Background Knowledge & Content
Clara Barton Elementary School is a small school with an ambitious mindset, serving approximately 356 Pre-K through 8th-grade scholars in Chicago’s historic, working-class Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.13 Historically, Barton is predominantly African-American, but there has been an influx of Latinx immigrants (predominantly from Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela) over the past two years. Approximately 30% of my scholars receive IEP services, and 77% are considered at an economic disadvantage.14
This fall will mark my fourth year at Clara Barton Elementary School as the 7th and 8th-grade Literacy and Social Studies teacher, working with a diverse, dynamic, and driven group of young people. I am excited to teach them because they have varied interests, and they work extremely hard. My scholars are athletes, musicians, scholar-activists, poets, and artists who love to showcase their creativity through poetry, drama, drumline, and visual media like photography and sculpture. While they are enthusiastic and eager to learn, our school community consistently faces academic challenges in reading and mathematics—specifically, for my scholars, in vocabulary development and the comprehension of informational texts. My classroom includes students reading anywhere from a kindergarten to a high school level, with the majority struggling with reading comprehension. Additionally, behavioral interruptions frequently impact instructional time. Because I firmly believe that vocabulary acquisition and text comprehension are deeply connected, I am working to bridge this gap by studying Greek and Latin roots and teaching scholars to use context clues to determine word meanings.15
Driven by our scholars' ambitious spirit, we are slowly but surely making progress. To gain full student buy-in, I needed to combine high-interest content with strong scaffolding, providing activities tailored to how my students learn best.16 Recognizing that my students thrive in sports, the arts, and performance—participating in everything from Drumline, Drama Club, and Majorettes to creative writing, photography, and painting—I designed a project-based unit that leverages these talents. By allowing students to demonstrate mastery through media they genuinely enjoy, this unit levels the playing field, boosts engagement, and empowers every child to create something meaningful.
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