Culture and Inclusion Reflection

As a persevering culturally responsive educator on a journey to build cultural bridges, there are some
characteristics that I feel very confident in stating that I hold. I acknowledge that the students that the
families that I serve have different beliefs, values, and attitudes. With this acknowledgement comes the
action components. I build on my students’ background knowledge and strive to link what they know to
the information they are going to receive. I communicate to my students that the high expectations that I
set are standard and will be achieved by every student. I truly believe in uplifting my students with positive
affirmations. I have a sociocultural consciousness that allows me to be vulnerable to create an
environment where students feel safe to express. My attitude towards my students are positive and
respectful which sets the tone of that I believe and love them, but ultimately they must believe and love
themselves. I show commitment and dedication to our culturally diverse environment by scaffolding,
encouraging critical thinking, and through continuous research.

Most importantly, I want to push my practice in the area of collaboration (school-home-community). I think
to be a culturally responsive teacher, one must learn about students’ past experiences and their worlds in
and out of school and use that information to create rich lessons that motivate and generate interest. I
want to use what I learn about my students and their families, and variances of multiple perspectives, to
increase student engagement. As I persevere through this journey, to cultivate a more student centered
environment, I will keep a growth mindset and a keen awareness to my scholars of excellence.

Having a variety of strategies is important because they provide a roadmap in the leaning paths that
student take to become strong readers who can comprehend text and furthermore have explicit and
relevant dialogue. They push students to be critical thinkers and highlight central ideas. As an ELA
teacher, the ideology behind the usage of teaching strategies speaks volumes to my teaching practices. I
use a variety of before, during, and after instructional and learning strategies that fall under the umbrella
of comprehension, fluency, writing, and vocabulary. The tables below showcases a snapshot of the
strategies and learning activities I use.

Comprehension Before Reading During Reading After Reading

Anticipation Guides *
Directed Reading *
Thinking Activity

Exit Slips *
Jigsaw *
Listen/Read/Discuss * *
Partner Reading *
Question the Author *
Think Alouds *
Think-Pair-Share *
Reciprocal Teaching *
Summarizing *
Question-Answer *
Relationship

Fluency Before Reading During Reading After Reading

Choral Reading *
Reader’s Theater *
Audio-Assisted *
Reading

Shared Reading * * *
Paired Reading *
Timed Reading *

Writing Before Reading During Reading After Reading

Informative Writing

Argumentative Writing

Descriptive Writing

Transitions

Revisions

RAFT * * *
Writing Conferences

Vocabulary Before Reading During Reading After Reading

Word Wall * * *
 Word Maps * * *
Decoding * * *

What drives my planning and student engagement is the consideration of my students’ culture and
language skills. My objectives are student centered with clear high expectations that all students are held
accountable for achieving. One of my growth goals for last year was to have instructional activities that
are derived by student input. I really built a culture that allowed me to know the whole child. I not only
collected academic data, but also through community circles I was able to gather more specific data
about the students’ interests, likes, dislikes, and personalities. Using this data, I altered my curriculum to
be more cohesive to the interest of my students. This took a significant amount of planning and
differentiated instruction.