Killebrew 1

Joanna Killebrew
EDFS 5209
Dr. Alby
2 December 2017
Culturally Responsive Action Plan

My Philosophy of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Culturally responsive pedagogy involves embracing students cultures and individuality
in order to create a classroom environment where diversity is not only celebrated, but is an
essential component of the learning process. A culturally responsive teacher connects his or her
students backgrounds to the material being taught and uses their prior knowledge to shape and
inform lessons. Gloria Ladson Billings says, [E]ducators traditionally have attempted to insert
culture into the education, instead of inserting education into the culture. This notion is, in all
probability, true for many students who are not part of the white, middle class, mainstream
(159). Billings suggestion that culture has often been an afterthought instead of the basis for
how teachers design lessons emphasizes the need for culturally responsive teaching. Many
students are made to learn within the confines of a culture that is not their own, creating a
disconnect between the student and the learning material. Jaqueline Jordan Irvine expresses
similar sentiments, saying, Cultural norms and behaviors of schools are based on main-stream
assumptions. When there is a cultural mismatch or cultural incompatibility between students and
their school, certain negative outcomes may occur (59). Students are forced to accept the
mainstream culture as normal and their own as exotic or foreign. Essentially, this creates an
environment where groups such as students of color, poor students, LGBT students, and non-
English speakers are viewed as an other. As teachers, we should strive to create environments
where students are not viewed as outsiders and each student is given the opportunity to connect
with and express his or her diverse background. Classrooms should be filled with opportunities
for students to connect with characters, writers, settings, and themes that build on what they
already know and allow them to engage in activities and materials that are relevant to them as
individuals.
To feel like their culture is being celebrated in the classroom, students have to see their
culture, and therefore essentially see themselves, represented in the material. As an English
teacher, I feel it is crucial that I incorporate works of literature into my lesson plans that feature
authors and characters from a range of cultures and backgrounds. This includes works that
feature people of color, people from low social classes, people who identify as LGBT, people
who practice religions other than Christianity, and people of various ethnicities. Examples of
authors whose work I plan to use in my classroom include Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros,
Salman Rushdie, Virginia Wolf, and Toni Morrison. These authors themselves represent a
variety of backgrounds, and their work features characters who are racially, ethnically, and
sexually diverse. I plan to use authors like these so that my students can see representations of
themselves or their culture in our reading material.
I also believe that intentionally incorporating diverse literary works into my lessons will
lend itself to improving students writing skills. Reading narratives from authors who are like
them in some way empowers students to tell their own stories through narrative writing. In
Teaching for Joy and Justice, Linda Christensen says, Students stories build community and
connect their lives to the curriculum (61). I plan to encourage students to tell their stories and
connect their personal experiences to those of the authors and characters we study in class. I
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want my students to express themselves and their personal experiences through poetry, personal
narratives, short stories, and even essays. Students will be given writing prompts that require
them to draw from their own cultural background to connect learning to their lives. I believe this
involves allowing students to have the freedom to express themselves in an honest, candid way
through writing.

Supporting Diversity
The achievement gap separates those who are successful from those who are not. It is
perpetuated primarily by socioeconomic status (Reardon 16), which, because of the history of
segregation and the many years of discrimination against minority communities, is very much
connected to race. Students who come into schools with the advantage of being middle or upper
class or, sometimes, simply with the advantage of being white, are already in a better position to
be successful in school. Upper and middle-class students are provided resources at a young age
that allow them to get and stay ahead (Smith). Additionally, white students are often held to a
higher standard, and schools are, in many cases, structured in a way that favors them or considers
them the norm (Thompson 15). All of these factors create a gap between students who are
typically successful and those who are not.
There is plenty of research to show that students who experience poverty are put at a
disadvantage to those who are middle or upper-class. Students who live in poverty not only face
discrimination from their peers and even sometimes their teachers, but they also experience high
levels of stress that impair their ability to perform well at school. Eric Jensen says, Students
raised in poverty are especially subject to stressors that undermine their school behavior and
performance . . . And the stress resulting from transience . . . also impairs students ability to
succeed in school and engage in positive social interactions (Jensen 27). Poor students so often
come into the classroom with stress and sometimes even traumas that cloud their ability to fully
engage in learning. This obviously puts them at a disadvantage, and, I believe, is a major reason
why the achievement gap exists. Students who experience poverty-related stress are more likely
to witness or be a victim of domestic violence, drug abuse, forced mobility, unsafe living
environments, financial problems, and a plethora of other unfavorable conditions (Jensen 24).
This puts those students at a significant mental disadvantage simply because chronic or acute
stress is hardwired into childrens developing brains, creating a devastating, cumulative effect
(Coplan et. al., 1996). Compared with a healthy neuron, a stressed neuron . . . extends fewer
connective branches to nearby cells (Jensen 25). Even disregarding the emotional and social
effects of poverty on students, many lower-class students are put at a disadvantage simply
because the stress of their daily lives impairs their brains ability to function in a way that sets
them up for success. I believe that this is essential to understanding the achievement gap because
it illustrates how much harder it can be for students who live in poverty to perform at the level of
an upper or middle-class student.
In addition to stress that can interfere with their optimal brain-functioning, students who
live in poverty also often do not have the resources that more affluent students have. Academia is
becoming increasingly competitive, even in middle and high school, and students who can afford
extra aids such as tutoring, test prep classes, an extracurriculars from a young age are put in a
position where they enter school having received benefits and advantages that lower-income
students have not had and likely will never have. Reardon says, [H]igh income families now
have far more resources, relative to low-income families, to invest in their childrens
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development and schooling (13). Those resources are some of the many things in a students
life that can contribute to the advantage that he or she accumulates over a lifetime.
Advantages such as the resources affluent parents are able to provide their children are
truly what shape a persons success, more so than raw talent, intelligence, or even effort. Where
a person is from and the kind of family or home life a person experiences has more of an impact
on success than many people care to recognize (Gladwell 19). People gain from small or large
advantages throughout their lives, and those advantages lead to other advantages, which lead to
other advantages, and so on. Disadvantages often work the same way. One disadvantage begets
another, which begets another, until there is a significant gap between the haves and the have-
nots. This type of accumulative advantage or cumulative disadvantage can be referred to as the
Matthew effect. Malcom Gladwell explains it in his book Outliers by saying, It is those who are
successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that
lead to further success. Its the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. Its the best students who get
the best teaching and the most attention (30). Students come into schools with a pre-existing set
of advantages or disadvantages that have either put them ahead or left them lagging behind.
Students home lives have such a tremendous impact on their cognitive, emotional, and even
physical capabilities that I feel it is impossible to ignore things like the Matthew effect that
could, by no fault of their own, impede a students success.
Combating cumulative disadvantage and the Matthew effect involves knowing what
causes and contributes to it. Practices such as tracking, where low income African American and
Latino students are far too often placed in lower-level classes (Thompson 15), perpetuate the
continuation of low income and minority students receiving cumulative disadvantages
throughout their school careers. Students in lower-level classes often receive the least attention
and the lowest quality teaching. Eliminating such programs and disestablishing white, middle
class students as the norm are huge steps toward providing all students with equitable
opportunities. However, it is not easy to create school-wide change quickly enough to benefit the
students who need it right now. In my own classroom, I consider it vital to teach cultural capital,
or skills that students need to be successful and, ideally, socially mobile.
One aspect of cultural capital that I consider particularly important to teach a Standard
American English. While I certainly consider it important to embrace students individual
languages and dialects, I also think one key to upward mobility is the ability to code-switch from
casual to more formal language. In order to make this aspect of teaching cultural capital
culturally relevant, I believe Standard American English should be taught as being most
appropriate for given situations, rather than being the only form of English that is correct. Lisa
Delpit, referring mainly to language, writes, When instruction is stripped of students cultural
legacies, then they are led to believe that the world and all good things in it were created by
others (41). My goal in teaching Standard American English in my classroom is not to strip
students of the language of their culture. On the contrary, I plan to encourage students to use the
language with which they are most comfortable in classroom discussion and in their creative
writing. However, I want to give my students every tool for success possible so that they are able
to accumulate advantages that help combat some of the possible disadvantages they may carry. I
firmly believe that teaching Standard American English as an essential piece of cultural capital is
one of the most essential tasks I have as an English teacher.
In addition to having students gain cultural capital through the material taught in class, I
also want my students to learn about each others unique cultures and backgrounds. One way I
plan to do this is through heterogeneous grouping. Students need to be put in groups that
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challenge them and provide them with perspectives that they would not otherwise have the
opportunity to see. I have students working in groups almost every day, and I believe those
groups should exhibit racial diversity as well as a diverse range of abilities. This way, students
can help each other and approach material in ways that reflect their upbringing and culture.
Students have individual skill sets and strengths that lend themselves to diverse groupings, and I
think it is essential to embrace that. I also think it is important to rotate or change grouping
decisions frequently. Each student has an entirely unique perspective, and giving all or at least
most students the opportunity to experience that perspective shows that every students point of
view is valued.

Examining Areas of Diversity

Race and Ethnicity

Lisa Delpits book, Multiplication is for White People, particularly challenged my views
on race in schools. I have been made to think that colorblindness is the best approach to being
accepting and racially sensitive. Reading Delpits book, however, made me realize that
colorblindness is actually doing a major disservice to students of color, particularly in the area of
assessment. When teachers fail to bring into consideration a students race or culture when
assessing that student, we are judging them based on our cultural norms, not necessarily their
own. Delpit says, When a teacher is familiar with aspects of a childs culture, then the teacher
may be better able to assess the childs competence. Many teachers, unfamiliar with the
language, the metaphors, or the environment of the children they teach may easily underestimate
the childrens competence (138). Assessment, whether formal or informal, ideally measures
what a student has learned, but it is not possible to truly measure what a student has learned if the
assessor does not know the student. Ignoring race and culture does not allow us to assess
students fairly, nor does it allow us to teach students fairly. To provide my students with the best
education possible, I believe it is of the upmost importance to form relationships with them
where I can become familiar with aspects of their background that are important and relevant to
them.

Language
As I stated previously, it is incredibly important to me that my students value their own
language and learn to use Standard American English in appropriate situations. While this is
certainly true, I also want my students to see the linguistic value in all languages, not just their
own and/or Standard American English, and I want them to feel free to use their language freely
and without shame. In The Skin that we Speak, Joanne Kilgour Dowdy writes, So, for the
colonized speaker, the issue is not really about whether she has a language or not. The issue is
about having enough opportunity to practice that language in legitimate communications (12).
Language is essential to our identity, and although our world demands that we be able to speak a
standard form of language for professional communications, I hope to make my classroom a
place where students do not consider their language to be incorrect. Rather, I hope that they
recognize the legacy of their language and the historical and cultural implications behind its
continued use and evolution.
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Class
Class influences student success tremendously. As I previously mentioned, children
living in low-income households typically experience stressors that their middle and upper-class
peers do not. The effects of this stress can negatively influence students cognition and limit their
resources and opportunities. Eric Jensen covers this in his book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind,
and he suggests providing health services, tutoring, and cognitively challenging curriculum to
lessen students stress and make sure they are receiving what they need to be successful (43-4).
Malcom Gladwell also addresses the effects of poverty in Outliers, and he suggests taking
control of the machinery of achievement (33). He basically says that a key to giving students
advantageous opportunities is to realize and take control of where the advantages are coming
from. This really spoke to me and made me realize that we have the tools to give students
resources that they desperately need. If staying to provide tutoring or finding out how my
students can receive healthcare will alleviate some stress for low-income students and allow
them to perform to the full extent of their ability, it seems obvious to me that it would be worth it
to do so.

Gender
Although gender is not one of the aspects of diversity that I will be particularly focusing
on, I still believe it is important to recognize and discuss the particular challenges facing both
male and female students in schools today. While females have historically been at a
disadvantage in schools, my research throughout the semester revealed to me that male students
are currently facing achievement gaps and challenges that my inhibit their ability to learn to their
fullest potential. An article by Fran Abrams reveals the surprising statistic that among groups in
the UK, middle-class white boys receive the lowest scores on national exams. Kelley King,
Michael Gurian, and Kathy Stevens suggest that this happens because schools do not teach to
boys, but rather schools are designed to be ideal learning environments for female students. They
suggest closing opportunity gaps for both female and male students and focusing on the specific
needs of each gender.

Sexual Orientation
LGBT students often face harassment and discrimination at school and at home.
However, society is moving toward tolerance and acceptance, and as a teacher, I feel it is my job
to accept and love students regardless of their sexual orientation. One of the most important steps
I can personally take toward making LGBT students feel safe and accepted is incorporating
authors and works that feature characters of all sexual orientations into my curriculum. Although
there is still risk of retaliation involved, Herman-Wilmoth and Ryan make the point that, among
other things, incorporating LGBT literature into a language arts classroom is important because it
ensures an inclusive learning environment. It also allows LGBT students in your classroom, or
students with loved ones who identify as LGBT, people and characters who they can relate to.
For students who do not feel like they have any connections with the LGBT community,
introducing them to literature featuring gay characters or writers can help them make that
connection and become comfortable talking about these issues.

Religion
Religious diversity is, in many ways, as essential as racial or class diversity. Religion and
culture are very closely linked, and many times, students are made to feel like outsiders if they
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are not a part of the Christian majority. This is obvious during events like holiday celebrations
and sometimes even birthday celebrations. Some religious groups are heavily stereotyped, and
students are made to feel like their customs are not as valid or valuable as that of their Christian
classmates. Embracing religious diversity does not mean asking students to speak for their entire
religion, but instead it means being accepting and allowing students to express their faith as a
part of their culture.

Specific Action Plan: Race

Description
The school I am teaching at is Georgia College Early College. It is a very small school
located in Milledgeville, Georgia that serves students in Baldwin and Putnam County. The
school teaches seventh through twelfth grade students, and according to the Georgia Department
of Education, in 2014 the school employed six teachers, and the schools enrollment was 220
students. While there is no data available for racial statistics at Georgia College Early College,
Oak Hill Middle School in Baldwin County is made up of 70% African American students, 24%
white students, and six percent Hispanic, Asian/Pacific islander, or multiracial students.
According to a 2016 census, Baldwin County overall is made up of 54.2% white and 42.4%
black residents. While this seems to somewhat contrast the statistics for Oak Hill, it is important
to point out that there is a military school as well as a private school in Milledgeville that serve
the same grade range.
The class that I am focusing on in particular is a seventh grade Reading English
Language Arts class. The class is made up of 21 students mostly from Baldwin County, with
only a few from Putnam County. The class is all boys, and they are mostly African American. In
total, there are 16 African American students, 4 white students, and one Southeast Asian student.
As far as I can tell, the boys in this class are not particularly aware of racial divides, and they all
mingle well together. In this class, students are often asked to draw on personal experience to
relate to the content. However, for a class with such a large majority of African American
students, they do not read very many works of literature that feature black characters, and when
they do, the character is not often the protagonist. One day, I brought up Alice Walker, and none
of the students knew who she was despite growing up minutes away from her childhood home.
These students enjoy reading, and most of them are strong writers, but they are rarely exposed to
literature with protagonists who they can relate to racially.

Analysis
I suspect limited resources are partially to blame for the lack of racially diverse literature
present in my class curriculum. Early College is very small, and there often are not enough
books available for students to each take one home. Perhaps the school has to make due on what
they have, and that just so happens not to include literature that features black characters. I also
think the lack of racial diversity in reading material may have to do with this schools emphasis
on college prep. While there are certainly tons of classic works of poetry and other literature by
African American writers, I almost wonder if the teachers at this school are focused on having
students read classic writers like Poe and Dickens because they think that will prepare students
for college courses, but by doing so they overlook other classic writers such as Langston Hughes
and Maya Angelou. The material students are reading is certainly sufficiently challenging, and
they usually seem to enjoy it. However, I wonder if overlooking authors of color in favor of
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white, typically male authors sends the message that African American writers do not produce
work as substantial as that of white writers. Finally, it is significant to note that the three teachers
my students have throughout the day are all white. They are all excellent teachers, and I do not
think they are intentionally excluding writers of color, but I do wonder if they unconsciously
chose material with which they can identify.
I mentioned before that my students seem to enjoy the reading material they are given. It
is obvious in their writing that they definitely embrace it and find ways to connect the literature
to their lives. However, I wonder if this lack of diversity in their reading material sends a
message to the non-white students that literature is a white-dominated field. Many of these
students are truly talented poets, but I never see them write about their personal lives or culture. I
cannot help but think that they do not write about their culture because they do not see examples
of what they would consider culturally significant writing in class. For the white students in the
class, they are also missing out because they are only exposed to their own culture. These
students are surrounded by diversity, but white culture is still dominant in the curriculum. I think
all of them would definitely embrace exposure to cultures similar to or the same as theirs as well
as cultures totally different from their own. I believe that right now they assume literature is
pervasively white and this is an area where their race is not represented.

Funds of Knowledge
My students funds of knowledge are significantly different between white and non-white
students. My non-white students, overall, seem to come from family cultures that are
considerably more close-knit and expansive than my white students. I know that several of them
live with or close to their parents, grandparents, siblings, and extended family members. This, I
believe, is why these students are overall so social. With the exception of two boys, all of the
non-white students in this class are very open and outgoing. The white students in the class tend
to be a little more reserved. It seems like the black students in the class are much more
accustomed to making themselves heard in a crowd, and they tend to be the ones speaking up in
class discussions. I believe that interacting with a large family every day makes it more natural
for them to be assertive when they have something to say. The African American students in the
class are also very good at working through noise and chaos. Again, it seems like comes by
virtue of being around a large family every day.
Many of my African American students use African American English instead of
Standard American English when they interact with each other. This does not totally eliminate
the white students from the conversation, but it does create somewhat of a barrier between the
two groups. Without exception, I have observed all of the black students in the class speak to
each other in some form of African American English. They are allowed to use African
American English in class, but many of them are not able to code-switch in their writing.
However, their language diversity proves beneficial in their creative writing, specifically their
poetry. When they need to, they can pull words and phrases from their knowledge of African
American English to fit into the rhyme or rhythm of what they are writing. The white students in
the class sometimes do the same, using either elements of Appalachian English or African
American English to aid in their writing. All of these students understand and are knowledgeable
about different dialects, even if they do not frequently speak it.
Overall, the African American students in the class seem to have a more innate sense of
community than the other students. They are much more likely to take on leadership roles during
group projects, and they seem to get invested in activities faster. They are, for the most part,
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always ready to immerse themselves in a project and be class leaders. This is not the case for the
white students in the class. They are all good students and good workers, but they rarely
volunteer to take on dominant roles in class activities. They are much more likely to listen and
work through things individually than the African American students in the class. They do not
have the same natural tendency to solve problems collaboratively with their classmates, but they
do have the same strong problem-solving skills as the African American students in the class.
That is the main difference I have noticed in the funds of knowledge between the white and non-
white students. Both groups have overall strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills, but
their processes differ significantly.

Action Plan
The first change I have made to the class is to assign groups based on racial diversity as
well as writing ability and overall demeanor. I have made sure that there is at least one non-
African American student at each group. I also hung a few posters throughout the classroom with
quotes from African American writers and people of influence. In each group, there is a daily
leader. This student is responsible for doing things like gathering papers and making sure the
area around their group is clean before they leave. He is also responsible for leading any small
group activities we do that day. This involves being the one to take notes, get the group started
on whatever activity we are doing, and make sure the group stays on task. Because there are so
many students in this class who tend to have more outgoing personalities, the group leader
changes every day so that no one student is overly-dominant, but everyone has a turn to be the
leader.
I changed the class routine so that every day, students journal for ten minutes at the
beginning of class. For the first ten minutes of class, students are to write silently in their
journals. There will be a prompt on the board when they walk in, and they are supposed to start
working immediately without me having to give them instructions. The prompts I give them are
simple, and they are there just to give them some sort of idea for what to write about. Some
examples of writing prompts would be, Tell me about someone in your family, Talk about
your favorite tradition, or Write about what makes you unique. Prompts like these give
students room to be creative and write what they want, but they also have enough structure that it
could give me insight into the students family culture in order to plan lessons in a way that is
more culturally relevant.
I also changed the class structure so that students do more sharing in their small groups. I
want students to talk to each other and learn from each others perspectives and experiences.
Students will participate in literature circles, Socratic seminars, and creative writing to connect
with the literature and hear the perspectives of students whose experience differs from their own.
I will make lessons culturally relevant by having students learn about literature that, for the
majority of the students in the class, exists within their own racial background.
The major change that I made to the lesson plans was to incorporate writers and
characters of color into the curriculum. We have a fairly long class period, so there is time to
read a short story and complete an activity or writing prompt every day. Having two weeks for
this lesson plan, I would ensure that students read three poems and two short stories that deal
with racial themes and are written by non-white writers. We will cover one poem (possibly The
Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes) and one short story (possibly A Worn Path by
Eudora Welty) together, and then I will allow students to choose two other poems and one short
story to read together in their small groups. All of their options will be by authors of color and
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about characters of color. On days where we cover material together, we will participate in a
whole-class Socratic seminar. On days where students read in small groups, they will read and
annotate the short story or poem individually, and each student will have an assigned role in the
literature circle (make connections, write questions, find specific passages). The daily leader will
take notes over the discussion in addition to participating, and at the end of class, every group
leader will share a short synopsis of what they read as well as a summary of his groups
discussion.
The five days that we do not cover poems or stories will be spent working on narratives.
Drawing from Linda Christensen in Teaching for Joy and Justice, I will have students write
about an injustice. This could be an injustice they experienced personally, one they witnessed,
one they read about, or one they made up but could imagine happening. These students write a
good bit of poetry already, but they rarely practice narrative writing. This prompt will allow
them to connect the literature we study this unit to their writing and work on their creative
writing. Students will draft, revise, and re-write their stories over the course of five days, and we
will have workshop days to allow students to receive feedback on their work.
This plan is culturally responsive because it gives students the opportunity to learn about
African-American literature instead of just literature written by white authors. I have tried to
incorporate poems and short stories that are part of the majority of my students culture and that
feature characters and writers with whom they can identify. I have also allowed students to build
creative writing skills within the context of their own experience. Allowing them to write
narratives of this nature will not only benefit them from a writing perspective, but it will also
help me build relationships and knowledge about my students that will allow me to build on my
cultural responsiveness in future lesson plans.

Specific Action Plan: Socioeconomic Status

Description
As I stated previously, I am teaching at Georgia College Early College. As of 2014, the
school consisted of six teachers and 220 seventh through twelfth grade students from Baldwin
and Putnam county. Again, there is no data available specifically for Early College, but at Oak
Hill Middle School in Baldwin County, approximately 75% of students receive free or reduced
lunch. According to a 2016 census of Baldwin County, the medium household income was
$32,460 per year, and 26% of people in the county were living in poverty. Based on my
experience in the Baldwin County public school system, I can confidently say that a fair number
of its students are living near or below the poverty line.
I will be focusing on the same seventh grade boys Reading English Language Arts class.
Most of these students are from low-income families. With the exception of two students, all of
these boys come from lower or lower-middle class backgrounds. All of the students seem to have
their basic needs met, although I have noticed that some of them hoard food that they receive at
snack time or lunch. I also know from my conversations with them that some of my students stay
home by themselves or with younger siblings for hours after school. This has the potential to
breed an overly stressful environment for students their age.
Early College is aware that many of their students are from low-income families, and
they take steps to give them opportunities to grow and experience things outside the confines of
the school. Students are given opportunities to go on field trips and have experiences that they
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may not get to have otherwise, which builds prior knowledge and often even contributes to the
acquisition of cultural capital. They are also held to higher expectations than at most middle
schools, and there are opportunities almost every day for students to come in early or stay late for
extra tutoring. However, there is a lack of art and movement in the curriculum and methods
typically used at the school. Art and movement are two ways to engage poor students who have
external stressors affecting their ability to be immersed in learning. I believe it would be
beneficial for my students if I incorporate more opportunities for them to create art and learn
kinesthetically into my lesson plans.

Analysis
I believe that students living in poverty could be more engaged in my class with a few
simple changes. There is not a ton of movement in my class, and students typically sit in their
desks until it is time to leave. Because it is a very small room, and there are 23 people in the
classroom at any given time, I understand the reasons for this. However, I believe there are ways
to structure students movement in a way that is fluid and comfortable for everyone.
At Early College, there are no visual or performance art classes, and students do not have
any sort of elective period during the day. Because of this, I believe that it is crucial, especially
in classes with low-income students, for academic teachers to incorporate forms of art into the
curriculum. I believe this does not typically happen because of time constraints and lack of
resources, but when done as part of a station activity or as an assignment that connects to the
students interpretation of literature, art becomes a discovery and/or assessment tool.
Students living in poverty often deal with tremendous amounts of stress, and because of
this, it is considerably more difficult to engage them in learning. Several of my students probably
have significant worries other than school. Statistically speaking, it is likely that many of them
have experienced some form of violence, forced mobility, or unsafe living environment. This is
why I find it so important to do what I can to reduce their stress while they are in my classroom.
I know that many of my students do not have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular
activities or build on skills and talents that they enjoy. I want to connect those skills and talents
to my teaching material in order to give them those opportunities during school hours as part of
their learning process.

Funds of Knowledge
While the few middle-class students in my class tend to have more cultural capital, the
students who are low-income have funds of knowledge that other students have yet to build.
Many of them know a good deal about children and childcare. Just from hearing them talk, this is
because they are often responsible for taking care of younger siblings. While that can be a
stressful situation for children that age, Ive noticed it also lends itself to a higher level of
responsibility. Not to say that the more affluent students in the class are irresponsible, but the
low-income students do have a heightened sense of responsibility.
I have also noticed that the lower income students in my class tend to be more
resourceful. I noticed this when they had to build towers for a science project. I was so impressed
by their creativity and resourcefulness, and it was not until I observed some of my students
towers in comparison to those of other, higher income students that I connected their creativity
and resourcefulness to their social class. I noticed that the other students had higher quality
materials with which to build their towers, but they were not nearly as creative as the ones made
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by my students. Since lower-income students are used to having to go without things, they are
more likely to make do with what they have.
The lower income students in my class tend to be more resilient than the higher income
students. While the higher income students tend to be more focused and diligent in their work,
they do not bounce back from things as quickly as my other students. Lower-income students,
overall, are not as easily discouraged as long as they know there are opportunities for them to
improve. Lower-income students also have a natural curiosity that I do not see as often in higher
income students. This is especially true with technology. Higher income students are more
experienced with technology, and they are, truthfully, often better at using it. However, low
income students are more eager to learn about technology when they have the opportunity to use
it.

Action Plan
The first change I made to the class structure was to schedule time in every class where
students get up and move around. In the beginning of every class, we will do one minute
stretching exercises to help students be completely alert during class. Every day when they come
in I will play music and allow them to stretch for one minute. Students can choose not to
participate, but for those students who are often not given opportunities to get out energy at
school or at home, this small change could be beneficial. I will also have students journal for ten
minutes using a prompt on the board. This will not always be the case, but since they go on so
many field trips, the prompt will often be to write about what they learned on the field trip and
how they will apply it to what we are learning in class. This will help students make connections
between their experiences and the material, making both more meaningful and relevant to
students learning.
The methods I will use to engage low-income students differ somewhat from what is
currently being used at Early College. I plan to use strategies such as chalkboard splash, station
activities, role plays, and word walls to allow students to engage in movement and create
multiple forms of art related to the material we are studying. These strategies are beneficial to
low-income students, and particularly low-income students at Early College, because it lets them
get out of their desks and engage in multiple forms of art in the classroom. I will also allow
students to go outside to complete activities and assignments when applicable. Students in low-
income households often do not have safe places to go outdoors, so it is beneficial to allow them
time to learn outside.
I chose not to structure my class in a way that makes low-income students share their
struggles and challenges. I want my classroom to be a place where the stresses of living in
poverty are lessened, and I felt that having students share aspects of their lives that they could
consider embarrassing or personal would have the opposite effect. I do, however, encourage
students to keep a personal journal in which to write their personal feelings and thoughts. I think
this is a better practice than asking kids to share personal challenges with the class or even just
with me.
The changes I made to the lesson plans involved making them more hands-on and
interactive. Since we are currently reading The Giver, one day, we will do a station activity
where students analyze the visuals, music, script, and costuming in the movie version of the
novel. Students will go to stations dedicated to these aspects of the movie and then write a short
paper on what they liked and what they would do differently if they were the director of the
movie. Another day, when we work on poetry, student will go outside and write a short poem
 Killebrew 12

about something they see or observe. They will then draw an illustration to go with their poem. I
would also like to have the students act out a scene from a play in small groups, record it, and
email it to me so that we can put it together like a movie. We are doing a drama unit soon, so this
would be an interesting activity to try. Overlaying all of these ideas, I also consider it very
important to include literature in my curriculum that allows students to engage with characters
like them. Because of this, I will make books, poems, and short stories about low-income youth
available to my students.
This action plan is culturally responsive because it gives low income students
opportunities to engage in activities and materials that they may not have the opportunities to
engage in at home. I attempted to think of the deficits I know my particular students operate
under and give them opportunities and activities to combat those. I tried to connect students
existing funds of knowledge to the material through chances to be creative and utilize tools and
technology that I know they are curious about. All of these factors give students the chance to
build skills and allow themselves to fully engage in the material.
 Killebrew 13

Works Cited

Abrams, Fran. Rescuing the Lost Boys. The TES Magazine, 12 January 2007, pp. 14-19.

Christensen, Linda. Teaching for Joy and Justice. Rethinking Schools, 2009.

Hermann-Wilmarth, J., C.L. Ryan. Interrupting the single story: LGBT issues in the language

arts classroom, 2013, pp.226-231.

Delpit, Lisa. Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other Peoples

Children, The New York Press, 2012.

Gladwell, Malcom, Outliers, Back Bay Books, 2008.

Jensen, Eric. Teaching with Poverty in Mind, ASCD, 2009.

Jordan-Irvine, Jaqueline. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Teaching Tolerance, 2010, pp.57-61.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. But Thats Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant

Pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, vol. 34, num. 3, 1995, pp.159-165.

Reardon, S. F.The Widening Income Achievement Gap. Educational Leadership, 2013, pp.

10-16.

The Skin We Speak, ed. by Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, The New York Press, 2002.

Thompson, Gail. Through Ebony Eyes. 2004.

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