Morgan Smith

My students from Austin bring with them a host of knowledge from their daily lives that can be built upon in the classroom. Our students' "funds of knowledge represents a a positive [and realistic] view of households as containing ample cultural and cognitive resources with great, potential utility for classroom instruction," (Moll, et. al, 2001, Funds of Knowledge). Recognizing that these ample funds of knowledge students bring with them, and thinking about them when planning for instruction, provides my students with more opportunities for success than they would if lessons were stagnant, disjointed, or not meaningful.

One of the many ways that I try to make learning meaningful is through the texts that we read in our classroom community. Each day with every reading mini lesson, we usually read a book, to help teach either a skill, strategy, or genre. The selection of books is thought out and purposeful. Some of the purposeful ways that I choose a book are by thinking about its complexity, purpose, significance, authenticity, visual illustrations, learning activities, role models, and authorial sources. I select a wide variety of books that both represent characters of their own racial background, but also plenty of texts that expose them to other cultures as well. I also believe it is important when using books that have African American characters, that students are not hearing about the accomplishments of the same, few, high-profile individuals repeatedly, and that they are being exposed to a myriad of stories within their own culture.

Below, you will find a small selection of the many books that we read this year as a class. If you hover over each book cover or click on one, it will tell you what it was that students learned how to do from that particular book.

Through this book, students learned to identify characteristics of biographies and autobiographies.

Through this book, students learned to identify the main idea of a text by creating an appropriate title based on what it’s mostly about.

Through this book, students learned to identify the main and supporting character in a story.

Through this book, students learned to identify the setting (both time and place) of text .

Through this book, students learned to identify the solution to a given problem.

Through this book, students learned to make connections between themselves and others and identify how these connections help us form relationships.

Through this book, students learned to identify and define common positive and negative traits of characters: caring, honest, loyal, competitive, selfish, and arrogant

Through this book, students learned to determine what characters are like by looking at the characters’ actions and words.

Through this book, students learned to explain why characters act and react the way they do.

Through this book, students learned to make text to self connections about characters using prior experiences.

Through this book, students learned to define inferences and know that they need to use prior knowledge and text evidence to make inferences.

Through this book, students learned to make inferences about characters.

Through this book, students learned to recognize and describe relationships between main characters.

Through this book, students learned to identify the cause and effect of events within a text.

Through this book, students learned to define theme and identify it based on story events.

Through this book, students learned to recognize common themes within texts.

Through this book, students learned to identify the order of events in a story in sequence in a text using “order words” and points of reference.

Through this book, students learned ro identify main idea of a non-fiction text using the details in the text.

Through this book, students learned to define topic sentence and main idea.

Through this book, students learned to explain the main idea of a text through using text evidence and own ideas to support their reasoning.

Through this book, students learned to write a paragraph summary.

Through this book, students learned to identify a moral within a fable.

Through this book, students learned to identify cause and effect within a Fairytale

Through this book, students learned to determine e the setting in a fiction and nonfiction book.

Through this book, students learned to explain the effect a given situation has on a character’s (feelings, opinions, actions, or personality)

Through this book, students learned to identify a text that is written to persuade.

Through this book, students learned to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text.

Through this book, students learned to determine multiple important characters in a book by what they say and do.

Through this book, students learned to make text-to-world connections.

Through this book, students learned to make text-to-text connections.

Through this book, students learned to ask questions to clarify reading during and after reading

Through this book, students learned to make text-to-world connections while they read.

Through this book, students learned to determine the sequence of events of a chapter.

Through this book, students learned to identify following types of context clues (synonym, antonym, example, and explanation)

Through this book, students learned to their inferences to make summarize and make a generalization about the life accomplishments of a person.

Through this book, students learned to identify cause and effect in a real person’s life.

Staying late after school has provided me with opportunities to not only talk to students in an informal setting, but to talk to parents and to build strong relationships with them. I frequently talk to parents after school when they pick up their children, and I make phone calls to parents that I don't see that often. I have developed relationships with the students in my classroom, as well as their parents as a result of so much interaction. Because these relationships have been built not only with the students, but the families as well, I am able to create a safe space for students in my classroom to question, to learn, and to hopefully become their community's own agent of change, even if I am not there in the future.

This year, I sent home weekly parent communication newsletters, so that families would know what was happening in our classroom. In each newsletter, there was a push to have parents work with their children on their word-work homework as well as information about the happenings in our classroom.

Because I was able to maintain good contact and collaboration with the parents of students in my classroom, there wasn't a disconnect between students' home lives and their school lives. Instead there was a strong cohesion between the two. Students' motivation increased because they knew that their parents were involved in their education, and it allowed me to push my students harder academically, because I knew that I had the support from parents and families.

To see an enlarged copy of the newsletter, click on the image.

One of the biggest barriers that I have recognized as a resident teacher, whose future place of employment is unknown, is being seen as only a temporary part of the community. To combat that skepticism is hard, as I myself am unsure of where I will find myself teaching in the future. The only thing I have found is to immerse myself whole-heartedly into the Austin Community presently. One of the ways in which I have become a part of the community is through my involvement with the Girl Scout program at Howe, where I work with girls in grades 1-3 on topics such as: self esteem, money management, healthy living, and bullying.

In addition to my involvement in the girl scout program, I frequently stay after school to participate in Family Reading Nights, sports events, and other community events within the school community.

Most of my students stay after school for some activity, whether it is a sport like soccer or cheerleading, an academic activity like "Mad Scientist", or a community organization like Girl Scouts, or the "By The Hand Club for Kids" a few blocks away.

My students are so proud to be involved in so many ways, and are always eager to tell me about what they are doing in their different after-school activities. I typically stay in contact with the By The Hand Director, which is helpful because she can then work with my students after-school on things that we worked on in class. This way, they are getting reinforcement of what we learned in class, during after-school.

In addition, I make it a habit to visit each of my students in their after-school environment so they know that I am invested in all areas of their lives, and not just their academic lives. I then try to incorporate their after-school experiences into some aspect in the classroom environment, whether it is through an example in a whole group lesson, or a word problem in the homework.

Because of my involvement and my dedication to knowing what types of after-school activities my students were involved in, and my drive to get to know the adults that facilitated them, my students understood that I was deeply committed to them not just as students, but as people too.

This facilitated strengthened relationships with my students, their families, and those people in the community who also share a desire to impact the lives of my students. It deepened the cohesion between community and classroom, which is critical to the success of a school in a high-needs environment.

        Over the last eight months, I have really gotten to know the people who live in this community, and the people who are committed to the revitalization of Austin. One of those people is support staff member, Laverne Stone at Howe School of Excellence: She frequently tells students: "The community you live in does not make you. YOU make the community. You can only change this community and make it better by getting an education.
       This is something that I have begun to incorporate into my daily lessons as we talk about the things that are going on in the community during our Morning Meeting. Students get a chance to share what is going on, and then throughout the day, I try to incorporate what I've heard them talk about in a meaningful way in the day's lesson. Usually I can include it into the "hook" of a lesson, an example of some sort, or if I can't incorporate it, I try to have a conversation with the student who shared so we can dialogue a little more about it.
       Below is the community walk video that I worked on with the other Howe residents as we examined what positive community assets there are that work to revitalize the Austin community. It is important to always focus on the positive aspects of a community, even one that is so ridden with violence, poverty, and drugs because despite the difficulties of the community, this is where our students come from. If we focus on those negative aspects, we risk contributing to the achievement gap by perpetuating the "stereotype threat" that is talked about in Gloria Ladson Billings' article, From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Frankly, there is not enough time to spend focusing on the negatives, because there is so much work to be done to make sure our students from Austin get the education that they deserve!

Next year in my own class, I am looking forward to creating a parent call log, where I can track the different phone calls that I make, and the topic of conversation that was addressed. This will help me know which parents I frequently contact, as well as those that I need to contact more often.

In addition to the paper copy of the newsletter, next year I look forward to being able to email my parents a copy of the newsletter (since many have expressed that they don't typically receive the paper copy). I am also looking forward to creating a class website/blog that is updated weekly, and a class twitter account. Each day, a student will be able to update the class twitter account at the end of the day to inform those who receive the tweets, what we learned that day! I think it will be a great incentive for students, as well as a great way to stay in touch with parents in this digital age we live in.

@font-face{font-family:yola_heading_font;src:url("resources/HoW tO dO SoMeThInG.ttf");}Morgan Smith's Portfolio

Morgan Smith's Portfolio