CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Community Context Planning
While planning for instruction, understanding the community context of your students allows teachers to curate instruction that draws upon the knowledge and experiences of learners as a strategy to meeting rigorous learning goals.
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Community Context Planning
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Planning for Community Context Sample: LDC Unit Module
Planning for Community Context Sample: Guest Speakers
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Introduction
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As a graduate of the school district I now teach in, I take advantage of this cultural competency by incorporating community voices in classroom instruction. To effectively plan for instruction, I am both intentional and collaborative with how I structure a learning experience that utilizes community resources and cultural experiences. As a reflection of my teaching philosophy, I consider how gaps in content knowledge or skills can be reinforced through planning engaging instruction for students to draw connections in meaningful ways. The community context of learners does not only allow students to question how their lived experiences are reinforced or challenged in content but also builds rigorous reading and writing skills for students as they analyze literary content and skills through a community-context.
As an educator whose philosophy of teaching centers on the assets of community and youth empowerment as the foundation of classroom culture, I plan for instruction with the community-context of my learners at the forefront. Primarily during unit and lesson planning, I draw in resources, ideas, and potential essential questions that illustrate connections between community and content. To ensure all community-context planning effectively addresses how I support every student in meeting rigorous learning goals, I construct informal and formal lesson plans that are standards-driven and present an opportunity to reteach or reinforce content skills. As an ELA teacher, it is a necessity that students are engaging in rigorous reading and writing tasks during a lesson that reflects community context. Since community reflects the shared culture of a collective of individuals, I often plan for community context through drawing upon shared experiences of my students and utilizing content knowledge and skills to build community for students.
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Planning for Community Context Sample: LDC Unit Module
As a teacher, it is my responsibility to utilize the district’s Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) module curricula as a guide to instruction rather than the sole planning resource. In addition to adapting the LDC module to differentiate and scaffold content knowledge and skills, I also plan additional instruction that will reflect the learning styles and culture of my students. While there are instances throughout the LDC module that reference knowledge and experiences that are Baltimore-specific, they are often outdated (i.e. reference to previous elected officials) or not presented to students in a meaningful way that furthers critical thinking. As a result, I plan for instruction with community context in mind to always consider how youth experiences on a local, national, or global level can deepen connections to essential questions and standards-based learning objectives.
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Since the LDC module includes a required core text, I plan for instruction throughout a unit by identifying opportunities to introduce community context that is relevant to instruction. Through a backwards planning model, I identify the intended standards, content knowledge and skills, and formative assessment that the LDC module hopes to address and evaluate how community context could further the learning goal. Then, I begin to craft resources and readings that can reinforce the standards and skills and determine additional differentiation or scaffolding needed for students to demonstrate mastery. Through the LDC module, I plan for instruction that builds upon the knowledge of learners and their community context that is reinforced through content literature and practicing higher-order critical thinking.
As shown in the document to the left, this day's LDC unit lesson plan focused on conflict escalation and a cross-analysis comparison of the core text and a supplemental text. The red box indicates the learning objective and standards of this district lesson. To effectively plan for instruction that engaged students in community context learning, I provided two additional supplemental texts to analyze in connection with the core text and content skill. This LDC lesson is relevant as it demonstrates how I enhance the learning goals and standards mastery by strengthening the lesson through planning with community context resources in mind.
The student handout shown above represents a sample of how I plan for instruction to introduce a supplemental text on community context during a LDC lesson. As shown on page 2, I include two additional poems related to the lesson's task on conflict escalation. While Countee's poem offers students community context through a cross-disciplinary historical lens (written about Baltimore segregation), Afiya's poem was written after the 2015 murder of Freddie Gray and presents her first person narrative of conflict escalation in the community during this time. I am familiar with both texts due to my personal research and resources in my community context. By constructing this handout, I utilize my planning time effectively to engage students in academic discourse related to the LDC core text but deepens its relevance through community context.
The PowerPoint presentation that accompanies this lesson and handout represents a sample of how I plan for instruction that will incorporate the community context of my students. As shown on slide 8, I introduce key facts about each writer prior to reading the texts to build background knowledge on community context for students. Since Afiya is currently a high school senior at a public magnet school in the city, this not only motivated student engagement through identifying a shared expeirence, but it also reinforces the importance of planning for instruction to adequately provide key details and analysis that can deepen the learning experience. By constructing this PowerPoint, I demonstrate how I plan for instruction through providing visual anchors and guiding practice that draw connections between content and community context.
The two documents above demonstrate how I utilize the LDC lesson plan to plan for instruction. While the LDC's lesson utilizes the graphic organizer for students to demonstrate comprehension of conflict escalation, in my planning I extend the critical thinking skills students need to make inferences and draw conclusions about character actions in conflict. This relates to community context planning as the formative assessment will require students to demonstrate comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of how conflict escalates different across various identities and life experiences. To prepare students for this lesson's formative assessment task, I planned an additional layer of analysis in the graphic organizer where students will record examples in the core text and two supplemental texts on Baltimore.
The posters above represent a sample of the finished product of student's collaborative work. As a representation of community context planning, students synthesize not only their learning but their critical analysis of the text connections.
Planning for Community Context Sample: Guest Speakers
​In addition to planning for community context within the LDC unit modules, I also invite community members of Baltimore to shares their experiences and engage in academic discourse with students. As a member of this community as well, I utilize my understanding of the community to plan instruction that reflects the culture of my students beyond the school and classroom.
During unit and lesson planning, I identify 2-3 relevant moments where I can maximize student learning and engagement through a guest speaker that can collaborate with students as they build skills for standard mastery and assessment. Additionally, I adjust my unit plan and instructional schedule for opportunities that offer significant connections between content, curriculum, classroom culture and community. Often times, my planning for community guest speakers occurs very spontaneous or rapidly depending on their schedule of availability. During my planning process, I identify potential community guest members whose cross-disciplinary skills or experiences can further deepen how my students build content knowledge and skills. Likewise, I plan for instruction through community context of guest speakers as diverse engaging experiences reinforces my school’s vision and goals of college and career readiness.
One strategy I employ during planning for instruction to demonstrate an understanding of my students' community context is identifying opportunities to have students read, write, and analyze current events in popular youth culture. This requires planning for community context as I craft lessons that incorporate popular media and cultural phenomenas into content and instruction before it is outdated to my students. Earlier in the year, Kayla James, local college junior, and friends adapted a popular social media challenge and remixed it to be a positive message about being dedicated to graduate college. When her #ForTheDegree challenge went viral, earning millions of views, I was compelled to construct a lesson and invite her as a guest speaker.
The screenshot above illustrates my first action step to engage students with community for the sample intended lesson. At this stage of planning, I did not know the specific lesson plan for instruction, but I was proactively communicating to the guest speaker to plan for her potential visit. Since her prominence appeared throguh social media, I felt compelled to plan an introduction through social media messages rather than a more formal format.
Planning for Community Context
The screen recording shown above illustrates a sample of how I communicate to guest speakers during the planning stage. Additionally, the informal communication and planning process taken prior to their visit is representative of how I engage community members in the planning process while ensuring student learning needs are met. At the 34 second mark, our conversation demonstrates the collaboration of ideas on planning for instruction during the visit. By communicating consistently and collaborative with guest speakers on content-driven instruction, I integrate community context while planning for instruction to ensure the experiences between students and community members impact my students' critical thinking skills.
The documents above are samples of a guest speaker lesson plan (on the left) and PowerPoint (on the right) aimed to strengthen the impact of community context and culture in my classroom.
On page 2 of my lesson plan, I engage students in a close reading of an article in Ebony Magazine about James and the positive impact of her video. Through utilizing a formal lesson plan, I ensured that I constructed a standards-based learning objective that allows students to integrate this community context through a cross-disciplinary artistic written expression and assessment of their learning.
On slide 8 of my PowerPoint, I illustrate my effective planning for community context instruction that builds from the knowledge and experience of my students. As shown, the blue lyrics highlight how I incorporate Baltimore's community context to deepen the relevance for my students. Not only do I adapt James' adaption of the viral challenge by focusing on middle school students' motivation to have a great composite score (an aggregated score based on attendance, grades, and assessment data for students to rank and apply to different tiers of high schools across the district), but I also incorporate Baltimore vernacular, such as "Ain't got time to drag," which represents the cultural communication of my students.
The student work to the left is a representative sample of the majority of my students who completed assignments during the week, leading up to the guest speakers on Friday. The first page illustrates how my planning text-dependent questions on the Ebony Magazine article reinforces academic standards skills (CCSS R.I.6). As shown on page 2, students close read and annotated James’ video lyrics as a form of literary text to determine main idea and key details of student achievement in college (CCSS R.I.2). Moreover, Page 3 highlights this student’s weekly homework reflection sheet, where I planned Monday’s quote and Tuesday’s vocabulary to connect the community context with content. Additionally, on page 4, the student's notes for preparing her own creative representation and video demonstrates her engagement in the lesson assessment I planned (CCSS W.2). Collectively, the sample of student work conveys how my effective planning for instruction with community context in mind manifests through student engagement in reading, writing, and speaking.
This image shows students actively engaged in academic discussion with James about questions they constructed throughout the week on her lyrics, lived experiences, and college and career readiness. By planning academic-driven instruction centered through community context, students were prepared to demonstrate their critical thinking skills prior to the cross-disciplinary formative assessment
This screenshot represents James' reflection and feedback after the community context lesson was planned and implemented. To strengthen her relationship with students she plans to continue visiting and supporting my students as they utilize their reading and writing skills for self-reflection.