Subverting Curricula and Assessment Design by Using Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices

• In Event: Disrupting the Discipline: Subversive Teaching in the Secondary English Language Arts Classroom

Abstract

Objectives
In this presentation, a secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teacher will examine how she
enacted culturally responsive teaching practices (Ladson-Billings, 1995) in her 11th-12th grade
World Literature course to allow students agency over their learning. She enlisted the help of her
students to develop what she termed a “collaborated curriculum” that was relevant to her
students’ interests, backgrounds, and learning abilities. Subversive teaching practices took place
by positioning students’ voices at the center of curriculum development, collecting on-going
student feedback which informed future units of study, and a final course assessment that asked
students to demonstrate how their thinking about course essential questions developed
throughout the semester as opposed to a traditional multiple choice final exam often used in ELA
courses at her school.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Ladson-Billings’ (1995) culturally responsive pedagogy informed this presenter’s teaching
practices by developing her course with students’ interests in mind. Rather than seeing her
students as passive recipients of knowledge (Freire, 1970), the presenter used her “collaborated
curriculum” to empower her students to have agency over their learning throughout all parts of
unit design and student assessment by specifically having students 1) research and recommend
titles of texts and world cultures they were interested in studying, 2) provide on-going feedback
about class assignments and assessments, and 3) complete a final course assessment that required
them to demonstrate how their thinking developed throughout the course.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The presenter carried out a teacher research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) in her
secondary classroom by examining what happened when she enacted a culturally responsive
curriculum design process that positioned her students’ voices at the center of instruction,
curriculum development, and assessment. The presenter also used narrative inquiry (Connelly &
Clandinin, 2006; Xu & Connelly 2010) to explore her experiences teaching the course, her
culturally responsive curriculum and assessment design processes, and students’ responses to
end-of-unit reflections which were used as research data.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Data comes from the presenter’s secondary ELA World Literature course curricula, student
responses on class assignments, and the presenter’s typed reflections from the 2018-2019 school
year.

Conclusions and Significance
Positioning students at the center of curriculum design, classroom instruction, and assessment is
a culturally responsive teaching practice. Developing curricula and assessment in this way
disrupts traditional ELA teaching practices by making students active co-creators of curriculum,
knowledge, and assessments. This presenter’s pedagogy identifies, interrogates, and speaks back
to oftentimes problematic educational policies and practices—such as prescribed curricula and
standardized assessments—and uses her ELA curriculum to promote secondary students’ critical
literacies.

Author

• Kristen Strom, Knox College