Analysis

The implementation of my social justice literacy lesson was presented with a number of

different successes and challenges. Overall, the lesson gave students the opportunity to reflect

upon their school and classroom communities regarding bullying and work towards a positive

classroom environment.

To promote positivity, I made a lot of last minute changes to the lesson that were proved

to be successful. Right after the hook demonstration, I gave a short disclaimer to the students

that we would be talking about bullying, but we were to remain respectful at all times. I asked

the students to refrain from calling out specific students for being bullies. During the buddy/bully

chart activity, I was planning on letting students come up to the chart to stick on their notes, but

decided to personally stick them up there after reviewing them. This was a good move on my

part because a handful of students wrote a fellow classmate down as a bully. After posting up the

other notes, I recollected the students and addressed this issue. I mentioned again how I wanted a

respectful environment and asked again to please refrain from calling out students. I did not

announce which students did not follow directions, but simply said that they should know who

they are. By addressing this issue, I was able to redirect the students towards a positive goal once

more. Overall, the activity was successful because I was able to directly assess that students

understood the difference between buddy and bullying behaviors (Figure 1 and 2). Another

modification I made was renaming the anti-bully pledge to the buddy pledge. I realized that

my goal was to create a positive classroom climate, so I wanted to use strength based language. I

did not want the students to see it as a dont be a bully activity, but as a how can I be a

buddy activity. During this activity I asked the students to come up with guidelines and
expectations that they wanted to follow to model buddy behavior. One student referred back to

the read aloud book and said, Assist those who are being bullied and dont be a bystander

(Figure 3). All the expectations on the buddy pledge were suggested by the students, which gave

them ownership of their actions and contribution to creating a positive classroom climate.

With successes came a lot of different challenges as well. I asked my mentor teacher

about the students familiarity with narrative writing, but she stated that they have not had much

exposure to it. She recommended changing to realistic fiction writing instead and to reference

her anchor chart, so I changed my example in the last second. Because I changed my story, I was

not able to project my example to the students. I believe the lack of written directions and visible

example confused them with the directions. Another big challenge I was faced with was time.

The students were having their reading Case 21 that day, so I felt pressured to move my lesson

along. Due to the time restriction, I was not able to model the gradual release of responsibility

effectively to really show the students what I expected of them. In my own classroom, I know

that modelling with take a lot of time and needs to be done intentionally so that students can

really understand the concepts.

This lesson really showed me the importance of exposing students to culturally relevant

topics. In the future I will be sure to allow opportunities for students to bring in their prior

knowledge and make my lessons directly relevant to them and their experiences. I will also be

intentional with my lessons and use strength based language to cultivate positive mindsets.

Elementary school is not only a time for learning content material, but to develop students as

critically aware citizens of the community and teach empathy and respect. I hope that my future

lessons will achieve this goal and my students will foster a love and respect for all people.