My Plan for Creating a Culturally Diverse Classroom Frances Rake AED/204 April 21st, 2013 Anissa Christian My Plan for Creating a Culturally Diverse Classroom All children are entitled to the same quality education regardless of sex, race, religion, cultural or social background, and abilities. An equal education for all children is not only required by law but [For parallel construction, "not only" must be followed by "but also" later in the sentence] morally as well. Not only is providing all children an equal education very important but [Needs "but also"] the environment in which it is provided is as well. In order for all children to reach their highest educational potential, to feel welcome and excepted [Check spelling: "Except" is a preposition meaning to exclude. "Accept" is a verb meaning to receive or to take] , and to gain the self- confidence and skills needed to be successful in life they must be educated in a bias free, accepting, and caring classroom. This is monumental to their education and lifelong success. Without this children who are [Writing suggestion: rewrite the sentence to remove "who are"] different in any way from what is considered the norm will feel shy, and awkward. They will participate less in classroom activities and discussions which will negatively affect their grades. They will have low self-esteem and will carry with them a feeling that they do not belong. In my classroom I will create a bias free, accepting and caring environment. I will do this by having multi-cultural day. As a class we will discuss [A flat statement of your intentions in the composition is called an announcement, and it is a weak introduction. Try introducing the subject more temptingly, piquing the reader's interest] the similarities and differences between cultures, the food, dress, music, religion, and holidays. I will invite students and parents to share stories about their cultures and lives. Throughout the year will discuss and celebrate not only the major Christian holidays but [Needs "but also"] holidays from other cultures. With a least five different ethnic and religious groups in my classroom there may be a language barrier to consider. I will use visual-aids, hands-on activities, and small work groups to present information. This I think will help students who are [Writing suggestion: rewrite the sentence to remove "who are"] struggling gain a firmer grasp of concepts and strengthen friendships and bonds between student’s who are [Writing suggestion: rewrite the sentence to remove "who are"] working together. A major part of creating a non-bias, accepting, and caring classroom environment is the physical appearance of the room. Posters, pictures, and visual aids used in the classroom will be free of bias, and stereo types. They will reflect multiple races, and cultures in a positive race. No one race will be displayed more prominently or in a more favorable light than another. Shelves, cabinets, supplies, and other furniture will all be labeled in multiply languages, such as English, Spanish, Russian, or Arabic. I will take into to account the cultures and races of all my students and make the labels according to the different languages used by my students. A main focus point in a lot of [Only commercial shipments and real estate are measured in lots. To use "a lot of" to mean "many," "much," or "a large amount" is a colloquialism (not universally clear). Use another term.] classrooms is a bulletin board. A bulletin board reflects not only the concepts being [Doctoral rule (but good advice for any academic writer)--If not a noun (as in "human being"), the word "Being" is hard to imagine; it means "existing." Try to rewrite this without using "being"--with action words like "attending," "working," "living," "experiencing," simply "as"--or even removing "being" completely] taught in the classroom but also the environment, atmosphere in which they are taught. The bulletin board in my classroom will be free of bias and stereotypes and reflect the diversity of the students. For example as part of our celebration of other cultures my schools holds an annual international foods festival. This is an after school event that the community in invited to enjoy. The bulletin board in my classroom will be decorated to reflect the diversity and the strong sense of community that this international food festival invokes. Around the boarder of the bulletin board will be the flags of different countries around the world. There will be pictures and images of people of all ages from different cultures doing a variety of activities. Each picture or image will have a caption that gives an interesting fact or tidbit about the culture it reflects. As part of our international food festival I will have my students work in small groups to research traditional food and drink of a different culture. Each group will pick a recipe from their culture to make and present at the festival. Pictures of the students preparing their dishes, background on what dish they chose and why, and a copy of the recipe will be displayed on the bulletin board. Like many classrooms my bulletin board will be decorated for holidays. A big holiday that bulletin boards are decorated for is Christmas. Many bulletin boards will be adorned with pictures of Christmas trees, Santa Clause, and stockings, this completely ignores other cultures and holidays like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa that are also celebrated in December. The bulletin board in my classroom will not say “Merry Christmas”; it will say “Happy Holidays”. There will be a Christmas tree on the board but also a Menorah and a Kinara. A Menorah is a nine-branch candle holder used in the Jewish Festival of Lights known as Hanukkah and [Grammar: A run-on sentence requires a comma before "and" (or other conjunction) linking main clauses] a Kinara is a seven-branched candle holder used in the African-American holiday known as Kwanzaa. I will ask students and parents to share stories and pictures of their family’s holiday traditions and display them on the bulletin board. It is very important to not show [Negative wording is often difficult to understand, particularly a negative split infinitive. Instead of "to not show," try "not to show" or variations of "to avoid showing," "to keep from showing," "to disallow showing," "to forbid showing," "to fail to show," etc.--beware: these are computer-generated suggestions and could contain misspellings] favor over one set of people, to make all children feel important, accepted and welcomed, both my plan for creating a non- bias, accepting, and caring environment and my plan for creating a culturally balanced bulletin board do just that. My plan also addresses the needs of English language learners in my classroom. Living in a culturally and socially diverse area it is expected that I will be responsible for the education of children from a wide array of backgrounds, some of who will not speak English as their first language. To address the educational needs of all my students my plan includes way to make the atmosphere in my classroom inviting, culturally divers [Check spelling. "Divers" are people in swimming suits. "Diverse" means "different, unlike, "dissimilar."] [Check spelling: the preferred spelling is "diverse" unless you mean swimmers in deep-sea diving suits] [The preferred spelling is "diverse" because this spelling can be confused too easily with people using swim-fins] , accepting, and caring. My use of multi-language labels and furniture and supplies not only adds to the diversity of the classroom but [Needs "but also"] will help ELL students who may have a language barrier but will also help them to be able to [Wordiness: Remove "be able to"; the sentence will read more smoothly without it] associate English words for common classroom objects. For these reasons I will also post my classroom rules and procedures in several languages. The hands- on activities and visual aids that I will use to present topics will be of benefit to not only [Negative wording is often difficult to understand, particularly a negative split infinitive. Instead of "to not only," try "not only to" or variations of "to avoid," "to keep from," "to disallow," "to forbid," "to fail to," etc.] ELL students but [Needs "but also"] any student who is struggling in a subject. They will give students a different avenue in which to learn and process information. This will help students who come from socially challenged background or do not get the support they need from home keep up in the curriculum. My main plan is to be as open- minded, accepting, and tolerant as possible. I will base my observations and assessment of students on their performance, behavior, and attitudes and hope that by setting a good example my students will follow suite. In this way I plan to create an atmosphere of tolerance, acceptance, and caring in my classroom.