Culturally Responsive Curriculum Ideas

Greetings in many languages and ways

Display greeting signs in the languages spoken in your classroom to raise language awareness, make students and families feel welcome, and allow for a flow of knowledge, ideas, and positive feelings between home and school and across languages.

Displaying greeting signs in the languages spoken in your classroom raises language awareness, makes students and families feel welcome, and allows for a flow facilitate the flow of knowledge, ideas and feeling between home and school and across languages.

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World Map

Assist students to mark with a pin where they come from, to create a visual representation of the class composition. Have a discussion about it.

Teacher and students build classroom community by visualizing the origins of their families and ancestors.

1. The teacher engages the students and establishes the context of the lesson by reading aloud a text which is focused on family, origins, ancestry, or identity from the suggested list of multicultural books. See lesson named “Read Aloud Culturally Informative and Sensitizing Children’s Books” for more information on these books.

2. Through the story read aloud and discussions, students will reflect on their individual and family identities. Afterwards, they will have the at-home task of talking with their families about their family lineage and where their parents, grandparents, (and possible great grandparents) came from. Did they come from another part of Oahu? From another Hawaiian island? From the mainland? From another country?

3. Lastly, each student and the teacher will present about their family history including specifically where they come from. A pin or some sort of mark should be placed on the map to identify the name of the person and origins. This visual representation allows the students to know more about each other, to deepen their classroom community, and to know about their family heritage. In addition to the above lesson, the teacher may do additionally activities to build upon this mapping activity and connect to subject content in social studies, reading, math, etc.

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Show and Tell using cultural and linguistic artifacts

Students or family members bring a special item from home that they share with the class to learn about each other’s backgrounds.

1. Students or a family member bring in a special item from home that they share with class to learn about one’s and each other’s backgrounds. Empower students’ sense of identity, background, and uniqueness by sharing a piece of their family’s cultural heritage.

2. Some questions to start off the lesson:

• What makes you special?
• What makes you different from your classmates?

3. While discussing, these questions can lead to more questions such as

• What makes our families special?
• How is our family different from everyone else’s?

4. This dialogue sets the context for students to get to know each other better and building community. They will then be given a task to talk with their family members about what makes their family special. Through their discussions, they will need to decide on an artifact that says something about their family. The artifact could represent their family, tell a story, an event in the family history, etc.

5. The teacher and students negotiate the criteria of the cultural artifact and the corresponding presentation. Students present. You may consider inviting family members to participate in the audience.

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Biography of an important person in the child’s community

students research and write a biography about a special person in their community, such as an immediate family member, a relative, neighbor, or community leader, and share with the class. This allows for positive learning about each other’s communities and community members.

1. Students research and write a biography about a special person in their community, such as an immediate family member, a relative, neighbor, or community leader, and share with the class.

2. Ideally, students will engage in interviewing, talking to others who know that person, and doing Internet and/or library searches.

3. Students can collaborate with their families to expand their work and they can be invited to present the information on a three-dimensional object such as a decorated shoebox, a paper-bag vest, a hanging mobile, or a poster collage.

4. These items can be used to create a gallery to which the students can return throughout the year to look at it, learn more about it, and be reminded of each other’s communities and their contributions.

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Buddy Program

Assign children to a buddy to help them gain the tools and socio-emotional connection to be able to succeed in school.

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Building Background

Learners develop understandings through connections they make between what they already know and the new information they are learning. Teachers have to use strategies to explicitly activate students’ prior knowledge and build background when prior knowledge of a particular content topic is lacking.

1. Let’s look at two important aspect of building background:

• Key vocabulary emphasized
• Concepts explicitly linked to students’ background experiences

2. Click on Building Background PDF file. Indicate which strategies you have already used for each of these aspects of building background. Leave blank those strategies you have not yet tried. Now select one strategy from each aspect you think it would be a good fit with your instructional practices and your students’ need. Try out each of the strategies. Reflect about how your students reacted, especially your ELL students. What will you do the same? What would you change? How often would you like to use the strategies you implemented?

Building Background (PDF)

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Comprehensible Input

Teachers need to provide information and interact with students so that students can understand what is being said and do what is expected of them. This includes teachers being mindful of the words they use, the rate at which they speak, and explaining things clearly to their students.

1. Comprehensible Input includes the following instructional aspects:

• Speech appropriate for students’ proficiency level (e.g., slower rate, enunciation, and simple sentence structure for beginners). It is important that you use “thoughtful speech” – that you know your English language level and adapt your speech appropriately, remembering to focus on the zone of proximal development or always talking at a level the students can follow but at the same time building their ability to progressively understand more.

• Clear explanation of academic tasks. Make sure you write out clear directions that are easily seen by all students and that are also given orally, in a step by step manner, with visuals when appropriate and necessary. For very young learners, adding drawing to your written instructions also helps.

• A variety of techniques used to make content concepts clear (e.g., modeling, visuals, hands-on activities, demonstrations, gestures, body language).

2. Next, complete a self-assessment of your comprehensible input instructional practice. First, identify how frequently you integrate each of the following comprehensible input techniques. Second, list the techniques you use less often. Third, choose 1-2 techniques to work on in the next couple of weeks. Finally, document how the implementation of these techniques goes and reflect on how you will continue to use those techniques in effective ways. Comprehensible Input Self (PDF)

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Practice and Application

Students have to practice and apply new concepts and language skills in the classroom. Some effective ways to do so with diverse students is to make learning hands-on and implement activities that scaffold students’ learning while allowing them to practice the academic language skills they are acquiring.

1. Hands-on materials and/or manipulatives provided for students to practice using new content knowledge. When ELL students practice what they have learned in relevant, meaningful, and (especially for younger students) concrete ways, they have more opportunities to learn the material. Your task: work individually or with your peers to come up with the longest list of hands-on activities you could use for your students to practice what they learn in the class. Similarly, create a table for each content area and find out which manipulatives are already available in your school, which ones you could obtain through donations or a grant, and which ones you might need to purchase.

2. Activities provided for students to apply content and language knowledge in the classroom. The application of content and language knowledge is important because when students discuss and use what they have learned it makes the learning concrete and attainable for all learners. In addition to thinking of ways in which you can ask your students to apply content knowledge (for example, engaging in problem solving activities, engaging in cooperative work, or participating in a debate), it is also important to think about the linguistic demands of the tasks students are asked to do. Please see click here to learn more about Cummin’s Model of Academic Language.

3. Activities integrate all language skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking). Reading, writing listening, and speaking are complex, cognitive language processes that are interrelated and integrated. They also mutually support each other. One area that teachers of ELL students need to emphasize more is the development of oral language.

OVERVIEW OF CUMMIN’S ACADEMIC LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT MODEL

Based on Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education (Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3–49). Los Angeles, CA: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles. Available for free download at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269101664_The_Role_of_Primary_Language_Development_in_Promoting_Educational_Success_for_Language_Minority_Students

APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

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Inclusive Print Rich Environment

As a soon-to-be elementary teacher, you may likely have heard of creating a “print-rich environment” for your students. Apply the same concept to create a print-rich environment that demonstrates the diversity of the micro-culture of your classroom and school and the macro-culture of Hawai‘i and the United States. Decorate the room with student work that shows inclusiveness, maps, values of respect and differences.

1. As a soon-to-be elementary teacher, I’m sure you’ve heard of creating a “print-rich environment” for your students. In the same respect, apply the same concept to creating a print-rich environment that demonstrates the diversity of the micro-culture of your classroom and school and the macro-culture of Hawaii and the United States. Decorate the room with student work that shows inclusiveness, maps, values of respect and differences, etc.

2. Here is an example that you can start with-

• Give each student a blank heart shape paper.
• Each student writes something special about themselves on the heart. For example, the activities they like to do with their families, their favorite family members.
• Each student shades around the words with a crayon that matches the student’s skin color.
• Each student explains to their classmates why they chose the words on their heart. The teacher looks for unique choices and common characteristics.

3. Display in the classroom or hallway as a reminder of the uniquely diverse class.

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Read Aloud Culturally Informative and Sensitizing Children’s Books

Integrate culturally informative and sensitizing books in the read aloud selections. Explore books that contain text that truly engages students in reflecting, questioning, and making personal connections on issues such as diversity, identity, values, and social norms.

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Student/family made dual language storybooks

Create the context and written support system to have students/families write their own dual language books.

Create the context and written support system to have students/families write their own dual language books.

Students and families will develop a sense of empowerment with their cultural and linguistic identities by reading and writing their own dual-language story books.

Some possible questions to set the context of the lesson:

• Who can speak a language other than English?
• Who speaks a language other than English at home with your family?
• Does anyone speak a language other than English every day with your family?

Discussions can follow on the value of language learning for those monolingual and multilingual students. The classroom teacher will then incorporate a variety of themes from multiculturalism, diversity, caring, respect, and acceptance into the instructional reading block time. Depending on the linguistic make up of the students, the teacher may read aloud dual language storybooks.

After providing sufficient amounts of input and modelings, the teacher will guide the students through the writing process of making their own monolingual or dual language story book. Work will be completed in class and at home in order to engage families and build upon their cultural knowledge. Finally, students will read aloud their books; you may also invite family members as part of the audience.

CLICK HERE FOR AFFECT TEAM’S LIST OF STORYBOOKS WITH SYNOPSES: STUDENT.FAMILY MADE DUAL LANGUAGE BOOK FILE

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Incorporate minority families’ home cultures into the school curriculum

Engage and integrate the cultures of your students and their families into your curriculum in order to scaffold their learning, respect their heritage, empower their learning, and develop a sincere sense of community and learning for all students.

1. Work with your grade-level planning team before the start of the school year to make a list of the home cultures that are representative of your ESL population. Brainstorm ways in which you can tap into this vast, inherently rich resource. For example:

a. How can you empower students’ sense of cultural identity and worth?

b. What do the Common Core Standards for your grade level say about diversity, culture, multiculturalism, identity, and students’ background knowledge?

c. What are the mainstream assumptions in the social studies, history, and other content lessons?

d. Do all your students, including the ESL students, have a “voice” in the curriculum?

e. How are they portrayed in the literature?

Consider your answers to these questions when designing your curricular lessons, so that all students’ cultures can be acknowledged fairly and respectfully and you can use the students’ background knowledge to introduce them to new material.

2. Get to know your students, their families, and their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Have the families “teach” you about their language, culture, educational expectations, and so on. By taking the role of a “student,” you will create a more dynamic and reciprocal relationship between home and school. Incorporate all this knowledge in your lesson planning.

3. Talk to your school community (e.g., colleagues, administrators, students, parents, PTA) about having a “Take Your Parent to School Day” (it could also be a guardian or any adult family member responsible for the student). Schedule the day to include:

a. Activities for students, families, and teachers to get to know each other.

b. Opportunities for parents to share their expertise/knowledge of their culture, language, profession, and interests.

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