This toolkit for "The Ripple Effect" couples two powerful YCteen stories with the rigorous literacy strategies and tasks from TT's classroom resources.
As a child I knew my grandfather was different. Grandpapa had been a sharecropper in southern Indiana. He had worked most of his adult life raising corn and pigs. His hands were big and callused. He stooped when he walked and the skin on his neck and face was scarred. His earlobes were long, stretched and fused down low at the back of his jawbone. His eyes seemed to be a bit elongated in their sockets. He was different because he looked different. You see, when he was a young child he had played with matches and caught his clothes on fire. His facial disfigurement was the price he paid for the bad judgment of a toddler.
During Brain Share, small groups of students rotate through stations, discussing and recording concepts from central texts. This strategy is a modified combination of gallery walks and jigsaw.
When this teacher, then a closeted lesbian, heard her students using the word gay negatively, she had to choose between playing it safe and genuinely fostering an inclusive classroom culture.
Students investigate, interview and profile a person working for equity and social change. The person can work on the local, national or international level, with an organization or as an individual. The compiled profiles will form a resource for other students in the future.
"I just don’t know what to do about Jordan," confessed Mary, whom I’d just met. I don’t know if she was confiding in me because I teach English or because that’s just what one does at a nail salon. “Last year, he spent hours filling his journals and talking about being a writer when he grew up. Now he hardly writes at all. He says he’s not any good at it.”