Mastery Charter School's Shoemaker educators speak on the importance of teaching for social justice through a socio-historical lens. Students learn to critique when they truly understand socio-historical perspective.
Lesson Study Cycle 3
Our final lesson study group explores the ways educators use social justice frameworks to solve academic and social classroom dilemmas. I had the pleasure of hosting Lesson Study 3 in my 5th grade classroom. My all elementary teaching team seeks to understand how students make sense of society through sociohistorical questioning of primary and secondary sources.
Take a look at our memorialization document below.
To ground our research, we are using a nesting social justice framework. Our primary frameworks are 1.) Teaching for Social Justice, and 2.) Critical Pedagogy
Our Inquiry Cycle
Equity-Based Research Theme: How can we build student’s critical sociohistorical consciousness? Critical sociohistorical consciousness is the exploration and critique of structures and systems that uphold a hegemonic white supremacist, patriarchal, and capitalist society. The goal is to unpack historical narratives, systems of power, privilege, and oppression, and unlearning one-sided historical perspectives.
PDSA Cycles: We noticed that students are having a difficult time unpacking primary and secondary sources about historical events. They don’t (yet) have the tools to look deeply at text and form questions about what is happening. Through a Plan-Do-Study-Act protocol and mentorship from our Knowledgable Other (KO), our team generated two change ideas rooted in developing socio-historical consciousness in 5th grade students.
Students will understand the significance of the Declaration of Independence to colonial society, including British colonists, Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and other privileged/oppressed groups. We focused on reading comprehension as I read the ReadWorks passage below aloud to students. Before reading, we went over text features and initiating background knowledge about the topic using inferencing and dialogue. While reading, I asked a series of questions about the text to activate knowledge within the text, outside the text, and synthesis of the text. We collected data when students questioned the text. Students asked questions about clarifying or misunderstood historical context instead of the importance of reading the text. This PDSA cycle showed that the next PDSA cycle needs to focus on reading comprehension strategies for secondary sources.
2.) Text and Task Analysis Template
Using CRLP Results for Reading Comprehension, I created another structured reading comprehension using a source with more accessible socio-historical information. Students read a ReadWorks article on the American Dream using before, during, and after writing protocols. I wanted students to focus on summarizing information from the text and relating what they know to a personal experience. Students were able to understand what the American Dream can mean for different people based on the article. However, I want them to dig deeper into how they can use this information to apply how the American Dream can differ between marginalized and oppressed groups. This PDSA cycle led our group to design a lesson study based on the science of reading using a secondary source. Students will be able to understand power and privilege through sociohistorical analysis of chattel slavery through explicit instruction rooted in critical pedagogy, social justice, and productive dialogue.
Content Understanding Goal: Students will be able to explain, apply and analyze how enslaved people experienced chattel slavery through reading about why and how plantations sustained colonial life. We want students to ultimately connect their ideas to how racial identity impacts the American Dream’ . We are specifically focusing on background knowledge in the historical text using a Visual Backgournd Overview (VBO).
Theory of Action: If we employ Visual Background Overview while students are making sense of Chattel slavery, then students will have the background comprehension to understand how race plays a role in the American Dream. We’ll see if it’s working by listening to VBO responses, their questions, and a one sentence main idea exit ticket.
Student Historical Inquiry: Is the American Dream the same for all people? What might an enslaved person's American Dream be?
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VBO lesson plan: Activating Background Knowledge Through a Visual Overview
Student Data
Before Reading
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Students were given a pre-vocabulary worksheet & VBO
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Students made connections using the classroom poster.
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Popcorn reading of vocabulary words after VBO
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Popcorn reading allows different voices to be heard.
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Students demonstrated understanding of vocabulary during VBO discussion by making connections (i.e. defining words, creating synonyms, making sentences, challenging a classmate's idea)
During Reading
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Students were looking for vocabulary words in the text
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Turn-and-talk strategy was used to encourage discussion and meaning-making.
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Some students had heard of vocabulary prior to the VBO, many were using vocabulary in sentences
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Repeating vocabulary words
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Looking for evidence in text
After Reading
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Students used vocabulary in their own way
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Students were able to confidently fill out the post-vocabular sheet
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Most students used a vocabulary word during their inquiry write
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Some student burnout pertaining to vocabulary work
The Active View of Reading & Sociohistorical Consciousness
Critical sociohistorical consciousness develops when educators combine liberatory based sociohistorical lessons [liberatory model] with strong science based literary instruction.
Lesson Study Cycle 3 suggests that students need academic and content skills to critically comprehend; and ultimately, take social justice based action. Alongside intentionally designing historical curriculum to build sociohistorical consciousness, equitable literacy instruction must be present to produce critical readers, not just thinkers. How can students unpack primary and secondary sources without the tools to decode the text? Created by researchers Duke and Cartwright (2021), The Active View of Reading is a framework that expands traditional literacy models by emphasizing the meta-cognitive process students need to critically interpret texts. Reading comprehension involves more than just decoding skills; it requires students to develop strong executive functioning skills and cognitive thinking. Reading comprehension also involves developing content, academic, and vocabulary background knowledge.
My two research findings are:
1.) Building strong sociohistorical consciousness means planning and facilitating strong historical critique rooted in equity work
2.) Building strong sociohistorical consciousness also means utilizing equity-based frameworks to form strong readers and thinkers through meta-cognitive practices.
These three lesson study cycles have taught me that education is never neutral. It has the potential to act as the catalyst for deconstructing and reimagining dominant historical, social, and political narratives about marginalized groups. Research suggests that critical sociohistorical consciousness is most successful when students unpack historical narratives, systems of power, privilege, and oppression, and unlearning one-sided historical perspectives. My new goal is to form critically consciousness humans through equity based practices.
