This week we will continue to discuss the role of teachers as ethnographers who study/research
the cultures of our students. You will also begin to work on your action plan ideas that you
started last week. Last week you discussed the following questions to brainstorm ideas for your
critical literacy action plan: 1) Describe your teaching context and student population. Describe
your own positionality (race, SES, cultural backgrounds/experiences, teaching experiences, etc.)
2) what issue do you want to address? 3) How is the issue important to you and your students?
Describe the rationale for minority (race, gender, disability, religion) students and non-minority
students. 4) How is the issue important to people outside your classroom, school, and the
country? 5) What is the learning activity? How long will you teach? In what subject matters?
You can ask additional questions here. 6) Final comment – what readings/theories did you build
on to develop this idea? What strengths and challenges ahead do you foresee in implementing
this action plan/lesson/activities?
This week you will start to elaborate on questions #4, #5, and #6: What critical issues are you
addressing? What is the learning activity? What readings/theories did you build on to develop
this idea?
In order to discuss the three questions, I ask you to do the following for this week’s discussion.
1. What critical issues are you addressing? Describe specific issues related to your chosen
topic (week 7). For example, find a peer-reviewed journal article (via UML library
databases or google scholar) and a practical resource (e.g., news articles, blogs, magazine
articles, etc.) that specifically addresses the critical issue you are planning to address. For
example, suppose you decided to address racial inequities in week 7. In that case, you can
discuss racial stereotypes associated with a particular racial group and how to challenge
those stereotypes via children’s literature. This is just an example. In other words,
elaborate this week on the broader topic you picked: what sub-topics will you address to
discuss the broader topic? For this, think about what status quo you are challenging
(Some of you discussed somewhat neutral topics, such as behavioral issues of students
with disabilities, without mentioning other social issues associated with the topic (e.g.,
racial disparities in special education services). Please ensure you address a critical issue
as an essential part of your chosen topic.
2. Combine #5 and #6 to brainstorm specific learning activity ideas by reading research
and other practical resources. For your final project (section II), you must cite at least two
peer-reviewed journal articles (other than course readings). This week, I ask you to find
one peer-reviewed journal article via the UML library database and one practical resource
(e.g., website, blog postings, magazine, news articles, etc.) that directly speaks to your
topic. Provide a summary of the article: 1) the citation (author, year, title, journal infofollow APA), 2) the goal (research questions) of the article/study, research methods
(participants, data types, data analysis), and key findings, and 3) a brief descriiption of
what ideas you acquired from this article for your critical literacy project. For the
practical resource you found, please share 1) the link, 2) a brief summary of the resource,
and 3) what ideas you got from the resource for your final project.
3. Now, synthesize the readings/ideas you got from the readings. Briefly share what your
critical literacy activity will be. This does not need to be perfect. Brainstorm more
elaborated ideas than the one you developed in week 7. Make sure to describe the length
of the lesson unit (a week? or two weeks?) and provide some contextual information
(e.g., this is part of a month-long unit plan on racial injustice in American history).
Finally, describe the day’s learning activities (what you and your students will do to
achieve the goal of the lesson) inspired by the readings above.
This will provide a foundation for your final project. Based on what you discussed in Week 7, I
placed you in a group (if you do not see your name, please join a group that is most relevant to
your topic). However, please feel free to join any group you think is more relevant to your topic.
Also, please feel free to use any relevant articles your classmates posted for your final project.
Also, feel free to visit other groups to provide peer responses.
Group 2: Intersectionalities (disabilities, race, gender, poverty, etc.)
