How to Teach Students Who Don′t Look Like You: Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies

Engage diverse learners in your classroom with culturally responsive instruction! How to Teach Students Who Don′t Look like You helps educators recognize the impact that culture has on the learning process. The term "diverse learners" encompasses a variety of student groups, including homeless children, migrant children, English language learners, children experiencing gender identity issues, children with learning disabilities, and children with special needs. This revised second edition reflects the latest trends in education, and includes new coverage of standards-based, culturally responsive lesson planning and instruction, differentiated instruction, RTI, and the Common Core State Standards. Bonnie M. Davis helps all educators: Tailor instruction to their own unique student population Reflect on their own cultures and how this shapes their views of the world Cultivate a deeper understanding of race and racism in the U.S. Create culturally responsive instruction Understand culture and how it affects learning How to Teach Students Who Don′t Look like You provides crucial strategies to assist educators in addressing the needs of diverse learners and closing the achievement gap. "This book ′fires up′ educators by speaking from the soul to reach the heart, from the research to engage the mind, and from the skillful hand to build the necessary expertise." —Peggy Dickerson, Professional Service Provider Region XIII Texas Education Service Center, Austin, TX "The vignettes and classroom situations help the reader understand how race plays out in our society and in our classrooms. Dr. Davis takes on a very volatile topic and is able to engage the reader without offending. The examples, vignettes, cases, and stories will hook the readers just as they did me. Once I began reading the book, I could not put it down." —Ava Maria Whittemore, Minority Achievement Coordinator Frederick County Public Schools, MD

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Curtis Linton Preface Acknowledgments About the Author How to Read the Book Part I. Looking Inside Ourselves 1. Our Culture: The Way We View the World 2. Reflection Questions for Examining Our Inner Selves 3. Exploring Our Racial Identity Through Our Racial History 4. What Is Race? 5. A Day in the Life . . . Part II. Listening to and Learning From Others 6. What Do We Need to Know About Culturally Diverse Learners? 7. Latino/a/Hispanic Learners: A Personal Story 8. New Immigrant Learners of the Twenty-First Century 9. What the Research Says About Learning Gaps 10. How to Build Relationships With Culturally Diverse Students and Families 11. Creating a School Culture That Welcomes Students, Staff, and Families Part III. Integrating New Knowledge 12. Strategies to Teach and Engage Culturally Diverse Learners and ELs 13. Moving Students From Apathy to Passion: Learning to Love Reading and Writing 14. Standards-Based, Culturally Responsive Lessons That Engage Learners 15. Readers and Writers Workshop: A Model for Standards-Based, Culturally Responsive Instruction 16. Teachers in Today′s Classrooms Share Their Lessons Part IV. A Call to Action 17. A Call to Action: Sponsoring Academic Student Support Groups 18. A Call to Action: Taking Care of Yourself References and Resources Index

About the Author :
Consulting Description Bonnie M. Davis, PhD, is a veteran teacher of more than forty years who is passionate about education. She taught in middle schools, high schools, universities, homeless shelters, and a men’s prison. She holds a doctorate in English from St. Louis University and is the recipient of numerous awards, including Teacher of the Year in two public school districts, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Anti-Defamation League’s World of Difference Community Service Award. She has presented at numerous national conferences and currently works in school districts across the country. Dr. Davis’ work centers on examining what “we don’t know we don’t know” about ourselves in order to more effectively teach students who don’t look like us. Moving from self reflection to action, her books offer educators culturally responsive, standards-based instructional strategies that bridge culture, language, race, and ethnicity. Dr. Davis’s publications include the How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You: Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies(2012);How to Coach Teachers Who Don’t Think Like You: Using Literacy Strategies to Coach Across Content Areas (2007); The Biracial and Multiracial Student Experience: A Journey to Racial Literacy(2009); and Creating Culturally Considerate Schools: Educating Without Bias (2012) with coauthor Kim L. Anderson. She is currently working on the Equity 101 Series with Curtin Linton, Executive Vice President of School Improvement Network.

Review :
"Bonnie has a wealth of experience across diverse settings, in diverse schools, and with many different ages of students, and this is clear throughout the manuscript. This text offers an enormous array of strategies that have been built over time and through many experiences. Educators who purchase her books are given a massive learning & experiential shortcut!” “Its no-nonsense approaches to the needs of these students coupled with examples and vignettes which support these needs, provide a strong case and purpose for meeting the needs of these students. Educators can no long ‘teach to the middle,’ to do so is an injustice, and cannot continue.” “If you are an educator who wonders, ‘What else can I do to help my students of color?’ Bonnie Davis has something for you. Be prepared to reflect on the importance of your own racial experience while you are introduced to strategy after strategy for working effectively across lines of race and culture.” “Dr. Bonnie Davis’ original text, How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You has been a valuable resource during my instruction of diversity. I look forward to the new edition and adding it to my syllabus.” “This text ′fires up′ educators by speaking from the soul to reach the heart – from the research to the engage the mind – and from the skillful hand to build the necessary expertise. Thank you for a guide to make the next step of our journey.” “I just love Bonnie’s authentic approach at challenging educators to examine themselves while working towards building culturally responsive classrooms where kids from different cultures can achieve.” “This book is a must-have for the teacher who wishes to self-examine their own belief systems and garner this information to become a balanced and fair teacher from the prospective of race." “Often in cultural discussions one race or culture is vilified, causing the reader to be offended and turned off of the book. How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You tackles difficult issues without condemnation and offers solid ideas that propel educators to reflect inward in order to impact their classroom and school cultures. The author is passionate and the reader leaves the pages desiring the same passion." “Bonnie Davis has updated a book that covers topics I haven’t seen addressed before. She manages to convey that we are different, culturally, from the majority of students we teach, and that we need to recognize this and use it to our advantage. Ms. Davis’s book is all about making relationships with students so that they are better able to do what they need to do in the classroom. Her firm but fair approach is refreshing and research based and proven to be successful in many classrooms around the country. This is apparent by the fact that Ms. Davis is hired by many districts as a consultant, to help individual schools succeed with many more of their students.” “How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You provides insight and provokes action. It challenges long held notions about teaching and learning while keeping it student centered. Dr. Davis understands what it means to be an educator and through her work, validates and affirms what it is we know is possible and how to be our best." "The conversation about race woven into the book is unique and definitely essential in order to effectively address the achievement gaps that are a function of race. Dr. Davis takes on a very volatile topic and is able to engage the reader without offending. Her blending of personal racial autobiographies with the courageous conversations research of Curtis Linton and Glenn Singleton is very effective. The vignettes and classroom situations help the reader understand how race plays out in our society and in our classrooms. The examples, vignettes, cases, stories, etc. will hook the readers just as they did me. Once I began reading the book, I could not put it down.”