Welcome to your class portfolio!! The purpose of this site is to show CAPE the development of your arts integration partnership, as guided by your big idea and inquiry question. 

Make sure you have the following:

1. Planning Form: You must fill out the planning form by October 15th

2. Reflection Questions: Make sure you have your reflection questions filled out for each semester

3. Class Documentation: Include your best documentation with captions. Note about videos: upload videos to your designated folder (click on link here), and then embed the video on this page by clicking "Drive" (under "Insert") on the right-hand side menu, then selecting your video from that folder under "Shared with me." 

IMPORTANT: 

• Please do not edit any other pages other than this, your class' page!

• Please make sure that all media that you upload only displays students whose parents have given consent to their documentation through the signed Media Release Form. Should you upload images of a student who has not given their consent to be documented, please make sure to blur their face.

Reflection Questions

How do you understand the concept of sensemaking in relation to your teachig practice?

I have to be honest, I thought the linked article by Thomas Aston was badly written, full of jargon, and seemed like Internet Salad. However, I often think of sensemaking in relation to this passage from Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks: 

Living in childhood without a sense of home, I found a place of sanctuary in 'theorizing,' in making sense out of what was happening. I found a place where I could imagine possible futures, a place where life could be lived differently. Fundamentally, I learned from this experience that theory could be a healing place. When our lived experience of theorizing is fundamentally linked to processes of self-recovery, of collective liberation, no gap exists between theory and practice.

My hope for arts and art-adjacent education is that it strengthen's student's ability to theorize from their own experience of the world in the healing and liberatory way that hooks describes. In a high-school setting, I see opportunities for this when 1) creating spaces fro students to share their experiences in school and at home, and to reflect with each other (peers and teachers) on those experiences, and 2) creating opportunities for students to take agency over an aspect of their environment or experience. 

What is something that you’ve learned about your students (and their funds of knowledge) that has influenced your class projects or class structures?

The "funds of knowledge" that our students bring is so important for gardening education, because many of our students have familial and ancestral plant traditions, and the separation from or destruction of generational plant-based knowledge is a lingering tool of colonization. We let students' cultural familiarity and interests drive our decisions in what seeds we seek out and grow. This is something I'd like to build more structured learning around. 

How have you investigated your teacher inquiry questions thus far? 

Unfortunately, we've been working through some challenges acquiring lumber for raised bed repair (CPS vendors have changed and we haven't been able to find a CPS approved vendor that will sell us lumber, but we're still searching). In the meantime we've begun dismantling the raised beds that need total reconstruction, planting winter crops (one of the student's inquiries), and transplanting some of our perennial crops into new beds we built from cinderblocks to protect them from the landscaping contractor. We also experimented with making hot sauce from our peppers!

Class documentation: 

**IMPORTANT: Make sure to describe all photos in detail-- What are students doing?  What are they learning? How are they engaging in sensemaking? How are they exploring their inquiries?**

Reflection Questions

Class documentation