This week, we are continuing our exploration of former Oakland superintendent, Dr. Marcus Foster, through two very creative explorations of his voice. Nick Brown’s immersive piece walks us through some of the attempts to address the inequity that exists in Oakland education. He opens with demographic and graduation information about Oakland Unified School District, followed by words of former Oakland superintendent Dr. Marcus Foster. We are then brought into the present and some of the work of educators and students who are working towards equity-seeking and liberatory practices. This visual and auditory exploration of Oakland immerses us in some of the equity challenges of the district while sharing some of the assessment and teaching strategies that can be used in Oakland and beyond.
Nick’s piece is followed by a reflection and lesson plan by Beth Blankenship. She shares her own experience in learning about Dr. Marcus Foster, and developing a lesson plan and resources to share the liberatory work with both educators and students.
Although very different in structure and tone, these two pieces help immerse us in a liberatory perspective on education, embedding the voice of Dr. Marcus Foster, who was a trailblazer in how he attempted to transform the system as he pursued equity in education.
Video contains explicit language. We do not own the rights to the music. Video content via Youtube.
Credits:
2Pac Shakur - The Rose That Grew From Concrete
Maya Angelou - Still I Rise
ARISE High School staff and students
Envision Learning Partners
Center for Innovation in Education
Oakland Public Schools Digital Media Department
Storyteller
Nick Brown
State Personnel Development Grant Program Advisor
Nick is the State Personnel Development Grant Program Advisor for the Office of Innovation for Education. He has been a member of the educational community for the last 12 years and specializes now in supporting schools in the needs of coaching and special education. As a support personnel for the Arkansas Department of Education his journey to Oakland wasn't just impactful but insightful.
For this story, I wanted to design a culturally responsive lesson for my AP Language and Composition students based on the life of Marcus Albert Foster. When I learned about Marcus Albert Foster and read his Back-to-School speech to Oakland educators in 1973 at the convening, I was awed and embarrassed. Awed because of the amazing history, accomplishments, and shining spirit of Mr. Foster. Embarrassed because I knew nothing about him. I’m an educator who cares about students, school reform, African American history, and have long ties to California and the Bay Area. But I did not know about Mr. Foster! (I was once again reminded that there is so much I don’t know because so many lived experiences are outside of my typical day / life / educational background, etc. How can I be constantly thinking about how to learn what I’m missing??)
When I read it during our day one contextualing experience, I immediately thought that I needed share Mr. Foster’s inspirational speech with my AP Language students when I returned from the conference as a rhetorical analysis prompt / experience. I was so jazzed to “expose them to something they are not familiar with” and open their eyes to a a person and a speech that had so much historical context. I thought it would be a learning experience that would deepen their, and my, historical context analysis skills. My initial thought was to have the students:
read Mr. Foster’s speech with no historical context and write an essay analyzing his argument and the rhetorical strategies he used to make his argument and achieve his purpose (typical AP Lang prompt)
THEN read some very basic historical context (Wikipedia)
re-read the speech a second time after very basic historical context
generate inquiry questions as a small group about Mr. Foster, Oakland, education in 1970’s in Oakland, education in the U.S. in the 20th Century, etc… as many questions as possible - hopefully as many as there are students in the class, if not more (@30/31)
discuss the text and questions student have in a Socratic Seminar / Learning Circle
divide and conquer as a class to research / explore their questions (students would choose a question or questions to explore)
Provide some initial sources, and have students build from there
Map of Oakland schools and boundaries (Suggested, 5 min read)
Dr. Marcus Foster (Suggested - 3 min read)
A Tale of Two Cities (Optional - 5 min read)
History of Charter schools in Oakland (Optional - 5 min read)
Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) (Optional - 5 min read)
This is my city (Optional - 1 min video)
The Changing Faces of Oakland (Optional - 5 min read)
read each others’ researched learning information and create a personal ‘historical context map”
re-read the speech a third time and make connections to as many of the historical context learnings as possible (individual)
as a group, share their connections and build deeper analysis / develop together a strong response to the original prompt
individually write a second essay analyzing his argument and the rhetorical strategies he used to make his argument and achieve his purpose (typical AP Lang prompt)
share the essay with a group of peers and get feedback on the essay / give feedback to peers on their essays
revise the 2nd essay to write a FINAL essay to be shared with me
REFLECT on the following questions:
How did learning about the historical context deepen your understanding of the text?
What feedback did you receive on your essay that surprised you? What feedback makes you reconsider your thinking?
What are you most proud of regarding this essay? What would you still like to change?
How did learning more about the speaker deepen your understanding of the text?
How did learning more about the audience deepen your understanding of the text?
What are the most impactful new learnings about education for you?
What are the most impactful new learnings about humanity for you?
What else did you learn? How is this learning meaningful to you, our community, and our world?
What other topic(s) would you like to learn more about?
What feedback do you have for me on this learning experience? What did you enjoy / what was helpful to you and our class? What could be improved?
However, as I thought more about this idea, the following questions hit my mind:
Is this the best time to present this speech and learning experience to my AP Language students since it is the end of the year, their AP Exam is done, and we had many other tasks to accomplish / planned for the last two weeks of school?
Am I rushing this important lesson? Am I giving the lesson design enough time to responsibly and rightly honor such an amazing individual as Mr. Foster and all the deep history?
How can I create a lesson / experience for students that is culturally responsive and doesn’t “other” Mr. Foster and Oakland Schools as a comparative to the wealthy and largely caucasian student population of my system and school? How do I “ build an aligned and coherent performance assessment system that promotes learner belonging, equity and liberation?” - the AFL Convening Guiding Question.
So, I put the breaks on sharing the speech and Mr. Foster’s life with my students at the end of the school year. I needed to put more time and thought into this lesson before teaching this experience to make it meaningful. I also wanted to get some feedback from my colleague who attended the conference with me, and, hopefully, the AFL community as part of sharing my “story”.
Next steps, I wrote up the basic “lesson plan” (I haven’t used a lesson plan in years, so please excuse the lack of formality here. I also don’t believe in “lessons”. Even the word looks and feels wrong to me so I’m going to call this a Learning Experience instead):
____________________________________________________________________________
Learning Experience: Historical Context is Key to a Deeper Understanding of Human Experiences
Essential Question: How can we develop a deeper understanding of people and experiences by exploring and connecting to historical context?
Goals: At the end of this learning experience, students will know and be able to:
the importance of historical context to understand a person, a life, and a community
explore a person and historical time period from a variety of perspectives and sources
share learning in a cogent and concise manner that helps their peers learn
synthesize information from a variety of sources and perspectives
reconsider and re-think learning to deepen understanding
reflect on learning to deepen understanding
write a rhetorical analysis response to an AP Language prompt
revise writing and learning based on deeper understanding and feedback
Activities: (revised)
DAY 1:
Pre-learning activity:
Student Journal Questions:
What is the relationship is between belonging and learning?
When you try to understand people and communities, what steps do you usually take?
Why is historical context important to understanding people and communities?
What historical context do you think people need to know about our school / community to understand your learning experiences?
Class seminar / discussion of questions and responses
Students add on to their journal responses with new learnings after the seminar
Analysis #1: read Mr. Foster’s speech with no historical context and write an essay analyzing his argument and the rhetorical strategies he used to make his argument and achieve his purpose (typical AP Lang prompt)
DAY 2:
read some very basic historical context on Marcus Albert Foster (Wikipedia)
re-read the speech a second time after very basic historical context
generate inquiry questions as a small group about Mr. Foster, Oakland, education in 1970’s in Oakland, education in the U.S. in the 20th Century, etc… as many questions as possible - hopefully as many as there are students in the class, if not more (@30/31)
discuss the text and questions student have in a Socratic Seminar / Learning Circle
DAY 3:
divide and conquer as a class to research / explore their questions (students would choose a question or questions to explore)
Provide some initial sources, and have students build from there
Map of Oakland schools and boundaries (Suggested, 5 min read)
Dr. Marcus Foster (Suggested - 3 min read)
A Tale of Two Cities (Optional - 5 min read)
History of Charter schools in Oakland (Optional - 5 min read)
Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) (Optional - 5 min read)
This is my city (Optional - 1 min video)
The Changing Faces of Oakland (Optional - 5 min read)
DAY 4:
read each others’ researched learning information and create a personal ‘historical context map”
re-read the speech a third time and make connections to as many of the historical context learnings as possible (individual)
as a group, share their connections and build deeper analysis / develop together a strong response to the original prompt
DAY 5:
individually write a second essay analyzing his argument and the rhetorical strategies he used to make his argument and achieve his purpose (typical AP Lang prompt)
share the essay with a group of peers and get feedback on the essay / give feedback to peers on their essays
DAY 6:
revise the 2nd essay to write a FINAL essay to be shared with me
REFLECT on the following questions:
How did learning about the historical context deepen your understanding of the text?
What feedback did you receive on your essay that surprised you? What feedback makes you reconsider your thinking?
What are you most proud of regarding this essay? What would you still like to change?
How did learning more about the speaker deepen your understanding of the text?
How did learning more about the audience deepen your understanding of the text?
What are the most impactful new learnings about education for you?
What are the most impactful new learnings about humanity for you?
What else did you learn? How is this learning meaningful to you, our community, and our world?
What other topic(s) would you like to learn more about?
What feedback do you have for me on this learning experience? What did you enjoy / what was helpful to you and our class? What could be improved?
Assessments:
Verbal and short notes of feedback during the initial reading, exploration, and socratic discussion activities
Feedback from peers / giving feedback to peers
Written feedback on the final essay and reflection questions
Assessment of the essay using the AP Language & Composition Rhetorical Analysis essay scoring rubric
Now that I’ve written this idea out with more specificity, I realize a number of things:
I really need to take more time with this than I initially considered and I’m happy that I didn’t try to “throw this in” at the end of last year
I need to get feedback on this learning experience from a critical friend or four - or more - before I share this experience with students.
I need to continue revising this as a performance assessment that promotes learner belonging, equity and liberation. I don’t think it is honoring the Oakland students’ experiences and lives as much as it could / should. I need to figure out a better way to have students connect with other students’ experiences to build empathy and understanding of all human learning experiences. I’ll focus my feedback on asking colleagues to review the experience for those aspects.
Storyteller
Beth Blankenship
Teacher
Beth Blankenship is an English teacher at James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia. When not teaching AP Language and AP Seminar courses, she supports the student portfolio, reflection, and presentation of learning program at Madison, and is always seeking to improve the experience for students, teachers, and community members.
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