Building Mirrors and Windows: Using Urban Children's & Youth Literature to Connect Teachers to Their Students and Young People’s Lives with the Content We Teach
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
This session will address strategies for strengthening teacher candidates and in-service teachers’ competence in addressing access and equity issues (e.g., teaching students from diverse linguistic, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds) by building capacity in identifying, selecting, and using urban literature in curricula, classroom libraries. The session will also contribute to the knowledge base on the ways content area courses, field experiences, and professional development can prepare pre- and in-service teachers to address the academic difficulties and cultural disconnects encountered by their students by engaging the community cultural wealth of learner’s. These funds of knowledge are valuable resources to teachers if they are used in a way that connects the community-based knowledge to the academic content. These funds allow teachers to utilize children's language and knowledge, to "create instructional circumstances for academic development" (Moll et al, 1992, p. 22).
