Article 4: Negotiating Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Through Multicultural Literature

October 4 – 10: For this article there are two lead blogger, Samantha and Casey. They will post their lead blogs by midnight on October 7. Follow-up blogs are due midnight on October 10. Please make sure that there is a least one follow-up blog to each lead blog.

5 Responses to "Article 4: Negotiating Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Through Multicultural Literature"

Casey Vanderpool says:

October 7, 2018 at 11:03 am

Mariana Souto-Manning is an elementary school teacher who conducted an action research study on her first grade class. In Negotiating Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Through Multicultural Children’s Literature: Towards Critical Democratic Literacy Practices in a First Grade Classroom, she discussed her study. The purpose of her study was to build a learning community in her classroom in which diversity was truly respected and every perspective was valued. Her research questions reflected the following topics: considering multiple perspectives without exclusion, meeting children’s needs without segregation, and valuing student diversity without trying to correct it (Souto-Manning, 2009).

Her desire to build a true learning community was hindered by the fact that her students did not know how to truly see things from multiple perspectives. Her method for the research study was based on a critical theoretical framework to teach critical literacy. In essence, she used multicultural children’s literature to facilitate discussions in her classroom centered on social issues and problems the students were experiencing in their own lives. She used the same stories written by different people to show students what different perspectives really were. Throughout the course of her study, her students were able to recognize social injustices in their own classroom. They noticed that only white and Asian students were pulled for gifted resource instruction, only African American boys were pulled for special education services, and only Asian or Latino students received English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services. She collected data by taking copious field notes, interviewing students and teachers involved, recording conversations and situations in the classroom, and keeping journals (Souto-Manning, 2009).

Once her students recognized this segregation, they decided they wanted to do something about it. The plan they formed was to stay in the classroom to receive all their instruction. They also asked to have their first grade teacher move with them to second grade. Knowing her students would still need to receive services, Souto-Manning asked the gifted, ESOL, and sped teacher to push-in and collaborate. Parents were contacted and with support from most of them, she took her idea to the principal. She asked permission to loop up to second grade with her students and have an inclusionary classroom. The principal reluctantly gave permission, and Souto-Manning reported many eyes in her classroom that year; however, she also reported success with her students. Besides many people in her room observing her methods and instruction, she addressed some other issues she faced. Her time spent planning with the co-teachers meant she worked longer hours planning. Additionally, getting parental approval was difficult. She also mentioned she does not know the obstacles to using this model on a wider scale (Souto-Manning, 2009).

This article showed action research as a process in the context of the classroom. Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, and Maguire (2003) discussed the different aspects of action research in the first article we read: Why Action Research?. Souto-Manning put those into practice and outlined them in her article. According to Brydon-Miller et al., 2003, the main goal of action research is to bring about social change. Souto-Manning and her students used literature to build learning communities that facilitated social discussion. From this discussion, the students recognized the segregation and exclusionary practices of pull-out programs and came up with a plan to change things (Souto-Manning, 2009). Additionally, action research is about collaboration with both the participants and other researchers. Souto-Manning’s participants, her students, were responsible for coming up with the plan that could potentially change the injustice they felt in their school. As the teacher, she facilitated their idea and did her best to make it happen in the framework of what was best for her students. She also worked with the gifted, ESOL, and sped teachers to ensure that her students all got the instruction that fit their needs. As evidenced by her methods, her plan was flexible and fluid based on what was happening right then in the classroom. This aspect of action research is one reason many Institutional Review Boards have decided to not allow action research. However, it is clear that this worked for Souto-Manning, as she had to change her routines and pacing based on the understanding of her students.

Before reading this article, we have read about the purpose and process of action research or ethical issues we may face while conducting action research. That background information laid the foundation for us to be able to read this research study with understanding. Many of us were feeling overwhelmed at the idea of conducting this type of research in our classrooms, especially considering all of the ethical implications. This article was a way for us to see the success of action research. For me, the idea of bringing about social change is daunting when I think of the third graders I teach. Souto-Manning was able to bring about social change and started her work with first graders! This article gives us a first hand account of action research in the classroom and the knowledge that it can be successful. It shows the possibilities and things we, as teachers, can accomplish if we work together with our students and give their voices a chance to be heard.
Samantha Muse says:

October 8, 2018 at 10:59 am

I loved this article. To me, it showed that young students are able to understand very complex issues with support from a great teacher. At the beginning I was very confused at how she was going to be able to show change without quantitative data. There are no tests for cultural understanding in the first grade, however it’s amazing to me that she was able to convince her STAR parents to agree to the “push-in” method for second grade. The real conversations she was able to add into her article really helped me understand the changes in thinking her students were having over the course of the year. This was such an interesting article to read because it shows how going above and beyond for your students can leave a lasting impact.

Critical literacy was something that I was able to see during my time student teaching in fifth grade and I loved being able to read about it being used in the first grade classroom in this article. ___ was able to implement her critical literacy curriculum while following mandated curriculum to expand on what the students were learning. I think it’s important to have students discuss meanings in picture books that you read. With a little bit of extra work, a teacher can pick picture books that address language arts topics and can address deeper issues.

The qualitative data collection was very interesting to me as well. My background at Faison relies heavily on quantitative data to show learning and progress, but Souto-Manning was able to coach students into presenting what they had learned about “pull-out” programs to other teachers, the principal and their parents in order to show the progress they had made. Souto-Manning’s class was very diverse and she led the book discussions as very student-based allowing their personal opinions to be heard which let the students become actively involved in what they were learning about.

My favorite part about this article was when Manning-Souto said, “I learned that the outlook to which most students had been socialized was a polarized model in which all things could be classified into right and wrong groups. This truth paradigm (Aronson et al., 1995) was hindering my efforts to foster a learning community allowing access to learners from diverse backgrounds – it was fostering exclusion and competition rather than inclusion and collaboration,” and taught about differing opinions using the Three Little Pigs. Using three books to tell the same story was a fantastic way to show how one story can have different sides, and how they might be the same even though on the outside they appear different. This worked really well to illustrate her point because of the written dialogue she included from her students.
Molly Hulihan says:

October 9, 2018 at 5:34 pm

Casey and Samii,

I found this article to be extremely interesting. Casey-I like how you referenced the first article that we read in class and how it connects to this one. I don’t think I would have remembered to pull that back in so good job! I agree with you that this is a good way for us to see how an action research project is laid out. Seeing how Souto-Manning referred to herself at a teacher-researcher really put into perspective how we should refer to ourselves and how to be on the teacher side and the professional side.

Samii-I was also unsure how she was going to show change without quantitative data and how she would be sure that the students really understood what was going on. I really enjoyed reading about the qualitative data and how she interviewed and transcribed since this is something I am totally unfamiliar with.

One thing I am still interested in is how this would work at different schools. For example, I student taught at school that was largely upper-middle class and predominately white. In this school there are still students who qualify and are pulled out for special education and gifted services. I understand that it is different from school to school, but I would be interested to see how students view students being pulled out for services even when they have the same racial and ethnic background.
Timothy Corallo says:

October 10, 2018 at 8:16 pm

Casey and Samii,

I share your amazement (and surprise) in how Souto-Manning (2009) was able to teach her 1st (and then 2nd) grade students to consider differing perspectives and work collaboratively to develop deeper understandings of the topics being learned. I thought using the different versions of the Three Little Pigs to foster conversations about differing perspectives was very creative. I also thought the example she gave of the students sorting the students who received different services by color after reading several books about segregation was extremely powerful. This article presented a great example of how teachers can work to make a big impact on the way our students see the world.

Samii, I also thought this was an insightful article because it clearly denoted a process of systematically completing a qualitative study. This was also the first time I have read a qualitative study and I thought it was really interesting to see the process described from beginning to end. Casey, I agree that this was a great example of the process of action research as described in the first article we read (way to bring it back full circle, by the way!)

Good job!
Justin Bartlett says:

October 10, 2018 at 9:27 pm

Casey and Samantha, thank you for you thorough review of this article. It was very interesting to see that a lot of the happenings in this particular classroom were similar to mine. While reading this article it really hit home for me about being culturally responsive in the classroom and how important it is to be aware of what goes on with the students. I think that this article truly highlighted finding a problem within the educational system, doing research, and explaining the findings. Aside from the article being very relevant to today’s classroom, it is even more relevant to see the structure of how the research was conducted and what was done after the data was analyzed.

I would agree with the common amazement of how she collected quantitative data on the view point of the students on pull-outs in their class. I would have definitely thought qualitative would have been the way to go for this. Over all I feel as though this whole research was nicely executed and the attention that it bought to a very present problem across our nation was done very well. What I truly appreciate about this article is how seamless the data collection and the research was so seamless within the classes over the two years. I believe that without projects for this class, the goal is to continue teaching as usual but use it as an opportunity to collect and analyze our teaching practice. So this article, at least for me, had a twofold meaning—one, action research really isn’t as hard as it may seem; two, our teaching practices have to be reflected upon as this is the best way to make the necessary changes with the ever changing curriculum and culture.

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