Many children in urban communities struggle with reading and writing despite your efforts to implement best literacy practices. This book will help preservice teachers, classroom teachers, and teacher educators bridge cultural gaps to help these children achieve in literacy. Enrich your own cultural understandings as you learn about how the experiences of preservice teachers in urban communities prepared them for the responsibility that comes with teaching in these settings. Ultimately, you'll gain insights about becoming culturally sensitive as you read these real-life stories of teacher growth.

Today’s public schools represent greater student diversity than ever before in the history of the United States, yet pedagogical approaches as mandated by state education agencies and school districts superimpose mainstream curricula and instructional practices which ultimately disadvantage the academic outcomes of the majority minority: African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students. Unfortunately, national report findings also heighten the educational crisis that exists for Black and Brown children with regard to reading and writing achievement. As a result, there is need to deeply explore the relationship between Black and Brown student literacy achievement and educational policy, teacher education program, curriculum, and assessment. This book seeks to provide some practical insights guided by conceptual and contextual knowledge by understanding how to teach urban African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students by discussing culturally appropriate instructional strategies that have demonstrated success among African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students. This book will showcase successful models for teaching literacy to urban student through a discussion of topics that include: (1) increasing literacy achievement and motivation, (2) multicultural literacy practices, and (3) early and elementary literacy instruction.

All students deserve the opportunity to reach their full literacy potential, yet research shows that the numerous challenges faced by today's urban schools prevent many students from achieving this goal. Therefore, preparing teachers to effectively teach reading in diverse urban populations in ways that students find engaging and relevant must be a top priority of teacher education programs.

The nation’s demographic of public schools are more ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse than ever before (Strauss, 2014). However, there are still educational policies and practices that call to question whether traditionally marginalized students receive an equitable education. This is demonstrated in national achievement trends, which highlight disproportionality ratings among minoritized student groups. Also when examining school discipline policies, expulsion ratings, special education services, and school choice movements, all seem to handicap educational opportunity for low-income Black and Brown students. As American schools become more and more diverse, it is imperative that the literacy practices used to teach young students of color reflect the nation’s changing demographic. This book provides practical insights guided by conceptual and contextual knowledge in understanding how to teach urban African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students by discussing issues associated with critical pedagogies, literacy, and culturally appropriate instructional strategies that have demonstrated success for traditionally marginalized student populations. This book examines culturally affirming literacy practices from three main components: (1) scholarship, (2) the field of practice, and (3) teacher education models. Each of these three are significant in understanding how to teach minoritized populations. As such, chapters have been organized into three main sections that address scholarship and research, trends in the field, and implications for teacher education models – all in order to advance the literacy achievement of African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students.

Urban schools share the same concerns as other schools, especially regarding issues of pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. How these issues are addressed in the urban school setting, however, presents unique challenges and opportunities for teaching and learning. Literacy Development of Students in Urban Schools: Research and Policy presents a comprehensive view of the issues and perspectives that affect the literacy education of urban students. Editors James Flood and Patricia L. Anders have organized this collection into three sections to show you how literacy development is complicated by various contexts: 1. Human Contexts of Literacy Development in Urban Schools: Poverty, School Violence, and Health Concerns 2. School Contexts of Literacy Development in Urban Schools: Curriculum, Students, and Teachers 3. Political and Organizational Contexts of Literacy Development in Urban Schools: Local and State Concerns Each section features chapters that synthesize the research on a specific topic, and chapters that respond to each synthesis to link the research to literacy instruction and programs. Included within these sections are possible implications for local, state, and national policy that will serve as starting points for conversations between educators and policymakers. The diverse perspectives from leading experts in the field will help you fully understand the knowledge base on literacy development in urban schools. This informative collection is a must-read for anyone preparing teachers to teach in urban schools, supervisors and administrators of urban schools, and policymakers.

This book about the transition from teacher preparation to teaching practice in urban school settings offers rare insight into how teachers can transform their own practice and in the process, transform the culture of schools.

As the civic engagement gap widens across lines of race, class, and ethnicity, educators in today’s urban schools must reconsider what it means to teach for citizenship; however, few resources exist that speak to their unique contexts. Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools offers lessons and strategies that combines the power of inquiry-driven teaching with a funds of knowledge approach to capitalize on the lived civic experiences of urban youth and children. Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools presents six strategies for making civic and social studies education relevant and engaging: using photovoice for social change, conducting culturally responsive investigations of community, defining American Black founders, enacting hip-hop pedagogy, employing equity literacy to explore immigrant enclaves, and drawing on young adult fiction to teach about police violence. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, each chapter includes an overview of the strategy and lessons for both elementary and secondary students. As a whole, these lessons draw on neighborhood resources, facilitate cultural exchanges among students and teachers, create community networks, and bridge schools and communities in a shared mission of building a just and inclusive democracy. This book is for anyone who values student-centered, inquiry-driven, and culturally-sustaining pedagogies that foster a deeper understanding of citizenship within a diverse democracy.