discourse & language

6) Students interact with and use diverse academic discourse, welcoming all forms of langUAge and communication within the class discussions and materials. 

Students are reminded of and apply the co-created classroom guidelines around language diversity.

• Curriculum as a Problem-Based Science Approach to Supporting Achievement for Black and Latinx Students Article explores tenets of culturally responsive STEM curriculum. 

Students have opportunities to contribute to discussions and practice listening using uninterrupted air-time and other strategies that invite a diversity of perspectives, dialects, and different forms of English.

• Use of fiction or non-fiction (audio, video, oral, written, etc.) to learn and discuss relevant course/disciplinary content.

• 20 Ways Teachers Can Give Differentiated Instructions to Students strategies for making instructions clear to all students, including use of technology.

Students are introduced to readings and other multimodal resources that include different perspectives on a specific topic/content area in diverse communicative styles. 

• We Been Knowing: Toward an Antiracist Language & Literacy Education essay by April-Baker Bell about importance for educators to become conversant with the features of Black Language and the cultural/ historical foundations.

• Multimodality, Translingualism, and Rhetorical Genre Studies examines connections between students’ linguistic repertoires and their approaches to composition.

Students read work of scholars that is translated into English from another language.

• Supporting Multimodal Literacy resources from University of Michigan Sweetland Center for Writing.

Students have opportunities to communicate dense scientific academic scholarship to the local or global community for which they are developing assignments and activities. 

• Expose students to a range of communication styles (Tiktok → journal article) and discuss strengths and weaknesses of each.

Students are encouraged to write in different languages and communicative practices to reach a variety of audiences.