Honoring Culture

Last school year, I had ethnically diverse students from the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, New Zealand, Africa, Hawaii, Europe, and Native American tribes. Some students took rigorous classes before AP, while others started as Juniors in AP Lang.  In addition, several students were the first in their family to consider post-secondary education.  Others had parents who did not finish elementary school.

Building on diverse backgrounds engages students in discussion and values their culture.  Our discussions are rich because of the variety of perspectives students express. By using texts from their cultures and contrasting them with other texts, we develop rhetorical analysis and argumentation skills. Students weigh different perspectives to craft arguments and address synthesis questions.  I find the single best preparation for college and success on the AP Language Exam is to focus on writing skill development through intensive process writing using mentor texts.

 

First semester is an essay writing boot camp centered on modes of arrangement—narration & description, cause & effect, classification & division, comparison-contrast, definition, exemplification, and process analysis. Within each mode we write, we study mentor texts.  I seek texts showcasing the mode and also find authors from students' cultures. We examine the rhetorical moves the author makes to accomplish his or her purpose in mentor texts.  We make lists of moves.  Students write using specified moves for each essay, yet choose their own topic. Revision workshops center on rhetorical analysis—does the author's choice of writing strategies accomplish the purpose set for the essay? Students build rhetorical analysis skills while honing writing craft through a combination of mentor text analysis and integrating moves in essay writing.  Students learn which modes of arrangement suit different purposes and how one can combine modes within argument, rhetorical analysis and synthesis essays.  The annual College Board/Atlantic Magazine student essay contest combines modes of arrangement. I also seek additional authentic writing experiences for students to develop writing skills.

While I honor a student's ethnicity, by integrating authors from his or her culture, I also honor a student's intellectual culture.  Students are more engaged in the process because they choose topics for writing. My AP Lang class comprises artists, musicians, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, and economists.  If mathematicians can better understand a subject as an equation, they create the equation during textual analysis. If I can bring in mentor texts to address intellectual interests, students are more engaged and other class members learn concepts for argumentation evidence.

How do you include culture in your classes?  What essays would you add to the files? Add your comments to the post below.

The link to the files is goo.gl/Ci7hxk

Robin Bucaria