2 Chapter 2: Critically Reflecting on Student Biographies
2 Chapter 2: Critically Reflecting on Student Biographies
Across the United States, the tapestry of the K-12 student population has changed dramatically over the last twenty years and is continuing to evolve. For example, today, one in four children in the United States arrives at school from an immigrant family and live in households where a language other than English is spoken at home (Samson & Collins, 2012). As a future teacher, it is important to think about the student population you will be working with in your classroom. This chapter will explore key issues related to getting to know your students biographies. This exploration of student biographies begins with an understanding of our own Autobiographical Narratives. We will build on our Autobiographical Narratives by learning more about ourselves as learners and how our own learning styles might influence our future instructional practices. Finally, this chapter will explore how our sociocultural background or “knapsack” influences our perceptions.
Section I: Autobiographical narratives
2.1 Essential Questions
At the end of Section I, the following questions should be answered:
- What is an Autobiographical Narrative?
- What is the role of an Autobiographical Narrative in the classroom?
- What information is most important to include in an Autobiographical Narrative? Why?
- How might you adapt Autobiographical Narratives if you wanted to apply them with K-12 students?
- What did you learn about your peers as a result of sharing your Autobiographical Narratives with each other?
Autobiographcial Narratives
Every student brings unique talents and skills to the classroom. As educators, it is our job to find out what these talents are so that we can build upon them within the classroom. According to Herrera (2016), “understanding the core aspects of each student is essential to the process of identifying the skills and knowledge that he or she brings to the classroom” (p. 7). Autobiographical narratives are one of the key tools that educators can use to learn about the core aspects of each individual student biography.
Autobiographical narratives pull from research on Biography Driven Instruction (BDI). Biography-Driven Instruction (Herrera, 2016) is a communicative method of teaching and learning the helps teachers understand and maximize assets of the student biography to provide a more culturally responsive approach to teaching. For more information on BDI, please read the following article titled: Approximating Cultural Responsiveness: Teacher Readiness for Accommodative, Biography-Driven Instruction.
2.2 A Closer Look
The following article provides an in depth look at the following four key dimensions of Biography-Driven Instruction: sociocultural, linguistic, academic and cognitive. As you read the article, please consider the following questions:
- How does CRTP promote an asset-based perspective on teaching and learning?
- What is the purpose of each of the following phases of BDI: a