Building a Community of Writers and Readers

Overview

Everyone wants to feel they belong. Outside of the family environment, the classroom is often the first place in which we experience belonging . . . community. Community is comprised of individuals (in this case students and adults) who have shared goals and experiences, who feel empowered to contribute, who trust in one another, and who feel understood and capable as individuals and a collective whole (NAEYC, 2016). Community is achieved when every student feels and experiences a sense of belonging and both the teacher and students jointly work together to create and cultivate an environment in which each academic, racial, cultural, and social identity is respected, appreciated, and valued.

Why is building and cultivating a classroom community important? According to the Association for Children's Mental Health (ACMH), one in five children and young adults have a diagnosable emotional, behavioral, or mental health disorder. One in ten young people have a mental health challenge that is severe enough to impact how they function in everyday life. 72% of children in the U.S. will have experienced at least one major stressful event by age 18. What role—small or large—can classroom communities play in ensuring students feel they matter? How does creating an learning environment in which students feel, believe, and know they belong impact their ability to become skilled writers and readers? 

Creating a safe space that meets students' needs is just one way to show support. A supportive classroom community: 

1. Increases student engagement and participation;
2. Evokes safety and confidence;
3. Motivates them to share their thoughts, ideas, and perspectives on topics and/or raise their hands in class to answer challenging questions; and,
4. Helps nurture student ownership and accountability 

By fostering a sense of community, students will feel empowered to take a greater role in their learning (NAYEC, 2016).

This section of the Colorado Framework for Writing Instruction provides teachers with three research and evidence-based practices designed to effective create and sustain classroom communities to honor, respect, value, and celebrate the academic, racial, cultural, and social identities of all students. One is not preferred over the other, but rather the Committee decided to provide teachers with options, leaving the choice and decision to teachers to implement the one best suited for their classrooms. Teachers can also infuse elements from all three. 

Belonging Centered Instruction

Belonging is a fundamental human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Maslow, 1943) linked with a variety of adaptive academic effects such as intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, persistence, and achievement (Adelabu, 2007; Boston & Warren, 2017; Freeman et al., 2007; Goodenow & Grady, 1993; Sánchez et al., 2005; Strayhorn, 2020; Walton & Cohen, 2007, 2011). Unfortunately, for several students, belonging is not an experience actualized in their classrooms. Students from marginalized, underrepresented, and vulnerable backgrounds research states often feel alienated and disconnected in their classrooms. To address the alienation and disconnection many students, the researchers have conceptualized a pedagogical framework for establishing inclusive learning environments: Belonging-Centered Instruction (BCI). In this work, Belonging-Centered Instruction is defined as teachers’ provision of opportunities for active inclusion, achievement, identification, and empowerment via interpersonal interactions and instructional techniques (Goodenow, 1993; Gutiérrez, 2012). While belonging is a multidimensional construct shaped by various factors including peer interactions (Booker, 2007; Delgado et al., 2016; Juvonen, 2006), institutional systems (Bottiani et al., 2017; Kogachi & Graham, 2020), and family involvement (Mo & Singh, 2008; Wang & Eccles, 2012), research has indicated that teacher support is one of the strongest predictors of students’ sense of belonging (Allen et al., 2018). Because of the power and access teachers possess in meeting students’ belongingness needs, Belonging-Centered Instruction is emphasized as the essential provision of social and pedagogical opportunities that mitigate students’ feelings of alienation, exclusion, and dehumanization (i.e., experiencing the racial and cultural oppression in learning spaces that they encounter in broader society) (Bartolomé, 1994; Gutiérrez, 2018).

Belonging Center Instruction is conceptualized in two domains that center on teacher actions: 

1. Interpersonal supports. Interpersonal supports for belonging refer to teacher practices that actively facilitate social ties, social comfort, and interconnectedness between members of a classroom. Research indicates the importance of interpersonal teacher qualities in shaping student belonging (e.g., Anderman, 2003; Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Martin & Dowson, 2009; Wentzel, 1998, 1999), especially among students from historically marginalized groups (e.g., Booker, 2004; Garcia-Reid, 2007; Maloney & Matthews, 2020). Research indicates the importance of interpersonal teacher qualities in shaping student belonging (e.g., Anderman, 2003; Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Martin & Dowson, 2009; Wentzel, 1998, 1999), especially among students from historically marginalized groups (e.g., Booker, 2004; Garcia-Reid, 2007; Maloney & Matthews, 2020). Some research has specifically identified teacher warmth, emotional support, and emphasis on caring relationships as strong predictors of students’ classroom belonging (Allen et al., 2018; Hughes, 2011). Maloney and Matthews (2020) found that students felt more connected within the classroom when their teachers authentically sought to understand students’ literacy and personal difficulties and alleviate those difficulties through collaborative partnerships that affirm students’ self-identity. 
2. Instructional supports. Instructional supports for belonging refer to teacher practices that direct instruction toward making meaningful connections between content, the learning process, students’ identities, and broader society. Activities that honor and reinforce students’ cultural meaning systems through culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012) allow students to connect math with their lived realities, thus enhancing the legitimacy of their experiences and their sense of belonging (see also King & Swartz, 2016). A number of other theoretical and empirical studies have begun to confirm this relationship between centering cultural values through instruction and classroom belonging for students (Boykin & Ellison, 1995; Dotterer et al., 2009; Rouland et al., 2014). Thus, integrating student culture into the curriculum is a core element of instructional belonging support because centering students’ cultural experiences makes literacy—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—relatable and relevant to their lives. 

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Doors

Writers write for a variety of purposes. Regardless of the purpose, the texts they produce are reflective of who they are as writers. Specifically, their perspectives, interests, ideas, background, experiences, beliefs, and their ability to creatively frame their writing, utilizing divergent genres, conventions, and techniques to convey a message and/or narrative that captures and sustains the attention of their intended audience. Likewise, readers read for a variety of purposes. Readers select texts based upon their background knowledge, personal experiences and interests, genre preferences, and academic, cultural, and social identity. Understanding this, writing and reading instruction should enable students to read and write about characters and experiences who reflect their own identities, who open windows to others who are different, and who provide doors to new experiences and realities (Bishop 1990). As mirrors, diverse texts can help students with marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds foster a love of writing and reading, as they are able to view characters whose experiences and problems relate to their own (Bishop 1990; Hefflin and Barksdale-Ladd 2001; Wopperer 2011). This frequency in and interest toward writing and reading not only leads to enhanced reading comprehension (Winkler 2015; Bulatowicz 2017) but also positions children to develop an empowering view of themselves, their value to society (Hefflin and Barksdale-Ladd 2001; Wopperer 2011; Winkler 2015), and their agency as writers and readers (McGillFranzen, Lanford, and Adams 2002). This positive view of their own culture may, in turn, lead to higher self-esteem (Al-Hazza and Bucher 2008; Husband 2018) and may help children feel more welcome (Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan 2013). Conversely, when children are not exposed to diverse literature, they may feel undervalued or develop internalized prejudices (HermannWilmarth and Ryan 2013; Bulatowicz 2017).

Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education

Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) Education draws on decades of research in asset-based pedagogies that recognize that cultural difference (including racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexuality and ability) should be treated as assets for teaching and learning. This approach to education, according to Dr. Django Paris, counters dominant narratives about difference as deficits or as characteristics of students and families that should be remediated or assimilated (Paris, 2012). Using this approach to education, all families are believed to have cultural capital, or knowledge, abilities, and networks, that can, and should, be leveraged in classrooms. While schooling has traditionally privileged the capital of families from dominant backgrounds, CR-S positions educators to acknowledge, value, and leverage the wealth of knowledge found in communities that have been marginalized (Paris, 2012).

Culturally responsive education is about teaching the students in front of you. To do this requires that educators and leaders work to get to know their students and develop meaningful relationships with students while engaging in the students’ communities. These are two tenets that anchors CDE's definition of best, first instruction. However, culturally responsive education must also be sustaining, that is it must work to encourage cultural pluralism and not cultural assimilation. Home and youth culture should be welcomed into the classroom as areas ripe for discussion. Differences should not just be seen as strengths, but they should also be maintained because they are what make students and families unique. How educators understand culture has real consequences for our children as a limited understanding of culture has the power to disadvantage some while privileging others (Kirkland, 2012).

The term culturally sustaining requires that our pedagogies be more than responsive of or relevant to the cultural experiences and practices of young people—it requires that they support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence. Culturally sustaining pedagogy, then, has as its explicit goal supporting multilingualism and multiculturalism in practice and perspective for students and teachers. That is, culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling. (Paris, 2012). achievement (Adelabu, 2007; Boston & Warren, 2017; Freeman et al., 2007; Goodenow & Grady, 1993; Sánchez et al., 2005; Strayhorn, 2020; Walton & Cohen, 2007, 2011),

Cultivating a Community and Culture of Writers and Readers

Look at the following infographic below.  What message or narrative is being conveyed in the types of children's books in elementary classrooms? Are we reinforcing the same message or narrative in the texts we select in the secondary classroom?

How do we select reading material that enables all students to see themselves and others as equal and their stories as relevant and meaningful? Dr. Alfred Tatum, author of Reading for Their Lives: (Re)Building the Textual Lineages of African American Males Students, suggests that educators and leaders consider the following questions as they look 

1. Does the book go beyond typical themes about characters of color? Avoid caricatures and the reinforcement of stereotypes like “the hoopster” or “fatherless son.” Dr. Tatum says we should ensure that texts offer counter narratives that shows students of color, especially males as problem-solvers, which challenges the “victim mentality” story lines. The problem, according to Dr. Tatum and Zaretta Hammond, is that while there are more diverse books out there, typically there’s a theme. For example, books with African Americans typically revolve around sports (i.e., basketball), civil rights-era activities, or African American historical heroes. There’s an overrepresentation of low-income, urban communities. It’s even more limited for Latinx students, nd, let’s not even talk about authentic books at Indigenous/First Nation children or Pacific Islanders students.
2. Are there non-fiction books that have children, adolescents, and/or young adults from vulnerable and marginalized communities doing everyday things? Too often dominant narratives about who’s the smart kid in the book does not include children of color, children from low-income families and communities, children with disabilities, or multilingual children. Teachers also want to check to see if the non-verbal visuals are reinforcing dominant narratives. Remember the definition for text—any media, print or non-print, used to communicate an idea, emotion, or information—can be a speech, a video, a chart or a graph, an infographic, a photograph, a painting. It refers to any communication that ask students to “make meaning” or comprehend a message, and the messages teachers convey through text selection can subconsciously enforce or reinforce a narrative that devalues the academic, cultural, and social identities of our most vulnerable and marginalized students.
3. Do the children of color look “authentic”? Meaning, do they have varied shades of brown skin and textured hair, or do they have White/Caucasian features, but with brown skin? The ideal is for students to see authentic representations of themselves and their cultural identities as they grapple with the lived experiences of individuals that are their own.
4. Are the texts, especially fictional stories “enabling”? Dr. Tatum talks about ensuring texts are “enabling” rather than disabling students. This is a way of going deeper with the idea of “mirrors” in the popular “mirrors and windows” frame. So, the text should serve as a road map for being, doing, thinking, and acting in ways that congruent with cultural ways of being and doing.

An enabling narrative recognizes, honors, and nurtures students’ multiple identities—the academic/intellectual, cultural/racial, and personal/social aspects of students' individual and collective lives. It shows these identities as integrated and allows students to: 

1. See themselves reflected in the texts they read and write (mirrors);
2. View the lives and stories of individuals that are different from their own and craft/compose text that explores the perspectives and human experience of others (windows); and,
3. Use texts to build empathy, understanding, and compassion as they read about and examine through their own writing, the similarities and differences of humanity and our lived experiences in a manner that celebrates diversity and pluralism (sliding doors).

Resources:

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors Video by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop

Windows and Mirrors: Learning about Difference and Belonging through Books Video Edutopia

The Windows and Mirrors of my Child's Bookshelf TEDTalk by Author Grace Lin

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