Connect with Students by Sharing from a Cultural Lens
Learning can be a fragile thing for many students.
When trust and mutual respect are absent, when the classroom space isn’t welcoming, students struggle to learn. When positive, supportive relationships, combined with good teaching are present, however, ALL students thrive. As we approach our third school year that will be impacted by covid I know it’s essential to connect with and welcome my students to the community we’ll build together, so I’ll be using an activity I created last year to start to establish the roots of the supportive, collaborative environment I want to create.
Autobiographical Assemblages
This two-class activity invites students to share from a personal, cultural perspective. It’s inspired by the work of Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, and invites students to share from each of the three levels of culture Hammond writes about.
In the lesson, which I give as homework with planning time in class, students identify objects that represent things they like, things they do, and things that are important to them. Once the objects are identified they are arranged and photographed, then added to a slide deck and shared with the class. Here are the instructions I use.
Creating and sharing this work with my classes was a highlight of last school year for me. I got to know things about students I’d taught for years that I may have never found out otherwise through the personal, meaningful work they created and shared.