Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into

Reading Strategies
For
LACPA Teaching staff and administrators

April 19,2023
Mason Kapp-Zellner

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Learning Objective: I will learn about reading and highlighting

strategies that incorporate more culturally relevant literacy

Agenda:
Teacher Standard: 6.3
● Choosing Culturally Relevant Reading Collaborating with
○ Whole School Endeavor colleagues and the broader
○ Choosing Historically Responsive Text professional community to
support teacher and
student learning
● Strategies for Reading the Text
○ Before, During, After strategies
○ How might this work in each content area?
■ Science
■ History
■ Art
■ Math

Make sure each teacher/ administrator has dry-erase board/marker and highlighters

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

How can we introduce culturally relevant literacy

across curriculum to engage students while using
reading strategies to create consistency across
content areas?

Make sure each teacher/ administrator has dry-erase board/marker and highlighters

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Some of the Reasons Students are disconnected from Texts

(Muhammad 139)

● Unchanged white-centered curriculum

● When students are not involved in the selection process
● Lack of diverse representation of thought and authors
● Texts not responsive to student histories, identities and
literacies
● Lack of meaningful texts for students
● Lack of connection to students’ lives
● Unclear purpose of pursuits of reading
● Disconnect with other pursuits of literacy (writing, debating,
speaking, performance)

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Choosing Culturally Responsive Texts

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Discussion:

What might be the benefit of using the same strategies

schoolwide?

(Use the dry-erase boards provided to brainstorm answers)

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Suggestions for Whole School Endeavors based on Ghouldy

Muhammad’s Cultivating Genius

● Students write biographies for each subject addressing the

questions:

○ When did you learn to love the subject or when did you learn to dislike the
subject? (Relationship)
○ When did you need it outside of school? (Community)
○ Which ways do you learn the subject best?
○ How could this subject support your future goals? (Purpose)

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

● Urgency of the Pen

○ Develop a list of social issues that are most in need of improvement
■ Have students vote on which is the one they most want to improve

○ These issues become the focal points in different content areas

school-wide or per class

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

How to Choose Historically Responsive Texts

● How does each phase, chapter or section in this curriculum

address the following:
○ Identity: how does it help students learn something about
themselves?
○ Skills: how does it build skills and standards?
○ Intellect: how does it build student knowledge and mental
processes?
○ Criticality: how does it engage students’ thinking about
power and equity and the disruption of oppression?

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Strategies for Reading the Text

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Discussion:

What strategies do you incorporate into your classroom

before you begin reading a text?

(Use the dry-erase boards provided to brainstorm answers)

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Overview for Reading a Text

● Before Reading:

○ Connect the material to students’ lives and prior

knowledge

○ Identify the purpose for reading the text

○ Define - students define difficult words

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Discussion:

What strategies do you incorporate into your classroom

while reading the text?

(Use the dry-erase boards provided to brainstorm answers)

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

● During Reading:
○ Purposeful highlighting during reading
■ Informational Text
● Green central idea/ problem
● Yellow key details or facts/ proposed solutions
● Red information or words that needs to be clarified

○ Compose Questions as they read/ Prediction

■ This might be done at the end of paragraphs or every
other paragraph

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

After Reading the Text:

● Check for Understanding : comprehension

questions/discussion

● Students create questions for the text and concepts they

don’t understand

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Discussion:

How might this work in your content area?

(Brainstorm on the dry-erase board)

Pass out highlighters and worksheets for them to try out

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Science

● Highlight text:
○ Green: everything that directly relates to the central idea
○ Yellow: evidence and details that support
○ Red: words or concepts that are unknown or confusing

Type
Mason text here
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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

History : articles and other texts

● Highlight text:
○ Green: everything that directly relates to the central idea
○ Yellow: evidence and facts that support the central idea
○ Red: words or concepts that they don’t know/understand

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Art: research on artists or concepts

● Highlight text:
○ Green: everything that directly relates to the central idea
○ Yellow: evidence and facts that support the central idea
○ Red: words or concepts that they don’t know

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Math : word problems

Highlight Word Problem:

● Green - problem - what is it asking you to solve
● Yellow - facts/ numbers provided
● Red - terms they don’t understand

Present Math as an example

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Try it now on your Subject matter Handout

○ Green: everything that directly relates to the central idea/

Problem
○ Yellow: evidence and facts that support the central idea/
Numbers to use for the solution
○ Red: words or concepts that they don’t know/understand

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 Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Questions

Any questions or additional thoughts?

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Please check your email for a brief Google

Form Survey

Thank you for your Participation!

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Culturally Relevant Literacy Incorporated into Reading Strategies

Works Referenced
Muhammad, Gholdy. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Model for Culturally and
Historically Responsive Literacy. Scholastic Teaching Resources, 2019.

Hammond, Zaretta. Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain:

Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Students. Corwin P, 2014.

Schmoker, Michael J. Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve

Student Learning. ASCD, 2011.

Beers, G. K., and Robert E. Probst. Notice & Note: Strategies for Close
Reading. Heinemann Educational Books, 2012.

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