: Student feedback was an important element to the success of this project. Before the unit design began, demographic information in the form of a survey was collected from the students. The unit itself was designed with tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy as a guide. Throughout the teaching of the unit, data was collected through formative assessments, summative assessment, text engagement strategies, and both small and large group discussions. At the culmination of the unit, a student focus group was formed and using a question and discussion format; students responded to the ideas presented in the literature and their thinking about those ideas.

Findings: Choosing content that reflected the ethnic and cultural diversity of the class was important not only because students saw themselves in the curriculum but because it provided students with knowledge of people and cultures different than themselves. Combining that content with text engagement strategies and discussions taught students to listen, ask questions, look for evidence, and carefully choose their words. One issue that arose was the need to deliberately connect social justice themes of inclusion and acceptance with religion. Another issue was the need to apply a faith-based qualified approach.

Conclusions: While a faith-based setting easily lends itself to cultural competence and academic success, teachers in that setting might feel constrained in their approach to sociopolitical consciousness by the religious dogma of the sponsoring church, and even though a “qualified approach” might be necessary, culturally responsive teaching in a faith-based setting is still important as it prepares students to function in a diverse world because children, immersed in the religious values and morals of their home culture and educated to question the inequities of the world, will fight for social justice.

M.A. Program: Education Sonoma State University

Acknowledgement

I knew from the beginning that I needed Dr. Perry Marker to chair my committee. In the three classes that I have taken from him, I have found him to be a challenging master teacher who has pushed my thinking in ways that I never could have imagined, and he has continued to push my thinking through this thesis process.

It is evident that Dr. Marker finds joy in teaching and guiding his students. I am forever grateful for all of his time, patience, and wisdom.

Dr. Karen Grady and Lyle Bennett have rounded out the perfect committee.

Dr. Grady is another exceptional teacher who stretches her students intellectually and models excellent classroom practice. I wish I could have taken more classes from her. Lyle Bennett is not only a great friend but a trusted colleague. I have learned so much from him in our work together, and everyday he inspires me to be a better teacher.

My greatest joy is being the mother of Katie and Jake. They continue to enrich my life with laughter and laundry. I have been blessed with a loving husband who supports my desire to keep learning. He is my best friend. My journey on this earth is also enhanced with the companionship of numerous furry and feathered friends who keep me balanced and appreciative.

My parents, Mel and Juanita Madche, gave me the most important gifts of love and security. They raised me in a perfect bucolic environment and immersed our family in numerous outdoor adventures, animals, and books. Their guidance nourished my curiosity and started me down the road to a lifelong love of reading and learning.

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

I. Introduction to the Study ...... 1

Context for the Study ...... 1

Problem Statement ...... 3

Significance of the Project ...... 4

Support for the Study ...... 7

Methodology ...... 9

Definition of Terms ...... 10

Limitations ...... 12

II. Review of Related Literature ...... 13

Introduction ...... 13

Defining Culture ...... 16

Culture & School ...... 17

Culture & Religion ...... 19

Multicultural Education ...... 20

Multicultural Education & Religion ...... 25

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Theory ...... 26

Theory to practice ...... 34

Culturally Responsive Curriculum ...... 37

Challenges to Implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy ...... 39

Opposition to Culturally Responsive Pedagogy ...... 43

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy & Faith-Based Schools ...... 45

Conclusion ...... 48

III. Methodology ...... 51

Purpose of the Study ...... 51

Description of the Sample ...... 51

Project Description & Rationale ...... 52

Measurement ...... 54

Procedures ...... 54

Procedures for Data Analysis ...... 54

IV. Findings ...... 56

Introduction ...... 56

Rationale for Planning the Unit ...... 58

Planning the Unit ...... 62

Data Collection ...... 68

Discussion of Findings from Quick Writes ...... 70

Discussion of Findings from Short Story Annotations ...... 75

Discussion of Findings from Classroom Thinking Strategies ...... 85

Discussion of Findings from Personal Narratives ...... 91

Discussion of Findings from the Focus Group ...... 93

Conclusion ...... 103

V. Major Findings and Suggestions for Further Study ...... 106

Introduction ...... 106

Major Findings ...... 107

Looking Back ...... 115

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Future Curriculum ...... 117

Next Steps for Research ...... 119

Conclusion ...... 119

Appendix A ...... 121

Appendix B ...... 139

Appendix C ...... 143

Appendix D ...... 146

References ...... 148

viii 1

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Study

School must represent present life – life as real and vital to the child as that which

he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground.

-John Dewey, 1929

Context for the Study

My journey began with frustration. My students’ engagement with the literature I chose was uninspiring. As I studied the room, I could categorize my students: non- readers, reluctant readers, closeted readers, and a handful of eager readers. This played out in vapid discussions. I didn’t know how to reach them. As a secondary teacher, I was not exposed to reading education, and I questioned whether or not it was really my job.

There was grumbling in faculty meetings about reading scores, and while no answers were found, blame was assigned to the teachers who taught those children before us. Still, we continued to graduate a number of students who either could not read or felt disdain for reading. In frustration, I determined to find the answers and decided to pursue a

Masters at Sonoma State University.

It was while enrolled in Dr. Perry Marker’s The Reflective Educator that I was exposed to the idea of critical literacy. I spent that semester immersed in the assigned readings of James Baldwin, Miles Horton, and Robert E. Peterson. Paulo Freire’s name appeared again and again in many things I read, and I decided that semester to center my research project on his idea of liberation education. It was heady stuff, but I knew at that

2 time that somehow I had to figure out how to apply his theories of education to my classroom.

At the same time that I began studying at Sonoma State University, my school was awarded a Continuous School Improvement grant that funded a four-year plan and the execution of that plan in school reform. Implicit in this process was the implementation of standards based teaching using the Common Core State Standards

(Common, 2014). Working closely with consultants from the Coalition of Essential

Schools (CES), we began to carry out school reform working with the CES Common

Principles that describe the core beliefs and characteristics of Essential Schools and the

CES benchmarks that are the resulting classroom practices that strengthen student achievement. At the top of the list of classroom practices on the CES Benchmark page is culturally responsive pedagogy.

It was as if my two worlds had collided. While I now knew that I wanted to write a thesis involving the ideas of a culturally responsive pedagogy, I did not have a clear picture of how that would play out, yet I wondered if theory could transform into practice in my classroom. In the thick of writing my literature review on the ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy, I inadvertently stumbled across a thesis examining culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based school. Since I teach at a faith-based school, this was a huge find for me. Interestingly enough, I had not questioned the feasibility of a culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based school, and it was while reading this thesis that I started to wonder if a culturally responsive curriculum could actually work in a faith-based school.

As a teacher at a small faith-based school, I am fully aware that, for many parents, the decision to send their children to a faith-based school reflects a desire to immerse their children in the doctrines and teachings of the church to use as a guide as they move out into the world, and while parental beliefs run the gamut from conservative to liberal, the unspoken expectation is that schools are to remain safely on the conservative side of church doctrine. Teachers with a social justice orientation teaching in faith-based schools must carefully integrate values and faith with sociopolitical issues, and some might find it easier to avoid those types of conversations altogether.

My hope, as I begin to research culturally responsive pedagogy and build a curriculum that could be used in a faith-based school, is that I will find congruence between the two. Most of all, my hope is that through the curriculum, I can transform my practice, helping students gain the knowledge, skills, and values they need to become reflective active social citizens.

Problem Statement

The purpose of this study is to implement a culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based setting. A culturally responsive curriculum is challenging in and of itself. It is an attempt to create a connection between a student’s home and community culture with the school and in that process develop students who are not only academically successful but culturally competent thus developing a sociopolitical consciousness of their own

4 problematic. Conversely, teachers practicing in faith-based institutions can run into problems when they impart sociopolitical issues that might contradict church doctrine.

While research at both types of institutions seems rife with complications, the purpose of this study is to 1) develop and implement a culturally responsive unit of curriculum for a faith-based setting, 2) evaluate its effectiveness by identifying the problems and issues that might arise with the intersection of faith-based directives and culturally responsive curriculum.

Significance of the Project

The face of America’s classrooms is changing and becoming more representative of a nation of immigrants. Classrooms are filled with children that differ in many ways.

“Heterogeneity is represented by students with diverse cultural, racial, religious, and linguistic backgrounds; family structures; socioeconomic status; and ability levels”

(Kronberg & York-Barr, 1997, p 6). While the classroom population continues to flux, the practice of education has remained essentially the same. A constant and continued source of consternation among educators and educational researchers is the existence of the achievement gap between white students and students of color (Dallavis, 2011; Gay,

2010; Nieto, 2000). While all agree on the importance of equity education for the success of all students, the focus has not been upon teacher pedagogy, but by examining pedagogy as Ladson-Billings (2011) suggests, perhaps classroom practice will come to embrace all students. Gloria Ladson-Billings (2011) argues that in order to ensure the success of all students, teachers must explore their own thinking about the “social contexts, the students, the curriculum, and instruction” (p. 163). Sonia Nieto (1999) reminds teachers that learning is “an innately human endeavor accessible to all people”

(p. 6). She goes on to say that while all experiences are not valued the same, children bring their own experiences to their education. Multicultural education advocates for teachers to embrace social justice by building on the backgrounds and experiences that students bring to the classroom. If teachers begin teaching in culturally responsive ways that value these experiences, they will make learning relevant to students’ lives.

Infusing culture in education benefits all students. Culture is significant in students’ lives, and it is within “their particular cultural contexts” that children “learn how to learn” (Nieto, 1999, p. 63). Nieto (1999) believes that when teachers gain knowledge of students’ social and cultural backgrounds and use it to design culturally responsive lessons, students will “see themselves as competent, capable, and worthy of learning” (p. 123).

For many students, their religious beliefs are an often-overlooked yet important piece of their cultural identity. It colors how they view society and the world and how they choose to act on those views; it shapes their thinking and the questions they will ask

(Smith, 1991). Teachers embracing a culturally relevant pedagogy and desiring to build a bridge of cultural congruence between home and school should work to understand these students’ religious beliefs and practices. Wang (2013) states that “Educators should recognize religious diversity as a cultural phenomenon of pluralism in society,” making the religious aspect of cultural identity just as important a cultural group as any other

(Wang, 2013, citing Copley, 2005; Jackson, 2004; Lessow-Hurley, 1999; Stolzfus &

Reffel, 2009; von Bromssen & Olgac, 2010; von der Lippe, 2011; Whittaker, Salend, &

Elhoweris, 2009).

While it is not a panacea, culturally responsive teaching is an attempt by educators to understand the diverse cultural backgrounds of the students in their classes and to use that knowledge of culture to make the curriculum content relevant and easier to master. Research has shown that “socioculturally centered teaching does enhance student achievement” (Gay, 2010, p. 27). Any attempt at developing a culturally responsive curriculum shows a desire on the part of the teacher to not only know her students, but a desire for their academic success, and ultimately their ability to live in a culturally diverse society as active caring citizens. While the idea of culturally responsive teaching is not new, it has been a hidden light, and it seems that faith-based schools, with their history of service, would be most interested in finding that light.

Faith-based communities are typically defined as conservative, yet the social fabric of these communities, like schools, reflects the diversity of America. The same is true for my school, yet while the student population is diverse, there have been few attempts among the faculty to gain knowledge of students’ social and cultural backgrounds, and no one is designing culturally responsive lessons. I believe that the designing and implementation of culturally responsive curriculum will change how students interact with one another, the teacher, and the content. It will change the way my students look at school when they see their lives reflected in the curriculum and motivate them to dig deeper when they begin to understand the possibilities of their role in making the world a more just place. Hall (2012) calls it “equipping youth with the spiritual tools they will need to cope with and create meaningful ways to connect to a complex modern world” (p. 169). This small attempt at understanding and being sensitive toward students’ lives and culture in the classroom could be a new beginning for my

7 faith-based community’s education. As a lead teacher, I am in the position of forging change at my school, and because my school is actively working toward school improvement, we are being watched. Christian education as a whole is seeking ways to do it better. Because we, like all diverse institutions, are struggling to meet the needs of our student populations, embracing culturally responsive teaching will not only fulfill our educational mission and world mission, but it will reflect Christ’s character (Hall, 2012).

Support for the Study

There have been many attempts to understand the connections between school and students’ home and community cultures and the role they play in academic success.

These studies have come under a variety of labels including “‘culturally appropriate’ (Au

& Jordan, 1981), ‘culturally congruent’ (Mohatt & Erickson, 1981), ‘culturally responsive’ (Cazden & Leggett, 1981; Erickson & Mohatt, 1982) and ‘culturally compatible’ (Jordan, 1985; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987)” (Ladson-Billings, 1995a, p.

159). Of all of the terms, “Only the term culturally responsive appears to refer to a more dynamic or synergistic relationship between home/community culture and school culture” (Ladson-Billings, 1995b, p. 469). Two giants in the field of culturally responsive pedagogy, Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay, have devised the “two primary theoretical frameworks for thinking about culturally responsive pedagogy” (Dallavis,

2008, p. 32).

Gloria Ladson-Billings coined the term culturally relevant pedagogy, and it was her work that placed the focus on the teacher. Her framework grew from her own research (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995a, 2000, 2011), and focused on student achievement, cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness. Ladson-Billings

8 asked important questions about how student success, academic success, and cultural success could complement each other. The data from her study suggested that when teachers use culture to impart knowledge, students felt empowered in all aspects of their lives. Ladson-Billings (1995b) found that teachers who met the criteria in her study had three characteristics in common: “conceptions of self and others, purposeful social relations, and passion about knowledge” (p. 478). Ladson-Billings (1995b) maintains that regardless of race, any teacher can embrace this pedagogy.

Geneva Gay’s substantial research led her to develop her own framework where she identifies six descriptive characteristics of culturally responsive pedagogy. From those characteristics, Gay (2010) draws out four foundational pillars of practice: culturally responsive caring, culture and communication in the classroom, ethnic and cultural diversity in curriculum content, and cultural congruity in teaching and learning.

Culturally responsive teaching “teaches to and through their personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their prior accomplishments…. That is, it filters curriculum content and teaching strategies through their cultural frames of reference to make content more personally meaningful and easier to master” (Gay, 2010, p. 26).

Sonia Nieto’s (1999) field of expertise is multicultural education, and she exhorts teachers to gain a multicultural perspective by acknowledging the differences that students bring, understanding that these differences can impact how students learn, and taking these differences into account when planning and teaching by regarding them as strengths on which to build knowledge. Nieto (2000) identifies seven characteristics of multicultural education “defined in a sociopolitical context: antiracist, basic, important

9 for all students, pervasive, education for social justice, process, critical pedagogy” (p.

305).

Christian Dallavis’ extensive research into religious identity, belief, and practice led him to believe that a culturally responsive pedagogy should include religion. Smith

(1991) said, “For what a man thinks about religion is central to what he thinks about life and the universe as a whole” (p.18). Dallavis’ (2008) doctoral dissertation was an ethnographic study of Catholic schooling in a Chicago immigrant community. In this study and in subsequent articles, he has used theories of culturally responsive pedagogy to consider religion and how it can influence cultural competence. Dallavis’ work urges teachers to consider an important aspect of culture that is central to many children’s lives.

Methodology

The purpose of this curriculum project is to develop one unit of culturally responsive curriculum to be used in a diverse faith-based school and to evaluate the effect that teacher and student beliefs, values, and faith have upon how the students perceive issues of social injustice. The Academy is a private, secondary boarding school located in an isolated rural setting and is operated by a large Christian denomination. Most of the

183 students board in the dormitories. A small handful of students who live close by go home on the weekends, but most of the students visit their homes every six weeks.

The participants in this curriculum project are 39 sophomore students, 19 girls and 21 boys, enrolled in two English II classes. Although it is a private school, many of the students are on scholarship, meaning they receive financial assistance. 61% of the students receive scholarships of some kind. As a population, this class reflects the diversity of the school: African American – 25%, Caucasian – 37%, Asian – 25%, and

Hispanic – 8%. Two students identify themselves as biracial. 35% of the students in the class are English Language Learners.

The unit is part of a semester long study of literature. The unit will be covering short stories that reflect the diversity of the class. After the unit is taught, data will be gathered from assessments, both formative and summative; projects, both individual and group; and from a focus group composed of heterogeneous students. The questions from the focus groups will reflect not just what they have learned but what they thought about what they learned. This experience will stretch my sense of who I am as a teacher in terms of assessments and teaching strategies and in terms of reaching all students culturally.

Definition of Terms

Culture: “Culture consists of the values, traditions, social and political relationships and worldview created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class, and/or religion, and how these are transformed by those who share them”

(Nieto, 2000, p. 139).

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Culturally relevant pedagogy was conceptualized by Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994) as a pedagogy that “[empowered] students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (pp. 17-18). Education “is most effective when ecological factors, such as prior experiences, community settings, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic identities of teachers and students are included in its implementation” (Gay,

2010, p. 22).

Culturally Responsive Teaching: “Culturally responsive teaching can be defined as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant and effective for them. It teaches to and through the strengths of these students” (Gay, 2010, p. 31).

Faith-Based Schools: Faith-Based Schools are schools organized by religious groups (Dallavis, 2011) or religiously affiliated non-public schools (Russo, 2009).

Multicultural Education: “Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms the pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers represent. Multicultural education permeates the curriculum and instructional strategies used in schools, as well as the interactions among teachers, students, and parents, and the very way that schools conceptualize the nature of teaching and learning. Because it uses critical pedagogy as its underlying philosophy and focuses on knowledge, reflection, and action (praxis) as the basis for social change, multicultural education promotes the democratic principles of social justice” (Nieto, 2000, p. 305).

Nomenclature: Except when quoting research that uses relevant, the author of this thesis will use culturally responsive (Gay, 2000; Dallavis, 2008). “‘Responsiveness’ implies an active, dynamic disposition on the part of the teacher, and it corresponds better to the notions of cultural productions and strategies of action that comprise cultural forms…” (Dallavis, 2008, p. 31). “Only the term culturally responsive appears to refer to

12 a more dynamic or synergistic relationship between home/community culture and school culture” (Ladson-Billings, 1995b, p. 469).

Limitations

The curriculum designed for this thesis is limited to a sophomore level English course in a diverse private faith-based high school where the class sizes range from 19-

21. Because this data comes from a diverse faith-based school with small class sizes, it limits its ability for comparison. Also, although the theories behind this curriculum were thoroughly researched and the curriculum itself will be reviewed by three educators, the curriculum is in no way considered to be tested and perfected and is limited in its feedback.

The curriculum is one unit and will be implemented in the third quarter of second semester. The students in the class were not exposed to culturally responsive curriculum before this implementation.

Chapter Two

Review of Related Literature

Introduction

The face of America’s classrooms is and will continue to be constantly changing.

“As the United States endures its largest influx of immigrants, along with the increasing number of U.S.-born ethnic minorities, the nation must be prepared to make the necessary adjustments to face the changing texture of its citizens (Banks, 2001)” (Howard, 2003, p.

195). Yet, while the student population continues to become more and more diverse, the practice of education, while it dabbles in the latest technology and caters to the Common

Core, is essentially the same. Teachers are challenged to find teaching approaches that ensure all students’ success.

Most teachers understand the role that culture plays in learning, and nowhere is it more evident than in the achievement gap of children from marginalized groups

(Howard, 2001; Morrison, et al, 2008; Martell, 2013). Gay (2010) states “too many students of color have not been achieving in school as well as they should (and can) for far too long” (p. 1). When so many are struggling, the consequences of low achievement affect not only the individual but society as well. While the No Child Left Behind Act of

2001 demands that schools demonstrate that all students are achieving academically, the achievement gap continues to widen (Johnson & Viadero, 2000). Multicultural educators urge teachers to embrace social justice and provide democratic and equitable education by teaching in culturally responsive ways. Banks (1995) and Howard (2003) challenge teachers to use their knowledge of their students’ social, cultural, and language

14 backgrounds to help children experience school success. If students are going to experience academic success, their learning must be relevant to their lives.

Seemingly absent from talk about social and cultural backgrounds and school success is religion (Dallavis, 2011). Yet the affect of religion on one’s background, knowledge, and worldview cannot be ignored. “How one views the world is influenced by what knowledge one possesses, and what knowledge one is capable of possessing is influenced by one’s worldview” (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 258). Indeed a religious worldview will not only affect how one views the world but the questions he/she might ask. With that in mind, it seems that part of providing a democratic and equitable education would mean that teachers gain knowledge of students’ religious and spiritual backgrounds.

A culturally responsive pedagogy approach advocates that students develop a critical consciousness when examining educational content and question its role in creating a democratic society. Students do not just absorb knowledge; they critically examine it. According to Ladson-Billings (1992), “The primary goal of culturally relevant teaching is to empower students to examine critically the society in which they live and to work for social change” (p. 314). This ensures not only academic success but social success. Teachers who design culturally responsive lessons value students’ culture.

Because of this, students begin to develop intellectually and socially and are prepared to change their society. When allowed to question the inequities that exist inside the classroom, students leave the academic world prepared to question the inequities of the world (Ladson-Billings, 1992).

Unfortunately for many teachers, culturally responsive pedagogy has proven challenging to put into practice. Many studies have discussed the difficulties that teachers have confronted in implementing culturally responsive teaching in their classroom pedagogy (Cochran-Smith, 2004: Gay, 1995a; Gay & Howard, 2000; Sleeter,

Torres, & Laughlin, 2004). When faced with a classroom of students culturally different from themselves, teachers find that they need more than just good intentions (Ladson-

Billings, 1995a). Ladson-Billings (2011) argues that in order to ensure the success of all students, teachers must explore their own thinking about the “social contexts, the students, the curriculum, and instruction” (p. 163). Instead of searching for specific activities and lessons, teachers must begin to understand how their own theories and philosophies are revealed in their pedagogical practices.

While all agree on the importance of equity education for the success of all students, the focus has not been upon teacher pedagogy, but by examining the thinking that is behind pedagogical practice, classrooms will change to embrace all students

(Ladson-Billings, 2011). In order to successfully implement culturally responsive pedagogy, teachers must understand and believe in the importance of its role in their classrooms. Their focus must be on equitable and just education for all students.

Teachers must be willing to go to any lengths to ensure the success of their students.

This literature review will begin by exploring definitions of culture and then establishing a working definition for this review. After taking a closer look at the research about culture and its affect on school for students from culturally diverse backgrounds, the next step will be to investigate religion’s place in the realm of culture.

Ultimately, it is the inquiry into the affects of culture on school that will lead to an

16 exploration of multicultural education, with a distinct focus on culturally responsive pedagogy.

Defining Culture

An understanding of culture is essential to engaging a pedagogy that focuses on culture. Culture is a broad term, embracing many aspects, and while the notion of culture is familiar, a unified definition is harder sought. Because there is no hard fast agreed upon definition and definitions of culture abound, the following progression of cultural definitions is informed by several scholars steeped in multicultural education.

Dallavis (2008) writes that typically culture is thought to be a “way-of-life,” a

“mixture of ethnic traditions, religion and language” that represents “beliefs, values, activities, rituals, and ways of communicating” (p. 19). “A conceptualization of culture as

‘way-of-life’ provides a stable, static model of culture that emphasizes how culture shapes people; the ‘way-of-life’ model, however, fails to consider how people in turn shape culture, and it does not allow for much variation among member of a culture”

(Dallavis, p.20, 2008).

Sonia Nieto (2000), resisting the idea of culture as static, defines culture as “the values, traditions, social and political relationships, and worldview created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class, and/or religion, and how these are transformed by those who share them” (p. 139). Nieto sees culture as dynamic.

Erickson (2005) spoke of culture as a tool, used so often “in daily life it becomes habitual”, so much so that it is not seen by the user (p. 32). In fact, Erickson describes it as the “primary human toolkit,” a way to get things done, the “product of human

17 creativity in action” (p. 32). The idea of culture as a tool implies change. Erickson (2005) believes that “within a single person and across generations,” some facets of culture change and some stay the same (p. 32).

Banks (2014) has the most comprehensive definition of culture and the one that informs this paper. He continues on this vein of culture as dynamic. “The values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives are what distinguish one people from another in modernized societies, not artifacts, material objects, and other tangible aspects of human societies” (p. 80). Banks (2014) goes on to point out how there are many factors that influence the behaviors of individuals within an ethnic group, things such as immigration, social class, gender, religion, region and education, and it is the influence of these things that makes a culture “dynamic, complex and changing” (p. 80).

Gay (2010), citing Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba (1991), wrote that culture is the

“dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews and beliefs, used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others”

(pp. 8-9). She points out the importance of teachers being aware of the influence of their own culture on their thoughts, beliefs and actions because culture not only effects how children learn, but how teachers teach.

Culture & School

“In a sense everything in education relates to culture – to its acquisition, its transmission, and its invention. Culture is in us and all around us, just as the air we breathe. In its scope and distribution it is personal, familial, communal, institutional, societal, and global in its scope and distribution” (Erickson, 2010, p. 31). Culture is hard at work in the classroom. Not only do students bring their culture into the classroom, but

18 teachers bring it in as well. Each of the players in this venue called school are influenced by their cultural perceptions of one another, and these perceptions, in turn, influence the educational process. Adding to that mix is the “cultural fabric” of schooling in America.

“This ‘cultural fabric,’ primarily of European and middle-class origins, is so deeply ingrained in the structures, ethos, programs, and etiquette of schools that it is considered simply the ‘normal’ and ‘right’ thing to do” (Boykin, 1994, as quoted in Gay, 2010, p. 9).

Banks (2014, citing Spring, 2010) called it “Anglocentric curriculum,” representing the culture of mainstream Anglo American students (p. 3). Nieto (1999) agreed, identifying it as “the reproduction of socially sanctioned knowledge” where students, desiring to show what they have learned, are required to reproduce the “ attitudes and behaviors deemed important in a specific society” (p.3). Teachers, lacking an understanding of the diverse cultures represented in their classrooms and those cultures’ effects on student learning, present this knowledge as right.

Erickson (2005) finds that the teaching of “second culture skills and knowledge as morality rather than as pragmatic skills for survival and success” is confusing for students

(p. 48). Citing Delpit’s (1995) observation that teaching “second culture” skills as morality places them as dominating, he writes that the confusion comes from the insinuation that the “second culture” skills are the right skills. With the confusion comes resistance. Consequently, students from diverse backgrounds are not thriving in this environment.

Talk of school failure of students from culturally diverse and poor backgrounds often places that failure on the students, their parents or their communities. Their failure is caused by their genetic, economic and/or social inferiority (Nieto, 1999, 2000). Hence,

19 they come to school unprepared as a result of their “cultural deprivation.” Nieto (2000) notes William Ryan’s argument against “cultural deprivation” saying that it is a strategy for blaming the victim. Ryan wrote,

We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with culturally deprived children as

with culturally deprived schools. And the task to be accomplished it not to revise,

amend, and repair deficient children, but to alter and transform the atmosphere

and operations of the schools to which we commit these children (pp. 231-232).

Multicultural education is a response to the needs and hopes of these diverse groups being educated in culturally deprived schools. Its goal is educational equity (Banks,

2005).

Culture & Religion

Defining a group as a social system that “carries a culture,” Banks (2005) identifies six major social groups that have “proved to be important determinates of what people believe, feel, and do” (citing Goodman & Marx, 1982, p. 7) (p. 13).

Race/ethnicity, gender, nationality, social class, exceptionality/nonexceptionality, and religion influence student behavior, and while Banks acknowledges that religion is an important social category and that membership in it can provide “important clues about individuals’ behavior” he shys away from discussing it at length (2005, p. 15).

Immigration has contributed to religious diversity. Banks (2014) cites Eck (2001), a Harvard professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, who writes, “The United

States is the most religiously diverse nation on earth” (p. 22). With such religious diversity one cannot assume that there is a majority that shares common beliefs and

20 values. Because of this, there is a fear of how to study the diverse religions of America without giving advantage to a certain faith (Lippy, 2005).

Smith (1991) writes, “For what a man thinks about religion is central to what he thinks about life and the universe as a whole” (p. 18); thus membership in a religious group can influence culture. “For people who share beliefs about the nature of existence, the existence of a deity, or the meaning of life, religious belief often shapes the cultural patterns of daily life” (Dallavis, 2011, p. 139). In essence religion is a distinct part of the system of culture that influences one’s thoughts, beliefs and actions, and therefore, how one learns. “It is a different entry point to viewing the world and ourselves” (Shahjahan,

2005, p. 696).

Multicultural Education

Multicultural education “grew out of the ferment of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s” (Banks, 2005, p.6). One important public institution targeted for the removal of discrimination was education. What began as the need for African Americans to have their histories and experiences represented in the curriculum spurred on other ethnic, racial and cultural groups to demand equal representation. Today, multicultural education has expanded to address the needs of all students, belonging to all groups, including gender, ethnicity, race, culture, religion, social class and language (Banks, 2005).

James A. Banks (2014), considered to be the “father of multicultural education,” advocates for an educational approach that considers all cultures in a culturally diverse nation (p. vii). Banks (2005) cites Kuper’s (1999) definition of culture as “the values, interpretations, symbols, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized society: it is not the material objects and other tangible aspects of human

21 societies” (p. 8). Banks (2005) proposes that there is a national macroculture in the

United States as well as a number of microcultures, and that while there are many core values that the microcultures shares with the macroculture, these values may be interpreted in varying ways. Similarly, there may be some core values that are not shared.

Multicultural education helps students from diverse groups navigate between their home and community culture, the microculture and their school culture, the macroculture.

Banks sees multicultural education as three things: the idea that all students should experience educational equality at school, a reform movement designed to transform schools, and a continuing process that will never come to fruition because its goals are impossible for humans to achieve (2014). One of its most important goals is to

“provide all students with skills, attitudes, and knowledge needed to function within their community cultures, within the mainstream culture, and within and across other ethnic cultures” (Banks citing Banks, 2011, 2014, p. 4).

According to Banks (2005) there are six social groups with which individuals identify: nationality, race/ethnicity, religion, exceptionality/nonexceptionality, social class, and gender (p.14). An individual can belong to more than one of these groups yet, according to Banks, may identify more with one group than another. Banks (2005) believes that when teachers take the time to understand a student’s identification with a particular group, the teacher’s interactions with the student will change.

There is a belief that multicultural education is just about “content related to ethnic, racial, and cultural groups” (Banks, 2005, p.20), but Banks defines multicultural education as a “broad concept” with five dimensions. The first, “content integration,” is the “infusion of ethnic and cultural content” into all subject areas (p. 20). The second

22 dimension, the “knowledge construction process,” requires that teachers help students understand and identify the “cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases” that exist within a discipline (p. 20). Third, “prejudice reduction” happens when teachers are devoted to helping students “develop positive attitudes” about all people (p.

21). Fourth, “equity pedagogy” asks that teachers examine their practice and ask whether or not it enables the achievement of all students (p. 22). The fifth dimension is implementing “an empowering school culture and social structure” that is carefully scrutinized to ensure that it empowers all students (p. 22).

Banks (2005) believes that in order “to implement multicultural education successfully, we must think of the school as a social system in which all its major variables are closely interrelated” (p.22). Variables such as school culture, curriculum and policy must all be carefully examined and changed in order to assure and sustain a multicultural environment. Thus, reform must occur within all variables.

Sonia Nieto’s idea of multicultural education as a reform movement with the ability to transform the individuals and institutions is very much aligned with Banks five dimensions of multicultural education. Nieto believes that the current definitions of learning such as mastery of skills or academic achievement are restrictive, and she urges schools to examine learning from a more comprehensive perspective. Nieto (1999) addresses five principles that define learning: learning is actively constructed, learning emerges from and builds on experience, learning is influenced by cultural differences, learning is influenced by the context in which it occurs, and learning is rooted in and influenced by society and culture (p. 3). Nieto believes that before teachers can positively affect learning, they must understand how society influences learning.

Like Banks, Nieto (1999) embraces the idea of context, the school as a social system, and the multiple educational factors that affect learning: “Learning emerges from the social, cultural, and political spaces in which it takes place and through the interactions and relationships that occur among learners and teachers” (p. 2). She writes that a teacher’s view of learning has a marked influence on pedagogy, curriculum, relationships, and, most importantly, learning outcomes (1999, p.2). Because of this, a teacher’s beliefs can make a huge difference in a child’s life. This is much like Bank’s

(2005) “equity pedagogy,” asking teachers to be aware of this influence and examine their practices (p. 22).

Nieto (1999) talks about learning as a social act and quotes Paulo Freire (1987) when he says, ‘Liberating education is a social process of illumination” (p. xix). A skilled teacher can take the learning of one or two students and make it grow, which then becomes Bank’s (2005) “empowering school culture” (p. 22).

Nieto (1999) embraces constructivism with her principle that learning is actively constructed (p. 3). This idea of multicultural education differs from the traditional classroom where learning happens through direct instruction of “socially sanctioned knowledge” (p. 3). But Nieto embraces the idea that learning should be shared by all.

Nieto (1999) quotes Meier (1995): “All kids are indeed capable of generating powerful ideas; they can rise to the occasion” (p.5). Banks agrees. So much so that he refers to his knowledge construction process as a way for teachers to help students “understand, investigate, and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed within it” (Banks, 2005, p. 20).

The idea that learning emerges from and builds on experience comes from Nieto’s

(1999) belief that learning is innate and obtainable by everyone (p. 6). Everyone brings their experiences, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors to education, and while the experiences of students from culturally subordinate communities differ from the students from the culturally dominant, they still bring some experiences with them and are still capable of learning (Nieto, 1999). Banks’ (2005) dimension of prejudice reduction provides equal status for all learners, regardless of their backgrounds. This dimension asks teachers to carefully plan and use lessons that promote “positive attitudes toward different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups”, by using multiethnic materials (Banks, 2005, p. 21). This kind of thinking brings context and relevance for all learners, regardless of their backgrounds.

Nieto’s (2000) principle that learning is influenced by cultural differences asks teachers to not only take students’ individual differences into account but also their cultural identities. Nieto (1999) refers to Howard Gardner’s (1983) suggestion that intelligence is the “multiple skills, aptitudes and abilities that are manifested differently in individual people” (p. 10), and she believes that part of the reason for the differences is that children are socialized differently, whether it be family or culture. Banks (2005) dimension of content integration has curriculum content reflecting the cultures and groups represented in the classroom. He advocates for a variety of content to “illustrate key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories” in subject areas or disciplines (p.

20).

Bank’s five dimensions of multicultural education blends well with Nieto’s five principles that define learning, and both align with theories of culturally responsive pedagogy.

Multicultural Education & Religion

There is little discussion about religion in work related to multicultural education.

Banks identifies religion as one of the six social groups, but as co-editor of the book

Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, there is only one chapter dedicated to religion (Banks & Banks, 2005). Nieto (1999) lists religion in her definition of culture as one of a “combination of factors” that can join people together (p. 48), and yet while religion is recognized by multicultural educators, there is an “absence of research into the intersection of religion, culture, and education” (Dallavis, 2008, p. 28).

Yet the importance of religion in the lives of many students’ home cultures suggests that multicultural educators, who want to “create culturally responsive, inclusive classrooms,” should engage that dimension of culture (Marks et al, 2014, p. 255). While there is a fear of “indoctrination by religious dogmas,” the truth is that religious diversity is a much a part of schools today as racial and ethnic diversity (Wang, 2013, p. 152;

Marks et al, 2014). The religions showing up in schools do not just reflect America’s

Christian majority. Immigrants that have come to the United States from all over the world are finding that “religion is a salient and indeed powerful and protected category of identity” (Eck, 2007, p. 214). So much so that the rising immigrant population is growing religious diversity through demographic changes (Eck, 2007; Wang, 2013). Eck writes that for immigrants trying to establish a new identity and gain acceptance, a religious community provides “a recognized and meaningful social category in the U.S.”

(pp. 215-216) and “religious centers becoming bridging communities where the comfort zone of language, custom, food, and festival is maintained” (p. 216).

Wang (2013) suggests Freire’s approach to the pedagogy of religious education by using it to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor and states that religious education should be more about empowering students to make informed choices through critical thinking and dialogue. “Encouraging students to think critically about religion is crucial to supporting religious freedom” (Wang, 2013, p. 160). Just like any other aspect of culture, it is challenging for teachers to nurture critical thinking about religion instead of imparting knowledge. Hall (2012) uses a multicultural lens to closely examine how the

“disallowing or disavowing the religious expression and sentiment of youth can blunt positive academic, social, and career outcomes” (p. 160). Religious experiences motivate positive outcomes both educationally and personally.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Theory

There have been many attempts to understand the connections between school and students’ home and community cultures and the role they play in academic success.

These studies have come under a range of labels including “‘culturally appropriate’ (Au

Dallavis, 2008). The “responsive” part of the term culturally responsive suggests “a more dynamic or synergistic relationship between home/community culture and school culture” (Ladson-Billings, 1995b, p. 467). Interestingly enough, all of these studies were with white teachers immersed in cultures that were unfamiliar to them. Those familiar

27 with Bracey’s (2006) Principle of Data Interpretation when comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable, would not be surprised that the cultural differences were easier to see because there were no white middle class students; hence the teachers were forced to ensure that their culturally different students achieved. Yet, a multicultural classroom is different story altogether. “Sociolinguists have suggested that if student’s home language is incorporated into the classroom, students are more likely to experience academic success” Ladson-Billings, 1995a, p. 159). Villegas (1988) argues that by focusing on the home-school link, “The theory diverts attention away from the social inequalities that sustain the widespread academic failure of minority students” (p. 254).

This is an ineffective solution to a complex problem; instead, she asserts, “place the onus of failure” upon the institutional structure “where it rightly belongs” (p. 263). Villegas is not attacking the schools or teachers themselves as Bracey (2006) warns readers of research to beware; rather Villegas is taking issue with the policies, mandates, and political agendas that hold public schools hostage.

Ladson-Billings (1995b) points to Irvine’s (1990) work on the concept of cultural synchronization where Irvine proposed the focus should be placed on the racial aspect of culture. “Irvine’s work on African American students and school failure considers both micro- and macro-analyses, including teacher-student interpersonal contexts, teacher and student expectations, institutional contexts, and the societal context” (p. 469). Ladson-

Billings (1995a) celebrates the fact that Irvine’s work parts ways with the idea of the popular conception of “cultural deficit or cultural disadvantage explanations” for student failure (p. 469). Ladson-Billings (1995b) determined to put forward “a theoretical model that not only addresses student achievement but also helps students to accept and affirm

28 their cultural identity while developing critical perspectives that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions) perpetuate” (p.469). She coined culturally relevant pedagogy.

As she worked to form her theoretical model of culturally relevant pedagogy,

Ladson-Billings (1995b) began her seminal study asking several questions: “What constitutes student success? How can academic success and cultural success complement each other in settings where student alienation and hostility characterize the school experience? How can pedagogy promote the kind of student success that engages larger social structural issues in a critical way? How do researchers recognize that pedagogy in action?” (p. 469). She studied eight successful teachers of predominately African

American students in a low-income elementary school. Being African American herself,

Ladson-Billings struggled to situate herself within Locke et al.’s Machinery of

Subjectivity. Because she was a member of the marginalized group she was studying, there could be an assumption of a “native perspective” (Banks, 1992). In other words, as a native in the research field, her research could be “held suspect, especially if it presents findings that challenge existing paradigms…” (Banks, 1992, p. 277). Using the work of

Patricia Hill Collins on Black feminist thought to acknowledge her “standpoint and simultaneously forces [her] to problematize it” (Ladson-Billings, 1995b, p. 471), Ladson-

Billings (1995b) was “conscientiously watchful about the intrusion” of her personal bias

(Locke et al., 2010, p. 238).

Ladson- Billings (1995b) also stayed true to Locke et al.’s Machinery of time.

The study had four phases: teacher ethnographic interviews, teacher observations, videotaping teachers, and teacher collaboration in viewing, analyzing and interpreting

29 their own and one another’s videotapes, took place over a period of almost two years.

Ladson-Billings’ visits averaged three days a week. The video viewing, analysis, and interpretation took place in a series of ten 2-3 hour meetings. Each phase was important with the video viewing confirming the initial formulations of culturally relevant pedagogy from the interviews (Ladson-Billings, 1995b). Any reader of Ladson-Billings’ study would feel comfortable about the amount of time she dedicated to her work.

The teachers in Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) study were identified through a process of “community nomination” (p. 471). The African American parents, who Ladson-

Billings met at local churches, identified these teachers as outstanding because of their respect for students, the student’s enthusiasm for school, themselves and each other

(1995b). They were verified by a list generated by principals whose criteria included management skills, student achievement, and teacher observations. Eight teachers were selected. All were female: five were African American and three were white. All of the teachers were identified as successful teachers of African American students. The reader may wonder why this is important. Bracey’s (2006) Principle of Data Interpretation “So

What?” comes to mind. Sampson and Garrison-Wade (2011) found that African

American students desired African American teachers because of their shared history, yet, while they “preferred a same race teacher; however, they noted that an emerging culturally responsive Caucasian teacher would also be validating” (p. 303). Howard

(2001), in his study of African American students’ perceptions of culturally relevant teaching, found in his interviews with students that “there was not a single mention by the students of teacher race or ethnicity” (p. 147). U.S. schools are being filled with a progressively homogenous teaching population – mostly White, female and middle class

(Castro, et al, 2012; Howard, 2003; Saunders, 2012;). Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) study substantiates that more important than the race of the teacher is the ability of the teacher to be culturally responsive.

Using the data from her study, Ladson-Billings (1994) “conceptualized the term as a pedagogy that [empowered] students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (pp. 17-

18). There are three interrelated criteria of culturally relevant pedagogy: “1) Students must experience academic success; 2) Students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; 3) Students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (Ladson-Billing, 1995a, p. 160).

The first tenet, academic success, is about enabling student learning; it asks what students will know and be able to do once they have interacted with a competent teacher

(Ladson-Billings, 2011). In order to be successful, students must develop academic skills. Not all students will develop those skills in the same way, yet “all students need literacy, numeracy, technological, social, and political skills in order to be active participants in a democracy” (Ladson-Billings, 1995a, p. 160). Hence, teachers must gain the cultural knowledge of all of the students represented in their classrooms and then imbue that knowledge into their practice, thus honoring how students’ learning can vary across differing cultures. In doing this, teachers ensure that students learn what is meaningful to them. Ladson-Billings (1995a) observes, “The trick of culturally relevant teaching is to get students to ‘choose’ academic excellence” (p. 160). Students can grow intellectually when they engage in activities that require them to use higher order thinking skills (Lopez, 2011; Adkins, 2012).

Just like any theory, as culturally relevant pedagogy is used by different practitioners for different purposes, it has acquired many and varied meanings. Ladson-

Billings (2011) recounts how she regrets using the term academic achievement in her first tenet because many educators immediately linked it with standardized test scores. In spite of this, she continues to focus on student learning, standing by the idea that “if students are learning then they will be able to produce the types of outcomes, such as on standardized (high stakes) examinations, that allow them to succeed academically”

(Milner, 2011, p. 70).

The second tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy is students developing and/or maintaining cultural competence. For Ladson-Billings, “cultural competence is about student acquisition of cultural knowledge regarding their own cultural ways and systems of knowing society and thus expanding their knowledge to understand broader cultural ways and systems of knowing” (Milner, 2011, p. 71). By learning about their own cultures and the cultures of others, students can “have a chance of improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions about the lives they wish to lead”

(Milner, 2011, p. 72). Gay (2010) stated that, “Students of colour come to school having already mastered many cultural skills and ways of knowing. To the extent that teaching builds on these capabilities, academic success will result” (p. 213). Teachers steeped in culturally relevant pedagogy can help cultivate student learning about themselves by using their knowledge of students’ cultural skills. This self knowledge can lead to success in the classroom and in the world. This builds on Ladson-Billings’ goal of “self and collective knowledge in order to challenge and transform power structures” and leads to the third tenet (Milner, 2011, p. 72).

The third tenet, “sociopolitical consciousness is about helping students use the various skills they learn to better understand and critique their social position and context” (Milner, 2011, p. 71). Ladson-Billings (2011) encourages teachers to develop a sociopolitical consciousness. Teachers must become educated about the local and larger sociopolitical issues that affect their lives and their students’ lives, understand the disparities that accompany them, and link them to “issues of race, class, and gender”

(Ladson-Billings, 2011, p. 32). Then teachers must imbed those issues into their teaching

(Ladson-Billings, 2011). While this is perhaps the most difficult tenet to put into practice

(Adkins, 2012; Castro, et al, 2012: Dallavis, 2013; Saunders, 2012), it has the most far- reaching possibilities.

After observing the eight teachers in her study that met the three criteria, academic success, cultural competence, and critical or sociopolitical consciousness, and helped their students to be academically successful, Ladson-Billings (1995b) realized that while they were all successful, they went about it in different ways. She was curious as to what theoretical perspectives they shared, and, at first, it was difficult to see. By analyzing “teacher interviews, classroom observations, and group analysis videotaped segments of their teaching,” Ladson-Billings (1995b) outlined three theoretical underpinnings that defined teaching behaviors that would satisfy the criteria (p. 478).

She categorized them as “conceptions of self and others, social relations, and conceptions of knowledge” (p. 478). Although hesitant to be too specific, Ladson-Billings felt the need to provide guidelines for teachers who desired to practice culturally responsive pedagogy.

The first characteristic, conceptions of self and others, was epitomized by the teachers in Ladson-Billings’(1995b) study: All of the teachers “saw themselves as members of the community” and teaching was their “way of giving back to the community.” They saw their practice as growing, always capable of becoming. The teachers “believed that all the students were capable of academic success.” They also

“believed in the Freirean notion of ‘teaching as mining’ (1974, p. 76)” (pp. 478-479). All the teachers were dedicated to these “concepts.” Students were not allowed to fail. The teachers’ standards were high, and when they talked about shortcomings, they were their own. Milner (2011), in his observation of a white teacher teaching in a diverse school, called it a “mindset” (p. 68). He agreed with Ladson-Billings (2011) that culturally relevant pedagogy is more about a way of being or thinking than a list of practices (p.

76). But Milner expounded on this idea when he emphasized how Mr. Hall made a commitment to building not only his students’ cultural competence, but his own. His ability to do this was intimately tied in to his ability to teach well. As he built cultural competence about his students, Mr. Hall “concurrently deepened his knowledge and understanding of himself” (Milner, 2011, p. 88).

The second characteristic that the culturally relevant teachers in Ladson-Billings’ study imbued was purposeful social relations; teachers deliberately create these interactions. In their classrooms, the teachers were both teacher and student; all students were given opportunities to teach. Their classrooms were places where students were a community of learners. The teachers in Ladson-Billings’ study made it clear to their students that all students were capable. The teachers planned lessons that students ensured collaboration. Saunders (2012) observed these characteristics in a preservice

34 teacher, Ms. Morgan, teaching at a school that distinguished between the academic haves and have nots. Yet, Ms. Morgan refused to “reinforce a sub-standard treatment and positioning of her students” by building a community of learners where the students often acted as teachers (p.20).

The third characteristic that emerged from Ladson-Billings’ study is the teachers’ thoughts about knowledge. The teachers were passionate about learning and would scaffold in order to facilitate it, and they believed that knowledge should be shared, constructed, and viewed critically (Ladson-Billings, 1995b). While a teacher’s belief about knowledge is vitally important in any classroom, it is crucial in a history classroom.

Martell (2013), examining his own practice, challenged teaching history through a

European American lens advocated by the traditional education power structures (p. 66).

Teaching in a diverse classroom, he used texts that emphasized racially diverse perspectives to help students see and know that there are multiple views of history.

Transferring Theory to Practice

As stated earlier, Ladson-Billings (1995a; 1995b; 2011; Milner, 2011) shied away from specific descriptions of culturally relevant teaching, understanding that it is unique to teachers, and while she carefully lays out the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy and gets even more specific with the characteristics, it is obvious that the focus is on the teacher. There are numerous studies immersed in Ladson-Billings’ conception of culturally relevant pedagogy, and in study after study, the success comes from the teacher

(Adkins, 2012; Dallavis, 2011; Journell & Castro, 2011; Lopez, 2011; Martell, 2013;

Milner, 2011; Sampson & Garrison-Wade, 2011; Young, 2010. When teachers ask how to “do” culturally relevant teaching, the answer lies within them, despite the demographic

35 makeup of the classroom or the race of the teacher. Howard (2001) declared that the findings from his study “suggest that all teachers, regardless of their ethnic or cultural background, can meet the academic and social needs of African American students” (p.

147). It comes down to a teacher’s decision to build cultural competence (Milner, 2011).

Ladson-Billings believed that more important than doing the work of culturally relevant pedagogy, was being a culturally relevant pedagogue. Ladson-Billings (2011) states, “Teachers that practice culturally relevant pedagogy do so because it is consistent with what they believe and who they are” (p. 34). These beliefs guide their practices.

Milner (2011) referred to it as a mindset – a teacher’s “thinking and his belief systems

[that] shaped his ability to build cultural competence” (p. 76). Martell (2013), examining his own practice, dug deep and made himself examine his own background of privilege that played into his belief system. Teachers that engage culturally relevant pedagogy do it because it is who they are – they could not teach any other way. Lopez (2011) conducted a collaborative action research project with Meriah, a teacher who “had a long history of social justice work” and situated herself among the challenging students at her school (p. 80). As she learned about culturally relevant pedagogy, Meriah made a conscious effort to implement it in her teaching. In Howard’s (2001) study of student perceptions of culturally relevant teaching, teacher’s beliefs about culturally relevant teaching translated into caring, the attribute preferred by students in a learning environment.

When teachers who embrace culturally relevant pedagogy talk about failure in their classrooms, they talk about their own. They do not refer to the demographics of the school or reference a lack of resources. They do not talk about poverty or parenting.

Instead, they are continually asking themselves what they can do better to ensure the success of every student in their classroom. Lopez (2011) asserts that culturally relevant teaching is “hard work that occurs on a daily basis in the classrooms of culturally attuned teachers” (p. 90). Milner (2011) describes a teacher who used conflict as a foundation to building relationships with his students by giving them opportunities to learn, not as moments to discipline. Culturally relevant teachers advocate for students by refusing to hold lower standards for students not deemed academic (Saunders, 2012).

Culturally relevant teachers strive to improve themselves and their practice through critical reflection. Howard (2003) states, “The nature of critical reflection can be an arduous task because it forces the individual to ask challenging questions that pertain to one’s construction of individual’s from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds” (p. 198). This takes honest answers on the part of the teacher, but despite the arduous task, culturally relevant teachers are not intimidated by this inquiry because their practice is about their students. This inquiry could take the form of research, teacher inquiry, collaboration, or teacher reflection (Adkin, 2012; Lopez, 2011; Martell,

2013; Milner, 2011; Sampson & Garrison-Wade, 2011; Saunder, 2012). Ladson-Billings

(1995a) believes that teachers wanting to refine their practice can do so in their own classrooms and through other experienced teachers. She encourages teachers to practice teacher inquiry.

Key to building cultural competence in a classroom is the building of authentic relationships with students. When teachers actively work to establish relationships with their students, the students come to believe that their teachers genuinely care about them.

It is when solid relationships exist that students understand that their teachers’ high

37 expectations mean that their teachers care about them. (Adkins, 2012; Saunders; 2012).

The students in Sampson and Garrison-Wade’s (2011) study wanted “teachers who value them, establish relationships with them, called them by their names, and have creative learning environments” (p. 301). Milner (2011) observed that Mr. Hall was able to build cultural competence through the building of meaningful relationships with his students, and that not only was it important for Mr. Hall to get to know his students, but it was important for his students to know him. Howard (2001) noted that students learned best when they felt “their teachers’ willingness to care about them and their ability to bond with them” (p. 137).

Culturally Responsive Curriculum

In her chapter on curriculum theory and multicultural education, Gay (1995b) notes the variety of multicultural curriculum models in the field. Most of the theorists use elements of models from other disciplines in the creation of their own. Gay (1995b) refers to Banks (1991) use of Allport’s (1958) work regarding “the nature of prejudice and his social contact theory to develop antiracist and prejudice-reduction themes” (p.

38). Gay (1985) used the work of social and developmental psychologists Cross (1991) and Erickson (1968) to build her model of the development of ethnic identity, and

Ladson-Billings (1995), along with Sleeter (1989, 1991), Sleeter and Grant (1988),

Ladson-Billings and Henry (1990), King and Wilson (1990), Crichlow et al (1990) and

Darder (1991) are “contextualizing multicultural education within the critical theory traditions” (Gay, 1995b, p. 38). And there are more. Gay (1995b) sees all these efforts as models that are still emerging. Of particular importance to this literature review is the work of Gay and Ladson-Billings.

Gay (1979), frustrated by educators’ view of equity as lack of academic excellence, devised a curriculum model, Integrative Multicultural Basic Skills (IMBS) representing the two-way relationship between multicultural and general education curriculum planning. In the center of the diagram is a circle representing the basic skills:

“social, intellectual, literacy, functional survival” (Gay, 1979, p. 331). Surrounding the center circle are the five circles representing the pedagogic actions teachers can take:

“evaluation procedures, diagnostic techniques, content and materials, teaching behaviors, and learning activities” (Gay, 1979, p. 331). The diagram is further enhanced with double-headed arrows that connect the actions with the skills, and surrounding the outside of the diagram are the multicultural resources then serve as the content for the mastery of academic skills (Gay, 1979).

Gay (2010) emphasizes the importance of curriculum content reflecting ethnic and cultural diversity. Because students not only “differ both individually and by social, ethnic and cultural group membership regarding their learning styles and preferences,” they are deeply affected by both positive and negative content (Gay, 1988, p. 331).

Negative content can interfere not only with the performance of students, but with how they feel about themselves. Gay believes it is the responsibility of teachers and students to “become scholars of ethnic and cultural diversity, and generate their own curriculum content” (p.171). The benefits of culture will not only affect the achievement of the ethnically and culturally diverse, but it will provide all students with new knowledge of people different from themselves (Gay, 2010).

Critical race theory (CRT) “begins with the notion that racism is ‘normal, not aberrant in American society’ (Delgado, 1995, p. xiv) and because it is so enmeshed in

39 the fabric of our social order, it appears both normal and natural to people in this culture”

(Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 12). Although CRT has its roots in legal scholarship, Ladson-

Billings (1998) believes that CRTs relevance to education comes from the states’ legislating and enacting laws that affect education. CRT’s origins in 1970s came from legal scholars frustrated with “traditional civil right’s strategies” (Ladson Billings, 1998, p. 10, citing Delgado, 1995, p. xiii). CRT promoted equal opportunity and equity in education, which eventually led to affirmative action. Despite this, there is a continued inequity in education, including the area of curriculum.

Ladson-Billings (1998) wrote that the curriculum in place in schools today is “a culturally specific artifact designed to maintain a white supremacist master script” (p. 21) meant to quiet voices that conflict with the dominant culture and evidenced through the way diverse peoples’ stories are either omitted or changed and the lack of equal access to rigor (Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 21, citing Swartz, 1992). Ladson-Billings (1998) believes that CRT changes the way educators think about educational inequity. The theory of critical race blends with Gay’s notion of multicultural studies. It takes curriculum developers away from the idea of the maintaining a dominant culture curriculum to providing curriculum content that is accessible to all students. Beauchamp’s (1968) admonition that “curriculum theory and practice are driven more by external sociocultural pressures and political expediencies than by systematic and thoughtful internal analysis” (as cited in Gay, 1995b, p. 25) underscores the importance of continuing to develop and/or refine curriculum models to include all cultures, providing equity for all students.

Challenges to Implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

While many extol the virtues of culturally responsive pedagogy and expound upon its success, there are those that see formidable obstacles in transferring theory to practice. Ladson-Billings (1995b) is often queried as to whether or not culturally relevant pedagogy is too “idiosyncratic that only ‘certain’ teachers can engage in it” (p. 484).

Lopez (2011) referred to Ladson-Billings’ principles as complicated when brought into classrooms and said that most teachers struggle with implementation.

One of the challenges is teachers’ lack of depth of understanding. “Culturally relevant pedagogy is often understood in limited and simplistic ways” (Sleeter. 2011, p.12). Sleeter (2011) describes simplistic conceptions as giving “an illusion of having made meaningful change,” and they often prove ineffective (p. 12). One way this is commonly done is through cultural celebration, which often includes a disconnect from academic learning. Sleeter (2011), referencing Meyer et al.’s (2010) work with Maori students in New Zealand, remarked on teachers using culture as an “add in”. Some of the teachers in Meyer et al.’s study felt that by using the Maori terms for days of the week, they were implementing a culturally relevant pedagogy. When this happens, learning about culture takes the place of learning through culture.

Many educators who might embrace culturally relevant pedagogy simply do not know how to do it. Educators face instructional challenges. Most want to be given a strategy or a series of step to follow. For them, it is daunting that culturally relevant pedagogy offers “no one-size-fits-all approach” (Milner, 2011, p. 67). In fact, it is impossible to tell a teacher how to do it. Students needs vary every year in every classroom in every school. Ladson-Billings (1999) agrees. Young (2010) quotes Ladson-

Billings (1999) as saying “multicultural teacher education suffers from a thin, poorly developed, fragmented, literature that provides an inaccurate picture of the kind of preparation teachers receive to teach in culturally diverse classrooms” (p. 258). Ladson-

Billings (2011) describes culturally relevant pedagogy as being more than a set of established practices but instead a way of being. Young’s (2010) study only underscored teachers’ frustration as to how to implement culturally relevant pedagogy. She found that not enough was being done to support teachers who want to implement the theories into their pedagogy. Teachers embracing the ideal tend to give up in frustration when they try to apply it to their own practice.

An even greater challenge to culturally relevant pedagogy is raising the race consciousness of educators. Young (2010) found in her study involving how teachers and administrators understand and utilize culturally relevant pedagogy that when some of the participants attempted to use the pedagogy in their lesson plans, they became frustrated with what knowledge was considered most important; and while they spoke of embracing the theory, their preference for traditional curriculum stood in the way of implementation of the pedagogy. Young (2010) worried about their hidden biases sabotaging the effectiveness of the pedagogy in the classroom. Gay and Howard (2000; as quoted in

Young, 2010, p. 257) exhort, “Unless European American teachers seriously analyze and change their cultural biases and ethnic prejudices (toward self and others) they are not likely to be very diligent and effective in helping students to do likewise” (p. 8). Hayes and Juarez (2012) write, “Most teachers continue to enter public school classrooms unprepared to ‘effectively teach African American and other students of color’”

(Blanchet, 2006, p. 27). (p. 1).

Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is addressing the racism inherent in school policies and practices. This much larger and more complex issue is evident in the No

Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). At first glance it seems that the NCLB has the

“best interest of the underprivileged minority children in mind,” but deeper probing reveals that, with its reliance on standards-based curriculum, the “NCLB seeks to maintain the racialized status quo” (Young, 2010, pp. 257-258). Weilbacher (2012) argues that “standardization is whiteness” (p. 2) and because standards are written by members of the dominant culture, they are steeped in white perspective that generally downplays or ignores the contributions and experiences of minorities. Culturally relevant pedagogy clashes with traditional education.

While it would be convenient to blame public schools and teachers for this lack of ability to fully enact culturally relevant pedagogy (Bracey, 2006), Bolgatz (2005) blames it on the gap in research on multicultural education practices. Several studies cite the scarcity of research involving diverse student populations and the inclination to focus on homogenous populations (Lopez, 2011; Martell, 2013; Milner, 2010; Morisson et al.,

2008; Sampson & Garrison-Wade, 2011). Morrison et al. (2008) calls for more research to “address how teachers enact culturally relevant pedagogy in truly multi-cultural classrooms” (p. 444).

Even for the teachers finding success in its implementation, culturally relevant pedagogy is often hard, challenging work. Lopez (2011) spoke of how teachers struggle with classroom implementation and cited Morrell (2005) who called for teachers to become activists who look at each curriculum area, examining how changes can be made.

Sampson-Garrison-Wade (2011) referred to the process of curricular integration as

43 complex. The teacher in Milner’s (2011) study often confronted tension and conflict in his classroom. The pre-service teacher in Saunder’s (2012) study shied away from a potential classroom argument that could have laid a foundation for future deeper discussions, while the same time worrying about “getting ‘off track’ of the prescribed curriculum” (p. 22). Morrison et al. (2008) quote Piaget (1969): “the heartbreaking difficulty in pedagogy… is, in fact, that the best methods are also the most difficult ones”

(p. 69) (p. 444). There is a litany of obstacles to culturally relevant teaching, but those who subscribe to it do so because they hope to create equitable education for all.

Opposition to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Opponents argue that culturally relevant pedagogy constitutes of a watering down of the curriculum, and that in order for all students to be both academically and socially successful, they must be able to master the standards of the dominant order (Lopez, 2011;

Weilbacher, 2012). Indeed, some teachers experience the pressure of balancing standards and curriculum while working to implement a culturally relevant pedagogy in their classrooms (Saunders, 2012), yet others believe that it fits easily within the curriculum

(Journell & Castro, 2011). American education and businesses continue to tout the importance of the Common Core State Standards (Common, 2014) because it is believed that through meeting these standards that America will be able to compete globally.

While Weilbacher (2012) argues that the focus on standards has made “the discussion of race, class, gender, and language virtually invisible in teacher preparation,” (p. 1), it can be argued that teachers should “apply a critical lens to the standards themselves” which will help counter the negative effects (Avila, et al, 2012, p. 32).

Bracey (2006) encourages readers of research to beware of simple explanations for complex phenomena. While some want to simply believe that by mastering the newest set of standards of the dominant order students will experience academic and social success, the process of educating students from diverse populations is much more complex than that. The cultural background that poor and minority students bring to school is in direct opposition to the education that schools are offering. Also, Bracey

(2006) exhorts readers of research to demand data. The argument that culturally relevant pedagogy constitutes a watering down of the curriculum is not supported with data derived from research.

There is a belief that a pedagogy immersed in critical dialogue is a utopian myth that is too good to be true and impossible to translate into a classroom (Ellsworth, 1989).

It is true that educators have struggled to translate theory into practice (Dallavis, 2013;

Martell, 2013; Milner, 2011). Enacting culturally relevant pedagogy is a challenging endeavor, especially under the current culture of standardized tests. Sleeter (2011) believes that the extensive research on culturally responsive pedagogy reveals “rich descriptions” of learning communities, and while most do not report on the impact on student learning, she believes that “when they are connected with a theoretical framework,” they can help “counter simplistic conceptions” (p. 16). Sleeter (2011) goes on to cite limited yet existing research on the impact of culturally relevant pedagogy on student achievement; still, most of these are small-scale case studies which make it difficult to advocate for culturally responsive literacy in a school setting.

Ellsworth (1989) points out that while “the literature states implicitly or explicitly that critical pedagogy is political,” the research is lacking the continual focus needed to

45 explore how critical pedagogical practices “actually alter specific power relations outside or inside schools” (p. 301). Ellsworth (1989) also notes that critical pedagogues, neglecting to reveal their political agendas, are using public resources to further their own causes, believing that their intentions are for the good of the public. Ellsworth (1989) believes advocates of critical pedagogy have created a “posture of invisibility” surrounding critical pedagogy and social change, and that the movement has failed to

“develop a clear articulation of the need for its existence, its goals, priorities, risks, or potential” (p. 301).

In her classroom, Ellsworth (1989) found that because it was filled with diverse students with different political ideologies, “the rationalist assumptions underlying critical pedagogy” did not align with the course content (p. 303). While critical pedagogy implies that discussions of racism can be “taken up in the classroom and subjected to rational deliberation over their truth,” Ellsworth (1989) writes that doing so “would force students to use the logics of rationalism and scientism which have been predicated on and made possible through the exclusion of socially constructed rational Others – women, people of color, nature, aesthetics” (p. 305).

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Faith-Based Schools

Gay (2010) states that culturally relevant pedagogy “requires teachers who have a thorough knowledge about the cultural values, learning styles, historical legacies, contributions and achievements of different ethnic groups” (p. 46). Yet Dallavis (2011) notes that “discussions of culturally competent teaching address only racial, ethnic, or linguistic dimensions of culture, and there is virtually no consideration of the role that religious identity, belief and practice may play in the development of cultural

46 competence” (Dallavis, 2011, p. 44). Religion is an important part of home culture for many students. Still, because public schools are secular institutions, engaging with matters of faith can be complicated and problematic (Dallavis, 2011). While there is little room in a public institution to engage with religious identity, for faith-based schools there are no state mandated barriers to building cultural competence that includes religion.

One would think that faith-based schools would be on the forefront of culturally relevant pedagogy. While many religions can claim a somewhat harrowing history concerning equity in education, the Christian faith is founded on the teachings of Jesus

Christ of the New Testament whose life on this earth was filled with fighting the oppressors and helping the oppressed. He died to save humanity. It would seem that religious schools would relish the opportunity to engage in culturally relevant pedagogy while educating a diverse population. But it seems that the problem for many faith-based schools lies in the unwavering mission to advance faith and religious knowledge as it pertains to their patron church (McNamara & Norman, 2010). What then muddies the waters is religious dogma that gets in the way of open dialogue. Wang (2013) writes “that religious instructors should engage students in exploring the relationship between religion and life through self-reflective and dialectic conversations, aimed at achieving intellectual and political autonomy on religious issues” (p. 153). Yet McNamara and

Norman (2010) found that teachers and school leaders “felt constrained or even intimidated by the power structures within which they operate,” (p. 545) and when it came to talking about issues that were out of line with the church doctrine, leadership was generally unwilling to take on controversial “concerns about social justice and equity” (p.

545).

Dallavis (2013) found the same thing at a faith-based urban school in Chicago. In his study the school seemed to meet the first two tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, but tenet three, the most difficult to put into practice, proved to be a stickler in faith-based education. Dallavis’ (2013) found that while the teachers demonstrated a degree of sociopolitical consciousness, typically a social justice orientation that motivated them to teach at that school in the first place, for some teachers, the development of sociopolitical consciousness was fraught with complications. While many teachers reported infusing faith and values and sociopolitical issues into their teaching, at times, it was complicated by church doctrine that “seemed to inhibit some teachers’ willingness to consider social and political issues in much detail” (Dallavis, 2013, p. 274). When confronted with an issue on which the church had taken a strong stance, Dallavis (2013) observed two reactions from a particular teacher: avoidance and hedging a stance. The teacher avoided

“some issues to ensure that she be perceived as adhering to the ‘party line’ on matters of dogma,” or she hedged, struggling “to work around the fact that the institution maintains a certain authority to define the ‘right’ answer to complicated questions” (pp. 266-267).

Neither approach supports the desire of culturally relevant pedagogy to produce independent, critical, and reflective thinkers.

Perhaps Dallavis (2013) has the answer. While it seems that faith-based schools have no trouble reaching Ladson-Billings first two tenets of academic success and cultural competence, he theorizes a “qualified” approach to sociopolitical consciousness:

“that is informed by Church teaching and tradition” (p. 278). This approach advocates a sociopolitical consciousness informed by the sponsoring church. Dallavis (2013) admits that this qualified approach only “partially reflects” the type of consciousness described

48 by Gay (2000) when she writes that culturally responsive pedagogy “’lifts the veil of presumed absolute authority from conceptions of scholarly truth taught in schools’” (p.

238). Dallavis (2013) believes that for teachers teaching at faith-based schools, considering values and morals outside the context of the teachings and traditions of the church would be unthinkable. Dallavis defends his qualified approach as a way for teachers to prepare students to function in a diverse world while remaining grounded in the values and morals of their home culture.

Faith-based schools, just like public schools, reflect the ever-changing demographics of the United States, yet while classrooms in faith-based schools continue to become more and more diverse, there is a dearth of research that addresses the implementation of culturally responsive teaching in faith-based schools. The challenges of a implanting a culturally responsive curriculum intensify in a faith-based school.

Dallavis (2011, 2013) found in his research of Catholic schools that faith-based schools educate “poor and minority students particularly well” (p. 269); they boast higher graduation rates and college attendance. Similarly, Catholic schools are enrolling higher numbers of minority children, particularly Spanish-speaking immigrants (Dallavis, 2013).

While classrooms in faith-based schools continue to become more and more diverse, more research is needed that addresses the need for culturally relevant pedagogy in those schools.

Conclusion

The literature reviewed in this paper is important on many levels. First, it represents many scholars and teachers’ desire for equity in education. While poor and minority students’ achievement continues to falter and public education grasps for

49 solutions, there are teachers, alarmed by the inherent failure in the system, vehemently examining their practices, looking for solutions in the cultural backgrounds of their students, and there are researchers right beside them, collecting data to document both successes and failures, with the goal of reaching every student in every classroom.

Second, it has compelling implications for every teacher in every classroom in every school. Ladson-Billings (2011) believes that the success of culturally relevant pedagogy lies within the teacher; “teachers that practice culturally relevant pedagogy do so because it is consistent with what they believe and who they are” (p. 34). Their beliefs guide their practice. All teachers can practice cultural competence with diverse students.

More than anything, students desire teachers who care for them (Howard, 2001; Milner,

2010). Teachers that practice culturally relevant pedagogy work to develop relationships with students because they understand the importance; it is through solid relationships that students interpret teachers’ high expectations as an act of caring and respond to them in earnest (Adkins, 2012; Saunders, 2012). Culturally relevant teachers constantly strive to improve their practice through reflection and inquiry, thus sharpening their skills

(Adkins, 2012; Howard, 2003; Lopez, 2012, Martell, 2013; Milner, 2011; Sampson &

Garrison-Wade, 2011; Saunders, 2012). When students are struggling in their classrooms, instead of blaming the student, culturally relevant teachers examine what they have done and search for answers (Lopez, 2011; Milner, 2010).

Third, culturally responsive teaching includes all facets of culture, including religion. “Religion pervades American life: it colors our politics and the issues and subsequent laws we enact. It slants our current events and our narration of history. It inspires our music, literature, and visual art” (Marks et al, 2014, p.245). Because of its

50 influence on the views and thinking of the students who engage it, religion must find its way into the culturally responsive curriculum of all schools, public or faith-based.

Finally, the end goal means a better world. While some may be critical because they believe that culturally relevant pedagogy is just focusing on poor and minority students, the purpose of culturally relevant pedagogy is to reach all students. Culturally relevant pedagogy engages all students in the curriculum, prepares them for career or college, and develops future citizens that fight social injustice. Culturally relevant pedagogy is important for every student in every school. According to Ladson-Billings

(1992) “The primary goal of culturally relevant teaching is to empower students to examine critically the society in which they live and to work for social change” (p. 314).

When allowed to question the inequities that exist inside the classroom, students leave the academic world prepared to question the inequities of the world.

Chapter Three

Methodology

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to implement a culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based setting. A culturally responsive curriculum is challenging in and of itself. It is an attempt to fuse a connection between a student’s home and community culture with the school and in that process develop students who are not only academically successful but culturally competent thus developing a sociopolitical consciousness of their own

(Ladson-Billings, 1995a). Paramount to its success are competent teachers willing to gain cultural knowledge of their students and let that knowledge pervade their practice. While religious beliefs are recognized as an important part of culture, most of the research has taken place in secular institutions where engaging with matters of faith can be problematic. Conversely, teachers practicing in faith-based institutions can run into problems when they impart sociopolitical issues that might contradict church doctrine.

While research at both types of institutions seems rife with complications, the purpose of this study is to 1) develop and implement a culturally responsive unit of curriculum for a faith-based setting and 2) identify the problems and issues that might arise with the intersection of faith-based directives and culturally responsive curriculum.

Description of the Sample

The faith-based school used in this study is a private secondary boarding school located in an isolated rural setting on 360 acres. It is owned and operated by a large

Christian denomination and is one of their 10 secondary schools. It is the only boarding school. Seventy-one percent of the students come from homes that share the same beliefs

52 of the sponsoring Christian denomination. Of the 183 students, 95% board in the dormitories. Because it is a boarding school, it has attracted international students desiring to learn English. 32% of the students are not U.S. citizens. Although it is a private school, 61% of the students receive a financial scholarship of some kind, ranging from 15% of tuition paid through 100%. 63% of the students have a job on campus.

The student population at the Academy is diverse: 37% Asian, 28% Caucasian,

17% African American, 9% Hispanic, and 9% identifying themselves as other, which includes bi-racial, Brazilian, Haitian, Filipino, and South Pacific Islander. 49% of the students’ home language is English, 24% Chinese, 10% other, including Balauwan,

Creole, Filipino, Indonesian, Japanese, Shona, Swahili, Thai, and Tongan, 8% Spanish,

6% Korean, and 3 % Portuguese.

The participants in this curriculum project will be 39 sophomore students, 19 girls and 21 boys, enrolled in two required English II classes. As a population, this class reflects the diversity of the school: Caucasian – 37%, African American – 25%, Asian –

25%, and Hispanic – 8%. Two students identify themselves as biracial. 35% of the class are English Language Learners.

Project Rationale and Description

Because the Academy serves a culturally diverse student population, it is not only important for culture to become a part of the curriculum, but it is important for teachers to seek knowledge about the social and cultural backgrounds of their students. Students’ social and cultural backgrounds shape their thinking about themselves, their society, and their world and determines the questions they ask and how they learn (Smith, 1991).

Students educated in a school steeped in culturally responsive pedagogy develop

53 intellectually and socially and have confidence to question inequalities and seek social change. The Academy, like all diverse institutions, is striving to meet the needs of its diverse student population, and research has shown that a culturally centered curriculum raises student achievement.

There is very little research on faith-based schools and culturally responsive curriculum, and there are some who would argue that a faith-based culturally responsive pedagogy cannot exist. Yet, few would argue the significant influence of religion upon culture and the need to consider all facets of culture in a culturally diverse country. Gloria

Ladson-Billings (1994) noted that the teacher is key to the success of culturally responsive curriculum, and it is especially true in a faith-based school. Not only must the teacher be steeped in the cultures represented in the classroom but also in the various faiths. This supports Ladson-Billing’s (1995a) second tenet – developing and/or maintaining cultural competence.

The goal of this project is to plan and implement a unit of culturally responsive curriculum for a sophomore English class at a faith-based school. This unit will be part of a semester long study of literature based on the Common Core State Standards (Common,

2014) correlated with the grade 10 denominational standards. The unit will be preceded by an introduction to analyzing the elements of short story. The unit itself will consist of

4 short stories representing the cultural diversity of the classroom, including race, ethnicity, culture, gender, social class, language and religion and will be followed by a unit studying full-length novels.

Measurement

Prior to writing this unit, the author of this thesis researched both multicultural and culturally responsive curriculum. While the curriculum content supports the ideas of culture and critical literacy, the strategies used to investigate the essential learnings are derived from standards. In the process of designing and writing, the author’s goal is to align the curriculum to Ladson-Billings’ (1994) idea of empowering “students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (pp. 17-18). Throughout the writing process, the curriculum will be shared and discussed with a colleague who is not adept in the area of culturally responsive curriculum but is nonetheless mindful of the goal.

Procedures

Student feedback is an important element to the success of this project. Before the design begins, demographic information and cultural attitudes will be collected from the students. Some of this data will be gleaned from admissions information and some will be collected from questions posed to the students and answered through Quick Writes.

Throughout the teaching of the unit, data will be collected through formative assessments, summative assessment, text engagement strategies, and both small and large group discussions. At the culmination of the unit, a student focus group will be formed and using a Chalk Talk strategy and a discussion format, students will respond to the ideas presented in the literature and their thinking about those ideas.

Procedures for Data Analysis

The data collected from the students will scrutinized for trends and issues that might arise as students examine their perspectives on multiple aspects of culture. Noted

55 will be the students’ perceptions and attitudes at the beginning of the unit as compared with the end of the unit, looking for signs of change. Attention will be paid to their knowledge and understanding of the material presented, what was most interesting, most troubling, and how does the lens of religion shape their views of culture and their sociopolitical beliefs.

Chapter Four

Findings

Introduction

School populations continue to reflect the changing diversity of American society, yet for children from marginalized groups, the achievement gap widens (Johnson &

Viadero, 2000). So the question lingers: how can schools provide equity in education?

One answer is to use a culturally responsive approach. Educators embracing this approach can enfranchise all students by helping them raise their consciousness about social, political, and economic oppression. Doing so will enable students to not only analyze educational content but will build future citizens that will take a stand against social injustice. Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994) described Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as a pedagogy that “[empowered] students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (pp. 17-

18). Geneva Gay (2010) says that education “is most effective when ecological factors, such as prior experiences, community settings, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic identities of teachers and students are included in its implementation” (p. 22). The only way for teachers to succeed in an endeavor such as this is for them to examine their own theories and philosophies about “social contexts, their students, curriculum, and instruction” and understand the effects these beliefs have on their pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2011, p.

163).

It is the purpose of this study to create and implement a unit of culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based school setting and to recognize and understand any

57 issues that surface when a culturally responsive curriculum is put into practice in a conservative faith-based setting.

This chapter examines my initial journey toward a culturally responsive pedagogy: an ongoing examination of philosophy and theory and an attempt to engage

“prior experiences, community settings, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic identities” into curriculum, as Gay (2010) so advised (pp. 17-18). The fact that this work took place in a faith-based school that centers its work around religion, a dimension mostly absent from culturally responsive research yet deemed as culturally relevant, gave it an additional element of challenge.

When I first began researching culturally responsive teaching and curriculum, I did not anticipate a disparity between culturally responsive teaching and faith-based schooling. It was not until I was exposed to Dallavis’ (2008) thoughts in his thesis

Extending Theories of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: An Ethnographic Examination of Catholic Schooling in an Immigrant Community in Chicago that I began to anticipate such a disparity. Yet still, while I could see the possibility, I was not convinced of its severity, and as yet, I was not convinced of a qualified approach. Dallavis is comfortable with his stance on a qualified approach. Dallavis (2013) believes that for teachers teaching at faith-based schools, considering values and morals outside the context of the teachings and traditions of the church would be unthinkable, and he defends it as a way for teachers to prepare students to function in a diverse world while remaining grounded in the values and morals of their home culture.

As I planned the unit, I was careful in my selection of short stories, and the process was more challenging than I had anticipated. In the past I had used the stories

58 that are typically included in high school literature anthologies. This time I chose stories that reflected the culture represented in the classroom, and they were difficult to find.

Many of the short multicultural short stories that I read were written for adults. While the stories I selected represented some social, political and economic issues, none of those issues conflicted with the teachings and traditions of the church. As a result, while the unit reflected the culture in the classroom, it did not reflect any large disparities between the curriculum and the church. While I feel that it is important for students to be able to discuss disparities, I had a difficult time finding the right medium, the short stories, to begin those discussions. In the future I will continue to look for literature that delves more into the sociopolitical arena on an adolescent level, but I find that now that I have explored the realm of culturally responsive teaching, I, as a teacher at a faith-based school, have a better understanding of Dallavis’ supposition of a qualified approach.

The chapter begins with the rationale for planning the unit, explaining how research supports the planning decisions. It is followed by an explanation of the unit plans: how the mission of the school and the diversity of its students were taken into consideration during the planning and the actual planning of the unit and decision on data collection. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion of the findings in the data collection process supported by evidence from student work.

Rationale for Planning the Unit

Ladson-Billings (2011) believes that culturally relevant teaching is more of a way of thinking or being than a list of practices. Milner (2011) called it a mindset committed to not only building the students’ cultural competence but the teacher’s. Because culturally responsive pedagogy is a theory that relies heavily on a teachers’ understanding

59 of their own culture and the cultures of their students, it is often difficult for teachers to implement. Often the frustration for teachers seeking to teach in a culturally competent way is the lack of a set curriculum. Teachers want an established set of practices. Gay

(1979), created a curriculum model, Integrative Multicultural Basic Skills, where multicultural resources served as the content for teaching critical thinking, problem solving and literacy. The unit of curriculum developed for this research reflected this model.

Also taken into account while building this curriculum unit was Ladson-Billings’

(1995a) three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. The first, academic success, asks teachers to recognize the fact that while it is imperative for all students to develop academic skills, not all of them do this in the same way. Ladson-Billings (1995a) asks teachers to honor how student learning varies across cultures, by seeking the cultural knowledge of the students in their classrooms. For this unit, that meant identifying and understanding the cultures represented in the classroom, choosing content that reflected aspects of those cultures, and using that content as a vehicle to develop students’ academic skills.

Ladson-Billings (1995a) second tenet, students developing and/or maintaining cultural competence, asserts that when students acknowledge and honor their own cultural beliefs and are exposed to a wider range of cultures, they gain an advantage as they transition into their futures. Teachers building on the cultural skills that students come to school already knowing can help students achieve academic success. Part of the goal of this unit was helping students recognize their own culture and the importance of its place in society, while at the same time being exposed to and understanding the

60 importance and similarities of the human experience in all cultures. This is part of the bigger picture of understanding a society comprised of many cultures and understanding the value that cultures bring. This knowledge is an important stepping-stone to getting along in a global society and gaining a worldview.

As students gain academic skills and cultural competency, they are empowered to use their skills to “understand and critique their social position and context, Ladson-

Billings’ (2011) third tenet, sociopolitical consciousness (p. 41). This important tenet places the onus of responsibility on the teacher. Teachers must educate themselves on the sociopolitical issues that affect their students’ lives, link those disparities with issues of race, class, and gender, and then imbed those issues in their teaching, a difficult tenet to put into practice (Adkins, 2012; Castro, et al, 2012: Dallavis, 2013; Saunders, 2012). For this unit, it meant planning a deliberate link between the cultural content of the unit and the students’ lives, but first beginning to understand what are the sociopolitical issues that influence students’ lives. It started to play out in a class discussion where current issues of race, class, and gender could be linked to the content, yet doing so in an authentic way proved to be challenging. There is a fine balance to maintain between student recognition of the association between the content and their lives and the teacher providing the link.

When a teacher throws out a connection, it can feel contrived, but when a student sees it, the discussion is powerful. Sometimes the student association just happens, and the whole class is immediately engaged. When the class discussed Langston Hughes’ (1951) poem,

“A Dream Deferred,” students struggled with the final line “Or does it explode?” Hughes begins the poem by asking, “What happens to a dream deferred?” and then compares a dream to a series of images phrased in questions. For example, “Does it dry up like a

61 raisin in the sun?” Each successive image seems to grow in intensity until it ends with the final line, “Or does it explode?” One student wanted to know what a dream exploding would look like. A student suggested that it might look like “frustration or rage.” While most students were still processing that suggestion, a student simply said, “Ferguson and

Michael Brown.” The lights came on. The ensuing discussion revolved around the death of Michael Brown and whether or not the confrontation between Brown and the police officer was an example of a dream deferred exploding. One student, an African American boy, could not understand why Brown did not just cooperate with the policeman. When a student suggested that maybe sometimes people just get tired and frustrated with the way they are singled out or treated, he said, “It isn’t worth it. Now he’s dead.” This student lives in a big city and could easily end up in a similar confrontation. This was one of those golden moments when the students put things together. The fact that a student made the connection between the poem and Michael Brown made it completely authentic, and this piqued the interest of the class. After this happened, I began to deliberately look for text that could be linked to current events.

Important to my personal journey were Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) three theoretical underpinnings that broadly define culturally responsive teaching behaviors: conceptions of self and others, social relations, and conceptions of knowledge (p. 478). The first, conceptions of self and others, outlines the theories and behaviors of a visionary teacher, one who believes that all students have the ability to achieve academic success and who has a clear picture his/her own role as the facilitator of that process: setting high standards and an always growing practice. For me, it became a personal commitment to understanding not just the students’ cultural competence but my own. For a white teacher

62 in a diverse classroom this commitment meant reading into and beginning to understand the various cultures represented in the room. At the same time, it meant coming to an understanding of the dominant white culture. This proved to be particularly challenging.

The second theoretical underpinning was purposeful social relations. This is the building of a community of learners, a deliberate move toward collaboration that corroborates the teacher’s belief that all students are capable of teaching and learning, even the teacher. Many things must come into play to achieve a setting such as this. The classroom must be perceived as a safe place to learn, there must be respect between the teacher and the students and between the students, and the students must come to believe they can teach each other and learn from each other. Because purposeful social relations have always been a conscious commitment on my part, building a community of learners was already in process. New to this process was considering the cultures of the students and understanding the role culture plays in collaboration.

The third theoretical underpinning from Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) study is the teacher’s thoughts about knowledge. Culturally responsive teachers are lifelong learners.

They not only feel passionate about their own learning but about students’ learning. They see teaching as an opportunity to scaffold learning for all students, and they see knowledge as something to share, construct, and view critically. It is this belief about knowledge that led me in this study to question my own practice and search for better ways to engage all students.

Planning the Unit

Since its origin, education in America has represented the culture of the mainstream Anglo student (Banks, 2014, citing Spring, 2010), and teachers have

63 continued to embed their curriculum with this “socially sanctioned knowledge” (Nieto,

1999). A culturally responsive teacher seeks to understand the cultures represented in the classroom, recognize how those cultures affect learning, and ensure that all cultures are represented in the curriculum.

The purpose of this curriculum project is to develop one unit of culturally responsive curriculum to be used in a diverse faith-based school and to evaluate the effect that teacher and student beliefs, values, and faith have upon how the students perceive issues of culture and social injustice (Appendix C). This project took place at The

Academy, a private, secondary boarding school located in an isolated rural setting and operated by a large Christian denomination. Most of the 183 students board in the dormitories. A small handful of students who live close by go home on the weekends, but most of the students visit their homes every six weeks. The school program is steeped in the conservative religious traditions and practices of the sponsoring church. Students attend chapel every morning, most classes begin with prayer and/or a short worship thought, and the students attend worship every night in the dorm. There is an optional mid-week service on Wednesdays, a Friday night required vespers service, and a required

Saturday church service.

The religious perspective of the sponsoring church is reflected in the curriculum of each class. According to the website, the educational mission is “To enable learners to develop a life of faith in God, and to use their knowledge, skills, and understandings to serve God and humanity,” and the vision is “For every learner to excel in faith, learning, and service, blending biblical truth and academic achievement to honor God and bless others” (“The Approach and Philosophy,” n.d.). The secondary Language Arts Standards

64 state that the goal of education is to “provide student learning infused with Christian faith and an Adventist worldview” (Ingersoll et al, 2010, p. 3). It goes on to state that the goal of the standards is to “ensure that the beliefs and values of our Adventist faith are integrated in the curriculum. Language Arts instruction from this curriculum should help students to see and reflect God’s image while developing proficiency in different aspects of communication – reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing (Ingersoll et al,

2010, p. 3).” The objective is to not only prepare students academically but to prepare them for service on earth and eternal life.

As part of the planning for the unit, it was important to understand the cultural population of the classes. The participants were 42 sophomore students, 20 girls and 22 boys, enrolled in two required English II classes. One class had 20 students, and the other class had 22 students. The sophomore class closely reflects the diversity of the school:

37% Caucasian, 25% African American, 25% Asian, and 8% Hispanic. Two students identified themselves as biracial. Within these groups are hidden subgroups. Included in the African American group are two students who emigrated from Zimbabwe and Kenya and two students, twins, from Papua New Guinea. The students who identified as Asian represent three subgroups: Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean, all of whom are international students. Acknowledging these distinctions was crucial. The class was also representative of the socio-economic status of the student body: 61% of the students receive financial aid scholarships of some kind, and 63% have jobs on campus to help pay their tuition. The international students do not work because they are here on a study visa. Most of the international students come from upper middle class to wealthy

65 families. Around 27% of the students of Rio come from families who live below the poverty line.

The school is a community unto itself. Located 3½ miles from a small town, the school is situated at the dead end of a winding road surrounded by a river, a small mountain, and views of vineyards and hills, making it feel isolated. All of the faculty and staff live on campus in housing provided by the school. Besides the school buildings, the school has a cafeteria, a church, two dormitories, a horse barn, and a maintenance shop.

The school has its own water and sewage system. All of this resides on 365 acres. During the week, students can leave campus with a staff member or wait until the scheduled

Sunday afternoon town trips. Initially, this isolation was important to the school, but currently, effort is made to integrate the students into the local community through acts of service.

The culturally responsive unit (Appendix A) was centered around short story. The decision to plan a short story unit was intentional. Short story “allows students to deal, in depth, with a wide range of elements in literature” (Duke, 1974, p. 62), elements that occur in longer works. Short stories are short; this gives students easier access, which lends itself to reading and discussion within a class period. They also align with important Common Core reading and writing standards (2015). Not only are short stories an integral part of the English curriculum, but choosing a variety of short stories made it possible to honor the cultural knowledge present in the classroom by choosing content that reflected aspects of those cultures, and using that content as a vehicle to develop students’ academic skills (Ladson Billings, 1995a).

Typically, English curriculum is made up of reading, both informational text and literature, writing, speaking and listening, and language, including conventions, function and vocabulary. Directly preceding this unit of short stories, students were studying strategies for close reading designed by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst (2012). These strategies, taken from their book Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading, help students understand elements of short story such as character development, point of view, conflict, and theme, by learning to find signposts that identify important moments and giving students the tools to critically examine them. Following this unit on short stories, the class participated in literature circles, choosing 1 of 5 teacher selected novels and participating in a literature circle with students who chose the same novel (Daniels,

2002). By going from the signposts to short story to novel, the students are building on and reinforcing their critical reading skills in literature.

The unit was made up of two learning experiences: a short personal narrative piece and four short stories (Appendix A). The topic for the personal narrative came from several Quick Writes (Kittle, 2008) spread over three class periods that asked students to explore stereotypes associated with teenagers and the idea of a single story that has been told about them. A Quick Write is a brief response to a prompt – a poem, a passage from a book, a picture, a video, a question that probes a big idea or essential question - that usually requires reflection. The four short stories were carefully chosen for the unit because the characters and themes told stories that would be familiar to most of the students in the classroom: “Thank You, M’am” by Langston Hughes (1996) was a story about a boy who tried to steal a lady’s purse, and the lady took him home, cleaned him up, fed him, and gave him money; “Eleven” by Sandra Cisernos (1991) is a story about a

67 young girl who, on her eleventh birthday, is humiliated by a teacher over a sweater; “The

Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1969) tells the story of a young wife who at first appears distraught over the death of her husband, but after she has time to think about her life with him is delighted to be free; and “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan (1997), the story of an adolescent girl who is embarrassed over her family’s Chinese customs when the minister’s family comes over for Christmas Eve dinner. Quick Writes included two poems by Langston Hughes (1951, 1996), a poem by Tupac Shakur (1999), a vignette by

Sandra Cisneros (1984) and open ended thought questions that asked students to explore ideas in the short stories.

The unit began with a Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie entitled “The

Danger of a Single Story” (Ngozi Adichie, 2009). In her Ted Talk (2009), Adichie, a

Nigerian author, shared her frustration with the “single story” told about Nigeria and bade listeners to understand why single stories are told. The idea of the danger in a single story became the defining measure of each piece read: short stories, poems, and personal narratives. The essential questions included: What are stereotypes and how do they affect how we see ourselves and how others see us? What is identity and to what extent do we determine our own identity? What influence does society have on our identity?

Several thinking strategies were employed. First, annotation (Tovani, 2011) was used as a strategy to have students show their thinking while they were reading. The unit began with the students writing questions, comments, underlining key phrases, and circling words that they did not know. As the unit went on, students used those annotations to address ideas about theme and character development. Engagement strategies from Ritchhart, Church, and Morison’s book Making Thinking Visible: How to

Promote Engagment, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners (2011) were used in table group and whole class settings to generate thinking and talk in later whole groups discussions. These strategies also served as formative assessments of the students’ thinking and allowed me to guide the teaching that followed.

Three summative assessments were designed for this unit (Appendix B). The first was the final draft of the personal narrative. Using writing as a process, this piece was guided through four drafts and was graded on a rubric that focused on “I can” statements derived from the Common Core State Standards (2015). The second was an in class essay that focused on the analysis of a character’s development in a text through interactions with other characters and events. The students were allowed to select from three questions aligned to three of the short stories read in class. The final assessment focused on the analysis of the development of theme and was developed through writing as a process. This assessment was not initially planned as part of the unit but was developed as a follow up after the teacher noted the need to deliberately reteach analytic writing.

Data Collection

During the five-week unit, data was collected directly from the students’ work.

Each class period began with a Quick Write, typically a question, poem, or vignette to get their thinking started. Some Quick Write examples include generating a class list about teenage stereotypes and writing about the stereotype that was the most personal, or annotating the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes (1990). Quick Writes were completed in a spiral bound notebook that students have been working in since the beginning of the year. Both English II classes use Google Classroom

(classroom.google.com/h), a learning management system that allows teachers to go

69 paperless. Teachers can create assignments on Google docs, attach documents, and then distribute assignments in Google Classroom. Short stories were attached to an assignment. To access the short story, students simply clicked on the assignment. Each student had a copy of the short story to annotate using a close reading strategy that asked students to pay attention to their thinking as they read. They made their annotation by highlighting the text and clicking the comment bar. When they finished they would click the ‘Turn It In” tab. They then shared their thinking with their table groups. Quick Writes were collected, read, and the teacher commented on them each day. Annotations were read and commented on through Google Classroom by the teacher. This data not only revealed individual student’s thinking but informed the teaching that followed. Table discussions recorded through thinking strategies were shared with the class and then collected. Whiteboard work was photographed and shown on a whiteboard using Apple

TV. These pieces showed the thinking of a collective group of students putting their thoughts together. All of this data acted as formative assessment.

The work that evolved from the table group thinking strategies often informed whole class discussions. Table groups showed their thinking on the classroom whiteboard, on individual whiteboards, and chart paper. This revelation of thinking acted as a catalyst for discussion. The teacher kept anecdotal notes as much as possible during whole class discussions. While not all students spoke up during whole class discussion, they all participated in table groups. The thinking recorded during table groups was always shared with the whole class, so each student’s thoughts were read.

The series of writing drafts and the final draft of the students’ personal narratives were another important piece of data collection. For most students, these stories revealed

70 important thinking about their identity. Created from their I Am/I Am Not lists, a Quick

Write at the beginning of the unit, students worked hard to make a statement either about an incident in their lives that illustrated who they were or an incident from their lives that they wanted to distance themselves from an incident or an accusation of someone they were not. Most students wrote powerful stories using strong voices, and most were quite proud of their work.

Two essays written to assess the standards attached to the unit served as another important type of data (Appendix B). One essay was written in class, and the second essay was written over a period of several days both in and out of class with the teacher commenting on revisions. These essays were assessing ideas of theme and characterization analysis.

When the unit was finished, the teacher selected one class to act as a focus group to answer and discuss a series of questions created to understand the students’ thinking

(Appendix B). The questions were guided by the “Big Idea” and the essential questions.

The session began with a Chalk Talk, a “silent” discussion where each of the questions are written on a large piece of paper, and groups of students spend time at each paper, writing answers to the questions and commenting or asking questions on what other student’s write. When they were finished, the student groups summarized the answers, and the class took part in a whole group discussion.

Discussion of Findings from Quick Writes

Quick Writes recorded the students’ first thoughts on the big idea and essential questions as the class moved through the unit. These were unfiltered initial reactions where students were generally given ten minutes to respond to a prompt. Early in the

71 year, the class used Quick Writes as a way to gather ideas for writing, and although the class had been writing them all year and most students had built up their writing stamina, there were still a small number of students who continued to fight writing for the entire time, especially resisting thinking. Because of this, it was important for me to be respectful of the students by carefully crafting the Quick Writes. Not only should the

Quick Write topic pique the students’ interest, but the topic needed to engage the students’ thinking. It seemed that the key to effective Quick Writes was engaging the students through evocative questions, statements, or writings. It was the job of the Quick

Writes to jumpstart the students thinking and get them primed to read the short stories.

The first three Quick Writes were crafted to elicit the students’ thinking about their own identities. Ladson-Billings’(1995a) second tenet of developing cultural competence could be accessed through first finding commonalities in identity. Day one began with a definition of stereotype, and the class listed ways that teenagers feel stereotyped. A list was quickly generated, and the sentiment surrounding it reflected their general feelings of being unfairly labeled by adults as “lazy, irresponsible, untrustworthy, and disrespectful,” to name a few. The students then wrote about the stereotype that felt the most personal.

Several students wrote about adults accusing teenagers of being antisocial because they are always on their phones. A student wrote, “It really makes me angry when they say I’m antisocial because I know I talk a lot. They’re just hardheaded and think that every teenager is addicted to their phone.” Others resented being stigmatized as lazy because they like to sleep in. One student wrote, “Maybe you tag me as lazy because I sleep a lot.

I sleep because I have classes until 5pm, sports, then homework, and homework sometimes lasts till midnight.” Another student ranted about stereotypes in general: “I

72 really hate that people can put an entire age group (which contains millions) inside of a

(figurative) box. I feel like it is limiting us, like, because you’re a teenager you’re obviously going to be immature. What? I can guarantee that there are kids who are more mature than some adults.” This preliminary writing first sought to have the students understand labels through shared experience and then move to more personal labels.

The Quick Writes from days two and three had students generating more personal lists. For the first list, students were asked to complete the phrase “I am not…” To set the tone, I shared my own list, beginning with trite phrases such as “I am not musical” to more serious phrases such as “I am not a ‘woman’” taking the time to explain what the labels implied. This led students to more serious thinking. Students wrote, “I am not just a black kid that wants to be in the NBA; I want to be a doctor,” “I am not the ‘golden son’ of two renowned doctors,” “I am not a dependent thinker,” and “I am not someone’s little brother.” Other students ended the “I am not” phrase with single words such as

“secure, weak, pretentious, and defined.” For the day two Quick Write, students completed the “I am…” phrase. Again, the teacher set the tone, going from the easier, quick ideas, to the more thoughtful. Students wrote, “I am a youtuber,” “I am whatever I choose to be,” “I am hungry for satisfaction,” and “I am my brother’s best friend and my sister’s greatest enemy.” Most students rose to the occasion, defiantly defining themselves. They dug deep in both Quick Writes, sharing both frustrations and hopes.

They seemed unafraid and proud. They are beginning to know themselves. When given the opportunity to think, most students want to be given the opportunity to define who they are.

The first major assignment of the unit, a personal narrative, grew from these Quick

Writes; students were asked to choose from either list, I am/I am not, and think of a incident from their lives that reflected who they are or who they are not. These stories were powerful statements of identity. One student wrote about how being perceived as

“Asian” meant that he was smart, but it also made him a target of theft rising from the perception that Asians are rich. He felt both proud and branded. “This money stolen event really made me think about a serious question: Is ‘Asian’ a good stereotype because people all think that I am good at study [sic] or a bad stereotype because people think

Asians are rich?” Another student told the story of a Costco confrontation where a man, muttering under his breath, viciously called her mother a “dirty Mexican,” saying “You’re in America; speak English.” Her mother responded with, “In MY AMERICA, I can speak whatever language I want wherever I want.” The student wrote, “From that day on, I held my head high. A dirty Mexican or not, I will never let anybody make me feel that way. I will always be proud to be a Mexican, no matter what that name may mean to others.” The students read each other’s stories and were genuinely impressed. They praised the work with authentic respect and admiration. They were beginning to see that everyone has a story.

The students turned in their Quick Write notebooks everyday, and I would respond by asking questions about their thoughts, encouraging them to continue their thinking. When asked to think and write about Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s statement that the problem with stereotypes is not that they are wrong, but they are incomplete, one student said that he agreed with her thought. “It’s like a single story that you only see one side of the thing but not the 359 sides. For example, there is a saying that African people stinks [sic]. It’s

74 common that a lot of African people have heavy smells for some reason, but not everybody. You can’t just avoid them when you see them. You see they are Africans and you don’t even smell it yet, you just give them a mean look and walk away?” My note to him asked him to think about whether that stereotype could fit all races of people.

The Quick Writes gave me access into the thoughts of students. This access and the ability to encourage the rethinking of ideas became a guide for future planning, a way to measure students’ thoughts and stir new ways of thinking. Most students took these

Quick Writes more seriously than in the past because the topics were compelling. This was important for me to note. There are always those students who are going to take what the teacher gives them and run with it, and then there are those students that write a sentence or two and look pained when they are asked to write for the entire ten minutes.

When given the opportunity to genuinely think about topics that affect their lives, most students will write. One student who typically rolled his eyes when asked to keep writing, lengthened his writing considerably, going from a sentence or two to a thoughtful paragraph. The student journals revealed more extensive thinking, and when asked to share with the class or at their tables, the class buzzed with focused dialogue.

While I have assigned Quick Writes for several years, I did not see the focus of student writing that I did in this unit. Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) third theoretical underpinning has to do with the teacher’s thoughts about knowledge as something to share, construct, and view critically. In the past, I was typically the only one to read students’ thoughts in their Quick Write books. As part of this unit, students shared with one another at their tables and, if they chose to, with the whole class. This whole class sharing could be a whiteboard splash of their most important idea or a whole class

75 discussion. It was these opportunities that allowed students to construct knowledge as a whole. This was important for me and for the students. I found that the students could, through discussion, think critically and come to new understandings, and the students gained confidence in their abilities to discuss relevant, meaningful topics.

Discussion of Findings from Short Story Annotations

Before the unit was implemented, the intention was to read six short stories. It soon became clear that more time and deliberately chosen strategies would be needed for everyone in the room to access the stories, so the plan changed to four short stories. Part of the challenge was the wide range of classroom reading abilities. The results of the fall

Iowa Test of Basic Skills showed the 29.5% of the students scored below the fiftieth percentile in reading. The task for the teacher became providing strategies for struggling readers to access the texts. The first short story, “Thank You, Ma’m” by Langston

Hughes, was distributed to students on paper, and after I read it out loud, they were asked to annotate it by circling words they did not know, asking questions, writing comments, and identifying Notice and Note signposts. The Notice and Note signposts are strategies for close reading developed by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst. In their book, Notice and

Note: Strategies for Close Reading, Beers and Probst identify six signposts that help readers pinpoint elements that occur in literature (2012). Attached to each signpost is a question that students ask themselves. The answers lead to deeper understanding and more student-generated questions. I had modeled annotation earlier in the semester while teaching the Notice and Note signposts, but some students struggled immediately. The students had been carefully grouped at tables of three with the intention of learning from one another, but annotation begins as a solitary activity. It was important for me to

76 circulate throughout the room, checking with students for understanding and helping struggling readers access the content so that they could enter a table group discussion and a whole class discussion through their annotation. I looked at the papers later in the day, and many of the struggling students did very little annotation, which made sense. They could not show their thinking about their reading when they were struggling to read the text. I made plans to meet with them outside of class and model annotation.

The next day, the students were asked to write about and discuss how the idea of the danger of a single story fit with “Thank you, M’am”. The ideas bounced between the two main characters: Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones and the boy, Roger, who tried to steal her purse. When one student pointed out that she thought Mrs. Jones was a “typical southern black lady,” several students were uncomfortable with that stereotype, so the class searched the text for evidence to support this. One student suggested that because the author was black, the characters from the story would be black. Evidence was pulled from the story: Mrs. Jones said she could relate to the boy – similar backgrounds of poverty and want; she was cutting white ladies’ hair, working late at night; the woman was living in a boarding house; her name suggests she was black; and the dialect is black.

The students decided that the most dangerous single story was being told about Roger, that most people would have called the police and labeled him a juvenile delinquent, but

Mrs. Jones saw that he transcended that label.

When the second story “Eleven,” by Sandra Cisneros (1991), was assigned to be read and annotated, the class was beginning to use Google Classroom

(classroom.google.com/h), a paperless learning management system. It was the first time the class was utilizing a new set of Chrome Books, and there was a buzz of curiosity. I

77 read the story out loud, and the class got right to work. The novelty of commenting on the computer kept them busy, and, for a long time, just the clicking of keys filled the room.

“Eleven” proved to be easier to read, and the English Language Learners in the classroom took advantage of the quick computer access to word definitions. Learning from the last classroom annotation where some students produced limited annotation, this time the assignment was very specific: ask three questions, make three comments, highlight any unfamiliar words, and look for the Notice and Note signposts. “Eleven” is written from the point of view of an eleven year old girl, Rachel, talking about the day of her birthday as it happens. The story begins with Rachel wondering why no one ever told her that you wake up on the day of your birthday feeling exactly the same, feeling ten as if nothing has changed, and underneath that eleven, you are still all of the years that brought you to eleven. On this particular birthday, Rachel finds herself wishing she was102 so that she would have known how to respond to her teacher when she forced her to wear a raggedy old sweater that was not hers. One of the points that Rachel brings out is that, despite what Rachel says, the teacher is older and she is the teacher so she is always right. This resonated with a number of students. One student asked, “Why does it have to be this way?” A student commented, “This is how all my arguments with a teacher end.” “Mrs.

Price makes me so really upset. I don’t like her. She is the meanest antagonist ever,” a student lamented. There were a number of “I hate Mrs. Price” comments. Students noted

Aha moments and Again and Again from the Notice and Note signposts which lead them to notice what the author was trying to tell the reader. “Trying to tell herself it is fine, just get through the day, and it will be fine. There will be cake and family if you just get past

78 this.” “This phrase is mentioned over and over again because she turned eleven but wished she isn’t [sic] eleven because the first day of being eleven was terrible for her.”

Curiously, the discussion of “Eleven” was vastly different between the two classes and even caused some dissent within the classes. In the first class, many of the students commented on Cisneros’ ability to write. One girl said, “I think I like this story so much because Sandra makes the girls thought process easy to relate to.” Another said,

“I really relate with this,” meaning Cisneros description of turning eleven years old but not feeling it until one is almost 12. Still another young lady wrote, “Oh my gosh, I like every sentence of this article. We are all the same when we are 9, 10, or 11 years old.”

The students were asked to put their best comment and best question on the whiteboard.

The comments suggested that they felt sympathy for the little girl, Rachel, immediately siding with her. Many were disgusted at what they perceived as the teacher’s outrageous behavior. Comments and questions ranged from “Why is she so mean?” to “Why not let the girl speak instead of yelling to put on that [sic]was obviously not hers?” and “I hate

Mrs. Price!” One young lady’s thought ran deeper, “I feel like sometimes we’re all the unintentional bully. The teacher didn’t even give her the chance to speak.” Their annotations suggested that many readers in this class had felt the sting of Cisneros’ statement, “Because she is older and the teacher, she is right and I’m not.” One student felt that Cisneros was trying to tell the reader that the teacher treated Rachel differently because of her race. “She treated students differently. And it makes me think she is races

[sic]. Maybe Rachel is an Asian or African American.” One boy simply wrote, “Single story, stereotype.”

Many in the second class expressed sympathy for Rachel in their annotations, asking why the teacher was so mean, but some wondered why Rachel reacted to the teacher the way she did. “Why didn’t the girl explain herself?” “Why would she freak out so much if she knew it wasn’t hers?” “Why is it such a big deal?” “She should be more positive since it’s her birthday.” This spilled over into the class discussion. Several students felt like the story was one-sided. They pointed out that since this story was told through Rachel’s eyes, it might be overdramatized. Perhaps the teacher wasn’t so mean.

One student wondered why the teacher went as far as she did to humiliate Rachel by asking her to put on the sweater. Another student, under his breath, said the teacher was racist. When asked to elaborate, he immediately backed down and said he was joking.

When the teacher asked if there was evidence to back that claim, a student pointed out that she called her parents mama and papa instead of mom and dad, something white

Americans typically do not do. Another student rebutted with “I call my dad papa.” It was pointed out that the girls’names, Phyllis Lopez and Sylvia Saldivar, sounded

Hispanic, especially when compared to Mrs. Price. The same boy who called his dad papa believed that authors just pick any names; there is no significance. While there were two or three students in the class that believed the teacher to be racist, they were done talking at this point because of the forceful voices of opposition. What clearly came from this discussion is the ambivalence of thought becoming a clash of stronger wills. The social hierarchy of the students in the class and the large population of English Language

Learners, brought this discussion to an abrupt close. This could be viewed as a failure on my part to establish genuine relationships between the students in this class. The second of Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) three theoretical underpinnings that broadly define culturally

80 responsive teaching behaviors addressed this problem. It emphasizes purposeful social relations. The classroom must be a safe place to learn, and students must believe that they can learn from one another. While for the most part, they treated each other with respect, there was still a social order that could silence the already reticent student. Furthermore, some students struggled against me. Sometimes it seemed like they could sense where I was leading the discussion, and they just simply wanted to state the opposite. This issue has been a struggle in this class this year.

The third story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, was the most difficult text for students to access. I did not anticipate this. Most students struggled with the vocabulary and sentence structure in the first class, so I was able to make important adjustments with the second class. After the first read through, a class generated list of challenging words that were important to the understanding of the story was written on the whiteboard, and the class talked about the definitions. With the first class, this was done after I recognized their struggles. The story describes an hour in a young woman’s life where she learns that her husband has been killed in a train wreck. Because she has a weak heart, her sister and her husband’s best friend are duly concerned. The twist in the story comes when the reader realizes that the young widow is slowly realizing that her husband’s death has provided her with a freedom she would never have had he lived.

Chopin shares the woman’s reasons, but those reasons are often overlooked by the shocked reader realizing that the woman is not necessarily sad that her husband has died.

The story was read out loud, and the initial reaction was disbelief that the woman would be so callous. The second reading and subsequent annotation was vital. One student’s first comment said, “I really like the way the author wrote the story, you have think about

81 this one, sometimes even reread sentences.” He continued with, “It’s brilliant how the author slips in the real story in between the lines, and masks it by saying something, but obviously implying something else.” Most students, through rereading, began to understand why the woman felt free. The woman’s thoughts reveal, “There would be no powerful will bending hers in the blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime…” Many students interpreted this as some sort of physical cruelty, as if only physical cruelty could excuse the woman’s feelings. Comments and questions ranged from “Was he abusive?” to “The word free is implying that she feels the death released her from a sort of bondage.” Even with the justification of some sort of abuse, it was hard for students to justify her happiness. One student wrote, “Otherwise there are no reasons that she is so happy about freedom. If she was happy without these reasons, then she is[sic] probably has some problem in her brain.” Another student wrote, “Their [sic] your spouse your [sic] supose [sic] to love them all ways [sic].” Another wrote, “Don’t you think she is a little too happy about the death?” There were a couple of students who excused her behavior with the suggestion that during the 19th century, when the story was written, women’s choices were limited to marriage. One young lady noted, “For something written in the 19th century…it seems this kind of writing is kind of bold.” She wondered about the reaction to Chopin’s writing when it was published.

During discussion, most students continued to find excuses for the main character’s feelings about the death of her husband. Many felt like she needed a reason to be unhappy. When it was suggested that maybe she was unhappy because marriage was

82 her only option, most students rejected the thought. The ideas on the single story being told ranged from the literal idea that someone told the main character that her husband was dead to women were supposed to be happy in a marriage where they are being controlled by men. This was a difficult story for students to reconcile perhaps because the media shares a certain story about love and marriage. One student wrote, “That’s the reason why she wasn’t sad? This is sadder than the death of her husband.” Another wrote, “Goodness gracious. Is this like poser-feminist propaganda??? Is this really what someone would feel???”

The final story of the unit, “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan (1997), was chosen not only for its obvious clash of culture as described by a 14 year old girl, but because the culture referred to was Chinese. Twenty-five percent of the class was Asian, most of them being Chinese. In the story, the girl’s family has invited the minister’s family over for Christmas Eve dinner. The invitation is complicated by the two facts: the girl has a crush on the minister’s son, and she is embarrassed of her Chinese culture. In the story, the main character uses words like “strange” to describe her favorite Chinese foods,

“noisy” to describe her relatives, and “shabby” to describe how her family celebrates

Christmas. Interestingly enough, some readers picked up on those words and believed her. One boy wrote, “Why don’t they have manners?” referring to the Chinese custom of reaching across the table and dipping their chopsticks into numerous plates of food.

Another student wrote, “That’s nasty!” But some students, it seemed, were learning to question what they read. “That’s a funny custom to me if thats [sic]real or not. See the power of one story? I could really think that about China now.” A Chinese student wrote,

“Now that is kind of nasty” when the main character described how her relatives licked

83 the ends of their chopsticks. The possibility now opened up for them to question all of the

“customs” the author listed.

Numerous students related to the main character feeling embarrassed about her parents’ behavior. “When parents do that…I’m sorry but its so embarrassing.” “I’ve always hated how loud my family is, especially my mom. I used to walk far behind her in the store so people didn’t know I was her daughter.” “The Indian side of my family eats with their hands. So I guess I can kind of relate with this?” Students described sitting away from their parents at restaurants and being hesitant to invite friends to their homes.

Regardless of the culture one comes from, parents can be embarrassing.

One student wrote about being embarrassed about his religion. “I can relate, growing up as a Seventh-day Adventist there were so many situations that I came across where I would lie because I would not want friends to know all my restrictions or guidelines in which I try to live life. When I couldn’t do something on the Sabbath I would always make up an excuse that was false but it was always something so that people wouldn’t judge me or think I am weird because I follow such rules.” Although many students could relate to her embarrassment about her parents’ behavior or decisions, the American students could not understand her embarrassment about her culture; But one Chinese international student wrote, “I had the same feelings before, when I first came to America, I felt like people wouldn’t like me because I have different color and different culture.” “What makes her seeking to be part of the Americans?”

At the end of the story, it is evident that the main character’s mother purposely planned to serve all of the main character’s favorite foods: the ones she described as

“strange.” The mother admonishes her daughter to be proud that she is different. Several

Chinese students shared: “My parents had told me that before, no matter where we are, we shouldn’t forget who we are and who we love.” “I think this is really true. Even if we go to America for study, we couldn’t change the fact that we are Chinese. And my father always tell[sic] me that.” “I really agree with it, all the international students who study in America, should be proud of themselves, don’t have shame to be a [sic]Chinese.” “She is right, girl. Or you hope every one is same like the robot.” This story really resonated with the Chinese international students. When the class activity went from annotation to table discussions, I watched one Chinese girl explaining to the students at her table that fish cheek is the tender meat that is right under the eye. Another girl said that she could understand how Chinese table manners would be “awful for western one” but it is “okay for Chinese.”

Ladson-Billings’ (1995b) third theoretical underpinning that describes culturally responsive teaching behaviors defines knowledge as something to construct, share, and view critically. The annotation of the stories was the perfect vehicle to help students begin that process. Engaging in the strategy of annotation forced students to pay attention to their reading. It taught them to search for evidence to support their ideas. They were also learning to read between the lines to understand the authors’ implications. It was especially pleasing to watch them begin to question the way authors’ portrayed their characters and ideas. Just because authors were writing about their culture did not mean that they got a free pass on the ideas they assigned to that culture. It was not unusual for them to question the motives of the storytellers. Although some would begin to moan when the idea of the danger of a single story was brought up and compared with the story they were reading, for some students, the comparison became automatic. That concept

85 gave them a foundation on which to construct their thinking. Once the students understood the strategy, most students were highly engaged with the chosen texts.

Because the texts represented most of the culture in the classroom in one way or another, the talk that generated from the annotation took on new meaning, and there was at least one person in each group that could speak to the authors’ thinking and help the other group members understand. This, I believe, is what Ladson-Billings (1995a) was referring to in her second tenet when she described a culturally responsive classroom as a place students can acknowledge and honor their own culture, while being exposed a wide range of cultures.

Discussion of Findings from Classroom Thinking Strategies

The second day of studying each short story employed some sort of strategy to engage the students on a deeper level and clear up any misunderstandings from the original read. It was important for the students to delve into the story in a meaningful way. One of the strategies employed came from the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for all Learners. In this book, Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (2011) have gathered and categorized thinking routines designed by researchers at Project Zero at Harvard (2014). Through these thinking routines, teachers are “engaging students actively with ideas and then uncovering and guiding their thinking about those ideas” (p. 39). Other strategies came from Tools for Thought: Graphic Organizers for your Classroom. Burke (2002) has published this book of tools that “give structure to and ensure depth in” teaching (p. xiii).

Both of these books proved invaluable for engaging students in thought.

During the second day of studying “Thank You, M’am” the students began looking closely at and analyzing the character of Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, the main character. This analysis came from one of the Common Core English Language

Arts Standards (2015) for reading Literature: R.L. 9-10.3 “Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme” (p. 38). After the initial reading the day before, students were confused about her character, and indeed, she is very complex. At the beginning of the story, she kicks the boy, and at the end of the story, she closes her door and never sees him again. It became evident that a closer look at Mrs. Jones was needed. In table groups, the students cited evidence from the text to support their analysis and sketched out their thoughts on a group whiteboard. Most students could see that Mrs. Jones was a complex character and that the incident of the purse snatching and her subsequent dealings with the boy showed her depth of character. One table group labeled her as “guarded, wise, and perceptive.” Guarded described her during the time of the snatching when “she kicked him, jerked him around, and put him in a half-nelson;” wise in her ability to relate to the boy by remembering that “she was young once and had made mistakes,” and perceptive in her ability to sense that “the boy needed food, care, and someone to understand.” Most students believed that even though Roger never saw Mrs. Jones again, his life would be changed by her compassionate interaction.

The students dug deeper into the second story, “Eleven” by working with

Episodic Notes, a strategy from Burke (2002). They worked as table groups and together chose the three most crucial moments from the story. On an episodic notes worksheet, the students drew what happened and what they “saw” in the text, being as specific as

87 possible. In the notes section, they wrote a caption for their drawing, explained what was happening, and why it was important to the story. Because many students were distracted by Cisneros’ emphasis on age and the repetition of the main character’s thought of being an accumulation of ages, they struggled to understand the theme. The episodic notes took them away from the character’s thoughts about age and back to what actually happened.

It became easier for them to see the power of the teacher, and most noted that while the girl was eventually vindicated, the teacher never apologized.

The first scene that most students recorded as crucial was when the teacher was trying to find the owner of the sweater. One student noted its importance as being “The start of how Rachel got the blame of owning the sweater.” Another said it was important because “That is when her day starts going down hill.” Other answers said, “It is important because the teacher doesn’t want to listen to Rachel,” and “It shows how easily the teacher believed the other girl.”

The second scene most often recorded was when the teacher made Rachel put the sweater on in front of her classmates. One student wrote of the importance saying, “This scene was when all of her hopes of enjoying her birthday were shattered.” Students wrote, “I think this is important because it shows how rude the teacher is and how Rachel can’t speak up,” “It’s humiliating for Rachel,” and “She bursts out in tears of humiliation, again not knowing how to deal with her teacher’s harshness.” Many students noted the teacher’s abuse of power.

The final scene most recorded was when the owner of the sweater finally speaks up to claim it. Comments of importance included, “The teacher just pretend [sic] nothing happened. Adult always hide their own fault [sic]!” Another student wrote, “Because she

88 is teacher, because I am young, because I am skinny and she doesn’t like me, because a stupid classmate said to the teacher it’s mine, so…it belongs to me.” Another wrote, “She is able to give the sweater back but without consolation or remorse from the teacher.

Instead she consoles herself with happy thoughts of family life on the date of her birthday.”

With “The Story of an Hour” the students used a timeline strategy from Burke

(2002) that asked them to identify the five most important moments in the story, write the questions that arise from those moments, and make predictions, supported with evidence from the text. This text was the perfect text for this particular strategy because the author,

Kate Chopin, forces the reader to read in between the lines. If this strategy is done correctly, students look at the events of the story and then ask authentic questions that are only answered by inference. But they must struggle with asking the challenging questions. Although I modeled the first moment of the story, it was not enough. Most students, working in groups, asked questions that they already knew the answers to.

Questions such as “Was she relieved to be on her own? and “What was the feeling?” had already been answered in the story. This was the first time that the class had used this strategy, and in retrospect, it would have made more sense to scaffold the assignment by doing it together. It took another class period, but eventually, the class worked on this strategy together with moments of table discussion to achieve some independence. One example included musings about the main character’s immediate weeping upon hearing of her husband’s death (What happened?). The student stated, “It sounds like she is sad, but she is not.” This led to the question, “Was her crying joyful?” The student concluded that “Mrs. Mallard wasn’t joyful, but she wasn’t sad either” and supported it with textual

89 evidence, “‘And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not.’” The most important result of this strategy is the revelation of small details that help the reader gain a clearer picture of the main character’s life, so that this is not just a “single story.”

The students used a strategy called Chalk Talk from Ritchhart, Church, and

Morrison’s book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Independence for All Learners (2011) to delve deeper into “Fish Cheeks.” In this thinking routine, students consider and respond to ideas or questions written on a large sheet of butcher paper by silently writing. They answer the prompt and respond to the thoughts of other students. Students collaboratively write down their ideas and question others’ ideas, which helps them further develop their own ideas. For this Chalk Talk, there were four prompts that were designed to push the students thinking about the story by giving them key quotes that inferred theme and asking why those quotes even mattered. One prompt was: The boy she “fell in love with” was not Chinese. So what?

One student wrote, “I think maybe she felt that because she wasn’t ‘American’ that he wouldn’t like her and that the food and traditions weren’t going to help her cause. She wanted to be like everyone else, to blend in.” Another wrote, “Naturally, because she was young, she had a want to be accepted. And this tends to come from fitting in. My assumption or rather belief is that she wanted to be ‘loved back’ and to get that to happen she needed to fit in” One boy wrote, “To like someone outside your culture can be taboo.” A girl responded with, “Go into detail.” Another student added, “Where did you feel stress from the parents for her to like a Chinese guy?” The classes took this assignment and ran with it, collaborating, pushing each other’s thinking, and asking for evidence from the story.

Possibly my biggest insight from engaging thinking strategies with the short stories was the effectiveness of choosing stories that represented the students in the class.

While the strategies helped students dig into the stories, it was the representative diversity of the stories themselves that led students to want to engage them. Some students in the class did not understand the big deal of a Chinese girl having a crush on an American boy; the Chinese students understood it. The boy who wrote “To like someone outside your culture can be taboo” knew the pressure of falling for someone Chinese. Most students understand the complicated relationships between teachers and students, and when one student wrote “It is important because the teacher doesn’t want to listen to

Rachel,” and another wrote “It shows how easily the teacher believed the other girl,” most students agreed because they themselves have experienced the frustration of a teacher refusing to listen.

The next insight came from the thinking strategies themselves. There are usually a handful of students in every classroom who have learned to read closely for details and then use those details to develop a deeper understanding. These are the students who dominate a whole class discussion; the rest of the class just listens. But using thinking strategies allows the rest of the class the opportunity to think critically and share their understanding. The research into understanding conducted by Project Zero “indicates that understanding is not a precursor to application, analysis, evaluating and creating but a result of it” (Ritchhart et al, p.7, 2011). The thinking strategies used in this unit brought students to an understanding of the text. I found that the thinking strategies helped students slow down, making them analyze, evaluate, and create. In order to engage the strategies, they had to re-read the stories sometimes for the third time. This allowed them

91 to catch details that they might have missed and led them to important understandings of characters and their motives, ideas of theme, and conflict. As a teacher, I need to plan for that kind of close analysis and evaluation. In the past, I have expected students to read and immediately be ready to discuss. The strategies used in this unit have shown me that understanding comes through engaging thinking strategies.

Discussion on Findings from Personal Narratives

The first major assignment of the unit, a personal narrative, grew from Quick

Writes; students were asked to choose from either list, I am/I am not, and think of a incident from their lives that reflected who they are or who they were not. From the beginning of the year, writing has evolved as a process. The students have taken many types of writing and developed it through drafts moved forward by personal revision and peer and teacher editing. This was the first time that the class had used Google Docs inside of Google Classroom, a paperless web based learning platform. Using Google

Classroom allowed me to have constant access to their stories. The students and the teacher could ask questions and make comments, and students could easily share their drafts with other students when it came time for peer editing. Also, Google Classroom allowed me to attach a rubric that students could access at any time.

For his personal narrative, one student wrote about how being perceived as “Asian” meant that he was smart, but it also made him a target of theft rising from the perception that Asians are rich. “As an Asian, I am proud that I am smart. I’ve been working hard in school. But the reward I got was losing money, and the reason is that I’m an ‘Asian’?”

He felt both proud and stigmatized. “As an Asian, I am proud that I am smart, but at the same time, I hope those people who are bringing shame on their own race will stop their

92 stupid actions and let the world know we are not ‘Asian.’” Another student told the story of a Costco confrontation where a man, muttering under his breath, viciously called her mother “a dirty Mexican” saying “You’re in America; speak English.” Some essays had potential to spark controversy such as the one entitled “Truth Offends” in which a young man shared his confrontation with a fellow student who claimed to be lesbian and a

Christian. “And so the argument started. Within a few minutes, insults had flown, evidence had been brought up, and views had been beaten down. I could see the defensiveness in her eyes. This person wanted her sin to be justified, and I wouldn’t have it.” In his mind, he thoroughly annihilated her with his knowledge of scripture, proving that a true Christian could not be both. Sadly, it was a proud moment for him. While not all of the class read his essay, the students who did were from his table group and were reluctant to question him. Only the teacher challenged his thoughts.

I believe that the writing of these personal stories began leading the class toward

Ladson-Billings (1995a) second tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy where she maintains that when students are given the opportunity to acknowledge and honor their own cultural beliefs and the chance to learn about other cultures, they are developing cultural competence. The students took this assignment very seriously. They had written personal narratives in the past, but this assignment asked them to address an incident from their lives that reflected who they were or were not. Most students chose to write directly about culture, whether it be heritage, traditions, lifestyle, or stereotypes and were able to maintain pride about their culture even when it was called into question by someone else. The writing of their stories strengthened their resolve. What I had not expected is that a student might defend a stereotype, such as the boy who did not think

93 that his fellow student could be lesbian and Christian. Unfortunately, the telling of that story strengthened his resolve. In future planning, I will anticipate this possibility. I believe that more sharing of the stories as they were drafted could have called his ideas into question and helped him see his experience from a different perspective.

These stories became powerful statements of identity for many students. The fact that students had deeply personal stories to tell drew us together as a class. I asked them to dig deep inside themselves to craft this story, and they responded. I saw a part of each student that I had not seen before. I was impressed with resilience of the young lady whose mother was confronted at Costco. Her take away from that experience echoed the

Chinese boy’s, both proud of their heritage despite being stigmatized because of it. Those experiences and the expression of them strengthen both writers’ resolve. Whereas I recognized the diversity of the class and knew the students, I did not know their stories.

Some of them were painful to tell and took courage to share. This was important for me, as their white teacher, to recognize. My students helped me to develop my cultural competence.

Discussion of Findings from the Focus Group

The focus group was the first period English II class. The original idea for a focus group was a randomly selected group of students from both classes, but with the school schedule and the busy lives of the students, I chose to use a single class. There were seventeen students in the focus group, 9 girls and 8 boys. Of those seventeen, 8 were

African American, 4 were white, 4 Asian, and 1 identified as bi-racial. There were 13 students who identified as Christian, 4 who identified as nonreligious. Five students were

94 on scholarship, and 13 work up to 12 hours a week to help pay their tuition. Four students were English language learners.

The students were given a short questionnaire (Appendix B) that asked them questions about themselves and questions about the short stories and poems in the unit.

One of the questions asked the students if they identified with a particular religion, and if they did not, the question asked them to identify the source of their morals and values.

Eleven students labeled themselves as belonging to a religion, eight identified specifically with the organization that sponsors the school. Of the six who did not identify themselves as belonging to a religion, two had rejected the religions embraced by their families. The remaining four had not been exposed to a particular religion through their families, but they credited their parents and friends for guiding them to be “good” people. When the questionnaire asked the students if any of the stories or poems conflicted with or embraced their morals, values, or beliefs, the four students who had not been raised in a religious home felt that the story “Fish Cheeks” supported their values because it embraced “cultural differences and parental respect.” Of the eleven students who identified with a religion, four saw no connection whatsoever between the stories and poems and their morals, values, or beliefs, two felt that several stories supported their beliefs about judging people, and two said that the stories supported “more important ideas like love everyone, stand up for what’s right, etc.” When the questionnaire asked the students to identify a link between the stories and the poems, many students saw the stories as representing minorities. One student wrote, “They are all single stories; they are talking about racism and the power of some high leveled [sic] person.” Another student said, “All the stories had conflict where someone was in charge of their lives. Not

95 literally but their[sic] influence controlled the characters’ actions.” When the students were asked to define culture and identify some of their family’s cultural traditions, of the six students who did not identify with a religion, five of them talked specifically about traditions within their culture. They mentioned things like: “My family makes tamales the

3rd week of December;” “We have dumplings on Spring Festival (Chinese New Year);”

“When we eat, we can’t have [sic] voice;” and “Treat guests very very well.” Of the students who identified with a religion, two said they had no cultural traditions, even though they identified culture as being important; two linked their cultural traditions directly to their religion, “praying before eating” and “Sabbath observance;” three indicated traditions that embraced their ethnicity: “quincenera, Dewali, and Dia de los

Reyes;” and three related their cultural traditions to American holidays: “Christmas” and

“Fourth of July.”

After the questionnaire, I used the Chalk Talk thinking strategy (Ritchhart, et al,

2011, p. 78) to engage students in questions formed from the big idea and essential questions of the unit. Five questions were written on five separate pieces of butcher paper and spread around the tables in the classroom. Using various colored Sharpies, five groups of students moved silently from table to table every five minutes. Because the students already had experience with this thinking strategy, they knew that their job was to not only answer the questions but to read the answers of others and comment or ask questions. Before the students began, the questions were read out loud and briefly referenced with areas of the unit of study.

The first piece of butcher paper asked several questions about the danger of a single story: Who is telling the single story? Why? Who is responsible for telling the

96 whole story? The students’ writing about who is telling the single story suggested an area of weakness in the study. While many students believe that a single story is often told by

“People who are ignorant and quick to make judgements,” they also believe that it is their

“responsibility to standup to the single story.” One girl wrote, “With one person sharing the truth we can diminish all single stories.” Some students believe that the person telling the story has a “negative ulterior motive.” One student wrote, “How do we usually hear things from other countries or other states? Through the media, the news, Twitter,

Facebook, Instagram, etc… And the ones that give the information always make things sound a certain way looking in on it from the outside which can create a misconception of what is actually going on.” He went on to guess why. “Maybe they want you to think

America is better were [sic] not poor were [sic] doing things right theres [sic] not mass hunger or something like that.” During the ensuing discussion, one student questioned the motives of missionaries who come back to the U.S. bearing stories of natives in need of the gospel. An inquiry into the question of “who” would be an important follow-up to this unit.

The second piece of butcher paper asked, what are stereotypes and how do they affect the way we see ourselves and others? Everyone in the class viewed stereotypes as negative. One person wrote, “Either good or bad stereotypes aren’t friendly.” Another wrote, “They give a definition that is one-sided of who we are and our cultural identity.”

Stereotypes were defined as “a one-sided conclusion,” “When someone has a layout plan of you, and they think you’re like that cause [sic] your culture,” and “Stereotypes to me are ideas produced from a single story/experience.” Students worried about how easy it is for them to believe what they hear. “Maybe [sic] we judge people the first time we see

97 them just by hearing from others, sometimes it’s because of religions. It’s because of races. And it happens on [sic] ourselves, too.” “Since we have grown up with this, it is so easy to judge someone right off the bat, not giving them a chance to be there [sic] own.”

“It definitely affects how we see others because if we only know so much about them then we will believe what we hear about that group.” When it came to how stereotypes affected them, some students cited personal experiences. One student talked about what it is like to go into a store and be judged by his skin color. “For someone like me an African

American sometimes when I go into a store I’m watched harder than a white person or another race because of the single story that was placed on my people awhile ago. So when I go into a store I have to really refrain from just going off and asking questions that wouldn’t really go well for the store owner or myself but I just take care of business and leave because I know the way they see me.” Another student wrote about being tall.

“Um… like…I think once we’ve been stereotyped, we put ourselves into boxes, ‘like tall girls shouldn’t wear heels.’ Therefore, I only wear flats. I allowed myself to be stereotyped without even knowing it. In this aspect, I see myself as a follower. And to know this, and in a sense allow it to rule over you, sucks.” Another wrote, “Stereotypes can makes me know more about myself. It can make me think about lots of things. I can know should I change? Am I nice?” Many of the students supported one another on paper, writing comments like “yep,” “deep,” and awarding a comment with a star. The comments suggested that perhaps students had expanded their knowledge of stereotypes, and while they recognized their complicity, they were starting to make connections between their own experiences and others.

The third piece of butcher paper’s questions had to do with identity: What is identity? To what extent do we determine our own identity? What influence does society have? Many students defined identity as “who we are and what other people think we are,” and while they thought that people have some influence over their identity, they felt that people were unknowingly influenced by outside sources. One student wrote, “Society molds us unknowingly and mercylessly [sic] into the people we will become when we are older.” Another wrote, “It has a huge impact. Ex. Girls looking at modles [sic] and magizehs [sic] thinking why can’t I be like that? Society sets a bar of what our identity should be, but no one can match that.” And, “People tend to follow trends and do what other people find cool. Society has a huge impact on our personal identity. For example,

I think now, different is the new normal.” But some students refused to buy into the influence of society. “Identity is our personal job. Who we are? What are we called?”

“Through our lives we form our identity by the choices we make and how we choose to act.” One student believes that an identity can be changed if the person does not like it.

He wrote, “Your stage is as big as your heart.” It was pretty commonly felt that people cannot control what others think about them, and it is hard to handle misconceptions.

The fourth piece of butcher paper had the following question: What does learning about ourselves teach us about others? One student who signed his/her name as Yoda said, “Know yourself you must and others know you will,” implying that it is not possible to know others without knowing yourself. Several students felt that by knowing yourself, you could be more accepting of others. “It does not teach everything, but when you have an understanding of your self you can aply [sic] that way of lerning [sic] people, to others. Also, once you know your self and are secure in it, you don’t need to wory [sic]

99 about wether [sic] you find a person to be good or not. They will ether [sic] live up to your morals or they wont [sic].” “When you know yourself very well, or know how you react about different things. You can kind of guess how other people is [sic] gonna [sic] react on different things.” One girl stated that knowing yourself will help you understand

“that sometimes people from different backgrounds have different stories. Not just one.”

A couple of students felt that knowing oneself could help eliminate being a bad influence on others or treating someone in a negative way. “We should think about that [sic]how it affects people. Will they be happy or upset?” Knowing yourself “can teach us about how other people are affected by our actions.” There were several ambivalent replies: “I’m not sure,” and “This question doesn’t make sense.” One student wrote,

“Um…nothing…To learn about others we have to learn about them, not ourselves..?” To which one person replied, “omg.” It was tough for a number of students to bridge the gap between one’s own experiences and how that aids in the acceptance of others. Maybe I needed to make this more explicit.

The fifth piece of butcher paper’s question pulled religion into the discussion:

What role does religion play in the discussion of identity, culture and stereotyping? The purpose of the question was to explore the students’ thoughts about the responsibility of religion people in accepting people regardless of culture and identity. The question was not worded well. Some of the students’ interpretations showed their views on the importance of religion in their lives. One student wrote, “Religion defines what we believe in and it makes us do the things we do.” Another wrote, “Your religion can describe who you are because most people chose [sic] a religion that relates to them most.” And another said, “Lots of people use religion to identify them selves [sic], and

100 it’s the reson [sic] they make the chooses [sic] they do. At lest [sic] people claim that’s the reson [sic].” This student went on, “It also does create a culture of its own. How we act in the Adventist cominty [sic] will not be the same as other religions.” One student spoke about people who do not identify with religion. “Lots of people have religion, but there are many people who don’t have religion. Even if they don’t have religion, that doesn’t mean they are different or they are mean. Most of [sic]people think religion is the first one in their heart. Culture [sic]still important.” Another student expounded on that thought. “Sometimes when it comes to the role religion plays with culture, it can be put on a higher level than culture. Therefore leading to certain people cutting off certain cultural traditions.” Someone wrote, “You’re wrong…” beside this comment. There was no explanation as to why the comment was labeled as wrong, and it bothered the young lady who wrote it. When the class was discussing the question, she read her comment out loud and defended her thinking. This question, more than the others, had students reading and either agreeing or disagreeing with each other’s comments. Several students wrote that they felt judged by and for their religion. There was a desire for the ability to be unique among believers. “People stereotype you because of what religion your [sic] in.”

Some students felt sympathy for people identifying as Muslims. “It seems like 1 or 5 people can define a whole country/race/religion now days. Just cause some Muslims go blow some stuff up doesn’t mean all 3 billion of them are crazy? Right?” Another student recognized that people fail prey to this pervasive stereotype. “So whenever were [sic] in an Airport and we see a middle easterner we get tense because maybe were [sic] going to die. Or something odd like that.” The students recognized that religion plays a large role in culture, so much so that it dictates what people say and do and can trump other aspects

101 of culture. This was an odd thought for some, possibly because they believe religion is most assuredly more important than culture or possibly because a religious culture is so firmly established in them that they do not recognize it as culture.

The results of the questionnaire gave me a lot to think about. It was not my intention to stratify the results of the first two questions in the questionnaire into students who identified with a religion and students who did not, but I found the differences in the students’ answers to the first two questions so compelling that it happened. It was interesting to me that the students who had either rejected their families’ religious beliefs or had been raised in a secular household seemed to embrace and praise their culture and family to a higher degree. When asked the question about religious beliefs, the secular students seemed almost defensive in their answers. They felt a need to defend their families, and I wondered if maybe this need was intensified because they are enrolled in an institution that is founded on religious beliefs. I wondered if I should have asked students to explain the source of their morals and values and left religion out of the question. When the students were asked about the correlation between the stories and their morals, values, and beliefs, only a third of the religious students made a connection, while all of the secular students found a connection between story theme and their morals and values. Yet when I looked at the students’ answers to the question that asked them to define culture and identify some of their family’s cultural traditions, most students were able to do so. Nine students related their cultural traditions to their ethnicity, three to their religion, and three to American holidays. Two said that they had no cultural traditions. It seemed that most students understood culture and their families traditions of culture, but

102 only about half of the students could identify whether or not the stories embraced or conflicted with their culture.

The Chalk Talk was phenomenal. It is a solid platform for on paper discussion that leads to powerful dialogue. The students demonstrated that they really embraced the idea of the danger in a single story, and on their own, they ventured into questioning why single stories are told. While most students understood stereotypes from the start, they expanded their knowledge, and while some began to make connections between their own experiences and others, the identity question brought out the need for students to see beyond themselves and understand and accept others. The Chalk Talk again brought up the need for some secular students to defend themselves. One student pointed out that sometimes religion trumps culture. This is obviously a point of concern. It made me wonder if maybe some of the secular students who attend this school are experiencing or feeling some sort of alienation because of their beliefs, and if some of the religious students might perpetuate the belief that religion is more important than culture, when in fact it is a part of culture.

After thinking about the results of the focus group, I believe that as a teacher I need to find a way to do more work around religion and culture – the similarity between the two and the importance of each. I also think I need to do some thinking about the marginalization of secular students. I did not realize that secular students felt so peripheral, but it makes sense that they do. Virtually everything that happens on campus emphasizes religion. I have never heard secular students speak openly about religion or how they feel about attending a religious school. I think that I need to think of ways to begin a conversation around what that feels like and how the students that embrace

103 religion can listen and empathize and not force their strong feelings on others. This makes me think of Ladson-Billings (2011) third tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy, sociopolitical consciousness, and the linking of sociopolitical issues with race, class, gender, and, in this case, religion. I need to find a way to imbed this in my teaching. I find it peculiar that as a teacher at a religious school, I have been concerned about a religiously qualified approach to culturally responsive teaching. Unfortunately, I have not been concerned about marginalization of the nonreligious students.

Conclusion

Throughout the curriculum unit, the data collection and analysis indicated that students were engaging with the content in a unique way. Setting the stage with the idea of the danger in hearing a single story prepared students to access stories expecting to hear and think about more than one side. The data denoted that while the students were indeed learning about cultures other than their own, there is a compelling need not only to talk about culture and stereotypes but to understand exactly what culture is, and how it interacts with and can be a part of religion, especially in this particular setting. It is also important for students to understand that not all cultures embrace the same religions or any religion at all.

While the stories and poems selected did not represent every culture in the classroom, they represented cultures not often portrayed and accentuated themes that were relevant across cultures. Exploring different cultures through story and poetry allowed students to gain entry into a different kind of mindset, one that allowed them to talk openly about differences and learn to ask questions without judgment. The data suggested the importance of building relationships and understanding between the

104 students and between the students and the teacher. While this unit was small, it slowly built a bit of understanding that only happens when students read and discuss culturally responsive curriculum. This does not mean that tempers did not occasionally flare. There were times when students took offense, but the dialogue did not stop with anger. The data revealed that instead of taking instant offense, students began to show a willingness to extend patience and try to teach one another. They learned to ask questions and ask for evidence. This was particularly apparent in the discussion of the Sandra Cisneros’ short story “Eleven.” When the students were trying to figure out the relationship between the young girl and the teacher, one student said that the girl was Hispanic. Immediately, another student asked how she knew that, and the first student pointed out how the first name of the girl was the author’s first name. It was the first time anyone had noticed that the story was about the author. The word “evidence” with a question mark appeared on a

Chalk Talk, and students called for evidence during a discussion on “The Story of an

Hour” when several students insisted the wife must have been abused. One student calling for evidence provided evidence that she was not abused by producing the line,

“And yet she loved him – sometimes. Often she had not.” Another responded with the line, “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.” This production of evidence turned into a discussion about the relationships between men and women.

The fact that this culturally responsive curriculum study took place in a faith- based school gave it a unique slant. The internal struggle I felt while planning the unit bespoke the “qualified” approach to Ladson-Billings’ third tenet, sociopolitical

105 consciousness, that Dallavis (2013) referred to, an approach explicitly imparted by the sponsoring church (pg. 277). The data reflected little religious disputation on the part of the students in part because of the short stories that were selected. The stories were selected to reflect some of the cultures represented in the room but carefully so. That being said the data implied the need for a more careful structuring of the role of culture in religion. While the students had a basic understanding of culture, the final data revealed a gap in the understanding of the power of religion over culture and a gap in the understanding of a religious community with nonreligious people. “The primary goal of culturally relevant teaching is to empower students to critically examine the society in which they live and to work for social change” (Ladson-Billings, 1992, p. 314). Most religions strive to change the world but the agenda is biased toward church doctrine.

There are some issues where doctrine and social change collide. Adolescents are just beginning to formalize their own thinking, and for adolescents raised in a religious community, their thinking is tinged with doctrine. Because their world is just beginning to open up, they do not realize this yet. Religion, for most of these students, is a dominant part of their culture.

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Chapter Five

Major Findings and Suggestions for Further Study

Introduction

The United States is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, and while this diversity is reflected in the student population of the classroom, the practice of education has remained essentially the same, an anglocentric curriculum, representing the culture of mainstream Anglo American students (Banks, 2014, citing Spring, 2010).

While most teachers understand the role of culture in learning, many continue to look at culture as a deficit, citing the number of students of color that fail to achieve, instead of seeing culture as inroad to achievement. A culturally responsive pedagogy empowers

“students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings, 1994, pp. 17-18). The mantle of success rests squarely on the shoulders of the teacher, and if culturally responsive teaching is a mindset (Milner, 2011), then teachers need to make a conscious decision to build cultural competence in their students.

One of the results of the burgeoning racial and ethnic populations is religious diversity. The United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world (Banks,

2014, cites Eck, 2001). Religion shapes culture and influences ones’ thoughts, beliefs, and actions, and it influences how one learns. In essence, religion impacts a classroom.

Wang (2013) believes that religious education should empower students by encouraging them to think critically about religion. Getting students to think critically and collaboratively about religion, like any other aspect of culture, allows them to make informed choices rather than relying on the knowledge of one expert.

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The planning and implementation of this culturally relevant curriculum unit in a faith-based setting reflects my attempt to build cultural competence in my students, and although it was a brief, first effort, it has established its importance and demonstrated the necessity of reflecting culture in curriculum. The careful writing, thinking, and talking that took place as a result of engagement with culturally diverse literature clearly showed students’ interest in sharing their own culture and understanding the culture of others.

While faith is an important element of many of the students’ lives and most of them purport a desire to remain a part of the church, they do not yet understand how it influences their thinking about their world, and they have yet to make that link between their thinking about matters of social justice and religion. This underscores the importance of culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based setting.

Major Findings

The importance of culturally relevant curriculum. One of the most distinct findings of this curriculum study encompasses Gay’s (2010) emphasis on curriculum content that accurately conveys the ethnic and cultural diversity of the class. When students “see” themselves in the curriculum, it not only affects their achievement, but it gives them knowledge of other people, other cultures. Culturally diverse curriculum also gives students the opportunity to see how different cultures view one another. This became apparent when the class studied a vignette by the author Sandra Cisneros (1984).

The vignette, “Those Who Don’t,” contains a line that says, “All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight (p. 28).”

The discussion of this vignette prompted one student to ask if this neighborhood was a

108 black neighborhood because several students had previously referred to the neighborhood as a ghetto. The room was silent for a moment, and then a student pointed out that the author was Hispanic. The student herself was Hispanic, and it was obvious that she was pleased to discover that information about the author. Suddenly, she felt a clearer connection to the piece, and she began to contribute to the discussion. The same thing happened with Amy Tan’s (1997) short story “Fish Cheeks”. After the story had been read and annotated, the students were discussing their findings with their table groups.

One Chinese girl was explaining that the author was talking about the cheek of the fish, not the eye, and that the tender meat below the eye was very good. At another table, one of the students asked a Chinese student to explain the food being served during the story.

To the American student, the food did seem strange, but the Chinese student pointed out the strangeness of some American cuisine. These Chinese students, typically immersed in and learning about American customs and traditions, were proudly sharing and somewhat defending their customs and traditions. These moments underscored the importance of

Ladson-Billings’ (2011) call for teachers to become culturally relevant pedagogues.

Milner (2011) referred to it as a conscious decision to build cultural competence. The learning that was taking place far exceeded the standards. Students were learning about one another’s cultures.

That being said, curiously, when a whole class discussion followed and one student described the food in the story as “gross and disgusting,” not one student spoke against it. Two Chinese students exchanged looks across the classroom, but neither one spoke up. The teacher felt that it was important to comment on the description, reminding the students that the main character in the story referred to her favorite food in negative

109 ways simply because she was viewing it from an American perspective. If the roles had been reversed, and the main character had taken part in a “traditional” Christmas eve dinner at the Pastor’s house, Robert would not have been embarrassed by the Christmas turkey or ham, typical foods from mainstream white culture. But what if Robert had recently moved to China? Unfortunately, not all students feel that they have a voice.

A faith-based qualified approach. Another important finding from the curriculum study involved the role of religion in a faith-based school. The friction began early on as I searched for culturally responsive short stories to build into the study. It was challenging to find short stories that reflected the culture represented in the classroom, but the real difficulty lay in finding stories that were not only relevant to teenage lives but would fit the values reflected in the faith the school embraced. Many stories had sexual elements and references to lifestyles that conflicted with church teachings. Yet while these were relevant issues in a teenager’s life, most of the stories were written for adults.

I was reluctant to expose students to some of the stories I found, and I did not anticipate this. A discussion could mean a stance on my part that would reflect the conservative values or students who would feel that they should not read the stories because they conflicted with their parents’ beliefs. This was reminiscent of Dallavis’ (2013)

“qualified” approach to Ladson-Billings’ third tenet, sociopolitical consciousness; an approach that is explicitly imparted by the sponsoring church (p. 277). This issue created an internal struggle. Gay (2000), as quoted by Dallavis (2013), emphasized the importance of a sociopolitical consciousness that “lifts the veil of presumed absolute authority from conceptions of scholarly truth taught in schools” (p. 277). Faith-based schools must insist on operating in absolute authority of religious truth. A combination of

110 fear and the vulnerability of overly protected children led to taking a safer route. I found that religion played an unexpectedly powerful role in my mind as I planned.

Deliberately connecting religion and social justice. The curriculum unit brought into focus the need for making a more direct correlation between religion and social justice and equality. While none of the stories or poems in the curriculum unit overtly challenged the values embraced by the sponsoring church, the themes of inclusion and acceptance, ideas embraced by the sponsoring church, were apparent. Even though students’ comments and writings about religion emphasized its power in their minds, many of the students did not link those themes to religion. When asked to provide a link between the stories, some students talked about learning lessons such as “Be proud of who you are,” and “Being nice to everyone.” Other students pointed out how the stories had conflict and were single stories “talking about racism or the power of some high- leveled person.” But when asked if the stories and poems went against or supported their religious morals or values, many students did not make a connection between the stories’ themes and their religious beliefs. “I think the family (in“Fish Cheeks”) was Christian, but none of the storys [sic] met my exact religion.” Another student said, “None of the stories conflicted with or supported my beliefs,” and another said, “None of the things really reminded me of God to [sic] much.” Out of the eleven students in the focus group who identified themselves as religious, only two made direct connections between their religious beliefs and the themes of the stories and poems. One said, “Thank You, Ma’m” was supporting my values. Not judging the little boy and helping him grow is the

Christian attitude.” Another said, “Yes, the part of judging, that it shouldn’t fall on us to do the judging. An example would come from “Those Who Don’t,” how people get

111 scared because of their one-sided judgment.” Of the six students who did not identify as religious, four felt that the stories and poems supported their morals and values. One student wrote, “Support. How people behave isn’t how they really are. People’s morals and values don’t follow a formula. Stereotypes made the formula.” The simple concepts of love, understanding, and acceptance seem to be overshadowed by what religions sometimes label as good and bad. It seems that students might not recognize the overtones of religion that pervade their thinking when it comes to acceptance and understanding.

The importance of cultural talk and stereotypes. Walking the tightrope of cultural talk and stereotypes is tricky, yet this unit underscored the need for such talk.

Gay (2010) wrote about the importance of providing students with new knowledge of people different from themselves. Planning and teaching one curriculum unit was a small beginning, yet the intensity of this kind of talk was immediately apparent. At times it felt dangerous yet crucial. Students’ emotions could easily soar, and some would become immediately defensive. Several times students called other student’s statements or written thoughts racist. When one student said that she felt the main character in a story was a quintessential southern black woman, another student called her statement racist. It was an important moment that happened the second day of the unit. The class searched the story for evidence, but first had to question the stereotype of a southern black woman.

The discussion soothed emotions and emphasized to the teacher and the students the importance of thinking about words. The Chalk Talk (Ritchhart, et al, 2011, p. 78) that followed the story “Fish Cheeks”(Tan, 1997) produced another important moment. One of the questions asked whether or not it was important that the Chinese main character

112 fell in love with a boy who was not Chinese. A Chinese student responded with this statement: “Chinese parents want their children to marry [a]Chinese person. Just like we feel weird when we see black people and white people together.” Another Chinese student responded with “This is so true!” But the reactions of the other students differed.

“Why does this comment feel weird (racist)?” Another student asked for evidence from the story. “Where did you feel stress from the parents for her to marry a Chinese man?

Or even to not marry an American one?” Both sets of students were learning new information. The structure of a Chalk Talk brings the students back to their original comments, so the Chinese student saw the reactions to his comment. It was an awkward moment because he was stating a truth about his family’s cultural beliefs: Chinese parents want their children to marry a Chinese person. While it is true that the story did not show evidence of this cultural pressure, he had connected with the story on a personal level and had provided an example - “Just like we feel weird when we see black people and white people together” - to strengthen his statement. This brought an awareness about his thoughts and how his cultural beliefs could clash with his classmates from a different culture. The students who responded got a glimpse into an aspect of China that is different than the United States. While the United States is a diverse nation with a blending of many cultures, it would be unusual to find a biracial couple in China. Hence, the stereotype that biracial couples are “weird.” The importance of the talk surrounding these two classroom experiences heightens the importance of culture in the classroom.

A willingness to listen. Another important finding was that, despite the fact this unit was just a beginning, some students began to strengthen their own thinking by entertaining a willingness to listen. Instead of verbally attacking the speaker or writer,

113 students began to ask for evidence and explanations. The Chalk Talk in the above paragraph is an example of one student asking for evidence. The presence of evidence became a mantra for the class, but this took some time to cultivate. When students would state an opinion directly related to the reading, the teacher would ask them to support their thoughts with evidence from the text. Quick Writes, Episodic Notes, Timelines, and other strategies all asked for direct evidence from the text. As time went by, some students began to provide evidence automatically. Part of the willingness to listen came from the cultivation of relationships between the students and between the students and the teacher that had been slowly taking place all year. Relationship cultivation is a conscious decision on the part of the teacher and came in many different forms, and while the environment was not perfect, enough respect had been built that even the most precipitous moments could be neutralized.

Exposure brings about change. Some students began to stretch themselves despite the fact that stereotypes exist within their culture. At the beginning of the unit, one student, writing about how stereotypes are incomplete, wrote, “For example, there is a saying that African people stink. It’s common that a lot of African people have heavy smells for some reason, but not everybody.” Because this was a Quick Write, the teacher asked him questions to try to extend his thinking. When the class read the vignette,

“Those Who Don’t” by Sandra Cisneros (1984), his response addressed a stereotype that he was familiar with in which “African people who don’t live in cities but wild forests are dangerous and they attack people. It makes them sound like animals. But people don’t really know them.” This was the same young man who wrote about biracial couples toward the end of the unit, stating that “we” might feel weird when “we” see a biracial

114 couple. In his writing he would state stereotypes that he had heard and believed – to a point, but as he continued to think and write, he began to entertain questions about those stereotypes. At the end of the unit, he worried that “colorful races [would] no longer have confidence of [sic] themselves.” He ended the unit with this note: “In my mind, all races are equal, and there’s no way races should look up or down on the others.”

Marginalized students understand importance of culture. And finally, the curriculum unit seemed to reveal that students from marginalized cultures understand the importance of talk about culture. These students have heard talk about culture in their homes and have experienced judgments about their race by others. Shortly after reading the story “Fish Cheeks,” one of the white students questioned why we were studying the story; he said, “Why are we even studying this story? I don’t care about some Chinese girl who is embarrassed about her parents.” When asked how this story fit in with the unit, he said he did not know, but another student, who is Latino, said, “It’s about culture, man.” When the class wrote personal narratives, many of the stories that minority students wrote had to do with either labels put on them because of their race or family expectations to stand out and make something of their lives. One Chinese girl wrote a narrative entitled “I Am Not Like Others,” where she talked about her parents’ constant need to compare their daughter to their friends’ daughters. “Whenever I failed a test, my parents might say, ‘Oh gosh, how can you get such bad grades? Why can’t you get an A like your friends? When I wanted to buy a new pencil case, they might tell me, ‘See your neighbor? She kept her pencil case until it broke.’” Tired of the pressure, she decided to study in America. A Mexican girl wrote about an encounter in a story with a racist man.

“My mom and dad came to the United States to make a better life for my siblings and

115 myself; they had fought harder during the first 20 years of their lives than some people will during their whole lifetime. I was ashamed for allowing myself to feel even a sliver of embarrassment during the whole ordeal.” A girl who emigrated from Africa wrote about her parents’ constant focus on raising a daughter that a man would like to marry. “I absolutely hated it when my parents played the gender card. They made it seem that if I did certain things, I would find a husband who would take care of me.” Conversely, the white students wrote about scoring touchdowns at football games and fights with friends.

At different times, minority students wrote describing talks with their parents about the importance of culture: “We couldn’t [sic]change the fact that we are Chinese. My father always tell [sic] me that,” and “My mom told me that whatever the old said [sic] is right.” When asked to talk about cultural traditions, minority students listed things like

“When we eat, we can’t have a voice,” “We have dumplings on Spring Festival,” and “My family makes tamales the 3rd week of December.” One white student wrote, “I can’t really think of anything.” Another wrote about super bowl parties and Christmas. Students from marginalized cultures are aware that their culture of origin is different from mainstream culture.

Looking Back

If I could teach this unit again for the purpose of this study, I would try to find texts that would help draw the link between religion and social responsibility. My purpose when choosing the text was more directed toward teaching to the diversity in the classroom than drawing in the religious piece. I felt that students would be able to make the connection. This was disappointing to me. While it did happen in small ways, I wanted students to have more of an aha moment. I wanted the students to understand the

116 servant hood piece of Christianity. I wonder if studying some nonfiction pieces alongside of the short stories and possibly drawing in some of the New Testament stories of Jesus’ life might help bring about a more definite link.

Another important piece that I want to address in the future is idea of tolerance toward secular students. Because this is a Christian school, I have assumed that, even if students are not Christians, they will understand the need for a Christian curriculum. And while I think they do, I did not anticipate their feelings of being left out or the need to defend their families and their lifestyles. The problem is that this rarely gets talked about.

These students sit in respectful silence, and the Christian students may not even be aware that others do not believe as they do. I need to find a way for students to talk about this early on in the school year. As a teacher I want to honor all students beliefs.

I have to say that the careful planning and execution of the unit was satisfying in many ways. While my teaching has been changing since I began the masters’ program at

Sonoma State University, culturally responsive teaching was completely new to me and changed the way I look at my students. While I have always known the importance of careful planning, this unit underscored it. My planning took into account the diversity in the room. This means a lot of time spent researching texts that reflects that diversity.

Planning also includes careful grouping of students, really listening to what students are saying and asking, and working hard to help them find answers to their questions. I am aligning myself with organizations whose publications and workshops reflect the culturally responsive curriculum I am looking for, and I am reading as much as possible in an effort to become a culturally responsive teacher.

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Teaching this unit has shown me the importance of all voices being heard. For many years, I have taught like I was taught. I would assign a text and then expect the students to immediately be able to comment and draw meaning from it. Using engagement strategies allows all students to enter the conversation. The strategies give students the opportunity to read and reread important passages and to find evidence to support their thoughts. This gives even the most reluctant reader confidence to share their thinking. It is an important part of culturally responsive teaching.

While I underestimated the tension between church doctrine and the sociopolitical consciousness advocated by Ladson-Billings (1995a), I definitely felt it in my planning, and I think my reluctance to enter into the fray came more from my lack of understanding about exactly what the governing church advocates. I believe that this current generation of students is different than their parents’ generation. Their exposure to ideology that conflicts with church doctrine has left them open and more accepting. There are many social causes affecting their generation that they want to talk about. Teachers, such as myself, need to be clear on exactly what the church believes and be willing to talk about their questions. By avoiding sticky topics, I am not honoring their ability to think and reason and come up with their own opinions. Yet, I still need to be careful about the texts

I choose. I have to find that fine line between advocating and understanding.

Future Curriculum

Imperative to planning any curriculum is teacher cultural education. Hayes and

Juarez (2012) wrote, “Most teachers continue to enter public school classrooms unprepared to ‘effectively teach African American and other students of color’”

(Blanchett, 2006, p. 27). (p. 1). Studying about the past sheds light on cultural biases and

118 prejudice and helps dissipate fears and build knowledge. It also helps build relationships.

Recently, I shared with my class that I was reading a book called Ghettoside: A True

Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy (2015). As I was giving a brief synopsis, one of my students told me his mom was reading the same book. It was an important moment for him, realizing that I shared an interest not only with his mom but an interest in black culture, and it was an important moment for me to see him look at me in a different way.

I continued my education by reading a book called The New Jim Crow: Mass

Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (2011). I shared this with my class, and though the name Jim Crow was familiar to some, they were not certain they could explain it. I began thinking of cultural background knowledge and the importance of providing background knowledge for students when they study stories like

“Thank You, Ma’m” by Langston Hughes. That kind of knowledge would make Mrs.

Bates Washington Jones’ actions more than just a woman being kind to a boy. It is important for me to not only study the cultures represented in my classroom but to allow students to build their own knowledge of cultures.

While this unit was a mere foray into culturally responsive curriculum, it was a powerful first attempt, and I am hooked. While I am aware of what went well, I am also fully aware of things that went awry. I see the need for searching out more multicultural resources to serve as content for skill mastery, and it is my job to uncover those resources. Through the teaching of this unit, I have discovered social justice oriented educational organizations like Facing History and Ourselves (facinghistory.org),

Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org), and the Zinn Education Project (zinnedproject.org).

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These organizations offer excellent resources. With the uncovering of more resources, I can incorporate culture into curriculum.

Next Steps for Research

There is little research on religion and its role in multicultural education. While it is clear that religion plays an important part in the lives and culture of many students, the teaching of religion and its relationship with culture is complicated, but the study of religion, just like the study of any aspect of culture, brings about human understanding.

Just like the need for teacher education and cultural diversity, there is a need for teacher education and religious diversity.

There is also a dearth of research on culturally responsive curriculum and faith- based schools. The study of culturally responsive curriculum and faith-based schools produces different kinds of complications. The obligations to sponsoring church doctrine might at times demand that teachers quash or avoid independent critical thinking on topics sensitive to the church. Most of the current research has been carried out in

Catholic schools with teachers with some leaning toward social justice. Perhaps it would be important to study teachers who identify as culturally responsive pedagogues and who teach in a variety of diverse faith-based schools.

Conclusion

In an increasingly diverse and global world, it is important for all children to gain the skills they need to critically examine society and work to bring about social change.

This is equally important for children who attend school in a faith-based setting. While a faith-based setting easily lends itself to Ladson-Billings (1995a) first two tenets of cultural competence and academic success, teachers in a faith-based setting might feel

120 constrained in their approach to sociopolitical consciousness by the religious dogma of the sponsoring church, and even though a “qualified approach” might be necessary, it is still important to prepare students to function in a diverse world because children, immersed in the religious values and morals of their home culture and educated to question the inequities of the world, will fight for social justice.

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Appendix A

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English II Short Story Unit

Major Standards

R.S. 1 – Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences. R.S. 2 – Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text. R.S. 3 – Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of the text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot.

Minor Standards

R.S. 5 – Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings. W.S. 1 – Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using relevant and sufficient evidence.

Big Ideas/Essential Questions

The Danger of a Single Story Stereotypes are incomplete

Formative Assessments

Story Timelines Annotation (Short Story) Group Character Analysis (Whiteboards) Episodic Notes Chalk Talk

Summative Assessment

Analysis of Theme Analysis of Character Personal Narrative “Snapshot”

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“The Danger of a Single Story” Day One Quick Write • An 8 minute Quick Write (in journals) about the power of a single story.

Quick Write Rules 1. Write the entire time. 2. Write quickly – don’t censor. 3. Relax, have fun, play

• Share at table • Share out with class Video - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Ted Talk – “The Danger of a Single Story” (18 minutes, 46 seconds) • Students use the 3-2-1 Thinking Strategy w/ Headline while they watch the video 1. Three words 2. Two Questions 3. One Headline – Think of the big ideas and important themes in the video.

• Sharing the thinking at table 1. Round one – share words 2. Round two – share questions 3. Round three – share headlines. Pick best headline at your table to write on the whiteboard.

• Further Sharing of collection of headlines – how do they document our thinking? Is there a common theme? What is the reasoning behind each headline? Prewriting - “I Am Not…” • Write down all the ways that you feel judged… when someone has told a “single story about you. • Teacher writes her own examples on the board… musical, just a woman, an extrovert, a teacher because I couldn’t do anything else… • Students have 8 minutes to write. • Share if they feel comfortable. Pre – Assessment – Short Story Literary Terms

Sources: Daniels, H.S., & Ahmed, S.K., (2015). Upstanders: How to engage middle school hearts and minds with inquiry. Portsmouth, N.H., Heinemann. Kittle, P. (2008). Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in high school writing. Portsmouth, N.H., Hienemann. Ngozi Adiche, C. (2009). The danger of a single story. 11 July 2009. http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?

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Ritchhart, R., Church, M. & Morrison, K. (2011). Making Thinking Visible: How to promote engagement, Understanding, and Independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA., Jossey-Bass.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Two Silent Reading Quick Write • Define stereotype. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” • Teenagers are often stereotyped by adults. Generate a class list on the board of stereotypes commonly associated with teenagers. • Eight minute Quick Write in journals about a teenage stereotype that someone has associated with you. Following Quick Write rules. • Share with class – there is some truth to these stereotypes, but they aren’t just negative. They have a positive side as well. There is not the “definitive story” of teenagers.

Pre-Assessment • Share pre-assessment results with class. • Answer questions • Handout – Literary Terms for Short Stories. We will begin to use these when we talk about short stories.

Short Story – “Thank-You, Ma’m” by Langston Hughes • Teacher reads story out loud to class. • Students annotate story.

1. Underline key phrases 2. Write questions 3. Write comments 4. Circle words you don’t know

• Share your thinking at your table. 1. Round one – share key phrases and why you thought they were important 2. Round two – share questions, guess at the answer 3. Round three – share comments 4. Round four – share words – guess in context

• Looking at story again, what Notice & Note Signposts do you find? Use sticky notes. What do the signposts tell you about the story? • Share out with class. Comments, questions, signposts, etc…

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Prewriting – “I Am” • Focus on the things that you really are – the other side that people might not see. • Teacher writes her own examples on the board… focused, busy, like my dad, tired of death, an idealist… • Students have eight to ten minutes to write. • Share if they feel comfortable.

Sources: Beers, K. & Probst, R. (2013). Notice & note: Strategies for close reading. Portsmouth, N.H., Heinemann. Daniels, H.S., & Ahmed, S.K., (2015). Upstanders: How to engage middle school hearts and minds with inquiry. Portsmouth, N.H., Heinemann. Hughes, L. (1996). The short stories of Langston Hughes (A. Sullivan Harper, Ed.) New York, N.Y., Hill and Wang. Kittle, P. (2008). Write beside them: Risk, voice, and clarity in high school writing. Portsmouth, N.H., Hienemann. Ngozi Adiche, C. (2009). The danger of a single story. 11 July 2009. http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Three Silent Reading Quick Write • Choose a quality from your “I am” or “I am not” lists and think of a time when you were either labeled that way or you felt that way. Write about that experience. • An eight minute Quick Write about that experience. • Share out with class if comfortable.

Character Development – “Thank You, M’am” • In table groups, students will choose a character and, citing evidence from the text, show how that character develops throughout the story through his/her interactions with other characters and events. How does this character’s development advance the theme? What is the evidence of the theme. • Students will show this analysis of character on whiteboards. • Table groups display whiteboards. • As a class, compare/contrast whiteboard analysis, paying attention to evidence cited from text.

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene • Select one moment from your life that formed you, something you’ve experienced and what you think or wonder about that experience. Go back to your “I am” / “I am not” lists. • This snapshot moment will revisit dialogue, sensory detail, and voice. “Show don’t tell.” • Begin writing your first draft on Google Classroom.

Sources Hughes, L. (1996). The short stories of Langston Hughes (A. Sullivan Harper, Ed.) New York, N.Y., Hill and Wang. Kittle, P. (2008). Write beside them: Risk, voice, and clarity in high school writing. Portsmouth, N.H., Hienemann.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Four Silent Reading Quick Write • Words of the Wiser – Write about a time when someone wiser, possibly older, offered you a life lesson of some sort. • What was the situation? What was the lesson? What was your impression of these words? • Share with class if comfortable.

Short Story #2 – “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros • Teacher reads story out loud to class. • Students log on to Google Classroom to reread and annotate story.

1. Underline key phrases 2. Ask three questions 3. Make three comments 4. Circle words you don’t know.

• Students read through story one more time and look for Notice and Note Signposts. Note what they tell you about the story. • Students share their thinking at their table.

1. Round one – share key phrases and why you thought they were important 2. Round two – share questions, guess at the answer 3. Round three – share comments 4. Round four – share words – guess in context 5. Round five – share Notice and Note Signposts.

• Each student chooses his/her most compelling comment and question to write on the whiteboard. • Class discussion. Include signposts that might point to theme. Any ideas of single story?

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Second Draft • Students share their first draft of snapshot moment in a three way exchange with the class members at their table. Since it is a rough draft, the students look for something to praise that is connected to what they know about narrative and then guess as to how that moment formed the writer. • Each student writes the teacher a note about their plan for the second draft.

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• Begin reworking first draft on Google Classroom.

Sources: Beers, K. & Probst, R. (2013). Notice & note: Strategies for close reading. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann. Cisneros, S. (1991). “Eleven.” Women hollering creek: And other stories. Kittle, P. (2008). Write beside them: Risk, voice, and clarity in high school writing. Portsmouth, NH, Hienemann.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Five Silent Reading Quick Write • Copy of vignette “Those Who Don’t” by Sandra Cisneros to tape into their journals. • Teacher reads vignette out loud. • Students read again to themselves and begin to annotate with the idea of coming up with a headline. The goal is for them to show their thinking, so when the teachers reads their work, she will understand how they came up with their headline. • Students share headlines at table and explain how they got their idea by citing evidence from text. • Students share headlines with class and discuss. How does this vignette relate to the idea of a single story? How does this vignette relate to “Thank You, Ma,m” and “Eleven”?

Short Story #2 – Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros • At tables, students work on Episodic Notes, where they determine the three most crucial moments in the story, and draw what happens and what they “see” in the text, being as specific as possible. Finally, in the notes section, they explain what is happening and why it is important to the story. • When they are finished, they write their groups three scenes on the whiteboard. • The class discusses the important moments, the similarities and differences between groups and their reasoning for their choices. Finally, the class reflects on why these moments are important to the story. How do they reflect on the author’s reason for writing the story? How do they reflect on life in general? • Create an identity chart for Mrs. Price. Using words or phrases based on evidence from the story, describe Mrs. Price. Thinking not only of gender, age, and physical characteristics, but religion, class, neighborhood, school, and nation. • Make a class identity chart for Mrs. Price. What questions does it bring up about her?

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Second Draft • Students should have turned in snapshot moment on Google Classroom for teacher comments.

Sources Burke, J. (2002). Tools for thought: Graphic organizers for your classroom. Portmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.

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Cisneros, S. (1984). “Those who don’t. The house on Mango street. New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books. Cisneros, S. (1991). “Eleven.” Women hollering creek: And other stories. Sigward, D. (2014). Teaching Mockingbird. Brookline, MA: Facing History and Ourselves.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Six Silent Reading Quick Write • Copy of the poem “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes to tape into their journals. • Teacher reads the poem out loud. • Students annotate poem using their own strategies to ascertain the meaning (comments, questions, unfamiliar vocabulary, figurative language, etc…). • “Dream Deferred” is written on the whiteboard. Students pick their best thought and annotate the poem on the board. • Class discussion based on comments, questions, etc…

Short Story #3 – “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin • Students log on to Google Classroom and find assignment with “The Story of an Hour” attached. • The teacher reads the story out loud. • Time for questions, comments, and clarification. • Students annotate the story by highlighting and using “comments” on Google Classroom.

1. Five questions – with best guess answers based on evidence 2. Five comments 3. Highlight and define 3 words that you don’t know or are unsure of. 4. Notice & Note Signposts

• Share thinking at table in rounds.

1. Round one – share questions, guess at the answer 2. Round two – share comments 3. Round three – share words – guess in context 4. Round four – share Notice and Note Signposts.

• Choose best two questions and two comments to write on board. • Class discussion on questions and comments. Share found signposts. How do these signposts point to theme and character development? How does this story relate to the idea of the danger of a single story? Who tells the single story? How is affected by the telling? • Table groups will complete a plot diagram on paper of “The Story of an Hour,” addressing the idea of theme supported by evidence from the story and the conflict supported by evidence from the story.

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• Write ideas of theme and conflict on the whiteboard. Look for similarities and differences on the ideas of theme, and conflict. Are these ideas supported by evidence from the text? The class will discuss these ideas.

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Third Draft • Students have received teacher comments on their second draft via Google Classroom. These comments rest solely on elements of narrative scene. They will begin working on the third draft.

Sources Burke, J. (2002). Tools for thought: Graphic organizers for your classroom. Portmouth, N.H.: Heinemann. Chopin, K. (1969). The complete works of Kate Chopin Baton Rouge (P. Seyerstead, Ed.). LA: Louisiana State University Press. Hughes, L. (1951). Panther and the lash. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Tovani, C. (2011). So what do they really know? Assessment that informs teaching and learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Seven Silent Reading Quick Write • Write about a time when you had a dream deferred. What was your dream? Who discouraged you? Do you still have that dream? What stands between you and your dream? • Students write for eight minutes. • Share with class if comfortable.

Short Story #3 – “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin • With table groups, make a timeline of the story of an hour. • Choose the five most important moments and write them across the top of the timeline. What questions arise from those moments? Write them underneath each moment. Underneath the questions, write predictions supported with evidence from the text. • Share your timeline with another table group. Make a Venn Diagram as you compare/contrast your timelines. How does your work point to a theme? What evidence from the text supports your idea of theme? • Discuss ideas of theme and evidence with class.

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Third Draft • The third draft has been submitted through Google Classroom. • Read your third draft out loud to your table group – a great editing tool. • Trade with classmates at your table for editing advice through Google Classroom comment. • Prepare your final draft for submission, paying attention to the rubric.

Sources Burke, J. (2002). Tools for thought: Graphic organizers for your classroom. Portmouth, N.H.: Heinemann. Chopin, K. (1969). The complete works of Kate Chopin (P. Seyerstead, Ed.). Baton Rouge LA: Louisiana State University Press.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Eight Silent Reading Quick Write • Write about how “The Story of an Hour” fits in with the idea of the danger of a single story. Be sure to include evidence from the story. • Students will write for eight minutes. • Students will share their thoughts with their table group. • Students can share with whole class if comfortable.

Short Story #4 – “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan • Students log on to Google Classroom and find the assignment with “Fish Cheeks” attached. • Teacher reads the story out loud. • Time for questions and clarification • Students annotate story by highlighting the text and using “comments” on Google Classroom.

1. Three comments. 2. Three questions with best guess answers. 3. Two connections to your life or another text you have read. 4. What is the theme? Support with evidence.

• Share thinking at table in rounds.

5. Round one – share comments 6. Round two – share questions, with best guess at the answer 7. Round three – share connections to your life or another text you have read 8. Round four – share your idea of theme with evidence.

• Class discussion – Students write “best” question on an index card. Gather cards, pick the most compelling and hand out to tables to answer, using evidence from the text. • At tables, use a whiteboard to make a plot diagram of “Fish Cheeks” that uses evidence from the story. Include your idea of theme using the author’s words. • Line up whiteboards on tray. • Questions and comments on other’s work. How does “Fish Cheeks” support the idea of the danger of a single story? Who is telling the story? What could change that story?

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Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Final Draft • Final draft should be turned in via Google Classroom along with a filled out rubric. Share your story with someone in the room who hasn’t heard it.

Sources Tan, A. (1997). “Fish cheeks” (X.L. Kennedy & D.M. Kennedy, Eds.). The Bedford reader. Boston, MA: St. Martin’s Press. Tovani, C. (2011). So what do they really know? Assessment that informs teaching and learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

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The Danger of a Single Story Day Nine Silent Reading Quick Write • Develop a metaphor about the danger of a single story. • Write about it or draw it. • Share with your table.

Short Story #4 – “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan • Chalk Talk – Making Thinking Visible 1. Write a prompts on a large sheets of paper and put on tables around the room. Put markers at each table. (What evidence shows clash of culture? What is the single story being told about Chinese culture? Her mom cooked all of her favorite foods. So what? The boy she “fell in love with” was not Chinese. So What?) 2. Divide students into groups and assign each group a table with a paper and prompt. 3. Establish that this is a silent activity. Invite learners to think about their reactions to the prompt and record their ideas and questions. Encourage them to read and add to each to other’s responses and add additional questions and comments. 4. After five minutes, students rotate en masse at a designated time to the next chalk talk paper, silently reading and adding to the prompts and responses and adding questions. Encourage students to connect ideas, elaborate on others’ ideas, comment on what others have written, ask others to respond with more detail, etc. 5. Allow students to return to their original starting place to read what others have written on “their” chalk talk paper. 6. What themes are emerging? Where are there common issues and reactions? What questions surprised them? • Writing Assignment – At your table, analyze how the theme of “Fish Cheeks” develops throughout the text. How is it shaped by specific details and events? Decide how you will show your work to the class. • Share analysis with class.

Writing Assignment – Snapshot Moment – Elements of Narrative Scene – Final Draft • Snapshot Moment finals have been returned on Google Classroom. • Check out your rubric scores. • Meet with teacher to discuss scores and a possible rewrite to reach standards.

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Sources Ritchhart, R., Church, M. & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA., Jossey-Bass. Tan, A. (1997). “Fish cheeks” (X.L. Kennedy & D.M. Kennedy, Eds.). The Bedford reader. Boston, MA: St. Martin’s Press.

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Appendix B

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Danger of a Single Story Survey

1. Rate the stories that we read: (4 is the highest score) • “Thank You, Ma’m” 1 2 3 4 • “Eleven” 1 2 3 4 • “The Story of an Hour” 1 2 3 4 • “Fish Cheeks” 1 2 3 4 • “Those Who Don’t” 1 2 3 4

2. Rate the poems that we read: • “A Dream Deferred” 1 2 3 4 • “Dreams” 1 2 3 4 • “Untitled” 1 2 3 4

3. If you could describe a link between all of the above stories and poems, what would it be? Write in complete sentences and explain your answer with evidence from the stories or poems.

4. Are you a religious person? If so, what religion do you follow? If not, what guides your moral compass and values?

5. As we read these short stories and poems, were there any themes or ideas read or expressed that went against or supported your (religious) morals and values? What were they? How did they go against or support your (religious) morals or values? Provide evidence from the stories/poems.

6. Remind me about why a single story could be dangerous. What story or poem best exemplifies that concept? Why?

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7. What is culture and why does it matter?

8. List two or three cultural traditions you have in your family and describe one.

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Short Story Assessment

I can analyze how complex characters develop through the text, interact with other characters, and develop the theme.

Choose a complex character from one of the short stories we have read and analyze how that character develops throughout the text. Show that development through interactions with events and characters and how that interaction foreshadows and develops the theme.

Word Bank: antagonist, character, characterization (round vs flat, dynamic vs static, direct vs indirect), conflict, exposition, dialogue, foreshadowing, irony, motivation, plot, protagonist, setting, theme

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Appendix C

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A culturally responsive pedagogy has deep implications not just for Christian education within the Seventh-day Adventist (Adventist) Church but for the church as a whole. According to the Pew Research Center, the Adventist Church is the most racially diverse religious group in the United States (Lipka, 2015, para 4). Initially, the Adventist church focused its message on the western world, resulting in members that were predominately Anglo Saxon, but as the church began to reach out globally through missions, the demographics shifted. Despite that shift, the church has continued to hold onto a “non-dialogical Western Adventism,” and both

Westerners and Southerners “share a poor understanding of what cultural pluralism really means”(Gutierrez, 2015, para. 2). The challenges that arise from such a lack of understanding are creating tumult within the system, and so it is imperative that the church seeks solutions.

One solution endorsed by Sahlin (as quoted in Davies, 2009), research director for the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center, is creating “a community that exhibits a unique emphasis on social justice and equality” (para 6).

He encourages the church as a whole to reflect the social justice and community involvement focus that has been typical of African-American congregations, and evangelism that teaches “multiculturalism as a ‘testing truth,’ and essential part of what it means to be in the Remnant Church” (Sahlin as quoted in Davies, 2009, para.

13). In its official statements, the SDA church has asked its schools, colleges and universities to devote one week of the school year to focus on “respect, cultural awareness, nonviolence, peacemaking and reconciliation as a way of making a specifically ‘Adventist’ contribution to a culture of social harmony and peace”

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(Adventist.org). The idea of devoting a week to culture echoes what Sleeter (2011) called an add in, and when culture is separated from academic instruction, learning about culture takes the place of learning through culture. The ideal solution and the perfect compliment to this desire to foster understanding of cultural pluralism is for teachers in Adventist schools to embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy. Social justice, equality and understanding are at the heart of a culturally responsive pedagogy, and teachers in SDA schools embodying such a pedagogy could help foster multiculturalism in the Adventist church.

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Appendix D

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