Effective Instruction

I invited colleagues to come participate in a fishbowl about The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake. The content of the passage was at the end where Maleeka, who had been bullied because of her academic achievements and her skin color, speaks up and demands that the bully call her by her name. The adults had a very thoughtful and respectful discussion about the passage and made connections to their own experiences. In the follow up response from students, two of my middle school students asked questions. One asked, “What would you do if you saw this at our school?” The other asked, “Why do you think Char was treating Maleeka like that?” The responses among the adults were again, thoughtful and informed by their own experiences as well as their roles as teachers and disciplinarians at our school. The students were very satisfied and again, invited the adults to come back any time. I had the idea to do the fishbowl because two students had used racial slurs against one student in the class who speaks a different language from the others and has different skin color. 

Below are examples of C-E-R paragraphs about a short story, Thank you, Ma'am by Langston Hughes. These are simple paragraphs that respond to a prompt. Following are C-E-R paragraphs about The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake where students are able to reflect more thoughtfully about the text having participated in the fishbowls about the text. These examples show that it's important for them to talk about stories in addition to writing about them.