The factory model of schooling has driven so many of our choices in education. Unfortunately, this model does little to recognize the rich diversity of approaches that students may have in learning and in demonstrating their knowledge. While schools could be much more efficient if we could simply apply a uniform system of education to everyone, we have learned that when we try that so many students are left behind.
As we strive to create a sense of community within our classrooms, it will be important that we do our best to pull in everyone. And to do this, we will need to privilege some of the unique differences that exist within our classrooms. The idea here is that most of our work and assessments within a classroom revolve around limited outcomes of academic tasks: essays, quizzes, tests, speeches. These are important, and we must work hard to help our students become better at these academic literacies along with the content that we hope they are to learn.
However, there are also ways that we can privilege differences in our classrooms, so that on any given day, the student that is designated as the “expert” will be different. There are many ways that we can privilege these differences. I would avoid doing any one of these more than once or twice a trimester, but I would certainly add them to a toolbox of choices so that I can draw upon the unique skill sets and interests of students to both demonstrate their learnings and to engage them more deeply in the critical thinking skills I am trying to foster.
Inquiry Units. For my intervention classes, I have created the curriculum around student chosen inquiry units. In other words, once a trimester the class will brainstorm, discuss, and vote on a topic / question that we then study. Once the topic / question is chosen, we spend about three weeks reading articles, viewing videos, writing responses, and discussing related topics, and then finish the unit with some type of product / project. As a teacher, it’s a totally intimidating process because it means that I am usually one day ahead of the students in my planning and organizing. It’s also intimidating because they typically choose topics / questions for which I have little knowledge. However, in doing this, I am privileging their interests. And since these topics / questions are decided collectively, there is a shared sense of community and ownership in that topic / question. As I write this, my students have chosen a unit on hip hop. In the first week we are studying the history, in the second week we are studying important figures, and in the third week we are studying the social issues around rap. The final project is a literary analysis of rap lyrics.
Finding Expertise. Along with building community by privileging their different interests, it is good to privilege their expertise as well. I am constantly looking for that one talent that allows the student to become the teacher. I have discovered students who have a passion for weather, and then found ways to incorporate an article related to that expertise. I discovered an entire group of students who were serious gamers, and created an entire class that allows them to more deeply study (and question) some of the important elements of their passion. I have discovered that some students enjoy acting and will create an option where they can take a piece of text and bring it to life, or better yet, give them a chance to direct a small group. The idea is that more people can feel a part of the community when we allow for more voice.
Drawing: More than just content, I like to privilege different modes of understanding. At least once a trimester, I include an assessment that requires students to draw. They are usually pretty simple. I might ask them to identify an important moment from a scene or chapter, to create a visual depiction of that moment, and to include textual evidence. In my “Life of Shakespeare” unit, I have about twenty “facts” of daily life from Shakespeare’s day. Students are given one of them, and then asked to do a drawing of it. Again, we create more inviting, open environments when we privilege the different talents and skills of students.
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