Equity & Access

A Teacher Inquiry Study Group Focuses on Racism and Homophobia

Author: Gavin Tachibana Summary: “Are you ready to talk about homophobia? About racism? About other personal and political subjects? How about with your students?” This article explains how two teacher book study groups focused on issues of race and sexual orientation. Each group established a safe space to have difficult...

Opening the Classroom Door: Inviting Parents and Preparing to Work Together in Classrooms

Author: Lynne Yermanock Strieb Summary: In this chapter from her book, Inviting Families into the Classroom: Learning from a Life in Teaching, Streib draws on an extensive archive of documents (e.g., letters from parents, class newsletters, and detailed accounts of student-family interactions) accrued over a 30-year teaching career as a...

Demystifying the College Admission Essay Genre

Author: Jessica Singer Early and Meredith DeCosta Summary: This chapter from Jessica Singer Early and Meredith DeCosta’s Real World Writing for Secondary Students presents a writing workshop for ethnically and linguistically diverse high school students in which students receive instruction on specific genre features of the college admission essay. The...

Supporting English Language Learners: What Happens When Teaching in Students’ Native Language is Made Illegal?

Author: Art Peterson Summary: This inspiring story of Floris Wilma Ortiz-Marrero, a teacher-consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project and 2011 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, describes how she became a vocal advocate for her ELL students in a time when the state made it illegal to teach students in...

Creating Intentional Communities to Support English Language Learners in the Classroom

Author: Judith Rance-Roney Summary: How can teachers support English learners, including recent immigrants, in language acquisition while also investing all students in creating a classroom culture that encourages shared experiences, knowledge construction and the integration of resources that ELs bring? Judith Rance-Roney’s answer was to create the Culture Share Club...

Community Connections for English Learners: Changing the World Starts with Just a Few Words

Author: Art Peterson Summary: This short article illustrates ways a teacher can engage colleagues in professional learning and provides examples of classroom activities that build connections between EL students, their parents and their community. Engaging students in creating digital movies to document the history of discrimination along with the impact...

Are You the Teacher Who Gives Parents Homework?

Author: Carole Chin Summary: In this chapter from the NWP publication, Cityscapes, an elementary teacher describes how she uses the writing of students and their families to build community, honor family cultures and languages, and provide a forum to address fears, anxieties, and concerns. Threaded through the narrative are many...

Con Respeto, I am Not Richard Rodriguez

Author: Norma Mota-Altman Summary: Bilingual teacher Norma Mota–Altman recounts her experience as a Spanish–speaking child in school and explains why “English only” policies exact too high a price from English learners and their families. In telling her story, she brings a human face to critical terms such as “funds of...

ELL Library American Indian Reference/Resource “Must-Haves”

Author: Michael Thompson and Laurie Smith Summary: With the goal of providing materials to inform teachers’ understanding of Native American cultures, Thompson and Smith have compiled an annotated bibliography of “must-read” texts on the subject. This excellent resource can be used to inspire and guide groups of teachers in building...

Meeting the Needs of Racially and Linguistically Diverse Students through Courageous Conversations

Author: South Coast Writing Project Summary: Although conversations about race and diversity are not easy, they can allow teacher leaders to examine and interrogate their beliefs and practices to determine the direction of their teaching and of their writing project sites. Teachers at the UCLA Writing Project found their reading...