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Kicking off season 7 of The Time for Teachership Podcast, host Lindsay dives into an overview of what’s new and upcoming on the podcast. She invites teachers, instructional coaches, curriculum directors, and principals to dive into an enriched focus on student-led discourse.
In this season, we're delving into discourse as a central theme, something that resonates deeply with Lindsay’s longstanding passion. Her PhD program focused on student voice, and continues to inform her work. It is now evolving into a broader discussion on student-led and staff-led discourse across leadership levels. Some focus areas for the podcast in this season will include:
Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Lindsay Lyons: I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons, and here on the Time for Teachership podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. [00:00:16] I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling, and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. If you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach, or teacher who enjoys nerding out about co-creating curriculum with students, I made this show for you. [00:00:36] Here we go Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. Super excited to be here in season seven with the season seven premiere. I cannot believe this podcast has gone on for so long, and yet I can because I love pursuing a long passion project and I continue to find interesting things in the world that people are doing. [00:00:59] [00:01:00] Some brilliant, gracious authors, teachers, leaders who have volunteered their time to come onto the podcast to share their wisdom with others. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, audience, for making this endeavor so possible and, uh, uh, you know, allowed us to continue this great work. For some updates for season seven, we have been, as you may have noticed, longtime listeners, kind of niching down over the last year or so into my favorite topic, which is discourse, specifically student-led discourse quite often. [00:01:33] And just thinking about how everything that we do and all of the mini-series topics we have done kind of touch on this. They connect in some way back to discourse. And I remember on a personal note, when I was in my PhD program, I had a professor whose job was to kind of teach the first c-course of the, the program or the first one when we were starting to really to get into our studies, and it was like, "All right, so what do you want? [00:01:57] Like, you're up there, you're giving a presentation [00:02:00] of either your dissertation or something professionally in the future. Like, what do you want the theme or the topic to be on the banner or the PowerPoint slide behind you?" Right? Like, what is the thing? And mine at the time was student voice because that was what my research was in. [00:02:12] And I-- It's funny, that was, you know, years ago. It's almost a dec- a decade ago, and it is still to this day, uh, student voice in a sense, right? It's, it's very much student-led discourse in classroom spaces and, and staff-led discourse, uh, and shared leadership kind of versions of discourse at the leadership level. [00:02:29] And so really excited to continue this and just name it as a focus. You know, maybe-- I think we'll keep the podcast name the same, but we may see some changes to or updates to kind of taglines or images as we've done over the years, but really excited about this new focus. And so with that, let's talk a little bit about how that kind of maps on to our typical categories or what I've been calling mini-series episodes as we go throughout each school year. [00:02:54] Those will mostly stay the same. I think they-- I always reserve the right to kind of evolve [00:03:00] the thinking and foc-foci, foci of the episodes. But we typically do the following, and I'll kind of name the existing focus areas and then also share how that kind of meets the discourse focus and what that means moving forward in this current season seven. [00:03:19] Okay, so leadership. We've historically done some stuff around leadership. We have focused on Kind of like leadership roles, principal district leadership. We've talked about student leadership and shared leadership, which is how we really entered that first. As I said, it harkens back to my PhD work, um, adaptive leadership as really one of the prominent leadership theories and frameworks that we operate from in a lot of our change work. [00:03:43] We lead change So governance change, adaptive student leadership. I think all of this requires discourse, because if you are engaging with an adaptive challenge, you gotta talk about it. You gotta talk about hard things, right? You have to know how to design, [00:04:00] facilitate, and reflect on or repair harm from any discourse. [00:04:04] Um, that, that's really critical. And so while we think about leadership in this kind of big way, we're also thinking about the stakeholders in the room, and not in the room, but, like, in the room when we're having a discussion, and we're dialoguing or we're deliberating. Whatever we're doing, whatever we're talking about, the purpose of our conversation, um, can be varied. [00:04:25] But how we talk to one another and how we design intentionally for multiple viewpoints to be in the room, and to ensure there's equity of voice and just, you know, all the things we talk about with discourse, I think that's gonna be kind of the lens that we look out with leadership. Okay. The next one, which was a new one this year in season six, instructional coaching. [00:04:47] So we're speaking directly to instructional coaches in the space or, you know, teacher, team leaders, things like that. This is where we want to think about how we coach discourse, so either the planning for discourse, so what's the literal [00:05:00] prompt I'm going to give students, uh, responsive moves, so what do I do as the teacher, particularly coaching that adaptive change to I used to just deliver instruction and have my PowerPoint and go slide by slide, and now I am handing over control, so to speak, to the students, and, like, not sure what the teacher role is. [00:05:16] Like, there's some responsive moves to notice and coach on as you're, um, coaching. You could also do some modeling of how to facilitate that student-led discourse effectively. I think there's a lot of rich stuff there we could do with instructional coach series. Now, our culture of challenge used to be kind of like our culture of challenge and discussion, and that would be where a lot of our discourse stuff lived, and then it just kind of, like, overflowed into everything else. [00:05:39] So that will may, like, kind of be maintained as a cultural, class culture, school culture piece. And specifically, we wanna get into cultivating that culture of challenge that enables us to have really good discourse. So bringing in kind of Hammond's Learn to Learn skills. Read a Hammond's book that came out in 2025. [00:05:58] We've had her on the podcast. [00:06:00] Go back and listen to that episode if you're curious. Super good. But really thinking about rebuilding students' learning power as opposed to over-scaffolding, uh, letting students grapple, like, how to co-create discourse agreements and what that means to have that accountability to those agreements, right? [00:06:14] Like, a lot of themes there around the culture of the class and the space. Okay. We also have been doing social studies miniseries for the last couple of, I think couple of years now. Definitely wanna continue that. I do a lot of work in social studies. Also, we may consider bringing in, you know, a literacy focus or kind of embed that um, and do kind of a social studies/literacy or, like, humanities focus curricularly. [00:06:39] That might mean that we explore curriculum-specific topics for existing curricula or, like, designing curricula with the humanities lens in mind or s- or kind of practicing specific humanities skills. Um, that could mean a lot of inquiry, which of course, and much of the stuff that we do, I just wanna add this caveat, much of the stuff we do in the social studies [00:07:00] band is not specific only to social studies. [00:07:02] For example, a lot of the social studies work we do is related to inquiry. Inquiry is totally present in many science curricula, in, in a lot of, like, illustrative math curricula. There's a lot of other spaces where that is valuable, not just humanities. Um, talking about high-emotion topics, political topics specifically is very social studies and, and often, you know, could be literacy-focused as well. [00:07:25] So we'll, we'll continue that. This is Leah popping in to share the free resource for this episode, a new discourse playlist. You can find it at the blog post for this episode, www.lindseybethlyons.com/blog/273. Now back to the show. And then systems transformation, so lots of stuff here. I mean, we could talk about kind of like adaptive transformation, so again, that kind of leading change that was similar to the leadership series. [00:07:51] We could talk about equitable assessment, which we've done for years in the past. We could talk about kind of peer-to-peer learning and how that shift, like how you shift a culture of a [00:08:00] school to, or a district even, right, from teacher-directed instruction to peer-to-peer learning from even the example, I think, often of Socratic seminars where Students will just look at the teacher when they're speaking, right? [00:08:14] Or, or sharing, and we need to get that teacher or peer-to-peer focus going. We need to cultivate kind of a sense of, "I'm here to learn with my peers. My peers' ideas expand my thinking, deepen my thinking, challenge my thinking in ways that I could never do by myself or just my interactions with the teacher," right? [00:08:32] That there's a real value add in engaging. Um, so again, there's that a- adaptive kind of mindset shift of the system there. Um, also really excited this coming season we're gonna be talking in the systems transformation lens around intergenerational learning. So r- really valuing ways of learning that indigenous folks, for example, have been doing for thousands of years, right, since time immemorial. [00:08:56] That is a centerpiece of, of education and how it is done, [00:09:00] and it is far too rare in particularly US systems that I have worked in and experienced anyways. And like, how do we do that? How do we community partner? How do we partner with families and existing stakeholders within our current school communities? [00:09:16] That's gonna be a really good one, I think. Um, families. We are gonna continue this family series where we are kind of sharing directly with families, creating episodes where you could share them with family members or stakeholders, caretakers in your school systems if that feels good to you. Also recognizing that a lot of teachers and leaders wear two hats. [00:09:36] One is the kind of the family hat, um, and one is the this-is-my-professional-role hat, and noticing, uh, like, for example, I-- my experience has always been in teaching the older kiddos, like in high school And then having a younger kid, like those are similar skills maybe, but definitely different in their implementation. [00:09:56] And so wanting to also recognize that [00:10:00] for the kind of spectrum of things we talk about, there's value at all ages, and it looks different. And so what can families do to partner with the teachers? Um, and also just given my kind of bias towards the younger like parent, uh, experience of where I am, talking a lot about younger kids there. [00:10:16] So any of our early childhood educators, like feel free to tune into those episodes as well, um, as sharing them directly, but also for your professional, uh, role. So that will continue to be a space where we talk, uh, about ideas that families can bring. So current events, how do we talk about those in the family space? [00:10:34] Um, how do we, you know, read and help students engage with books and get that critical thinking going? Uh, are there thematic frameworks that we could work with both in school and at home, and kind of emphasize in both places so that we're kind of spiraling the learning scales? When we think about curriculum design for our final piece here that we talk about, uh, thinking about a unit arc, yes, but also playing with this idea [00:11:00] recently of a discourse arc. [00:11:01] And so what are kind of the discourse activities that could form the arc of a unit? Where does discourse show up within a typical unit arc? I don't think there's any one right way to do a unit arc, but kind of thinking about what that might look like, as well as question prompts. So the literal content selection and phrasing of a question that goes in front of students for discourse is really critical, so we'll do some practice with that. [00:11:22] Historically in the past, we have had people come in and do kind of building a unit live on the show. We could totally do something like that here. Um, discourse formats, talking more about those. Uh, I'm reading a great book right now, which we'll, we'll spotlight ar- around, um, discourse formats and what that [00:11:40] how those could be elevated and tips for those, um, as well as any other resources. We'll continue to, uh, parallel the podcast in our YouTube channel with our five-minute YouTube short tutorials, spotlighting resources that complement this of course as well. Um, and, and then I also wanna just kind of extend an invite here as we think about [00:12:00] panel ideas, um, or, or guest ideas I should say, more broadly. [00:12:04] I think it would be super cool to have a panel. I've had, uh, podcast friends who have done things like this, and it sounds so awesome. So if anyone is interested in, you know, coming on a panel, we are certainly going to be excited about episode 300, which will air in mid-April of 2027. Um, that could be a fun one to celebrate, but really at any point Around any of these topics, it'd be really cool to have a panel of folks on either to, you know, share their brilliance, uh, or y- have a particular focus around coaching conundrums. [00:12:36] So like I could take on kind of a coach role or any, any of us, right? Could take on coach roles and we'll do some peer coaching, and we'll just bring a question to the space or a series of questions around a topic to the space. I think that could be really neat. We could also, this would be so cool, and I think this could fit nicely in the curriculum one. [00:12:52] Um, one of the things that I think we forget about a lot, I have certainly forgot about a lot as a coach in the past and have been [00:13:00] really emphasizing it lately, is analyzing student work. And so when you are doing this for discourse, it looks a little different or is, is a little different. And so if we could model, demo, practice, I also think it's just great to know what other people are doing and how they're processing the pedagogy. [00:13:17] Please feel free to volunteer to come on and unpack a discourse experience on the podcast with us. We could bring a transcript, analyze the transcript. You know, where are the moves that we wanna highlight and celebrate? What are our kind of next teacher moves? Where do we want this conversation to go in the future? [00:13:32] So really, really exciting things. Okay, we have so much goodness for you in season seven. We are going to have our September kickoff, so the rest of this month is going to be the regulated classroom with Emily Reed Daniel, so pulling in polyvagal theory and how do we just create a culture of perceived safety and belonging. [00:13:52] Followed by Joe Schmidt, who is the incoming president of NCSS, and Nichelle Pinkney, who talk about their amazing book, Civil Discourse. We are gonna [00:14:00] have an episode, uh, from me, just myself, where we're talking about reframing discussion prompts, which is a resource created after doing some work with Dr. [00:14:08] Eric Soto-Shud and San Francisco Unified School District and some awesome teachers there. And so how do we like literally language the prompts that we invite people to discuss and talk about? Um, as well as a little bit of a synthesis of that awesome book I was talking about edited by Jane C. Lo. Um, what, kind of why and how we wanna start classroom discussions now, like in September. [00:14:30] Uh, so that's gonna be really cool. We're gonna do an intergenerational learning series, hoping to have Dr. Anton Troyer on. Um, Karen Foley talking about grandmother circles in schools would be so amazing. Ivy Mitchell, who is a Massachusetts eighth grade teacher who has done some fantastic work and continues to do fantastic work around bridging the generations. [00:14:47] Uh, started as kind of like a, a singular event or annual event and now is m- moving into a TV show, which is so cool. Um, lots of stuff. We got stuff coming up for families around, you know, book-based [00:15:00] prompts for conversation We are going to talk about some different, like, dinner table rituals and, and protocols. [00:15:06] We'll have our annual kind of like approach to holiday conversations piece. And then in January, Zaretta Hammond is having an amazing curriculum design event this summer, and we're hoping that we can invite some participants in that to share their amazing curricular creations with us for a January 2027 series. [00:15:24] So that will be super cool. Uh, and, and yeah, oh my gosh, there's, there's so much I could go on and on. I will stop there. Uh, actually no, one more. I just read this wording, and so this is gonna be super cool. We gotta touch base again in August, but, um, Dr. Jada Colmeyer has this great chapter in this book on, on discourse I've been reading where they talk about the Socratic seminars the teachers have been doing with the Pledge of Allegiance, and it's like the first one they do in the year, um, which is why I wanted to air it in, in this month, but it's not in the cards for us. [00:15:58] Uh, it is super cool, [00:16:00] and so thinking about Socratic seminars more broadly, but also what are the specific types of prompts you could play with both like ... I mean, yes, that's a social studies thing, for sure, but I think you could do this in any, uh, you know, kind of as an intro activity in any content area so that you can build the capacity for discourse throughout the remainder of the year. [00:16:19] Because e- like if you have any exposure to schools where pledges are said, this is an entry point for students. Uh, so it could be super cool, and if you're a content teacher who is not social studies, you could co-facilitate or have some sort of like debrief activity where like the social studies person debriefs most of the social studies pieces and themes, and then you as the non social studies teacher could, uh, debrief some more of the, like, discussion format and like- Configuration, um, ways that we interact with one another, agreement alignment, that kind of thing. [00:16:55] Okay, I have talked enough for this intro episode. Get excited. Let me know if you have questions, [00:17:00] suggestions for episodes for the coming season. Really excited to have you back, and our freebie, as always, we're gonna have a freebie for this episode. Our freebie is our Culture of Challenge and Discussion playlist. [00:17:10] I'm realizing as I'm speaking this that I probably should update this. Playlist has not been updated for a bit, but it is certainly kind of a, a best of in terms of the freebies that we have, the podcast and YouTube episodes that we have that all pertain to a culture of challenge and discourse, um, from our first, you know, five seasons or so. [00:17:26] So definitely encourage you to check out the back list of all of the episodes in the past, but that's a good starting place if you are interested in this focused topic. That will be at lindseybethlyons.com/blog/273 to go grab that freebie and get a summary of today's notes from the show. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazzed as I am about my coaching program for increasing student-led discussions in your school. [00:17:53] Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. They say students should be talking for [00:18:00] 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. [00:18:08] If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full-day trainings and discussion protocols like Circle and Socratic Seminar to follow-up classroom visits where I can plan, witness, and debrief discussion-based lessons with your teachers. [00:18:24] Sign up for a nerdy, no-strings-attached brainstorm call at lindseybethlyons.com/contact. Until next time, leaders, think big, act brave, and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Better today, better tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at www.teachbetterpodcastnetwork.com. [00:18:47] We'll see you on the next episode
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In this solo episode, host Lindsay explores the importance of assessing student-led discourse in the classroom. Often, assessment is discussed in terms of grading or projects, but discourse is also something that can — and should — be assessed as well.
While it may be easier to evaluate written work, Lindsay emphasizes why it’s also important to assess verbal communication skills. In this episode, we talk about practical strategies for collecting data on discourse, what to assess, and how to utilize self and peer reflections for continuous improvement. Why? Integrating discourse assessment into your classroom planning can help foster deeper engagement and understanding among students. Educators often rely on assessing writing only, but assessing discourse helps achieve a more comprehensive picture of student capabilities and encourages students to reflect on their communication skills and participation patterns. What? Assessing discourse involves several key steps: Step 1: Collect data. The first step is to get a transcript of a class or group discussion. This can be done by leveraging AI software, recording the conversation on video or audio, or enlisting co-teachers, coaches, or visitors to take a transcript for you. Step 2: Identify what you want to assess in a conversation. There are critical “talk behaviors” (taken from Maria Nichols’ book, Building Bigger Ideas) like asking questions, synthesizing information, and inviting new ideas that are useful to understand, evaluate, and analyze when reviewing the transcript. Step 3: Pay attention to the group dynamics. You can analyze individual and collective participation patterns to understand dynamics and engagement levels, using methods like spider webbing for visual representation (e.g., draw lines between students who are talking, evaluating if it’s going back and forth between a few or if most students are speaking). Step 4: Encourage individual reflections post-discussion. Have students individually assess and provide feedback on their discourse skills and the group's overall performance. You can give them a rubric or ask them to write a note on their strengths and areas for growth. Step 5: Engage in group discussions to evaluate the group’s discourse skills. Go back to your class agreements and see if they were upheld, or if the agreement needs to be edited and changed based on how the discourse went. Final Tip To deepen your student discourse practices, start by encouraging students to face each other during discourse instead of you. Respond to their questions by prompting them with questions that guide further thinking rather than supplying direct answers. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Skill-Based Rubric Templates with you for free, as well as Gabe Weaver’s transcript analysis practice. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 272 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 272, and today we're talking about assessing discourse. Woo. Such a good topic Often we talk about assessments, and often we think about, like, w- the types of, like, grading of essays and, like, all the things. I mean, I was a former high school literacy teacher, so I mean, there's a lot of written work that we think of. But we can, and I would argue should, be assessing discourse as well, whether that is verbal, whether that is ASL, like, whatever the communication, um, is, it, style is, that is going to be really critical to assess something that is not in writing, right? So here are some of the challenges. Yes, it is easier to assess students' written work sometimes for a variety of reasons, often because of the things that we are looking for and trying to assess, but also because, uh, often it is hard when you are focused on facilitating and teaching, and often discourse is mediated by the teacher, and we don't have as much student-led conversation. When you're trying to do all of that, it is very challenging to pay attention to what the students are saying and do any sort of, of, of grading or assessment. Okay, so here are the kind of categories of things we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about how you actually collect the data so that you don't have to do everything in the moment, though you can, but there are ways to kind of collect the data to return to it later, both for your evaluative purposes or assessment purposes and feedback purposes, but also for students to reflect on their own participation, both individually and as a class. We'll also talk about what you can assess, so what are you actually trying to pay attention to and notice and give feedback on. That's gonna be kind of the bulk of the episode, I think. And then we're gonna talk about leveraging self and peer reflection, as I mentioned, and we'll end with a few tips and a freebie. Okay, let's start with collecting the data. One option, and this is a great one if you can, take a transcript. Certainly, you can use some, like, AI-based services to transcribe audio for you. I mean, Loom does it. If you have a certain package, Zoom does it. I wanna say Google Meets might even do it. Um, so you certainly can take an audio recording and then transcribe it using a specific service. But I also think that it is something that you can have, um, like a rough transcript. Like, your role, if you set it up so that the students are truly leading the discussion and you're just kinda t- typing, like, you can do that. The best way, if you have this as an opportunity, the best way I suggest is actually to use either co-teachers if you have them, coaches, instructional coaches, or other people who are kind of visiting your class. Um, say, "Oh, you wanna visit my class? Great. Visit my class, and I need you to do something for me," right? "Can you take a transcript of this whole class discussion?" Or, "We're having small group discussions. Can you please sit in with this group and take a transcript of this group?" Right? Um, you can also rotate if you're doing constant small group discussions, you can take a transcript. Let's say you do one every day. You can take a transcript. Let's say there's five groups of one group on Monday, one group on Tuesday, so on, so on You can also have, and I've done this before, when there are small groups, have groups set up a recording. Like a com- you'll give them a computer, an iPad or something, and just say, "Okay, well, you're gonna like, you know, record yourselves on video or audio," whatever the parameters for your permissions are at the school. But that way you can also just get a sense of like, okay, everyone's recording and I'm gonna be able to listen to it even though there's five conversations happening at the same time. Um, okay, another thing ... Nope, I already said that. Okay, great. So let's talk about what you can assess during a student-led conversation. So I just read Maria Nichols' book from 2019, Building Bigger Ideas. It is great. It is excellent. I think it is written for elementary, but it is totally valuable for all grades, and I'm gonna share kind of a slightly adapted version with some added thoughts of my own, um, from her list of what she considers when she is assessing discourse. Okay, number one, the use of or range of, is the language she used, range of talk behaviors and, and if they're purposeful. So talk behaviors in my mind are things like q- q- asking questions, clarifying questions, or like prompting discussions. So we have a Socratic seminar and there's, yes, a key question, but I'm gonna add my own question. I want to see how my peers respond. Could be synthesizing. So here are the points of agreement that I'm noticing in our class. Uh, here are ... is the one place that we disagree, right? We disagree on this particular thing. Can we go down this path? Um, i- identifying points of confusion. Like, okay, so we're, we're kind of talking about this in two different ways. It's not necessarily disagreement, but we seem confused. Can we go there? Uh, building on others' ideas is definitely a talk behavior that is purposeful. We wanna grow our ideas, and we don't want to just use the frame, the sentence frame. I'd like to add on to so and so because blah, blah, blah, right? But we actually want to deepen the ideas, complicate the ideas, stretch the ideas. Um, so building on i- in a purposeful way. We might also use a talk behavior like inviting new ideas or people into the conversation if they have been quiet. We might just invite to anyone. Maybe it's not a specific person, but we might say to the group, "Is there anyone who thinks differently about this?" Like, let's get a different idea in here. Those are all great talk moves that we can link to purpose. Okay. The other thing Maria Nichols talks about is individual and collective patterns of participation. So yes, this might be something like how much one person talks. Um, spider webbing is a good, like a mapping for that. So you would literally, let's say you're all in a circle, you would draw kind of a circle on the page, l- label where everyone is sitting, and then you would draw a line from one person to the next person who talks to the next person who talks. What this does is it illuminates kind of the pattern of who talks after whom. Is there a particular dynamic where people are talking back and forth and the rest of the class is kind of silent? Overall, how many lines does a kid have, you know, at the end of the discussion versus like, oh, that student never got a line, they never once spoke, right? It, it kind of illuminates things like that. Um, so frequency, pattern of talk, and also kind of like order of who usually goes first. Um, also other things to think about when we think about individual and collective patterns of participation, this may not be what Maria Nichols was thinking, but I think about body language and facial expressions and kind of how the group may... Not using verbal language necessarily, but how they demonstrate their engagement, lack of engagement, other emotions and thoughts that come up, um, in various ways. So that might be something you notice She also talks about strengths of the community regarding discourse. So I would think of the co-created discourse agreements that hopefully you came up with as a class prior to having the conversation. So how well do we adhere to these things? And I think that's a really important thing, I'll get to this later, but to note and, and have the class think about as a group after the conversation as well. But that is something you can note while the conversation is happening. Strengths of meaning-making she's talking about. I, I think this is really, like, deepening the thinking here. So are we deepening the thinking? Are we just kind of abandoning ideas? I have had the great fortune to collaborate and coach an amazing ELA teacher. His name is Gabe Weaver, and he has used reflective prompts surrounding transcripts, I'll mention one in a moment, but any sort of, like, student-led discourse. And he has in- invited students to look at a transcript and think about where could we ... where do we kind of, like, abandon idea, an idea and where could we actually tap back into that and take that into a new place or to go deeper? Like, let's reevaluate. If we could have this conversation again, where do we miss an opportunity to deepen the thinking? Which I think is a really great reflective prompt for students. Um, the other thing Maria Nichols thinks about is how much facilitation is needed. So was this truly student-led or was it, was the teacher just kind of, like, in between each student voice? Is she really or he really or are they really directing the conversation or are they, are they good to go, right? Are they talking to one another, looking at one another? Okay. Other things. And this might be ... This is how I initially started. This might be kind of your go-to right now, but I do think there's value in this, so continue to practice. Key ideas or quotes from the discussion are great things to notice. Also, this gives you an opportunity to kind of synthesize at the end if you wanna give a synthesis just in case your students don't. Ideally, it's student-led, the synthesizing. But if you're gonna do it at first and then turn it over to them later, it's great, great to model. We know this about discourse. Actually, the research bears this out, that modeling even for, like, a week's worth of discussions, like model six or seven times even, when you turn it over to students, they are doing things so, so, so markedly better. Really helpful to model. Anyways, you can identify things that are important to hold onto, so those key ideas, but you could also say, "Hey, this is questionably factual. We're gonna do a fact-checkers class tomorrow, or at least, like, 10 minutes of a class. We're each gonna investigate one of these claims." If it is a blatant inaccuracy, you can absolutely jump in and correct in the moment. I know I say teachers don't talk during student-led discourse, but you can absolutely correct blatant inaccuracies if a student does not. Um, but ones that are like, "Hmm, I'm not sure about this," or, or, "As a class it would be beneficial for us to investigate," hang on to those and repeat those later Okay, other things you can think about or notice or reflect on, subject-specific skill-based standards. So for social studies, this is often claim, evidence, reasoning. For science or math, it might be analyzing a graph of data. Like if they're using a visual support and analyzing that or pulling in information from diverse sources, all of that is really great, and those are skill-based standards that are maybe specific to your subject area. You can totally look for those. Um, we also can assess, like, how students seem to be understanding the content. We can also, thinking about our last episode from last week on the WIDA framework, we could think about for multilingual learners or any students really, the language use. So, you know, thinking again about the key language use. So are we doing like an argument? Okay, well then what are the language expectations, functions, and features of argumentative language, right? And we can think about that six-point rubric that WIDA has to support language building and development. Um, we can also-- I just also wanna name, and I don't think I said this in the WIDA episode, there is a speaking rubric for grades one through 12 that has kind of general indicators for the discourse level, so like the linguistic complexity of the student, um, sentence level, so those are like the language forms, and the word or phrase level, which would be like their vocabulary usage. So that is really helpful. And they also have a really good chart on page 20 of the framework, so again, go back to that episode to get the link, of asking teachers after you have listened to students have discourse, what can students do? What are your next teaching and learning moves? And then what are strategies to support and scaffold learning? So I mean, I think any teacher can do that for any student, but I think that's a really helpful, um, piece to just know exists. Okay, and then I have mentioned this a lot already, but leveraging self and peer reflection is really critical here, particularly because I think about the ways that we interact with our peers, with-- and students interact with their peers in non-classroom environments that are really, truly student-led or youth-led because they are not in a class environment at all. They're just like w- w- we want to be able to facilitate students to have good conversations with their peers and with other people beyond the classroom. And so it is really important that students feel they have the capacity and language to share what went well, what didn't go well, how to have these conversations, but also reflect on them. So what does that look like in a class setting? For an exit ticket post discussion, I like an individual reflection. So have students kind of assess their discourse skills. You can give them a rubric if you have one. Have them note specific strengths and areas for growth. I like to have them give examples. Like if you tell me you're really good at using evidence, well how did you do that today? If you tell me that you're really good at synthesizing, write me a synthesis. If you didn't do it verbally at least, like t-- show me that you can do that skill. I also really like the question, uh, harkening back to Maria Nichols' idea of deepening thinking, James Nottingham writes about growing the thinking, how did your thinking change? Because if it didn't, we need to do something differently, right? Um, but also how did it feel experientially? Like did you feel like you were a equitable participant in the conversation? Did you feel that the class valued what you had to say? Did it feel good to listen and seek to understand, right? Like how did it viscerally feel in your body? We can also have each individual, and collectively we can talk as a group or in a small group about the class as a whole or whatever the group size was for your discourse, and you could assess the group's discourse skills. Again, same thing, note strengths, note areas for growth, give examples, but also do an agreement check-in. So we have these agreements, did we follow them? Did we, you know, find that there was a moment where we actually needed to either adhere to something better or do we need to revise or introduce a new discourse agreement that is not currently in our list, but this specific interaction highlighted the need to add or edit? That's also very possible, right? The agreement should really evolve and grow with the class and with the experiences we have together Again, I mentioned Gabe Weaver's awesome transcript analysis practice. I'm actually gonna link, he said that was okay to share with teachers. It's so great. He has so many of these, but I'm gonna link one example of his transcript analysis. And in that, he actually says, you know, uh, it was him doing this. You can also have students. Ultimately, we want students to be doing this. But where there is an interjection from the teacher or a student move that is great, you want to highlight for them th- that happened in a transcript and invite them, "Okay, check out the highlighted sections. Pick a highlighted section and tell me what was this person doing and why did they do it?" So basically, again, thinking about Marie Nichols identifying the range of talk moves and their connection to a purpose. What was this doing? What was the talk move? And why did they do it? What was the purpose? How did this grow the thinking? How did this, you know, whatever the, the goal was. I think it would be incredibly powerful to have a transcript, share it with students, and invite reflection. And this is one question you can ask them in reflection. You could ask them many more. Gabe certainly has experimented with asking different ones throughout the years of him doing this. But I think the goal is students are not just done with the conversation, they're looking back on the conversation, and they are reflecting on, like, how to grow it next time and how it could be better. Okay, some final tips. I mentioned some of these kind of throughout the episode, but just wanna wrap up with when you are having student-led discourse, they often will look at you if this is new to them. Even if you are sitting behind students, which I recommend, let them sit and look at each other. Encourage them to face each other and not turn and look at you and talk to you. They're talking to each other. That is a big shift. It will happen over time, but do what you can to facilitate that. And if students actually, like, pull you into the conversation, if they ask you questions, often this happens, I find, in a small group setting, so like a, you know, a table talk, like a five, four or five students. Th- and you just kind of go to, uh, to listen in or pay attention to what they're doing W- what you can do in response is to pose a question in return. So, "What do you think?" is, like, my favorite. That's a super easy one to just have in your back pocket, right? "Oh, you know, Miss whatever, whatever, what do you think?" Right? Usually works in most situations. Or you might, if they're really stuck on something, you might cue them because you know they have a particular resource that could help them. Be like, "Oh, that makes me think of your whatever worksheet," or, "That makes me think of this poster on the wall." Whatever it is. You can do a light cue or just pose a question in return. Like, you don't have to completely ignore them, but I wouldn't engage and try to, like, jump in and help if, if unnecessary. Let them try to grapple with it. And they're in a group. Like, they can lean on each other. If the question doesn't work for the kid asking it, maybe one of the other kids will, will pick up. Okay, that is it for this episode. You can grab all of this information, the various links that I talked about, and the freebie for this episode, which is a skill-based rubric template for assessments, in our blog post, which is located at www.lindseybethlyons.com/blog/272 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this solo episode, host Lindsay Lyons discusses ways to effectively support multilingual learners using the WIDA 2020 framework.
The episode provides insights into scaffolding techniques, language expectations, key language uses, and language functions to enhance teaching strategies. It aims to address common challenges educators face and encourage a deeper understanding of multilingual learners' needs for better lesson planning and learner engagement. Why? In many districts, educators are encountering more multi-lingual learners, and may be unsure how to best support them. Further, they may struggle to balance scaffolding with maintaining cognitive rigor for multilingual learners. The WIDA 2020 framework provides a structured approach to language acquisition, making it easier to integrate language learning with academic content. It is designed to support multilingual learners through a research-based approach. It details key language uses, language expectations, and provides proficiency level descriptors to help guide lesson planning and learner engagement. What? The WIDA 2020 framework document is extensive, but worth working through. Here are some key areas for educators to explore and understand. Step 1: Explore the four Key Language Uses (KLUs), which help educators understand how students use language and provide a foundation for lesson planning. They are:
Step 2: Identify language expectations, which are the language “destination points,” or how we meet standards. Language expectations outline the goals for language learning, dividing them into interpretive (listening, reading, viewing) and expressive (speaking, writing, presenting) categories. Understanding these expectations helps educators learn how students are processing information. Step 3: Dive into Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs). PLDs use a six-point scale to describe stages of language development. These descriptors offer educators a snapshot of students' language abilities at different stages, providing a clearer understanding of their needs. Step 4: Embrace Scaffolding Techniques. Scaffolding can be approached on both macro and micro levels. Macro scaffolding involves instructional planning, and helps bridge something new to a familiar or valued experience of a student. Micro scaffolding happens during the lesson, and is responsive in the moment. Example There are a lot of ways to use the WIDA framework — here’s an example if you are teaching a science lesson. The big umbrella is that we need to use language for science. Going deeper:
Understanding this breakdown, educators can take action to support the language features. This could be a lesson to learn abstract nouns, relating verb groups to state relationships or attributes, or learning relative clauses or declarative statements. This helps break down the lesson into specific action steps to help your learners meet the language function. Final Tip Focusing on what multilingual learners can do, rather than limitations, helps leverage their languages and cultures as valuable resources in education. A lot of educators want to support their students by translating everything, but it’s important to see it as a bridge to English development rather than a replacement for supporting language growth. Translation should be used strategically and, instead, focus on what learners already know and what they’re learning. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing DESE's Investigating History Curriculum (includes folder of Language and Literacy Supports in each unit!) with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 271 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 271, and today we're talking about supporting multilingual learners, and we're really using some key ideas from the WIDA 2020 framework. If you are deeply familiar with WIDA 2020, this may be just a little too simple for you. If you are a person who regularly supports multilingual learners but maybe has never looked at the framework or needs a quick refresher, this is great for you. And of course, if you do not know what the WIDA 2020 framework is, you should definitely engage with this episode. So for context, the WIDA 2020 framework is a framework that is research-based. It supports multilingual learners. It talks about language acquisition and breaks down a lot of things. So a lot of schools and districts right now are trying to find ways to support multilingual learners. Many, many of the districts I work with in Massachusetts and across the nation in the United States are finding that they have growing populations of multilingual learners that they are unsure maybe how best to support. Sometimes in efforts to support, I've noticed, and I've done this myself, we, for multilingual learners as well as all children, right, we over-scaffold. We reduce the cognitive challenge of the task instead of scaffolding for a specific reason, like language use, um, or maybe for multilingual learners sometimes we're translating and it's not actually helpful. So we're gonna address some common challenges and questions today, as well as do a quick overview of the WIDA 2020 framework, and of course we'll link to this as well in the write-up of the episode so that you are able to engage with the full document, which is extensive. As well, I will just say if you are interested in this, if you want more episodes like this on this topic of WIDA and multilingual learners, please let us know. We can definitely do more later on as like a part two or an extension Okay, so WIDA has kind of this overarching framework, and then there are many frameworks inside of it. So let's start with kind of the four key language uses, or KLUs you might hear them abbreviated as. This is kind of the most common way that kids use language. There's a lot of overlap. They are not distinct. Um, but we have narrate, inform, explain, and argue. Narrate is when we are conveying real or imaginary experiences through stories and histories. Inform, right, providing factual information. Explain, this is kind of an explanation of how things work or maybe why things happen. And then argue, right, we're justifying claims using evidence and reasoning. So those are kind of big umbrellas, the four key language uses. And then we have our language expectations. These are kind of your language destination points in WIDA language, and these are really the way that we meet the standards. Language expectations can be interpretive, which is really like, you know, listening, reading, viewing. You're taking in information and making sense of it. They can also be expressive. Modes include speaking, writing, representing in some other way, right? So we're interpreting and we're expressing. Taking in, putting out And this, these language expectations, right? This includes language functions, so kind of our common patterns of language use as well as language features, which are the various language resources that carry out particular functions, different types of sentences, clauses, phrases, words, um, this is only, you know, usable for the expressive, uh, functions typically And this helps us learn how students are processing information when we, uh, get, get them talking in these ways and using these various features. So we have kind of these, right, big standards, and then we have key language uses, right? We talked about those before. Then we have language expectations, which we just talked about. And then within that, there are proficiency level descriptors. So they typically use a, uh, six-point scale, um, in the WIDA frameworks, and we'll talk about those more in a minute and where you might be able to find them in the documentation. But they will get even more specific so that you don't have to come up with the specific language expectations for a particular, uh, key language use or for a particular grade that you teach, okay? So just know that these are kind of like these four pieces that are kind of nested within one another in a kind of hierarchy setup for the WIDA framework. Now, one of the reasons this is really helpful to know is because if you are working with a co-teacher who's supporting your multilingual learners, or you yourself are just thinking about planning your lesson, and you're looking through the lens or you're exploring that lesson through the lens of multilingual learner access and language development, it is helpful to know about this framework because then, and there's a ton of resources in this framework for you, but I will just narrate kind of the general gist. You can go in and say, "Okay, well I'm teaching a science lesson," so the ELD standard is gonna be language for science, right? That's the biggest umbrella category. The key language use for this particular lesson is explain. I need students to explain, like, why this chemical reaction happens or whatever, right? Then we dig down deeper, and we say, "Okay, well, the language expectation is that they need to interpret and construct scientific explanations." So this is given by WIDA. You just have to identify that, oh, that's what we're doing. And then you would say, "Okay, so the language function that allows me to do all the things I've said so far is to describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon." Okay? So make sense so far. We're using language for science. We're explaining. Specifically, we're interpreting and constructing scientific explanations, and then what we are doing is describing, right? That's the language function, describing valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon. Okay. And then the very last piece, the piece that we often are going to take action around, right? All of that other stuff kind of guides, like, our focus, so we narrow down, narrow down, narrow down, and then what is the action? The action is to support the language features. Right? That support the function, expectations, key language use, and standard. And so language features we might be able to support in this lesson could be abstract nouns. This is an example given to you from WIDA too, so you could actually find this, um, it's Figure 4-3, in the WIDA framework document. Um, it could be a variety of ways to define a phenomenon, so it could be like relative clauses or declarative statements. It could be cohesion to reference ideas and information across text, which might look like pronouns, substitutions, renaming, synonyms. It could be relating verb groups to state the relationships or attributes, so using language like have, be, belong to. Now, if you are like me and you're like, "Okay, well, I never memorized all of these words that I'm noticing being used in the WIDA framework, and I'm not sure, for example, you know, what a, uh, let's see, declarative statement is or a relative clause is," right? No worries. Of course, this is like something that we can, uh, look up and learn about. But the, the general scope of things is just that we are thinking about the way that kids use language to do things like, in this instance, describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon in science. Right? So digging down deeper and deeper, this is why we have multilingual learner experts and, and folks on our staff hopefully to support, but if you don't, this is something that you can certainly reach out and get help with. You should have at least a multilingual learner point person district-wide, um, and request some professional learning or some, some more support. But if you know the goals, right, and thinking about kind of that funnel and those nested categories, if you know the goals, then you can think about how to niche down and bring up specific questions when you get there. But here's, here's what, what WIDA will give you. So for example, I'm looking right now at a visual, Figure 3-1 in the WIDA framework, and this is a kindergarten standard for language arts. So this is for the KLU of inform. So we got kindergartners who are trying to inform. There is, on the, the image here, um, they are talking about interpretive informing and expressive informing. Remember, those are those two kinds, and so for language expectations. And so there's a list of like what does that mean when we're talking about interpretive information and expressive informing. So interpretive might be you're identifying the main idea and key details of a text. Okay, great. Got it. Expressive informing might be that you are describing those details and facts for someone, right? Language functions and sample language features underneath the umbrella of, like, that inform- informative and informing, um, goal is that you might describe details and facts by using nouns to label visuals. I read this story. I see this picture on the page. I'm going to point to an image of an orange and name that that is orange. Or I might say something like, "That's fruit," right? I will use verbs to label actions. This person's farming, right? I will use prepositional phrases to tell about where. Uh, this farmer is working on the farm. This bird is in the trees, right? Visuals, uh, so, like, labeled drawings that someone could express. So express, remember, doesn't always need to be verbal, but it might be that they create visuals to go with their retelling, and they label their drawings to support their retelling. Okay, so there's this inform is the key language use. We know that there's interpretive and expressive examples. WIDA gives those to us. We can just identify that, yes, that's what they're doing in this lesson. We can think about the specific language functions and features that they are using to do that goal, and then we can think about, okay, well, how might I support my kiddo to recognize what verbs to use or build their capacity for verbs, right? What could I do to, um, increase their awareness of prepositional phrases? Now, the kindergartner does not need to know they're called prepositional phrases, but, you know, how do I help them describe in more detail what is happening in the story or in the image? Okay. Now, big key ideas in the 2020 edition, I kinda wanna zoom back out 'cause that's the general gist of the framework and the things that you do when planning Big key ideas include things like equity of opportunity and access. This is very important. We want students who are multilingual to be able to access the cognitive rigor and, and complexity on grade level for their optimal learning. We want to integrate content and language. This is the second piece or big idea in the twenty twenty edition of WIDA. So content and language are learned together. Here's what WIDA says about this. Basically, l- learners develop content and language concurrently with academic content as a context for language learning, and language as a means for learning academic content. Often, or I should say historically, we have separated these things, and as a teacher and coach of primarily social studies at the moment, these things are so embedded. We are doing literacy when we are teaching social studies, and the literacy develops so strongly, and we see that even in, in test scores and other types of assessment when we are embedding the literacy in the social studies content. There's often peak engagement, there's interest in the content, and language, like, facilitates that. There's also collaboration among stakeholders, so this idea of collaborative learning and the discourse at, like, the individual, like, peer-to-peer group level is so helpful, particularly when you compare multilingual learners with someone whose home language is the same. Like, oh, that's really, really cool and exciting and, and values the development of both languages. Um, and finally, the fourth idea is a functional approach to language development, right? So how is it going to be usable for our particular task? WIDA also has introduced to me this idea of scaffolding. I me- I know I mentioned that briefly at the start as a common challenge, but scaffolding, micro versus macro, is a very helpful thing from WIDA. So macro scaffolding practices refer to instructional planning before a lesson. So this might be during your lesson plan writing or, like, a, a unit plan or, or even a year-long scope and sequence plan. Here is- here are two examples I'll give you from macro scaffolding proces- practices. What does this actually mean? It means you might be thinking about how to bridge from something familiar or a valued experience of a student or group of students to new ones. So, okay, we're introducing this new content. Here's how thematically it might connect to a lived experience of a student or something we've already talked about in class. We're gonna bridge from the familiar to the new ones. We might also offer multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression. So this idea of UDL, universal design for learning, thinking about how we bring together, like, these, these ... or, I guess, expand outward these different ways to engage in something, to represent ideas, to express ideas, is really critical. I think oftentimes, yes, we wanna develop the writing, but we're so niched down into we're going to do this writing thing at all costs, all times, for all assessments, because maybe it's the easiest to grade. Which, by the way, listen to the next episode, 'cause we are gonna get into assessing discourse. Um, when perhaps verbal expression or some other type of expression is actually easier for that kid, or has developed further than th- than that particular student's writing, and it is helpful to know the ideas that they are thinking about, be able to assess the ideas, be able to understand the language they are using, and then help build up the writing. So being able to have multiple means of engagement is really helpful. That's just one small example. Okay, let's shift to micro scaffolding. This refers to interactions with the students during a lesson. So they are responsive. They're in the moment. I got this in my back pocket. I'm gonna cue you or redirect you to this thing that is going to help because I notice a very specific thing you're struggling with, and I need you to be in your zone of proximal development. So- This might look like connecting concepts to students' experiences to make them concrete. So in this situation, I am not building into the lesson this connection to a student's lived experience. I am saying, "Oh, you're struggling with that concept. Okay, got it." We're talking about migration in, you know, ancient civilizations or something, right? I might say, "Oh, hey, like migration. Do you know what that means? Okay, migration. Let's talk about migration." Migration is, you know, moving from one place to another. And so, okay, do we know anyone? Has that been you? Has that been someone else, right? And like cueing that we have either read a novel about, you've had this lived experience about, you know someone in the class who has shared about this other experience. Like, we're not connecting to another social studies ancient civilization. We're connecting to something that is a quick cue for the student to be like, "Ah, got it. I understand." Right? Another cue could be that students need just kind of this reminder or this encouragement to stretch their language as they share their thinking. So if they're starting with something and it's a pretty short or basic sentence, encourage them. "Can you say more about that?" Right? Or even get specific. "Can you, you know, add in whatever type of language you're looking for?" All right, so there's macro and there's micro. I think often we do a lot, a lot of macro, almost to the d- uh, often to the detriment of student learning because we are over-scaffolding. We're anticipating so many challenges that we don't actually like step back and let us work our teacher magic in the moment and be responsive to what students are actually struggling with. So try to lean a little bit more towards micro if you can. That's a stretch for us all. Okay, now I wanna get to some common questions or misconceptions before we wrap up the episode. Proficiency level descriptors, I briefly mentioned those as part of the overarching framework, PLDs for short. These are kind of those six levels, that kind of six-point rubric that WIDA often measures by or assesses by, and these are kind of the typical pathways of development, so from one to the next to the next, right? All six, six kind of phases of development. Sometimes we in schools, for a shorthand, will say, uh, "my level one students." Okay. Here's what WIDA says, and I agree. "A proficiency level does not categorize a multilingual learner." It is not a level one student. Rather, what this does, it identifies snapshots of what a multilingual learner knows and can do at a particular stage of language development. So you may switch to saying, for example, and being really specific, right? Th- I think this is the important part too for me. "A student whose listening performance is at a level one." Ah, okay, so now I'm not thinking about the student categorically as like a level one student, which has a certain connotation, but I'm saying the last time that I assessed their listening specifically, this one skill, the assessment came to a level one. Right? So this snapshot in time, this specific skill, it was level one, right? Um, additionally, they talk about how the PLDs should not be used as restrictive examples or as a finite list of student abilities, nor should they be used to limit access to complex texts and grade-level materials. We talked about this. Participation in rigorous learning or engagement in meaningful classroom discussions. Finally, the grade-level cluster PLDs should not be used to lower expectations or slow student growth. Okay, I think this is just, like, an important reminder. I think many of us who are engaging with this episode know this, but I just wanna encourage us to name it or change our own language if we are around it and we're inundated with it. I know that is challenging. But trying to be really specific, like if someone says, "Oh, my level one students," um, an, an often a nudge that I like to use is just like, "Level one for dot, dot, dot," right? Like, for listening, for writing, for reading? Like, like, what skill are we talking about, right? Um, and then that will prompt some kind of rethinking. Okay, the other big question that we get is when to translate. So a lot of teachers will say, "Okay, really wanna support. I'm gonna translate everything." And the amazing people who supported Investigating History, uh, which is the Massachusetts social studies for grades three through seven curriculum, um, there are some awesome folks who supported the multilingual learning scaffolds and supports and language and literacy building for the curricular revisions. They're amazing. Here is a summary of a table, and I'm gonna link to the curriculum for this episode as well, um, just because, oh my gosh, there's so much in there. So if you actually go to the curriculum, open up any unit, what you can do is you can see the, um, folder titled Language and Literacy Supports, and you can see, like a skill specific resource. Usually, it's like a one-pager that you can use pretty much in any content area, I would say, like, in, in, in multiple grade levels. I mean, it does evolve grade by grade, but I think it's really cool to give you a sense of, like, what does an appropriate scaffold look like? Okay, anyways. Translation can be a useful tool, they say, but it should be used strategically. It is important to use translation as a bridge to English development, not as a replacement for supporting language growth. When using translated materials, guide students to compare structures across both languages, and the chart below offers guidance on when translated materials are most appropriate. So I'm gonna read it to you. When to use translated materials. When newcomers need support with initial concept development, okay? So they have no understanding of this particular concept, and we have tried to, to ascertain that. We're not just assuming they don't know, right? That's important. When students develop personal multilingual dictionaries of key concepts and terms. Yeah, absolutely translation is helpful for those key vocab words, right? When students need to understand critical background information, they-- so again, when we know that they are lacking the background information, not when we are assuming they lack background information, but we need to be able to get that to them. You can give that to them, um, in a language that's most comfortable. When clarifying complex directions, obviously for assessments, new routines, directions are new. We need to make sure they understand it. You can totally translate that. That makes total sense. When we wanna use other approaches and not translate. When they need the language practice, right? Which is often, right? When language objectives target specific language structures to be used in English. When students are able to understand the content using their own multilingual knowledge or access scaffolds in English that support language development. When students need to build academic language, okay? So when they understand the gist, they understand the key concepts, and they're trying to build academic language around a topic, we want to try to use other approaches and not to translate everything, right? Okay. Great, and the last question, um, is not really a question, but just I think a like a, sometimes a confusion point of, like, what asset-based means. And so often we're talking about asset-based instruction, asset-based pedagogy. So WIDA has a can-do philosophy, which is amazing. It is like what can they do? Uh, there are 10 guiding principles from this. I'm gonna share two with you. Principle number one, multilingual learners' languages and cultures are valuable resources to be leveraged for schooling and class life. Leveraging these assets and challenging biases help develop multilingual learners' independence and encourage their agency in learning. Here is a quote from WIDA on page 18, "Drawing on students' linguistic and cultural resources is essential to helping them navigate life in a diverse world, in addition to supporting them in meeting demands of academic content areas as they advance through school." End quote. Okay, so definitely valuing the language and culture. They are resources to be leveraged. And then 10, multilingual learners use and develop language to interpret and present different perspectives, build awareness of relationships, and affirm their identities. Thinking about Gholdy Muhammad here, right? Identity affirming, really critical. The, the fact that a different experience with different language can offer different perspectives into a novel you're reading, a particular current event you're discussing, like whatever the thing is, that is a value. That is a value add, right? That's gonna deepen everyone's learning, and so let's lean into that. Okay. Finally, I want to remind you that the freebie for today is gonna be that Investigating History curriculum link. You can find that in the summary write-up of this episode at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/271. And again, if you open up any unit, they're all freely available on that website. Click into a grade level unit, and then go to View in Drive, and you'll see the whole folder for that unit. There is going to be a folder labeled Language and Literacy Support. Click into that and you'll see what I'm talking about. It is amazing. And again, please let us know if you want more content related to multilingual learner support 
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In this episode, we talk with Patty McGee, a literary consultant and author of the new book, Not Your Granny’s Grammar. Patty discusses how traditional grammar instruction can be detrimental, and emphasizes the need for a new approach that involves sentence construction, expansion, and combining as more effective methods.
She introduces the concept of viewing grammar as a tool for expression, similar to a painter's brush, allowing for different styles and making meaning on the page. The Big Dream Patty McGee dreams of an educational environment where students find themselves and become who they're meant to be by following their passions, being loved and valued for who they are. She envisions a space where writing, and grammar, can be a powerful tool for identity exploration and voice. Mindset Shifts Required To achieve this vision, educators must reframe their understanding of grammar, moving away from viewing it as a strict set of rules. Instead, they should recognize that grammar is for expression and to create meaning on the page. Grammar falls into three buckets: spoken grammar, book grammar, and standard grammar. One is not better than the other, but all work together to convey meaning and message. Another key mindset shift is to move away from immediacy of expectations, or the idea that it’s taught once on a worksheet and immediately known and implemented. It takes time. Action Steps To start shifting from traditional modes of grammar instruction, educators can follow these suggested steps: Step 1: Understand that traditional grammar instruction doesn’t work, and may have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of focusing on the identification of parts of speech, it’s most effective to focus on teaching grammar through sentence construction, expansion, and combining. Step 2: Redesign your unit arcs to follow how people learn: first, through surface learning, then deep learning, and then transfer. This is in contrast to teaching grammar in units (e.g. learning about nouns first, then verbs). Step 3: Place students in long-term partnerships, pairing them up for the length of the unit or even the whole year. This helps students build off of conversations they’ve had before rather than mixing it up every time. Step 4: Reduce teacher talk time by posing thoughtful questions and allowing students to explore and experiment with grammar concepts. Step 5: “Pause and ponder” -- build in time for reflection, enabling students to ponder what they've learned and spark curiosity about new grammar concepts. Challenges? Educators often face challenges in feeling comfortable and knowledgeable about grammar concepts themselves. Without a strong foundation, teachers may hesitate to experiment with new instructional approaches. Seeking out resources, like the grammar guide in Patty’s book and open-ended learning opportunities, can help educators build their confidence. One Step to Get Started To begin integrating these new strategies right away, educators can start by using grammar manipulatives. By selecting sentences they enjoy and having students break them down and rearrange them, teachers can create an interactive grammar experience that is both fun and educational. This simple yet effective technique helps to engage students in learning grammar through creativity and collaboration. Stay Connected You can keep up with Patty McGee on her website. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing Master Any Content Through the Power of Grammar with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 270 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT Lindsay Lyons: Patty McGee, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Patty McGee: Ah, thank you. I'm happy to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I am really excited. And so one of the questions that I've been opening episodes with is just, like, what's on your mind today, or what should we keep in mind, uh, you know, as an audience? And what's on my mind is your book, Not Your Granny's Grammar- which is excellent, and we were just talking about this. But it is, it is truly transformational, and not at all your granny's grammar. Yes. So I'm really excited to talk about your book today. Anything on your mind that you want people to be thoughtful about, or you wanna share with folks? Patty McGee: Oh, gosh. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy that my book is on your mind, and I am thinking even more about the possibilities of grammar in other areas, and how we can reframe the way we think about it and the way that people approach it. And it's, it's something definitely, definitely on my mind. Lindsay Lyons: Well, it i- it comes through powerfully in the book, and, and we'll get to all of that. The first question, though, I wanna kinda zoom out and think about, you know, Dr. Bettina Love talks about the idea of freedom dreaming by saying their dream is grounded in the critique of injustice, which is- Patty McGee: Yes Lindsay Lyons: such a great way to think of it. And, and I'm wondering, what is that big dream that you hold for education? Patty McGee: Yes. My- Dream, I'm sorry, just, um, I've got so many and I'm trying to prioritize. Um, it's, it's really, I want it to be a place That students find themselves and become who they're meant to be by following their passions, by being loved to pieces and valued for all that they are. That's in a nutshell. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. And I, and you know, as I was reading your work, I thought about, um, Dr. Asao Aanoi's work, who was also on the podcast, and he talks about, you know, like, writing specifically as a writing professor, right? Writing is often this, this way that, you know, kids are able to express their very unique voices and, and feel valued. Particularly, I mean, his talk was around, you know, assessment of writing and stuff, and so thinking about how we do that in a way that's affirming of students. Patty McGee: Yes. Lindsay Lyons: But, like, how powerful writing as an avenue for kind of identity exploration and voice is. It... and, and being able to, like, love someone to pieces as, as a- Yeah student. You know, I- I'm thinking about all of my students who I felt even more connected with once I read their writing- Yeah ... and forms of expression, and that grammar oftentimes can be such, the way that we typically think of it, can be such a hindrance to that voice and that expression and that love. And, um, I'm, I'm just curious, is there kind of like a, a mindset shift that you think, you know, teachers, uh, anyone who's interfacing with grammar and young people, you know, we need to... used to think this, now we really need to shift over to this, and that's gonna unlock a lot of potential. Is there anything you would advise around that? Patty McGee: There are multiple things I will, again, try to prioritize. I think one of the biggest shifts, um, is going to be around what grammar is for. Grammar is for expression. Grammar is meant to create meaning on the page. Grammar is not a static set of rules. And when we think of grammar in three buckets, where we have spoken grammar, book grammar, and standard grammar, I think we start to look at grammar not as a superior goal of, let's say, the language that makes us sound intelligent, but rather one form of, of, of code switching, basically. So, like, uh, spoken grammar changes wherever you live, whatever culture, um, is yours. That is spoken grammar, and it is just as valuable as book grammar and as standard grammar. And I just think of standard grammar as the grammar standards that we are charged with teaching. And it's constantly changing. So knowing that spoken grammar and book grammar are having an influence on grammar, standard grammar, so having that type of shift of, like, grammar as style, as making meaning on the page, I often equate grammar, uh, to a painter's paintbrush, the way that a painter is expressing themselves in their art and how they use different brush strokes, uh, to create what they're envisioning. And grammar is the same type of tool for writers, and it can really be something, um, that empowers voices. Like you were saying, we discover more about our students when we read their writing. I also think a mind shift that is necessary is that we move from this immediacy of expectations. Like, often we have, uh, the expectation that, okay, we did this worksheet, now we're all supposed to know it and use it. And so if you wouldn't mind, I have a great quote from Jeff Anderson that I'd love to read. Uh, he says, "What about experimentation, play, approximation? Grammar and mechanics shape meaning, and as in all language endeavors, we must make mistakes to move toward correctness. Where's the bridge between getting started and stretching with grammar and mechanics and being wrong?" Lindsay Lyons: That's so good. Yes. Oh my gosh, I love the artistry that you- Mm-hmm I mean, I s- I see and have read the language of the artist throughout your book as well. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: And I love this analogy because I think a lot of times we think about art as y- fine arts, painting, drawing, whatever, and we don't always include writing in that. And it- Mm-hmm ... uh, I mean, maybe we include poetry. We don't usually include much more than that, if that at all, and it's so beautiful that this is just distinctly including Yeah ... all of the writing in the art world. And so I, I love that. I'm curious if we can talk a bit about your book. First off, the research at the front that traditional grammar instruction doesn't help and could actually harm, could you tell us just a little bit about that? 'Cause that was news to me that I found interesting. Patty McGee: Yes. So I'm actually gonna go to that part because there's so much research there. Um, it's decades deep how much traditional grammar instruction, A, doesn't work, um, and B, can actually have the reverse effect that it's intended for. Uh, I go through so many different research, um, research studies, like, uh, just a meta-analysis on grammar instruction, um, where they quoted, "If schools insist upon teaching the identification of parts of speech, the parsing or diagramming of sentences, or other concepts of traditional grammar as many still do, they cannot defend it as a means of improving the quality of writing." That comes from Hillocks and Smith. I mean, it can't be more straightforward than that, but just the majority of research, um, that I shared here is really backing up that same statement. But then there's hope in Graham's research around the way that we can teach grammar, and the three most effective ways of teaching grammar is sentence construction, sentence expansion, and sentence combining, because the sentence is the building block of all writing, and it's the container of all parts of speech. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I, I would love to dive into some pieces of your book and how you talk about, like, going after that, kind of pursuing what that research finding said. One of the most fantastic things I love is a good arc, and I, I love your kind of arc of your grammar study unit. I just thought, I mean, even as I mean, I taught literacy and social studies, and I was like, "Oh, you could do this in social studies, too. I imagine you could do an element of this in math or science as well." Like, it's so beautifully constructed around inquiry and student learning. And anyways, I'm talking enough. Can you talk us through- Yeah. It's okay ... kind of the arc of your, your units? Patty McGee: Yes, absolutely. Well, first of all, the concept of teaching grammar in units, I think, is rather unique, that we often in the past have done, "Okay, we're going to identify nouns." And then we're going to identify verbs, and then we go on to some other isolated, um, type of experience. But the, the arc of a unit of study, um, in grammar follows Hattie's research on how people learn, that we learn first through surface learning, then deep learning, and then transfer, and that's how we've set up the units. At least the f- chapter three is a full-on unit day by day that we really want to suggest we follow very closely. Um, but then the other chapters are using the same blueprint of the unit, and then it's kind of choose your own adventure. So we start off with this surface learning, and if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to share a metaphor that I often refer to to talk about these phases of learning. So a number of years ago, um, my mother-in-law, who is from Ireland, she came over when she was 20, and she decided it was no longer her job to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Um, and she told us as much, and she was right. She, you know, there's no Thanksgiving in Ireland. So what we did was we decided we would, uh, take over, and we were going to fry a turkey, which is something my neck of the woods it's, it was, like, all the rage at the time. So our surface learning was looking at videos of how to do it, getting the materials, looking at what not to do, how to avoid, um, some of the more difficult parts of it. We tried it out but with water instead of oil. We just did all of this naturally for ourselves, and then it turned to deep learning, where we fried a turkey and it was good. We fried a turkey again, and it was even better. And then the third time, we were like, "We're pro at this. Let's try some other meats and some vegetables perhaps," and that was our transfer time. So it's something that we naturally do, and that's the same way we set up the unit, uh, for grammar, was that we really harness, um, that surface learning through immersion experiences, and then we have different areas of focus that we get deeper and deeper with, um, just like our turkey. And then it sets up for transfer, and there's time to create things, um, that we'll bring to when we're writing, whether it's in different writing types or different content areas. And then the transfer just continues and spirals through. Lindsay Lyons: I love the structure so much, especially how you break it down, and I love the, there's a structured unit as well as in the book that choose your own adventure style, which I think is very- Mm-hmm ... freeing for a lot of teachers who like that autonomy to be creative. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, I also love that you included a bunch of kind of t- I would call them, like, teacher tips throughout. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Mm-hmm. And so, I mean, one of them, I'll just share a couple of the ones that I liked, and maybe you could expand upon them. Sure. I love the tip to have students be in pairs potentially for the whole year, as opposed to constantly mixing. Mm-hmm. Love that. Uh, just the advice to not talk a lot, and maybe just ask a question instead when students are grappling and learning. Um, the pacing, like, just the idea of constructing within a unit, you know, of grammar study, but also to build reflection in as a valuable lesson or lessons within the unit. Um, I don't know if you wanna expand on any of those, but I just really liked those a lot. Patty McGee: Y- yes. I'll be happy to expand on any and all of them. Um, having partnerships and long-term partnerships, which, uh, preferably would be at least one unit, if not the entire year, is an opportunity, number one, for grammar out loud. Because standard grammar isn't something that we're used to hearing. And so when we are speaking, um, and practicing and playing with, uh, say, building compound sentences, we're not only seeing it, but we're also hearing it. And then in partnerships, we're co-building this grammar know-how. If we're talking to somebody new every day, we're not building off of the conversations we've had before. And so therefore, long-term partnerships are extremely helpful for grammar learning What were the other two that you just mentioned? Um, one Lindsay Lyons: was teachers not talking, maybe posing a question instead. Patty McGee: Yes. So I have found, and I'm guilty of this myself, uh, that sometimes we as educators feel compelled to talk a lot, and also to do so with a very strict, maybe inflexible set of slides that we adhere to, and therefore are not as responsive to what students are showing us that they need. Um, and because this is so, this approach is so inquiry based, there's a greater chance of students learning if we pose a challenge or a question. So let's say students are using a grammar manipulative where they're creating compound sentences, and they didn't accurately do so. Maybe they left out a comma. Um, I might say instead, "That's almost a compound sentence. See if you can find what you're missing." And usually the other partner is like, "I told you you needed a comma." You know, it's always something in that kind of way. But if we are doing all of the talking, it's, it takes away from the experiences that we want kids to have with grammar. And I also, we recommend in the book that it's 10 minutes, three to five times a week. And so instead of thinking about them as lessons, thinking about them as grammar experiences that kids are having, if we can't fit into that 10 minutes, we should maybe reflect on how much of the talking we're doing during those 10-minute pockets Lindsay Lyons: That's a really good cue for teacher reflection. And then th- actually Mm-hmm ... that's a good segue into the third thing, was building in reflection to, as a grammar experience. Patty McGee: Uh, I might, I don't know. This whole book I have favorites, but one of my favorites is this reflection, that we pause and ponder, um, is what I call it. And the things that come out of students' mouths is just pure gold. Like a, a fourth grade classroom, um, after they had learned about simple and compound sentences and independent clauses, they were like, "Can you have more than two independent clauses in a compound sentence?" And that's accessing what's usually a seventh grade standard. It, but they're curious about it. They're wondering. Um, another, another that comes up is often, "I really wanna use the word because. It would make more sense in, in some of these sentences I've been creating. How do I do that?" And that leads us right into complex sentences. And just creating space for curiosity in those reflections of, of solidifying what we know just by pausing and, and I often say that, uh, reflection is the stickiest glue for the brain. And so we're kind of, like, solidifying that, and then using that as a springboard to think, "What do I want to know more about?" I think it's something very unique in grammar Lindsay Lyons: I, I love that. Like, all of the pieces of that are so powerful, and often I think reflection gets skipped the quickest- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm when we're stressed for time, pacing calendars are full. Patty McGee: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: And then it's, "Oh, well, that's not direct instruction," or, you know, uh, and I guess not just the reflection- Yeah ... but all the other parts that are not direct instruction are the things that get cut, and- Yeah ... the whole thing together is what makes the journey effective. Patty McGee: Exactly. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Patty McGee: Exactly. Lindsay Lyons: I'm wondering if there are maybe one or two big challenges that you've seen teachers encounter as they try to shift away from traditional grammar and to do something like this, and how you might, you know, coach someone through that challenge. Patty McGee: Yes. So I have done a boatload of anecdotal research around what are the biggest challenges for educators, um, and it is the educators' knowledge and comfort with grammar in general. I was with a group of teachers this week, and we were working on a unit, and we got to, uh, complex sentences, and w- we had to pause, and they were so open, which is really helpful, and they're like, "I don't remember these rules. I, I didn't know there were two forms of complex sentences." And- Just to refer to the book, um, you can find answers to your questions about grammar in lots of places, on the internet and, you know, lots of handbooks and things like that. But in the back of our book, my co-author, Tim Donahue, just took his, like, brilliant grammar brain and gave us a whole tutorial in language that's accessible to understand grammatical concepts that we don't, that are very commonly misunderstood. And he even has in here, I just love this, like, concept that he came up with and how he executed it. He created videos of him teaching these grammatical concepts, and he has, uh, he set up in his basement a dry erase board, and his kids, uh, he has three sons between the ages of fourth grade and eighth grade, and they helped record them. So the type of conversations that go on in the Donahue home, like he told me that one of his kids came home and said, "Do you know that so-and-so used a semicolon today?" So like what he created back there is just so accessible that he has a fourth grader commenting on semicolons. You know it's, it's that, it's that good. And that's also just how we partnered up. He has a way of explaining grammar that's like no other that we've ever seen, and at first came to light back, uh, about 10 years ago when he was a supervisor, um, of humanities. And he was teaching us about grammar, and I was there to consult. And all of us in the room were like, "Whoa, we did not know that." And that is one of the hardest parts of, um, teaching grammar is we don't need to know it all, but that's something that's stopping us. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Actually, I, I think that is a very common thing in any inquiry-based pedagogy is- Mm-hmm what do I do when I don't have an answer to the question the kid is asking me in this moment? Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: And w- I think part of that is, you know, have those resources ready so you can consult even in the moment. Yeah. Perhaps in something as great as, as the resource that you have, that's probably easily findable. But even in a larger question or if you don't have, you know, the book with you, what do you think is a good response for a teacher in that moment if you don't have the answer ready? Patty McGee: I think it is, "I don't know. Let's find out together." Lindsay Lyons: I love that. And then come back. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Yep. I love it. Cool. I, I am really excited to just know that this book is out in the world- and that people are going to implement it, and that kids might actually love grammar now, which is super cool. Yes. I'm curious to know one thing, you know, if people are o- ordering the book and it's on the way, like, what's something that they could do? They just listened to the episode today, they're gonna walk into their classrooms. Is there anything they could do right away that's like a one quick implementable start to, to practicing grammar in this new way that's not like we're gonna outline a whole unit of study that we're gonna start later? Patty McGee: Yes. I think the most impactful, easy things that, um, teachers can do is to think of grammar manipulatives. That is one of my favorite parts of the book as well as in partnerships. Let's say very simply, um, do some sentences in a sentence, um, or sentences from a sentence, where we take a sentence or two that we really like. We, um, open up a doc and copy it onto that doc. We then, uh, enlarge the font, cut out each word, and in partnerships just make sentences together. It's super simple. There's n- very little prep to that. Kids can help cut or you can cut, but you only need one collection per pair or trio. And I think starting with something as simple as that can be very, very useful. I also have a blog post on, on my website. There's a lot of resources, but I believe it's also, um, through NCTE, and it is a series of just starting with compound sentences, like getting your feet wet, um, day by day, four or five days of grammar experiences. So that's also an easy-to-get resource. Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. Thank you for having that available for people. And I love just the idea of grammar manipulatives. Yes. I had to reread that, like, four times, 'cause I was like, "Wait, what?" I was, "Oh, got it." Like, so accessible, but I never associate the term manipulatives with English. I'm always like, "Oh, the ma- that's a math thing." Patty McGee: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: I love it. Patty McGee: Yeah. Yeah. I just love it too, and I'm so jazzed by it that I keep creating more of them. Like, when they come to me, um, I create them, but then I also see kids creating their own versions of manipulatives. Like, it's, it's just amazing to see. Like, there was a second grade I was in, um, demoing, you know, some grammar, uh, experiences, and they created, like, a kit on how to create compound sentences with directions, unifix cubes. Like, it was like, "What on earth is happening here?" It was so amazing. So yeah, the whole concept I think kids really take off with. And they're all so simple. We don't need bling. We don't need fancy things. We don't need... We just cut through the complexity of it all, and it, the simplicity is really where that power is, is found. Lindsay Lyons: I love that point because what really drew me to what you were saying at first was find a sentence that you like. Mm-hmm. And this idea that reading is connected to writing is connected to grammar- Mm-hmm ... understanding, and learning is just so beautiful that I can read whatever I need to read out in the world for school and find something I love, and then dig into that or play with that. Like, that's fun as opposed to- Mm-hmm I'm doing a worksheet. So. Patty McGee: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Okay, to close us out, this question is purely for fun, although it can relate to your work as well. Okay. What is something that you have been learning about lately? Patty McGee: Oh, I have been learning, this is so funny. I've done a deep dive into circus history. I just have a curiosity about it, and I guess that's an apropos word to be using when it comes to the circus. Um, I started to create a text set for a school for us to experience, um, text sets and, and what they can do for us, and I was like, "I think I might go in that direction." And I haven't stopped. And we have a text set that I use, but I'm still curious about it. It's just so fascinating and so many dimensions to it, like of things that are so wrong that we realize today, but then also, like the space of inclusion for people who didn't find it in the world. It's, it's fascinating. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. That feels very fascinating and nuanced. I'm- Now I'm interested. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. The last question is really just where can people connect with you, learn more about you, get your book? Patty McGee: So you can go to my website, which is pattymcgee.org. Make sure you spell Patty with a Y, because Patty with an I is a skateboarder, and I can't do that. Um, s- and on there you'll find lots and lots and lots of curated, created resources, downloadables. Um, and I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Patty, thank you so much for this conversation and for putting your book out in the world. Patty McGee: Oh my gosh, it's a complete honor to be here with you, uh, and, and talk with you. It's, it's just a professional dream, so thank you. 
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In this episode, Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey joins Lindsay Lyons to discuss the P.O.W.E.R. framework, a guiding tool for implementing justice-centered curriculum in social studies education. The conversation dives deep into this framework's essential components: Presence and Personhood, Oppression and Opposition, Wisdom and Wit, Entanglements and Empowerment, and Relevance and Responsibility.
Dr. Erker Caffrey uses this framework to provide guidance around initiating justice-oriented curricula. Because it’s such a big and complex topic, it can feel overwhelming and many educators don’t know where to start. This framework helps bring some clarity and coherence to the conversation. The Big Dream Dr. Erker Caffrey envisions that every child experiences a dynamic and justice-centred education, especially across the social studies disciplines. This means that there needs to be a transformed educational landscape where every teacher feels equipped and confident to deliver this kind of curriculum in their contexts. Mindset Shifts Required There are some key mindset shifts required to embrace a justice-centered approach to curriculum design. Teachers are often overwhelmed and worry they don’t know enough in this area — this is a valid and common barrier to implementing justice-oriented curricula. One way to address this is to embrace a clear vision of their roles in achieving equity-oriented education. Teachers need a framework, a guiding tool, that is transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. Action Steps The P.O.W.E.R. framework is something that helps educators decrease their overwhelm and move forward with confidence. It stands for:
The framework can be applied to a single lesson, longer curriculum, year-long strategy and other components of curricula. Here’s some tips to get started: Step 1: Analyze your current curriculum through a critical lens. Consider the presence of identity and humanity in your materials and the timing of introducing topics of oppression. Step 2: Ensure your curriculum balances stories of oppression with those of resistance. Incorporate narratives that highlight both adversity and counteractions. Step 3: Foster joy and creativity in learning by integrating diverse cultural expressions and forms of wisdom. Finally, encourage student-led inquiry that reflects on these complexities. Challenges? The biggest challenge educators face is not that they don’t want to implement justice-oriented curricula, but that they are overwhelmed or unsure on how to get started. This is where an impactful framework can really help. One Step to Get Started Dr. Caffrey suggests that educators begin by examining their own curriculum to identify whether it includes elements that affirm students' personhood before delving into oppressive narratives. Small shifts in the order of content and the inclusion of diverse perspectives can make a significant difference. Stay Connected You can learn more and stay connected with Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey in the following ways:
To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing The P.O.W.E.R. Framework and the LETS ACT Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 268 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Genevieve Erker-Caffrey, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I also am super excited, and so I love that before we hit record you said that you are, like, a frameworks expert. I'm also, like, a nerd of frameworks, and so I'm really excited. You- historically, people should totally listen to, and I think we should link this in the, uh, show notes as well, um, your episode on Visions of Education around the Let's Act framework was brilliant, and I loved it. Um- Thank you ... and now today we're talking about the POWER framework, which is so, so cool, and so situated in my mind in the context of, like, student leadership and awesome curriculum design and doing school differently and transformatively. Like, this is really rich, and I'm excited to get into the conversation. I'd love to know if there are things that you want the audience to kind of be thinking about or have in their mind as we go through today. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Sure, yeah. Well, I think that if teachers, coach- you know, I know that your audience is, um, varied, but I think the thing that I would try to think about is when you, when, when you are planning curriculum and trying to make it, quote unquote, equity-oriented or justice-oriented, um, you know, what exactly are you thinking about, and what are those components? And where do you feel like you do a really good job of which components do you feel like you do a really good job, um, and where do you feel like you get a little lost? Like, when, what exact topics or identity groups are you feeling like, "You know, I don't know how to make this equity-oriented." And I'm hoping that my, this conversation and the POWER framework can provide a little bit of guidance for specifying what it is we're actually talking about when we say justice-oriented curriculum, especially justice-oriented social studies curriculum, which is my area of expertise. Um, and then once we identify those components, what do those really, truly look like in curriculum and instruction? Um, because oftentimes it can just feel kind of elusive. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, okay, we're talking about diversity, we're talking about making the world a better place, we're talking about, you know. So I, it's something that I craved as a teacher, um, to help with that guidance. But, um, I'm hoping that the POWER framework provides a little bit more guidance, um, not to simplify the ideas, because it is complex. This is a complex endeavor. But to, um, to help provide a little bit of clarity and, and coherence so that we can dig deeper into complexity. Lindsay Lyons: I love that framing. Well, very well said. I wanna start, as I start all episodes, kind of with this idea of freedom dreaming. So Dr. Bettina Love describes these as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so curious what your big dream is. Maybe this is a bit of kind of a, a why behind the framework. Maybe this is a bit of a, a lot of things, but curious what the dream is for you Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Well, my dream is that every single child experiences a phenomenal justice-centered dynamic, engaging social education, social studies education, or education in general, but specifically when talking about history and civics and geography and, and economics, and these concepts that are so, um, so consequential for the ways that we live our lives and the decisions that we make. Um, I hope, my, my dream is that every student receives that kind of, of education, because some have. You know, there are some phenomenal teachers and cur- some amazing curricula out there that we... that, that certain children are lucky enough to experience. Um, usually it's piecemeal. It depends on the teacher, it depends on the unit. They get, not a lot of kids get, get it K through 12. But my dream would be that every child gets it K through 12, which means every teacher would need to feel equipped, confident with, uh, with, with delivering that kind of, that kind of curriculum. And that is easier said than done. And something that I've found in my work is that I've, I've spent, a lot of my research has been with teachers who have a critical equity-oriented mindset or commitments, and they're... actually, even administrators are supportive. Even the districts that I've worked in are not restrictive. But still, there is this struggle to figure it out, and I've kind of realized that a lot of the problems are organizational. Um, they are, there's a big fragmentation of the infrastructure, the curricular infrastructure of specifically elementary social studies education. There's so much great stuff out there, but it's all over the place, and it's a mess, and it's fr- it's fragmented, and that is dizzying for teachers. Um, and then there are so many frameworks, justice-oriented frameworks that are fantastic, phenomenal, and needed, but teachers get overwhelmed by them. So my dream is now, like now on a more practical level for myself, is to provide, um, both services that can guide districts, schools, um, or publishing companies, teams of educators of any kind, to finding the, or to, I, I would like to train these teachers, these educators in understanding, um, the overarching arc of what it means to do social studies education in a justice-oriented way, and then equip them with the, not just the resources, but the, the theories and the thinking tools, um, and then eventually the students having those thinking tools that, so that they are able to think with theory. I think a lot of times, you know, we think, "Oh, teachers just want the stuff," and they do, and we should give them the stuff. And th- that is another dream of mine to- my dream is to have my own publishing company where I'm really creating this coherent curriculum f- that, or c- taking curriculum and making it more coherent in a justice-oriented way. But, um, also tra- uh, always training teachers on what it means to think with critical theory. And I think people think that that's should be saved for the curriculum writers, the researchers, the scholars, but I think not only teachers can think with critical theory, but so can students. But w- we just have to try. We have to do it. We have to um, it's, it is again, it's easier said than done. Lindsay Lyons: I love all of those dreams. Those are great. I also recognize that you and your research and experience have worked with so many educators, and I, I'm curious about kind of the mindset shift of, I, whether it's going from, like, overwhelmed to, like, clear on how exactly to design curriculum that is justice-centered in social studies, or if it's, "I'm not sure about this," or if it's the kind of leader mindset shift around, like, how do we structurally support- Yeah this work? Like, what's a key mindset shift you've noticed in, in actually bringing to life some justice-centered curriculum in social studies? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Fantastic question, because you are right. There are numerous barriers to, um, to doing this comprehensively, to doing justice-oriented social studies curriculum. To do it sustainably c- uh, there, the, the barriers are plenty. Teachers are worried about, "Do I know enough?" I- they don't feel like their social studies curriculum was good enough, so they feel like, they often say, "How do I teach what I don't know? I know I need to teach counter-narratives, but how do I do that?" Um, and the, uh, the barriers of, yes, then of course there are many restrictive con- restrictive contexts, especially in our sociopolitical current state, that, um, people are really scared to even say the word equity or justice in some spaces. Um, then there's the organizational fragmentation. You know, okay, so I could go on and on about all... It- I just wanna validate that those are real challenges, and it's, I don't want teachers to feel like, "I'm not doing this, so there's must be a problem with me," or, "I'm not committed enough," or, you know, I, I don't actually think that this is a, um, teacher commitment issue. It's a, um, I mean, it can be in some, but most teachers really do want their students to make, to, to, they want to provide a, a responsible, engaging, and comprehensive multiple perspectives type of, of social studies curriculum, but they just are, like, really scattered on how to do it. Um, so a mindset shift in term- in terms of, um, well, with the teachers that I worked with- They had this commitment to justice and equity and, um, and diversity and inclusion and everything. But what they were saying was they needed, they, they... When they expressed their scatteredness, their, their insecurities, their challenges, and then I said, "Okay, what would it take? What would it take to make you feel confident?" Um, and they, these were teachers, this was like a small team of teachers who were, um, writing, they were preparing to write, re- overhaul the elementary social studies curriculum in their, in their district, and they felt ill-equipped in the beginning. Um, they felt like, you know, emotionally ready and... Except, but they just felt ill-equipped on a more practical level. So, um, you know, I said, "What, what would, what would it take?" And they kind of identified four things. That's, they identified four things that it would take to, like, get them to actually put it into action. They needed a framework. They needed a guiding tool, some kind of guiding tool, uh, that, number one, was actually guided, which was actually grounded in critical theory, that was truly equity-oriented, and not really, 'cause there's a lot... Like, like, again, like what does that mean? Um, number two, it had to be transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. So even though they, I was, had, I had previously been introducing a lot of identity-specific frameworks for, like, how to teach Black history, how to teach indigenous history, how to teach, um, like, uh, something specific within civics or geography. You know, they, they were like, "These are all great, but, like, our standards and our resources, they don't just teach everything in isolation with these topics or identities." I mean, some standards literally say, "What is the, you know, what was the interaction between this group, this group, and this group?" You know? So you can't just... So there were a lot of questions like, "Does this Black history framework transfer to the Asian American history?" You know, like, it's, like, it was, um... So they n- they, uh, desired some sort of, um, overarching framework that was iden- was transferable across identities. Um, number two, uh, number three was, um, they wanted it to be sequence sensitive. They felt as if a lot of, um, I don't know, uh, leaders and administrators would kind of, like, um, like, kind of put down their desire for s- scopes and sequences, um, for be- 'cause it sounded like when they were saying, "We want a scope and sequence," I think they thought the administrators were hearing, "We want scripts. We just wanna be told what to do." But they were like, "No, it's not that we just wanna be told what to do, but we also- What we are doing here with history education is filled with trauma and depressing topics and, um, very, the, the topics that could traumatize students in our classroom. If we don't do this right, if we don't think about the order in which we are discussing these topics, we could cause a lot of trauma. So, we don't need a step-by-step checklist, we don't need scripted curriculum, but we do want this framework, this guiding framework, to be sensitive to sequencing and help us understand what comes first generally, what comes second, what comes third, what is important, um, when discussing especially really hard histories, um, or, or really any histories. Um, and then fourth, the fourth thing that they said this, this guiding framework would need was it would need to be emotionally balanced. So often they felt as if their social studies curriculum was either really depressing, so if they were talking about something depressing, they felt like bad that they could be causing some trauma for kids in the room. It was just, you know, that's not a good feeling to, you know. But they also felt like as soon as they got out of the more, quote-unquote, again, depressing or the oppression stuff, they felt as if they were maybe like whitewashing things. Like, they c- they, they couldn't-- They felt like they know joy is important, so they would go into the joy stuff. But then as soon as they were in the joy stuff, they felt like, "Oh, no, we're like, uh, are we- am I becoming one of those teachers that doesn't like, you know, really confront and interrogate the oppression involved here? Like, is this too joyous?" So, they just felt back and forth like they couldn't find. So, they said, "We would really appreciate some emotional balance across this guiding framework." Um, so yeah. So, those are the four things that I set out to, um, to accompli- to, to, to, to implement into this guiding framework. And, you know, fast-forward a year later or say months and months later, we, uh, together with the teachers, but me going back and forth between scholarship and working im- implementing the POWER framework with the teachers, um, we came up with, with, with the POWER framework. It, um, stands for different words. Um, but each, in each letter, each word, each word started with a different word at the beginning of the year with me implementing it with the teachers, and then over the course of a year, it sort of evolved, and some of the words changed. Um, because sometimes when you plan s- when you plan a framework with just scholarship, it doesn't necessarily work exactly As, as you would think it would when you put it into implementation, or the way teachers interpret different critical concepts might be different when you actually... So the words matter. The words matter a lot, and they shifted over time, but I- we ended up coming up with the, um, five dimensions that we felt, um, pretty good about in terms of this sequence sensitive, transferable, emotionally balanced, critically grounded framework. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, okay. I'm really excited to dive into this. Quickly- Okay ... I just wanna say, I think for anyone who feels like they're not quite at the space where your educators were, the ones you were working with who were thinking all these great thoughts- Yeah ... that is such a beautiful cue to be like, "Here are the important considerations." Like, all of these things you listed, right? The fact that it should be grounded in critical theory. It should be, like, kind of content agnostic, and, like, a f- the vertical alignment possibilities there is really cool. Uh, like, it, it should sequence to decrease traumatic impact, right? And it should be em- emotionally balanced with oppression and joy, and, and considering the whole spectrum of, of human emotion. Like, I just- Yeah ... it's so good. Like, just, just that. Thank you. That's amazing. I- So I would love to, to actually get into the POWER framework, if you wanna just take us there- Yeah ... and tell us- I Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: would love to ... Lindsay Lyons: what it's part... Okay, great. Go for it. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay. So the POWER framework, um, stands for... The P stands for presence and personhood, the O stands for oppression and opposition, the W stands for wisdom and wit, the E stands for entanglements and empowerment, and the R stands for relevance and responsibility. And one of the most common questions I get is, like, "Okay, does this framework, does this guide, like, one unit, one lesson, one, like, the whole entire year?" And the answer is yes, yes, yes, it can do any of those things. Um, the way that I tend to use it is I take, you know, any piece of curriculum, whether it is year-long overview or a one children's book or one unit. I am just sort of searching for those pieces. These, so, you know, there are five dimensions, but then two components within each dimension kind of that are intricately cannot be separated sort of. Um, and so I am, yeah, looking for those pieces. And, and the way that I use it is not, like, to, um, necessarily, again, script something, but to search for what's missing. And then say, "Oh, well, okay, you know, you have r- r- you're really strong with these components, but then one component, you know, let's say wisdom and wit, we're missing, so let's what, what can we add in there?" Um, but not every single lesson or every single unit- Can cover all five. Some do. Some, um, you know, some children's books can cover all five. Some children's books are really heavy on the P or the O or the R. Okay, so let's get into what these all mean. Okay, so the, the, the P, um, presence and personhood. Presence and personhood dimension acknowledges the presence and explores the personhood of students and those in the curriculum with dignified asset-oriented origin stories. So one of the most common pitfalls, especially in elementary social studies education, is the first time that children see Black and brown people in the official curriculum is through slavery, is they are in slave- they are in chains. We know through research, we know through all of the experience, we know that this is a bad, this is a traumatic thing for students. It's also just providing a very inaccurate, uh, picture of history, of human history, that as if, like, this is where Black history began. So, um, one of the most important things to do is, um, to, uh, the P is... I almost made the P just the word positive, but that doesn't really work. But it's we have to affirm humanity, identity, culture, lived experience, joy, genius before harm and oppression. We need to center, um, the voices of marginalized people the way that they want to be introduced. Um, stories of, um- It, we, we want, we, you know, we want the curriculum to not begin with harm or deficiency, disruption, um, but we want to affirm that communities have always existed, created, and sustained life beyond domination, and that children enter classrooms as full people already possessing dignity, complexity, agency. Um, so it's about really grounding all of our curriculum in humanity before critique. And it's hard, especially for really justice-oriented teachers. They have actually a really hard time getting away from the oppression stuff. Yeah, I, I can't tell you how many times where I'm like, "This book is great. It's beautiful. But look, there are like three pages all about oppression, and this is the first week of school, like, or the third week of school." Like, it's too early. It's, it, it's, it's... You know, so let's, let's, let's read this book, or even just read part of the book. Read the parts that you want. But, um, we really need to make sure that it doesn't seep in. And I think that's really... So presence of person, what I'm really talking about is identity, you know? Identity exploration. And oftentimes we think, oh, identity exploration, we, espe- uh, justice centr- justice-centered educators want to get into intersectional identity. And by definition, intersectionality is really about intersection with oppression. And so we have to put on some brakes, and we have to really, um, think deeper about, um- What can, how can we s- how can we get into students' identities and the identities of people that we're going to see in the curriculum without bringing oppression in, in, um, in an explicit way? So examples of that are, like, you know, for little guys K through 2, um, like, um, identity poems, um, sharing, um, like, their name stories, um, maybe, um, mapping important places in students' lives. Um, and you know, like, if they go deep, they're gonna go deep, that's fine. But we don't need to push that. Like, "Tell me about your racial history," like, right away, you know, right in the beginning of the school year. Um, yeah, so but just, like, celebrate, you know, the showing, making su- bringing families into the classroom, talking about their language, their culture. Um, and yeah, there's a lot of ways to explore the students' his- identities without centering oppression. And then with spec- since I brought up the example of slavery, you know, really starting with ancient Afri- starting before enslavement happened. And there are some phenomenal story, books out there, um, that... There's one set, one author, um, her work can be found on, um, ourancestries.com and they're these beautiful children's books that tell stories about ancient, um, ancient African leaders, mostly, um, kings and queens, but also just, um, different leaders. But they, they're told, uh, the stories are told about when they're, when they're little children, and so, um, and they're just experiencing life. It's just a, it's a story about, that any kid could relate to. Um, like, "My dad wouldn't let me do this, and so I did that." And, and so- And then, so a lot of the cur- units that I wrote with teachers to start out, um, was with these kinds of books, and it was cool because the students could see their own identities in the stories, but and then all of a sudden they're like, "Oh my gosh, like my identity has something to do with ancient history?" Like, like this is... Yeah, so it, um, I really like those, those stories. But there's obviously a lot of ways to, um, explore official historical or social studies education without oppression first. But that's... Do you have any questions about the presence and personhood, um, Lindsay Lyons: dimension? No questions. Okay. Just like- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Let's- Lindsay Lyons: like incredible awe and like gratitude- ... I guess for you- Aw ... taking all of this theory and, and, and recognizing what happens in practice often as like something that shouldn't happen in practice, and we know we wanna do differently, and here's how to do it, and here's concrete examples. It's just- Yeah amazing. Thank you. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: That is one of the things in critical theory, and that's how I came up with this framework, was I studied all of the critical theories and synthesized them, coded them, and like hundreds and hundreds of them, of components within all these critical theories and, um, and synthesized them into these, you know, five themes. Theme, um, but I do- didn't find a lot of like components of critical theories that said, "Don't start with oppression." You know, they, that, that's a, a pedagogical thing that I had to bring in. Um, they just, there isn't a lot of order that is attended to, so, um, thank you for, for recognizing that. We, it's, yeah, it's, um, again, like just n- sometimes it's assumed, I think, but also sometimes I think, um, it's just not where the scholars' brains are. That's just not... Yeah. Um, okay, so you ready for the O? Lindsay Lyons: Yes, let's do Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: it. Okay. So the O, uh, stands for oppression and opposition. Originally, I had O standing for just oppression, and then the W was like, um, willpower or something that meant like resistance. And then I realized over time that in practice- If you're, it- when teachers started thinking, "Okay, I have to read this book up and just center on oppression," that's when we got into that really icky place where we're trying to separate emotion, and it's really impossible. Like, because there has never been oppression without resistance, and so we need to really teach those together. Um, there are, like the Teaching Hard History standards say that, you know, very explicitly. Um, but the theories about teaching about oppr- about oppression itself and interrogating power don't talk about that importance of teaching oppression and resistance together. So it was really about, you know, bringing the theory and the curricular pedagogical work together. So that's why oppression and opposition, they... So we examine systems of oppression and resistance together. It means investigating how oppression operates through institutions, policies, ideologies, cultural norms, and at the same time, centering resistance, refusal, critique, counter-narratives alongside that harm, and reiterating over and over that oppression has never gone unchallenged. Um, I think that, uh, yeah, I think it's easy to just get stuck into one or the other, but w- the reality is, is that they're intertwined. Um, but, and then I have a lot of things that I could say that I talk about when doing workshops with teachers about, you know, age-appropriateness with the oppression pieces especially. Um, but I think, I think what I've found is teachers feel a little bit more comfortable doing the oppression part knowing that the opposition is right there with them, and, like, th- then it doesn't feel as, like when, when, if you're just expected to just teach this, like to really let's, let's, let's examine this, you know, white dominance, um, or the, you know, it's like very sticky. But if you're talking about it as resist- with resistance, it's okay. But also, we don't wanna just talk about resistance We need to also examine the oppressors. So it's a balance, um, definitely. Do you have any specific questions about that? I, I, I mean, there's a lot of examples of what you can do. You know, with the little guys starting out, you can talk about, like, you can ask them about rules and if they think that there are any unfair rules, and, um, notice whose voices are included or excluded in stories. And, um, you know, they do understand. They can understand bias and stereotypes and those kinds of things. Um, and then, like, um, you know, for older students, older elementary students, you can really get a little deeper into analyzing unfair laws or just policies over time and, um, and how schools have... Uh, I, I often talk about it within the context of schools because it's so, you know, uh, familiar to them. But, um, yeah, like how language, EDL, uh, lang- lang- certain languages were excluded and then how they have been welcomed. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways and a lot of, lot of different books. I have lots of book lists of, like- Books that, um, can teach about oppression within these different identity groups. Um, I have books for every dimension of the power framework at different grade levels, in other words. But, um, but yes, so, um, oppression, opposition is, I think most people know that if you're gonna talk, do justice-oriented curriculum, you can't, like it cannot exist without discussing oppression. And, um, that's, that, that is not discussing oppression, that would be turning a major blind eye to reality and history and yes. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Thank you for elaborating the age appropriateness. I feel like I get that question a lot from educators. Mm-hmm. And I have also seen, I think in some of your resources on your site, just the acknowledgement that like, yes, we can talk about oppression when kids are young, it just might look different. And so- Oh, yeah ... I love that you just named for us some clear examples. So I think that will alleviate some of the questions the audience might be having. So I really- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, yes, yes ... value that I have so many things I'd love to share. I love starting-- I have some preventive da- like some, the, the biggest fear a lot of teachers have is that, um, well, one of the biggest fears when they're concerned about the students in the room. I mean, yes, there's the fear of backlash and la-la. But the teachers who, you know, really most teachers have a big heart, and they just wanna take care of their students. And they might have, in, in least the, the context that I've worked in, there's usually like the, there's a majority of white students in the room, and then there are a handful, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teacher, s- students who are Black or brown or come from some kind of marginalized, historically marginalized community. And teachers are so terrified that the first, that, that they will say something about the oppressive history, and all the students in the room will, their heads will turn and look at that one to four students. And they'll say things like, "So wait a minute, then, like so and so wouldn't be able to go to school with us?" You know, say these off- these things that are just really, um- Hard to respond to and could be traumatizing and stuff. So, um, I, I, I want to validate that concern and be thankful that people are concerned thinking about those, those students. That is who we should be thinking about. But, um, I do have a lot of ideas and ways, strategies on how to prevent that from happening. Um, specifically practicing it with dolls, but, but about... So, so bringing in a doll that maybe if, if you... that has an identity from a historically marginalized group, but that isn't in the room. So like maybe, um, a doll, if you don't have any children with hijabs or Mu- Muslim, then you bring in a doll with a hijab. Or you bring in a doll with, that, if you don't have any students who have Down syndrome, then you bring in a doll with Down syndrome. And then you say, like, and then you practice, like, "Okay, we're gonna about to read this book about this. How might we treat this doll, like this, if this was a student in the room?" And, um, that's just one little idea. I could talk about the age appropriateness thing for a very long time. So I don't wanna get too sidetracked. But I mean, it makes sense that it comes up in the oppression dimension of the power framework, 'cause that is, that's the hardest and Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I also wanna recognize your time. Do you have time- Yeah ... to continue? We can make this- I do ... into a two-part episode if you want. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Absolutely, yes. No, I, I have plenty of time. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, perfect. Let's do that, and then let's aim for, like, uh, 1:45 at the latest. Does that work? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I... Yes, yes. At the very latest, yes. I do have to... I have a train to catch at 3:15, um- Ooh, yeah, okay I'm going to Kansas City, but I'm- it's fine. I just, uh... Yes, 1... Maybe 1:30? I don't know. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Let's do it. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay, yes. I'll write it down. No, but I'm thrilled that you want to hear all of this. That's very Lindsay Lyons: exciting. I do. I- it's amazing. Thank you. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Aw. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, so do you wanna tell us about the W? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, I do. Okay. So the W stands for wisdom and wit, and it's hard to say that I have any favorites, but it might be my favorite because it is a place where we... It, it's not just about joy. It certainly does generate a lot of joy, and we celebrate a lot of joy, but it's about affirming diverse ways of knowing. It's about bringing, um, ex- it's about centering the experiential wisdom and wit from communities represented in the curriculum and the students themselves. So it's, um, treating typical- treating marginalized music, art, stories, humor, dance, language, creativity as historically grounded knowledge, and that is a lot of fun. And so it's exploring how cultural expression sparks joy, but also can expose injustice, and that is fun to just, like... So it's a lot of, like, comparing and contrasting song lyric, or l- uh, studying song lyrics, um, like This Land Is Your Land, this is my land, this is my... Like, looking at what do you got, like, the, the original s- songs and how they evolved over time, and how there's a lot of wit. There's a lot of, um, um... What's the word? Satire in, in a lot of songs and art, and kids get a kick out of it. Um, so yeah. It's, um... And then, like, in terms of activities, you know, so it's for little guys, it's using storytelling, drawing, song, and movement to explore social studies ideas, creating class books from family stories and community memories. Kind of teaching them, like, sharing oral stories, oral traditions, and validating that as history. You know, it's historically gra- like, history of their families, and, um, comparing stories from different cultures and discussing, like, what they teach, making art, um, showing what students know about identity and place and belong. So, um, using multiple languages, you know, tr- using translanguaging and, um, so yeah. And then, like, older students might, um, compare textbooks. That's kind of fun with, um... And looking at the different ways that, um, poetry and music and visual art are used to, um, tell truth and express joy. Um, students might, um Just create, um, like use children's literature. I mean, there's so much children's literature out there that tells, um, these stories about the wisdom and wi-... I mean, there's, so like there's the ch- the books about how, um, enslaved people used to create, um, the, their cornrows in their hair would create maps for, uh, to lead to the Underground Railroad. You know, that, those are, that's wisdom and it's brilliant. You know, it's brilliant witty. Um, a lot of Goldie Muhammad's work comes to life through this dimension, you know, her focus on cultivating genius, unearthing joy. Um, but again, it can, it can certainly, um, dig up w- oppression again, that is, that is part of it. Um, but, um, yeah, it's a, it's a really fun one where we get into Harlem Renaissance and, um, disability arts and indigenous literacy resurgence as like, you know, like what is the literacy of, of nature, the literacy of nature. And, and by the way, like I, when I think of identity, e- nature, um, and environment and, um, those are all-- I consider that a, a historically marginalized identity group in and of itself. So, um, that is, I think, important. But, um, but yeah, so I could talk for a long time about wisdom and wit. A lot of, I have a lot of, um, children's books that I think are really fun. I mean, I have children's books that fit into all of these things, but, um, these are just really fun. Lindsay Lyons: These are incredible. And I just wanna name for the audience that we will link to the page that has a, a really cool images of children's books and how they map onto this framework. So thank you for putting that together. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes. Yes. Yes. There's something about children's books that, that's the ling- it's like speaking the language for teachers to, like, they see the covers of certain familiar children's books and they're like, "Oh, okay, now I know what you're talking about." Yeah, so I, I do have visuals of those picture, of picture books and how they might fit across, um, each of these dimensions. Lindsay Lyons: Do you wanna tell us about E? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I would love to. Yes. Okay, so E stands for entanglements and empowerment. So I think entanglements is all about leaning into complexity and nuance, what- no matter what the topic is. Because I think that is the, um, something that we have a tendency to do, especially for little kids, we wanna make it clear and, um, we want, we want them to understand something, we wanna put it on assessment, and we wanna know if they learn it or not. But we really do them a disfavor when we, um, pretend like anything about social life is simple. And so, uh, anything about history, anything about contemporary issues, we, um, need to lean into the complexity. Even the stories about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, some of those stories that have been so deeply simplified, um, we need to make sure that like, so Dr. LeGarrette King has, uh, the Black historical consciousness framework, and one of his dimensions, one of his principles is, um, con- historical contention, whi- which meaning historical contention within the Black community because so often the Black community gets, um, represented as a monolith that, uh, all, everybody, you know, believed the same thing about, um, about how we get our rights and, uh, and, and he, and like for example, the Brown versus Board of Education, you know, there, there are really great children's books and stories about how, um, there was contention around that, that Brown, that, that, that schools should not be integrated. And, um, there's always, I mean, it is, kinder- I've seen kindergarten teachers just read a book about Martin Luther King and then read a book about Malcolm X and talk about the entanglements of the civil rights movement within the Black community. So the entanglements don't always have to be, you know, across identity groups. Um, they are often, they always have been within as well. So, um, yeah. So it's about prompting Student-led inquiry into the connections, tensions, contradictions, and unfinished change. We have to prompt them with the, you know, these, these stories that are like, "Oh, wait, what? Not everybody was on the same page about this?" But, um, and not just like w- w- I mean, 'cause really, and, and the reason empowerment is along with it is because, you know, we want to... It's important to celebrate the, the progress that we have made. It is a big part of... It's the number one, um, component of organizing, of activism, is celebrating the wins and celebrating the progress. But, um, and, but, but at the same time, we don't want to fall into the trap of believing that progress is inevitable and that we're just gonna arrive to this place all by itself. We have to recognize the entanglements within the progress. So the empowerment is about the progress. It's about the, the ways in which people have formed, um, coalitions and they have collaboratively found agency and, um, and actually made progress, actually gained rights. And, but the entanglements are like a check on that, on that progress that, um, that making sure that we understand that, you know, it's never as simple as it sounds and, um, or it has been made to seem through certain narratives and stories. Um, yeah, so, um, it's ensuring that, you know, empowerment is not just isolated civil acts, but- Um, teaching students about the capacity to act ethically within and against entangled conditions too. You know, so there's a lot... I, I think it's, it's really about complexity of progress, the complexity of progress, the cl- complexity, but the really the complexity of everything. Um, and yes, there's a lot of... So in terms of like, um, how to do that, I, I guess I, I did mention a few story, a few examples of, you know, comparing and contrasting two different stories. Um, but you can, at the younger level too, you can ra- recognizing the, um, the tensions in the classroom, like as maybe students disagree on, um, on some routines or, um, you know, really recognizing this is hard. You know, it's hard to get along with people and, um, how can we solve this problem and learn to listen and respond, and what can we learn from these stories of people who did figure out how to work together, you know? And, um, so relating it to their personal lives, but also, um, co-creating rubrics or criteria for projects and, um, holding structured dialogues where students practice listening before responding. Um, and like building... I, I al- I think here, you know, the next one, the next letter is R and it, you know, res- it's, well, spoiler alert, it stands for relevance and responsibility. It's the taking action part of it. But I do think the E needs to, um, bring in... It, we gotta g- prepare, prepare for that action. So it's about not just learning about progress itself and the complexity of progress, but starting to plan for it, and starting to think about why, what, what it is we care about within this topic that we're learning about. What are these things that are still, um, what are the current entanglements and the current ways that we could empower ourselves, and how could we start planning student-led inquiry-based, um, action projects? But we, before we actually take the action, we have to plan it and recognize the complexity of that. I mean, it is hard, like, but- You got this classroom full of kids that all care about different things. They might not agree on the best way to solve a problem or address an issue, and so there's, you know, but typically if you sit, if you, if you just get out a chart paper and you start brainstorming ways, you start seeing different clusters of kids that really have similar ideas. So there's breaks, so they break up into groups, and they wanna do work on different projects, and it's about, um, you know, talking through the not as sexy stuff of leadership and, and coalition building and working together and organizing. It's not that exciting sometimes. It's sticky, and it's icky, and it's like, um, involves spreadsheets and Post-It notes, and it's not as, um, yeah, i- it's like we wanna just get to the change. We wanna get to the, the cool part where they're, you know, marching through the street or where they're writing the, they're, they're, they're talking to the legislator on the phone. But there's a lot of work that has to get teased through before that. So, um, that's what the E I, I think about as, um, the E is a lot of preparation for the students' own coalition building and, and, and action. Lindsay Lyons: There is so much organizing and coalition building- Yeah. ... and, like, group work dynamics on, like, a meta level for civic projects as well, so I love this, that they're learning about it- Love ... and they're preparing to do. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes. Yes. Lindsay Lyons: And finally, do you wanna tell us- It's great ... the R? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, definitely. Um, okay, so the R stands for relevance and responsibility. Um, it's where we make the curriculum matter. Um, teachers are really good at relevance naturally, I think. Whenever teaching about social studies, they're pretty good at naturally saying, "Why does this matter? How does this connect to students today?" Um, that's just, I, I, something I've noticed, that I don't really have to teach student, teachers to make curriculum relevant. They're really good at it. Um, and a- in fact, I had, uh, one grade level, a third grade team plan their entire curriculum so that the R, the relevance part of the R, and the, and the responsibility, the R, was at the end of every unit, no matter what. Like, so unit one was, like, the P and the, and the R. And then unit two was the O and the, and then the R. And then unit three was the W and the R, and then the... You know, so the R was just, like, there no matter what, which I loved, um, because yeah, we gotta make everything relevant, and we don't wanna just have this, like, culminating big, huge student action project at the end of the year. We want it multiple times throughout the year. So, um, so yeah, so relevance is about... And it's not just about connecting the past to the present or the past to the students' lives, it's also about connecting global systems to local lived realities. The whole think globally, act locally. You know, so if you're... 'Cause a lot of kids care about something that's really big and really global, and so, you know, getting them to look at, for organizations and partnerships and with- within their community that's already doing that work, um, that's part of the relevance connection, too. Um, but the responsibility is, again, it's about creating space, making space for students to not just design, not just talk about the solving of the problem, but actually to take responsibility to do actions, um, and pursue responses to the issues that they're studying Um, and to position responsibility as informed, as ethical collective action toward meaningful change. And that can be done in a lot of ways. You know, we have, um, a lot of, you know, kids as young as kindergarten can, you know, write letters to, um, school leaders or to local officials. Um, kids can create posters, make, you know, uh, raise, like, have awareness campaigns about things that they care about. Um, uh, service projects. Service learning is great as long as there is those deep discussions, as long as the P-O-W and E came before. Um, and they could do, um... I mean, w- I've done, like, a water walk when we did, like, a world water crisis where we walk around the school with water, you know, holding water and, or we've, you can do... So that's like, that's like a walk, but not like, you know, y- teachers don't need to feel like they need to be bringing their students to, like, Black Lives Matter protests to, in order to be, like, having done action. Um, writing letters is huge. Writing letters to local or national leaders is huge. Teaching them, writing scripts, and then actually having them call, not just community, not, not just legislators, but also, like, um, there was a group of students that I worked with, with, who were, um, they cared about, like, working against factory farms and wanting to build more sustainable, um, organic farms, so, that treated animals better. And so they would call, they, they, their whole action was calling a bunch of restaurant owners around the, the city and asking them where they get their meat. And that was, that was, like, in, that was in and of itself, you know, their action. So, um, so tons of ideas. I'm sure you, that's something that you talk about on this podcast often. But, um, it's extremely important to make that space for it and, um, and, and, and, and forefront also partnerships, um, I think with other, with the community, um, and teaching students how to really reach out and, um, and look at the opportunities for solidarity, um, because that's, you know, we don't wanna all be working in isolation Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, that was absolutely incredible. Thank you so much. I wanna be mindful of your time, so we can- No, you're fine ... definitely wrap up quickly. But I love this framework. I love the examples. I love how practical it is. One of the things that's on my mind, and maybe this can be one of our kind of lightning round, 15 seconds or less answers maybe. Sure. Like, an audience member who just listened to this, right, or who engaged with the episode, they're gonna feel like there's a lot here. What's one place they can take a small action to get started with this work? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I would say just taking a look at your own curriculum. So let's just think about, okay, close your eyes. What's your social studies curriculum? And then, um, or, or maybe just take one unit, you know, one unit and think, "Okay, do I have the P? What's, what's going on with the P? Do I have... What's, what identity stuff? Do I have any oppression stuff too early? I don't know. Okay. Maybe. Yes. All right, let's move that back a little bit." Like, what, let's think about the books. If there's anything that's, uh, brings up oppression topics, let's move it back. And okay, now it's the O. Do I have oppre- Are we talking about both oppression and opposition at the same time, or are they separate? And do we have resistance stories? You know, probably, yes, but, um, are they coming up at every instance of oppression that we talk about? And then, okay, quickly, wisdom and wit. Am I generating joy? Are my telling stories through the voices and eyes of marginalized groups, and also through their wit and wisdom, their different ways of knowing and being, and, um, and satire? Um, uh, you know, just, and then the E Is anything simplified, like overly simplified? How could I quickly, like, make sure that the c- we're leaning into the complexity a little bit more? Um, and, and of course, am I providing a space for them to think about how it's relevant to them, and how they might be able to take responsibility? And I think one thing that, a pitfall that I see often at the end of these units are that, that the teachers say, "Okay, n- guys, we've learned a lot. Now it's time to take some action. What are some things that we could do to improve our community?" And even though the, the unit was all about, um, maybe Black history, the kids start saying like, "We could pick up trash. We could, you know, save the turtles." And so, um, I think making sure that the action is actually... Like, it is okay to make that a requirement. To say like, "No, we are, we are, there, this, the, the, we have explored a variety of problems and issues," and, um, it's like within the E, it's important to talk about today. Not, not just th- this historical problem, but th- today's issues, and so, um, how can we address or, those issues, alleviate some problems in those. Um, so making sure that the action you take actually, um, has something to do. So I, I, yeah, I guess thinking about it as a quick checklist. I don't know. That wasn't super short, but, um- Lindsay Lyons: But super helpful. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Super what? Lindsay Lyons: Super helpful though. I love Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: that. Oh, okay, good. Yes, it doesn't have to be this long... I mean, I have rubrics for POWER that just, yeah, just have one or two questions per dimension. Um, and then, you know, just think, "Okay, if I don't have enough wisdom and wit, like, let's do a deep dive into joyous books." Like, that's, that's a fun little activity. Um, yeah. I love- Give me an email or a call. I'd love to share books. Lindsay Lyons: I was gonna say, that's our last question, so we'll segue there. Like, where can people connect with you? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Um, well, I can, um... Let's see. We have, I have a website, schemacurriculum.com. I have an email address, [email protected]. I still have my personal re- website that has a lot of resources on it, um, that people say they, they use still in their methods, elementary social studies methods courses. So I have not taken it down. Um, but it, yeah, that's genevievecaffrey.com, and it has a lot more of, like, my publications, my writings, um, a little bit more about my story. And, um, then all of my writings are also on ResearchGate. I have just begun LinkedIn. I, I quit social media, like, five years ago, and I always say it was the best thing of my life. So I'm trying not to go too quickly back into it, 'cause I, I do wanna get back out there because I just graduated. I'm ready to, to connect more. But, um, right now I'm just on LinkedIn as Genevieve Ecker Caffrey. Um, can I share one more thing about the power framework that I can't believe I did not talk about- Absolutely. Yeah ... that I didn't say, because it's, like, kind of the, like, obvious, like, it's, like, the elephant in the room, but it's the fact that the po- the word power is purposeful. It's not just that these themes happen to spell P-O-W-E-R. It's that power- The circulation of power itself is, through each dimension of power, is important to explore, um, within each dimension. So, and I think that each dimension, um, interacts with power in a different way. So presence and personhood, doing work with students where you don't just jump into oppression and you really dig deep into the brilliance, agency, and humanity that conventional curriculum often suppresses, that is reclaiming power in and of itself. Like, you are reclaiming power by restoring that brilliance and agency of marginalized groups that are going to come in the curriculum and the students themselves. Um, oppression and opposition obviously surfaces the forces that have constrained communities while also illuminating the long histories of collective power that, um, has shown up as resistance and disrupt those constraints. Um, and then wisdom and wit shifts power by legitimizing the power of intellectual, creative, and cultural knowledge systems that have really sustained marginalized people across generations. Um, and it's also, like, putting satire into songs. I mean, what an act of power of... And what a way to harness power. And then entanglements and empowerment demonstrates that power is never singular, um, or self-made, but it emerges through relationships, obligations, tensions, all that make up solidarity work. And, um, I think that obviously the pow- the word power is in the word empowerment. Um, but I think we as a society would become more powerful if we, if everyone were to recognize the complexity in every issue, and that no one is all this or all that, and noth- no issue is all bad or all good. Um, I mean, my children, my own children know that they're not just, they're just not allowed to ask. "Is, is he good? Is she bad?" Like, "Is this good? Is this bad?" Like, 'cause nothing. They know I'll say, "Well, nothing is all good or all bad." And then relevance and responsibility obviously is redirecting power towards civic engagement, transforming our understanding and our learning into an accountable practice. So yes, I think it's just important that, you know, I recognize the word power, um, that yeah, that these are, it, the, the p- when you think of critical, critical theory- What makes something critical is power dynamics. It's the study of power. It's the study of power dynamics. But, um, you know, it's the p- study of power dynamics now, in my mind, through each of these dimensions. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, what a beautiful summary and extension of what we just talked about. Oh my goodness. Dr. Erica Caffrey, thank you so much for this conversation today. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Thank you, Lindsay. I... Gosh, I'm... It's such a privilege, and I'm sorry if it's a little scattered. I just, you know, finished a 350-page dissertation- Lindsay Lyons: Of Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: course you did about all of this, so I could talk about it in a lot of directions. But, um, thank you for keeping me focused and moving along. |
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
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