Methodology
My world history course has four essential questions:
1. What is the story of power and powerlessness?
2. What has created diversity and unity within and across traditions and cultures?
3.What is progress and how and why do humans pursue it?
4. How, then, shall we (I) live in relation to others and the planet?
The course collaborates with the world religions course that explores how religious traditions have shaped human history and vice versa. The history and religion course together form the humanities course. The course aims to give students a fuller appreciation of history as a tool for understanding the modern world. At the same time, the course affords students the opportunity to hone essential academic skills: critical thinking, reading, writing, and collaborative learning.
I taught two sections of the course with a total of twenty-four students. The majority of students at the school and consequently my class are wealthy and white. In my classes, I had one African-American male, international students from Brazil, China, Taiwan, and the United States including two Native Americans. There were 16 girls out of 25 students and the socio-economic status of the students was very diverse. There were two polarizing conservative students and three polarizing liberal students in the course. The students are used to a harkness style set up and the school emphasizes student centered learning. The other World History courses use a textbook, however, as I stated in my syllabus, I had: decided to teach this course with a variety of perspectives throughout history instead of through a textbook that resembles an agreed upon construction of knowledge.
I approached this course with the following questions in mind:
1. How can I help my students develop critical literacy?
2. How will they respond to me as a source of knowledge given my identifiers ?
3. How will they respond to my activities?
4. What will engage the students?
5. What does critical literacy look like in my classroom?
1. What is the story of power and powerlessness?
2. What has created diversity and unity within and across traditions and cultures?
3.What is progress and how and why do humans pursue it?
4. How, then, shall we (I) live in relation to others and the planet?
The course collaborates with the world religions course that explores how religious traditions have shaped human history and vice versa. The history and religion course together form the humanities course. The course aims to give students a fuller appreciation of history as a tool for understanding the modern world. At the same time, the course affords students the opportunity to hone essential academic skills: critical thinking, reading, writing, and collaborative learning.
I taught two sections of the course with a total of twenty-four students. The majority of students at the school and consequently my class are wealthy and white. In my classes, I had one African-American male, international students from Brazil, China, Taiwan, and the United States including two Native Americans. There were 16 girls out of 25 students and the socio-economic status of the students was very diverse. There were two polarizing conservative students and three polarizing liberal students in the course. The students are used to a harkness style set up and the school emphasizes student centered learning. The other World History courses use a textbook, however, as I stated in my syllabus, I had: decided to teach this course with a variety of perspectives throughout history instead of through a textbook that resembles an agreed upon construction of knowledge.
I approached this course with the following questions in mind:
1. How can I help my students develop critical literacy?
2. How will they respond to me as a source of knowledge given my identifiers ?
3. How will they respond to my activities?
4. What will engage the students?
5. What does critical literacy look like in my classroom?
while students need technical skills to open doors, they also need to be able to think critically and creatively in order to participate in meaningful and potentially liberating work inside those doors
-Lisa delpit