Rationale
School Setting
San Jose is the 10th largest city in America and is the heart of Silicon Valley. It is also consistently ranked in the top five of most expensive cities in which to live in this country. Oak Grove High School serves approximately 1,875 students who come from working class families that are struggling to survive in an increasingly exclusive housing market. The economic and social struggle of our students and their families is apparent when you consider that over 56% of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged and 14% of our population qualifying for Special Education services. Our school is a thriving multi-cultural environment and racially diverse, comprised of over 53% Hispanic/Latino, 21% Asian, 8% Caucasian and 6% African American. Student achievement in language arts has improved in the past few years as measured by mandated state testing, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASP). However, only 57% of our population met or exceed the expectation, while 43% were unable to achieve minimal competency in skills such as reading, writing, listening, and research & inquiry. Similarly, around 42% of our incoming freshmen read at or below a sixth grade level, which is alarming in and of itself.
If you also consider that most have never completed homework in middle school and have a negative perception of reading, the struggle to create a positive learning experience becomes even more challenging. Throughout freshman year, they have generally approached reading as a necessary component of the requirement to earn a passing grade and have only developed a rudimentary skill that really doesn’t demonstrate strategies and certainly doesn’t involve pleasure or appreciation. Our graduation rate has increased 14% since 2011 and our dropout rate has correspondingly decreased, yet this leaves 12.8% of our students who still drop out of high school.
Perhaps some of these statistics are the result of a lack of connection to an adult on campus. Perhaps some of these statistics are the result of curriculum that isn’t relevant or engaging. Perhaps some of these statistics are the result of chronic truancy. Perhaps these statistics are the result of insufficient modeling behavior or insufficient support systems. Regardless of what you attribute these statistics to, it is apparent that there is a need to change.
We have an Eagle Student Support Center (ESSC) on campus which is dedicated to offering the personal and social support necessary to create an environment where our students can be academically successful. The school social worker and a number of interns are inundated with requests to offer counseling and connect individuals with organizations in the community. Our school district, the East Side Union High School District, is focusing on creating Relationship-Centered Schools as a means of combating continuing cuts in funding and maintaining support systems such that we can close the opportunity gap. The ESSC and the Relationship-Centered Schools initiative both suggest that there is an increasing need for our students to feel emotionally connected to and safe within the academic environment. Establishing my classroom as a place where we talk about issues that matter in a sensitive and real manner will create connections with my students as well as between them. It is my hope that English will not be a class that they associate with merely grammar, paragraph structure, vocabulary and reading, but rather that these skills inherently are developed as a byproduct of a strong curriculum unit that is relevant and connected to the real world.
Why Non-Fiction?
Non-Fiction texts relating to identity can be particularly effective because they feature real people with real problems. Students often need this connection with reality to engage with the academic content in my classroom and the relevance of stories about being a teenager is undeniable. Non-fiction is also advantageous when it comes to the literacy demands of higher education and career. Students who are conversant with a variety of informational text structures perform better in college and have built background knowledge necessary for academic achievement. Course texts include letters, editorials, autobiographies, memoirs, contemporary essays, brochures, and journalism. Differentiating instruction through genre makes sense when one considers that a majority of adult reading is to gather information from factual texts. Hence I hope that non-fictions texts will increase student engagement and familiarize students with the form and function of texts. I hope they will also develop an intrinsic love of learning based upon the use of the inquiry approach to content knowledge. Each of the three foci we explore will provide opportunities for students to compare multiple perspectives, while performing the role of a critical thinker. Furthermore, using these pieces as writing models will offer students opportunities to take on the role of author and write using these same lenses to create voice and perspective on the topic.
An exploration of non-fiction in particular will allow me to explore varied excerpts that speak to both the development of identity and the expression of pride in one’s politics, sexuality, culture and identity. These texts will also provide models for the sophomores to learn the power of journaling for their own self discovery and an opportunity to explicitly explore their self-construct. I hope my students are able to find hope in the struggle to cement their identities and faith in their own voices through an exploration of a diverse range of authors. I intend that these texts provide examples of a variety of modalities that allow for self-expression. I predominately want to use non-fiction texts for classroom work and autobiographical poems/songs as creative samples to motivate and inspire my students. I want the mirror they hold up to themselves to reflect a positive image and the lens through which they look at their peers to be an open-minded and respectful one.
My Audience
This specific unit will be perfect for my sophomores, who have some familiarity with the academic standards (Common Core State Standards are the same for 9th and 10th graders) and some understanding of how to be a successful student. This group will be ready to discuss why some of my Vietnamese students use nicknames, which completely differ from their given name, and which are very Americanized. So many of my students act as translators for their parents and feel the burden of translating mature content such as medical and governmental information, yet they rebel against their culture by speaking in English in all possible transactions. Our school is a safe environment for students to express their evolving gender identities in a variety of manners. Students will have the maturity to consider how history has shaped race relations in this country such that movements like Black Lives Matter are prominent in our news feeds. They will be able to analyze their modes of self- expression and how preferences for clothing styles, music, and hairstyles all craft a deliberate identity. By now, they will have experienced bullying and understand how judgments are made about others’ external identity on a daily basis and what modes of response are available to them. They will be aware that exclusion is an act of bullying but is also a component of identity exploration. Overall, they are in a perfect place to examine themselves, their families, their friends, their community, and the world through a lens that empowers them and gives them the language to address concerns in a thoughtful and respectful manner. High quality instruction and learning opportunities that prepare my students to be thoughtful self-aware individuals will intrinsically lead to a positive learning environment, and will prepare students poised for success in college or careers.
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