Biography-Driven Culturally Responsive Teaching

This popular resource has transformed classrooms for thousands of teachers by providing how-to guidance for success with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. It illustrates how to use strategies that recognize and leverage all the cultural and linguistic assets that students bring to their learning.

This new edition situates biography-driven instruction at the intersection of culturally responsive teaching, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and antiracist education. Herrera provides updated vignettes and student work artifacts to reflect the diversity of learners in today’s historically and culturally situated spaces. Teaching strategies, tools, and interactional processes provide practical, proven ways to restructure classrooms for relational equity. Increased attention on each learner’s biopsychosocial history will help educators to cultivate classroom ecologies that nurture and challenge CLD learners to reach their potentials.

With lesson planning and strategy templates, tips for grouping students, teacher reflections, assessment aids, a classroom observation tool, and more features to foster classroom and schoolwide change, this edition shows teachers and administrators how to take the next steps toward critical consciousness and authentic relationships that will accelerate content learning and foster more extensive use and development of language.

Book Features:

• Lesson planning guide that can be used with any curriculum.
• Strategy tools and templates to foster engaged learning.
• Voices of CLD families that highlight benefits of asset-driven practices.
• Journaling process for critical reflection on assumptions and perspectives.
• Book study discussion guide to scaffold collaboration and goal setting.
• Classroom observation tool for coaching, mentoring, and self-assessment.

Socorro G. Herrera is professor of curriculum and instruction at The Kansas State University and executive director of the Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy (CIMA). Her books include Equity in School–Parent Partnerships, Accelerating Literacy for Diverse Learners, and Crossing the Vocabulary Bridge. She received the 2022 AERA Division K Legacy Award.

"Socorro Herrera does a masterful job of mediating multicultural education theory and practice, specifically for culturally and linguistically diverse students."
—From the Foreword by Geneva Gay, University of Washington, Seattle

Contents

Foreword Geneva Gay vii
Preface: My Life, My Work ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1

1 The Foundations of Biography-Driven Instruction 4
The Influence of Politics on CLD Student Education 5
Access Denied: Limiting Programs for CLD Learners 6
What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything 8
The Foundations of Biography-Driven Instruction 9
Charting the Course Toward Liberatory Practices 9
I Need You, and You Need Me: Learning as a Social Practice 12
Teaching and Learning in the Third Space 14
Research Into How the Brain Learns 14
Making It Happen! How This Book Can Guide Next Steps 17

2 Biography-Driven Instruction 18
Biopsychosocial History 19
Confronting Our Reality: Invisible External and Internal Forces 20
The CLD Student Biography 27
The Sociocultural Dimension 27
Reflections on the Sociocultural Dimension 33

3 Language of the Heart 35
The Linguistic Dimension 35
Reflections on the Linguistic Dimension 46

4 Culture-Driven Thought and Learning 47
The Cognitive Dimension 47
Reflections on the Cognitive Dimension 59

5 Academics: More Than a Test Score or Grade 60
The Academic Dimension 60
Reflections on the Academic Dimension 67

6 Biography-Driven Planning, Teaching, and Assessing 72
Contextual and Situational Processes 72
Contextual and Situational Teaching 75
Biography-Driven Instruction: A Culturally Responsive Method 78
Reflections on Valuing the Student in Teaching 92

7 Activation: A Canvas of Opportunity 93
Socioculturally Speaking 94
Transparency in Teaching 95
Linguistically Speaking: How Vocabulary Fits Into the Picture 99
Cognitively Speaking: Creating a Canvas of Opportunity for Disclosure 106
Reflections on Activating What Students Know 110

8 Connection: Navigating From the Known to the Unknown 112
Transformative Comprehensible Input 113
Activities Versus Strategies 117
Navigating Socioemotional States of Mind 121
Scaffolding From Student Words/Thoughts to New Learning 129
Students Negotiate Meaning 133
Reflections on Connecting Lessons to Our Students’ Lives 136

9 Affirmation: Evidence-Based Celebration of Linguistic and Academic Learning 137
Emotion, Cognition, and Assessment 137
Formative Assessment 140
Learning Strategies as a Bridge to Summative Assessment 146
Review, Rehearsal, and Retrieval 147
Reflections on Affirming Student Learning Through Assessment 151

10 Biography-Driven Pedagogical Action: Voices of Care, Hope, and Academic Achievement 153
A Different Type of Agenda 154
BDI and Research-Based Standards 154
Action and Transformation: The Schoolwide Impact of BDI 158
Voices From the Field 161
Through the Eyes of a Student 167
Final Reflections 168

Glossary 177
Appendices 181
Appendix A: Critical Reflection Using the Reflection Wheel Journal 182
Appendix B: CLD Student Biography Card: Template 184
Appendix C: DOTS Strategy (Determine, Observe, Talk, Summarize) 185
Appendix D: Mind Map 186
Appendix E: Vocabulary Quilt 187
Appendix F: Ignite, Discover, Extend, Affirm (IDEA) 188
Appendix G: Thumb Challenge 189
Appendix H: Uncover, Concentrate, Monitor, Evaluate (U-C-ME) 190
Appendix I: Quick Guide to Biography-Driven Instructional Concepts 191
List of Instructional Aids Available Online (tcpress.com) :
Discussion Guide, Templates, Rubrics, and Checklist 192
References 193
Index 201
About the Author 208

Download Selected Instructional Aids as a PDF.