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        a series of posts on adult education

Conflict, Consequences, and Context--Creating a Unit on "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"

6/29/2020

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by Ric Nudell, June 2020
I was introduced to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks when my wife, Aliza Ansell (one of the co-authors of this unit, along with Kristi Kaeppel) talked to me about reading it with her ABE students. When I became an ABE teacher, I borrowed Aliza’s work to teach parts of the book with my students.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, tells the story of a poor, undereducated black woman whose “…cells became the first human cell line that could grow and divide endlessly in a laboratory.” Research using her cells contributed to development of the polio vaccine, and many other medical advances. Around the world, research using her cells continues today.

The book details the process by which Henrietta’s cells were taken, without explanation or consent. It narrates the extended, largely unthinking interactions between a mostly white medical establishment and Henrietta’s black family. It lays bare a conflict of cultures and the consequences for the unequal partner in that conflict.
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In this unit we examine the historical context for the Henrietta Lacks story—the Jim Crow south of Clover, Virginia, and the family’s migration (as part of the Great Migration) to Turner Station, Maryland.
Map of Clover, Virginia to Sparrows Point, Maryland (part of Baltimore)
When my students study a historical text, I like to ask if they can identify whose story we are hearing.
Take the Thanksgiving story. In elementary school, I learned a version with grateful Pilgrims and generous Indians (Native Americans) coming together to celebrate a successful harvest. However, the Wampanoag—the Native Americans of the story—relate the Thanksgiving events with a number of differences from the version I learned.
WHO
is
telling
the story?

I ask my students to identify those differences, and ask what we might infer from them. Why have different narrators included different details? What might that tell us about the narrators, or about the story? I close the exercise by asking how what we just discussed might encourage us to do more critical thinking when we study history.
U.S. history begins with a convergence of three peoples—European explorers and colonists, indigenous peoples (Native Americans), and Africans. Only one of those groups came to that convergence voluntarily.
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The consequences of that convergence continue to manifest themselves today.

Differences among those three groups across categories--like health outcomes, economic achievement, educational opportunity, incarceration, and voting rights--are rooted in the course of that convergence.

The work to deliver inclusive civil rights and social justice matters. The outcome is not predetermined. Even the best actors in that work need broad support. In an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, President Lincoln wrote:
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution….If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union….

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Lincoln eventually concluded that the path to saving the Union accorded with his personal wish to eliminate slavery. But, that choice was not inevitable. This unit hopes to foster the type of support Lincoln needed when making his choice.
People Make Choices.
Choices Make History.

The story of Henrietta Lacks introduces students to some of the historical context for the Black Lives Matter movement. It personalizes labels like Jim Crow and discrimination. The unit provides a ready platform for looking both forward and back, and considering many of the signposts that got us to where we are today.
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This unit is based on a complex, non-fiction text. It is designed to be challenging for learners at GLE 6-8.

Find the unit, with lesson plans, handouts, and links to other resources, at https://www.sabes.org/content/ela-curriculum-example-henrietta-lacks-jim-crow.

Please note: This unit was created and taught before the distance teaching and learning situation created by the pandemic. Several aspects of it could be adapted to online teaching relatively easily, if students had tablets or laptops and internet connections. Working with students whose only access is via a cell phone would require re-structuring, especially of the writing assignments.

At the time of creating this unit, Ric Nudell was an ABE STAR teacher at Valley Opportunity Council in Chicopee, MA.
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My Students Like this Topic Above All Other History Topics

5/13/2020

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Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement
by Brooke Machado, May 2020
The Civil Rights Movement transformed life in the United States, enveloping some of the most defining years in American history. I have continuously embedded some form of instruction on Civil Rights in my adult education classes since my first job teaching ESOL at night school in Dorchester.

I created the “America’s Civil Rights Movement” instructional unit, with some sample lesson plans, from a compilation of what has worked best for my students over the past 20 years. The material can be taught in its entirety or in parts coupled with other history- or civics-based lessons.
Why teach America’s Civil Rights Movement?
America’s Civil Rights Movement is a worthy subject to teach for numerous reasons. Students have a natural interest in the topic so are drawn to it. Most, regardless of where they are from, have basic knowledge of some of the era’s most important players and key events, and they are often hungry to know more.
This semester, I kicked off by asking students what they want to learn. One student shared that while she knows who Dr. King is, and his famous speech, she wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of why he gave the speech, and what was happening in the country before and after it. In my experience, this type of close questioning and discovery of new knowledge often drives students throughout the unit.
Additionally, students have the opportunity to discover what is lesser known, sadly in part because it is lesser taught. My students say, year after year, that during their time in school, they were not taught important Civil Rights topics. I once read a statistic that only some 2% of high school students are familiar with Brown v. Board of Education, for example. Many of the texts encountered in Civil Rights teaching expose students to the lesser known change-makers and events that have changed the country.
The students respond
My students have proclaimed liking this topic more than others we cover about history all year (that’s fine by me, no offense taken!). Observably, students are energized throughout the learning, often sharing the knowledge they acquire with their loved ones and beyond. When I have asked, “What do you want to remember about the American Civil Rights Movement?” here are some of my students' responses:
“What I want to remember from the American Civil Rights Movement is how African Americans fought against discrimination in order to gain equal rights in the United States. They started to challenge society on discrimination and social difference between racial groups. Many of the Civil Rights Movement leaders lost their lives while they were advocating for changes. Even though the Civil Rights Movement groups accomplished some of their goals, still we have discrimination in our society.”
“Although the Civil Rights Movement created positive change for all African Americans, the fact is that African Americans, as well as other non-white nationalities, have still been subjected to acts of racism and discrimination to this day. However, I have learned about many instances of atrocities committed against African American slaves, but also acts of bravery and sacrifice by many African Americans who resisted their abusers and fought for change.”
“The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution were created to protect the rights of all people no matter what race they are. However, it was not enough because African Americans were still being persecuted and oppressed. We want to remember that black activists helped form the Civil Rights Movement so that everyone should be treated equally, and are allowed to use or to be served in any public facilities.”
“What I want to remember about the civil rights movement is the unbelievable struggle my African American ancestors went through simply trying to obtain basic rights that are due to all humans. I know the stress this has imposed on our lives today, and I see how far we have grown in America pursuing these rights. I mostly want to remember the strength my people showed in this time. I truly believe that this is part of what makes us as strong as we are today. The things we deal with every day like poverty and unnecessary boundaries that are put in place simply to suppress us will be the same things that makes us stronger and unstoppable.”
Recommendations for use with STAR
If you teach a STAR class (for adult learners who read at GLE 4.0–8.9), you can incorporate the Civil Rights Movement as the topic through which to teach and practice the essential components of reading—alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Alphabetics: Teach decoding and syllabification using tier 1, 2, and 3 words from the unit. Instruct students to find words that follow the patterns from the lessons.
Vocabulary: Use the phases of Explicit Instruction to teach “Key Vocabulary” and provide opportunities for guided practice, e.g. Fill-in-the-blank, Sentence Completion, Read and Respond, etc.
Comprehension: Incorporate appropriately-leveled texts on the subject of America’s Civil Rights Movement for guided practice with strategies such as Get the Gist and 5 Ws + H, etc.
Fluency: Select a novel for Collaborative Oral Reading, Repeated Reading and Echo Reading, from the Civil Rights period. Suggestions include:
  • Freedom's Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories by Ellen S. Levine
  • Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery
  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  • The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Other modifications
Teachers can modify the unit plan or lesson plans to accommodate the needs of their students or to better work among other existing constraints. Activities like the brainstorm, timeline, and conversation mingle work well as stand-alone activities or can be added to an existing Civil Rights unit that instructors teach. The poster project could be modified to incorporate technology by creating a short slide presentation, or by designing as a one-pager that gets published in a class book.
 
For teaching in the pandemic era, I am exploring ways the activities and materials could be adapted to teach remotely or in a hybrid model so that students can continue to grow by connecting previous knowledge with new knowledge and concepts they learn.

Brooke Machado has taught both ESOL and ABE from low-literacy to pre-ASE in and around Boston since 2004. She currently teaches ELA and mathematics at the Boston Public Schools Adult Education Program.
Find Brooke’s unit plan on America’s Civil Rights Movement, with three sample lesson plans, at https://www.sabes.org/curriculumELA
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"One Thing We Knew For Sure"—Blending Science and Social Studies into STAR

9/17/2019

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by Christina Cronin and Maura McCabe, STAR teachers at the Abisi Adult Education program in Lowell, MA
When we first found out that it was time for our school to adopt the STAR model, and that we would have to attend several training days over several months, we were a bit overwhelmed, honestly. Once the training was complete, we had to figure out just how to implement STAR into our program. While we knew it would take extensive planning on our parts, our director was on board with building planning time into our schedules to allow us to create and build thematic STAR units. One thing we knew for sure was that our lower level learners really enjoyed learning about science and history blended into their reading and writing instruction. This one bit of consistent feedback from them, over several years, served as a springboard for our STAR planning.
In the Beginning
When our students begin, they each receive an orientation, during which they learn about the rules and regulations at Abisi Adult Education, and about the STAR program. Each student is given a binder to keep all of their STAR materials organized. This binder is kept at school. In the binder, students are given a handout that explains the four components of STAR (Phonics/Alphabetics, Vocabulary, Fluency and Comprehension). The binder also includes their personalized schedule, a Knowledge Rating Scale, and a Vocabulary Quadrant.
Diagnosis
In our program, the TABE locator flags students who might qualify for STAR, who then take the MAPT to confirm their placement into the STAR group. Students whose MAPT scores qualify them for STAR are immediately scheduled for a DAR appointment. (Find DAR information on pages 6–8 of the Massachusetts STAR Handbook.) We administer the DAR at the beginning of the year during our registration period. As the year progresses and new students register and are flagged as STAR, they are given a DAR appointment date previous to the next managed enrollment start date (every 6-8 weeks).

Once we have DAR scores, we use chart paper divided into quadrants to form groupings for Fluency, Alphabetics, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. We display the quadrants for students at the front of the classroom. Typically, every time new students begin and we start a new unit, we create a new quadrant. This year, we are using clothespins with students’ first names on them to be able to visually display groupings of students. These groups are fluid, so as students make progress, this will make moving them to new groups much easier. It should be noted that with each new rotation, DAR scores fluctuate, so we try to modify and find curriculum to match each groupings’ needs.
DAR = Diagnostic Assessment of Reading
TABE Locator
\/
MAPT
\/
DAR
\/
Classroom groups
Photo: Student Groupings
Creating Curriculum—the Content
When creating the curriculum, we generally begin by choosing a topic for the unit and then looking at a calendar to see how many weeks we have before our next start date for students. Our program manages enrollment with new students starting classes every 6 or 7 weeks. Once we know how many weeks we have for a unit, we then begin planning it out in a logical sequence, deciding the main concepts and topics to focus on.

One such planning calendar is shown here. Please note that it's a draft, a rough copy for planning, and may therefore include grammatical mistakes!
Photo: Planning Calendar
Creating Curriculum—STAR Planning
When we have decided upon concepts and topics, we then begin to create materials to be used for each week. We typically take the time to comb through all of our book resources and flag and copy anything relating to the topics we’ve laid out on our planning calendar. We are fortunate enough to have purchased many resources through our school budget, but we also utilize and print a lot of articles from many online resources.
We then look at all of these copies to find similar content at three different Fluency level ranges, as well as find two different levels of Comprehension resources to use with our groups for each weekly topic for the unit. We then blend into each week two levels of Alphabetics and two levels of Vocabulary lessons. While these are often more isolated lessons, by the end of each week, we try to give our students opportunities to use their vocabulary words to create sentences that connect to the unit’s theme!
Student Groups:
Fluency—3 levels, twice a week
Alphabetics—2 levels, twice a week
Vocabulary—2 levels, three times a week
Comprehension—2 levels, twice a week
The Schedule
On Mondays, we take about 15 minutes to introduce the week’s topic with various resources (video clips, Ted Talks, etc.) to pique interest and give students visuals to connect to before they have to read about the topic in their Fluency groups. We then have Vocabulary and Alphabetics time. 

On Tuesdays, we review and recap what we learned on Monday and often watch a different video clip, view a short PowerPoint, do a short hands-on activity, or do a class KWL, etc. This would be followed by a second day of Fluency, Vocabulary, and Alphabetics. 

Vocabulary and Comprehension groups are done on Wednesdays, and on Thursday, we finish up with another Comprehension activity. 

We have found this to be perfect timing, as after both seeing and reading about a topic for 2 days with openers and Fluency, students are ready to try their knowledge and understanding with various leveled Comprehension activities.

Besides 5.25 hours of STAR instruction per week, our students also receive 2.5 hours of writing instruction, 5 hours of math instruction and a College Career/Technology class.  A sample copy of our student schedule is shown here.
Weekly STAR Schedule
5.25 hours


Mondays:
Topic Intro
Fluency, Vocabulary, Alphabetics

Tuesdays:
Review, more topic info
Fluency, Vocabulary, Alphabetics

Wednesdays:
Vocabulary, Comprehension

Thursdays:
Comprehension
Photo: Student Weekly Schedule
Setting up the Space and Materials
We have tried to create a welcoming and user-friendly STAR classroom for our students and teachers.  We have a station for teacher use that includes teacher resources, templates for fluency and Comprehension as well as general supplies like post-it notes, markers, pens and pencils.  
Photo: Teacher Station
Posters at the front of the room remind everyone what the elements of STAR are, and student names are shown on star cut-outs.
Photo: Fluency elements
Photo: front of room wall
We have color-coded the 4 components of reading in an effort to minimize stress and help keep students (and staff) organized: Alphabetics/Phonics is green, Fluency is purple, Vocabulary is yellow, and Comprehension is blue. We find that photocopying materials for each component on colored paper helps the management of class time. 
Increasing student’s vocabulary knowledge is a key component of STAR, so we also like to post our vocabulary words each week. Since we have 2 different groups for Vocabulary who meet in different rooms, we have a vocabulary board in each room, with the words appropriate to the group that meets there.

We encourage students to refer to the words on their wall and to try to use them as much as possible! Once introduced, students make their own sentences with their vocabulary words, and we encourage students to use them in the context of our unit themes. During vocabulary review weeks, students have the opportunity to create crossword puzzles on computers for their peers to practice with.  
Photo: Vocabulary Wall
In an effort to create independent learners, we have also set up a station for students to use. The student station includes extra copies of the Knowledge Rating Scale, Vocabulary quadrants, and Vocabulary sentence sheets, as well as various Comprehension and Alphabetics templates. The station is designed so that as the year progresses, students can take templates as they run out.

The student station is shown here, with student binders and color-coded strategy templates for each of the four components.
Photo: Student Station
Is it worth it?
Although STAR takes a lot of pre-planning, we are fortunate to have our director’s support for building in adequate planning time and ordering necessary materials. We feel that color-coding and organizing some of the key STAR elements has greatly improved our efficiency and our student’s comfort with this reading program.

The feedback we have received from our students has been very positive, and they have shown great improvements through STAR! In last year’s class of 15, we post-tested 12 (3 left the program). 11 out of these 12 students showed improved scores, and 6 of those 11 made Measurable Skills Gains. We also recently found out that four of our former STAR students are now enrolled at Middlesex Community College.
Yes, it is!

Photo: Marua and Christina
Maura and Christina are both full-time teachers at the the Abisi Adult Education Center in Lowell, MA.

Maura has been in education since 1992, registering and testing students at the Abisi center, teaching elementary and special education in Tyngsborough, and teaching part-time at Abisi.

Christina began her education practice as a middle school math and science teacher in Danvers in 1997. She also taught part-time at the Abisi before becoming full-time.

Read more about STAR, and find sample materials from Maura and Christina's STAR classes (coming soon).

See also To the Point: WIOA, EBRI, & STAR.
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