Celina Frausto

LBS 301-01
Prof. Stacy
25 April 2017
Socratic Reading Response #8

In “Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes

and Classrooms” by Luis C. Moll, Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff, and Norma Gonzalez, the

authors explained the research approach that they developed to understand households and

classrooms qualitatively. In other words, the authors formed part of a collaborative project

between education and anthropology that was studying household and classroom practices within

working class, Mexican communities in Tucson, Arizona. Thus, to accomplish their goal, they

conducted an ethnographic report in which a classroom teacher, Cathy Amanti, and an

anthropologist, Deborah Neff, collaborated. Both, Amanti and Neff, studied the Lopez family

which was one of Cathy’s student’s family. Through this study, Amanti and Neff learned more

about the student, his family, and their social world. This also helped the teacher to create a

useful instructional activity. Based on Carlos’ experiences, which was Amanti’s student, Cathy

Amanti and two other teachers from her school worked together to develop a learning module

with an unusual theme, candy. Amanti obtained this idea from what she observed at Carlos

house. She saw that one day a neighbor went to buy Mexican candy from Carlos, so she thought

that this was a good theme to develop a learning module. Hence, Amanti developed activities

that helped her students learned about candy which was something that all students were

interested in. Lastly, the authors also explained funds of knowledge. Thus, I learned about funds

of knowledge, and how teachers can benefit from being part of study groups.
 Moreover, “Grassroots Curriculum (2014) Element Four” was about justice-centered

approaches to content-area instruction and unit planning. In this section, I found strategies for

integrating standards into the curriculum, templates to organize and structure unit planning, tips

for critical mathematical teaching such as getting used to listening to students, help students

understand that mistakes are part of learning, talk about math in real ways, and some other tips.

In this reading, the author also explained some basic tenets to read a text critically, and some

strategies to help make non-fiction readings more accessible to students. Hence, I learned how to

incorporate standards into the curriculum, and some tips on how to be a good Math teacher.

Socratic Questions

a. Focus Topic: Funds of Knowledge

b. Discussion Questions:

1. As future teachers, how do we use funds of knowledge in our classrooms?

2. Why is it important to understand the background of our students?