A Friend of Their Minds: Capitalizing on the Oral Tradition of My African American Students

Abstract:

Yvonne Divans Hutchinson is a National Board certified teacher who has focused for many years on developing strategies to engage all her students in substantive discussions of literary texts and the issues those texts raise for their own lives. In this approach, she builds on the oral traditions of her students African-American and Latino cultures and seeks to support the development of their literacy skills through high standards, explicit expectations, and rigorous literature experiences. Her online 'class anatomy' (a documentation and analysis of one instructional period) juxtaposes video clips with commentary and samples of classroom documents. In the video clips, Hutchinson reflects on her expectations for the class, a student orally presents the 'class scribe' notes from the previous day, the students engage in small group and large group discussion about a racially charged literary selection that had been assigned the night before, and after the class, four students reflect on their experiences in Hutchinson's classroom, and how her rigorous approach and emphasis on dialogue and diversity prepares them for other academic work.

Subject:

Social Sciences

Grade Level:

Secondary

Collection:

Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in K-12 Education