Professional Artifacts

Daily check-ins like "Would You Rather...?" and Mood Meters are a great way to kick off class in a fun and non-threatening way that centers students' voices. Students build rapport with each other and myself, they engage in discussions outside of academic content, and we get to discover more personal details about our thoughts and experiences that don't always come up in our content discussions.

The classroom community that I aim to foster is one built around empathy, patience and support. I begin the school year by reading "In Lak'ech," and I continuously come back to it to remind students about the importance of lifting each other up- because if they tear someone down, they are essentially tearing themselves down in the process. Students really gravitated towards this poem, and we used it as the foundation of our community norms that we established together.

Every Wednesday I would lead a mindfulness mini-lesson that focused on different ways to be mindful, centered and self-aware human beings. Students and I explored both the concepts and practices that they could take with them into their daily lives and interactions- many of which would throw my students into a state of depression, stress or anxiety. I would routinely ask if the exercises helped center them; if so we'd integrate them back in the mix, and if not we'd move on and continue trying new ones in order to best serve my students' needs.

This past year I routinely led very curated writing and discussion activities in order to address the horrific murders of Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. These activities were intended to address intensely emotional and personal issues that were important to my students, while simultaneously keeping the discussions focused and centered. After reading a graphic strip about the fatal incident, I had students use sentence frames to help guide them in their analyses and citations of the stories. Essentially, students used the Articles of Human Rights as a lens to argue whether a person's rights were being upheld or ignored.

Each week students would write a personal journal entry, and this particular prompt asked students to create a visual that reflected their identities and values. This assignment helped them engage in learning because they were able to make personal connections to a Newsela article they read the previous day about social identity. Students examined their characteristics and interests, and reflected on the things that shape and influence their identities such as: their families, backgrounds and life experiences. This allowed me to build on students' funds of knowledge while they connected the academic article to their daily lives.

I consistently use scaffolds and supports in my lessons and learning tasks to support my wide range of learners. Guiding questions, sentence frames, vocabulary, and read alongs with texts are just a few ways that I support my students who are English Learners, have special needs, or are struggling readers on a daily basis (as seen above). By supporting my students in the learning process, I ensure that all students have the capacity to participate and share their thinking with one another- regardless of their performance level.