Double Journal Entry #4

1. Describe 3 things you learned about teaching and  literacy development.

• I learned to embrace the differences in students dialects and use them as a learning tool in the classroom.
• I learned to allow the students to use their own dialects in classroom discussion and not correcting them or making them feel that the way they speak is incorrect.
• I learned that their are many strategies available for teachers to use in the classroom to incorporate students different dialects in literacy instruction.

2. Give 2 examples of how the strategies for literacy instruction presented in this article reflect Culturally Responsive Teaching.

• Build bridges of meaningfulness between home and school experience.

The teachers worked as a team to come up with strategies for literacy instruction and based these off of the students background, home, and family dialects and cultures.

• Acknowledge the legitimacy of the cultural heritages as worthy content to be taught in the formal curriculum.

The teachers also aloud for students to use their own languages within the classroom. They used these as an important aspect in teaching the students literacy skills.

3. Give 1 example of literacy instruction from your own schooling experience and explain how it reflects or does not reflect Culturally Responsive Teaching.

I do not remember any culturally responsive teaching during literacy instruction in my own schooling. I can remember students being corrected when speaking incorrectly during school. I do know that when I was able to write what I wanted, instead of something the teacher chose for us, I was a better writer.

This video interested me because it is a kindergarten class, which is what I ultimately would like to teach. The teacher is using culturally responsive teaching by looking at similarities and differences of students through their own autobiographies.

Epstein, P., & Herring-Harris, L. (2011, Sept 15). Honoring dialect and increasing student performance in standard english. Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3655

Culturally responsive teaching in kindergarten: Sharing autobiographies [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwYDDq8x12w