Author: Devon Clarke

In my previous post, I began by retelling a brief story to provide readers with insight to my motivation for studying grammar. I then shared the strategies I used for developing my grammar knowledge so I could better support students learning the discipline. While sharing some strategies, I mentioned a resource, (englishpage.com) that I found useful in building my knowledge. I concluded the post by identifying three insights I gained from the experience that I believe could be useful for other teachers.

In this post, I’ll share an experience that prompted me to reconsider how I teach grammar. I’ll also share insights and considerations for teaching grammar using a culturally relevant pedagogical approach (CRP); with a specific focus on the building students’ cultural competencies tenet found in CRP framework. My goal is to help teachers affirm and integrate the diverse grammar competencies of the students they teach. My hope is that this work helps to aid students in developing their understanding of how to leverage their cultural knowledge combined with their knowledge of grammars to compose diverse texts for diverse audiences.

Last year, I attended a professional learning session on how to teach grammar and syntax to students in intermediate grades. I was there to support a colleague in the central literacy department who facilitated the session.  During the session my colleague shared the article, The Histories and Mysteries of Grammar: Supporting Elementary Teachers in the Time of the Common Core by Lauren B. Gartland and Laura B. Smolkin (2016). She then provided time for educators to read the article then engage in discussion. To participate in the activity, I too read the article and engaged in the discussions.

While reading, I learned that Gartland and Smolkin define grammar as a set of rules to explain how a system operates. In a language, this system typically refers to syntax, morphology, and semantics. This definition along with a few additional details helped to consolidate my understanding of grammar as the vocabulary speakers and writers employ to create well-formed sentences to effectively communicate their ideas to intended audiences.

Yet it was their definitions of descriptive and prescriptive grammars that provided the essential insight I needed to rethink teaching grammar from a CRP stance. Gartland and Smolkin define descriptive grammars as presenting language as it is used by speakers in different contexts and settings, while prescriptive grammars describe how people should speak and write. I quote these researchers at length below because it was the following passage that prompted me to shift my thinking. They write,

“Prescriptive grammars privilege standard English (SE) as the correct variety of English, whereas descriptive grammars characterize SE as one variety of English (albeit an important one) without valuing it above others. SE is the type of grammar presented in the Common Core [or the revised Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum (2023)] because it is the grammar that’s associated with long-term success in public schools, completion of higher education, and employment with opportunities in professional advancement and financial rewards. Adding this type of grammar to children’s repertoires can open the door to educational success and socioeconomic mobility. The word adding is where much of the controversy lies. If we can come to view SE as appropriate to employ in particular settings and situations and other forms as appropriate for other situations, we move away from the idea that there is a single correct way to speak and write. And we move into the realm of descriptive grammars; this recognition of the legitimacy of other dialects will be the key to successful grammar instruction” (Gartland and Smoklin, 2016).

What resonated with me from this passage was the additional clarification of descriptive and prescriptive grammars, along with the reasons that prescriptive grammars are privileged.

I also appreciated the call for teachers to move away from the idea that there is a single correct way to speak and write. Rather appropriate ways depending on the setting, situation, and I’ll add audience. Thinking about the diverse languages, cultures, identities, and values of the students and teachers with whom I work, two questions that immediately emerged for me were: Who decides what is considered an appropriate way to speak and write for the setting, situation, and audience? And how do those individuals and groups decide? I share these questions for additional considerations others like me may want to ponder as they continue the work of applying CRP approaches to their language programs in general and grammar programs specifically.

Additionally, I valued the recognition and legitimization of non-standard English dialects, and I’ll add other languages in school, in addition to offering opportunities for students to utilize them when speaking and writing. Too often in my former role as a special education support teacher, I recall sitting in meetings with some educators including some administrators who relegated the English language skills of immigrant children from Caribbean nations inferior with the English language learner (ELL) label. When I questioned why the ELL label was ascribed to these students when English was the only language they spoke, the response was often something about dialect, accent, and questioning the quality of education prior to entering Ontario’s publicly funded school system. While I understood that standard English is the language of instruction in Ontario’s publicly funded school system, and that the students mentioned above may have benefited from some remediation from entering a different education system, my concern emerged from the label being ascribed to the students without consulting the student or parent(s)/guardian(s) and without a clear explanation to both. I believe that it is in the absence of choice and clear explanations that systems of education exact harm on racialized and vulnerable student populations that leads to a distrust of the system that is meant to serve and protect students.

Finally, I respected the evidence that Gartland and Smolkin shared to refute claims that children need to shed their uses of descriptive grammars in school to experience academic achievement. This evidence also highlighted the value of students maintaining and further developing their descriptive grammars while adding prescriptive grammars to their repertories. Inviting and teaching students to utilize their knowledge of descriptive grammars in school is one way that I believe educators can apply a CRP approach to their instructions.

Beyond understanding the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammars and the place for both in school, the use of mentor texts is an additional way to support explicit instruction in both grammars. With the use of mentor texts students see how skilled and published writers employ the use of descriptive and prescriptive grammars to convey their ideas to their intended audiences.

Months later, in a series of professional learning sessions I facilitated for teachers working with students in grades 6, 7, 8, I shared and discussed the Gartland and Smolkin article. I then modeled how using excerpts from a book like True True (2023) by Don P. Hooper could support providing students with explicit examples of descriptive and prescriptive grammars in use.

During the session I first shared that Hooper employs the use of Jamaican patois, Hattian Creole, African American English, and standard English to tell the fictional story of Gill. I then provided a brief synopsis of the book where I explained that Gill is 17-year-old high school student from Jamaican descent who lives in Brooklyn, New York with his family. He is a devoted grandson, a loyal friend, and he has a passion for three things: coding, robotics, and karate. The story follows Gill as he transitions to an elite robotics school on the upper east side in Manhattan, the anti-Black racism he experiences while attending the school, and the physical and psychological toll that anti-Black racism takes on him as he seeks more equitable learning conditions.

I then read and analyzed a passage where Hooper utilizes descriptive grammars found in Jamaican patois and standard English to add a layer of depth and meaning to the story. I concluded this portion of the session by inviting teachers to reconsider how they currently teach grammar by thinking about how they could invite students to leverage their cultural competencies found in their knowledge of descriptive grammars along with their knowledge of prescriptive grammars to better communicate their written ideas to diverse audiences.

To read Part 1 and Part 2 click below:

Part 1: Teaching Grammar Part I: Reflecting on My Lack of Experiences Learning Grammar in School 

Part 2: Teaching Grammar Part II: Closing Gaps in My Grammar Knowledge

 

In my previous post, I reflected on my lack of experience learning grammar in my formal schooling and how that lack of experience did not absolve me of my responsibility to teach grammar when a curriculum mandated it. In this post, I’ll share the strategies I used to close gaps in my grammar knowledge so I could better support students in developing their knowledge of grammar and some critical insights that I’ve gained from the experience.

While living abroad, my work as an English as a Foreign language teacher involved using a school mandated curriculum to support students in developing their English language skills in the domains of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and all the areas that support becoming proficient in those domains such vocabulary knowledge, pronunciation, and grammar among others. To support students in developing their grammar skills I had to name then explain the grammatical structures found in the English language then model how to use them and finally put scaffolds in place to support students in becoming proficient users of the structures. The only problem was, I didn’t have an explicit knowledge of grammar, so I was unprepared to teach it. I remember feeling foolish telling students their oral and written sentences didn’t sound right but being unable to explain why.

Weeks into my new role and tired of feeling foolish from my lack of grammar knowledge, I committed to studying grammar so I could better teach it. I remember returning home each evening after work to watch videos, consult websites, and read excerpts from books on grammar to build my knowledge and support my lesson preparations for the following day. I began by learning tenses because the students in my classes often had questions related to this area.

From my studies I learned that English like other languages uses tenses found in verbs to communicate the time of an action or actions. The three primary tenses that the emergent and developing English language learners needed to know were the past simple, present simple, and future simple. During my studies I learned that we use the past simple to communicate completed actions. We use the present simple to communicate things happening now, routines or repeated actions, facts or general truths, and it can be used to communicate future events. We use the auxiliary verbs will or going to plus a verb in the infinitive form to communicate future actions or plans. As I began working with students who possessed more advanced English language skills, I studied addition tenses. Some of them included the past continuous, the past perfect, the past perfect continuous, and the past passive. The website englishpage.com became an invaluable resource that supported my learning.

The more I learned about grammar, then applied to practice, the smaller the gap in my grammar knowledge became and the more confident and competent I became in my ability to teach grammar in meaningful ways that impacted student learning. Additionally, studying grammar also led to an improvement in my own written and oral communication skills.

I share this story to remind myself and others of three things. First, an explicit knowledge of grammar is needed to teach it for the simple reason that is I/we cannot teach what we don’t know. Second, when writers possess an explicit knowledge of grammar, they can better construct and communicate their ideas to intended audiences. Also, we as teachers must make explicit connections between grammar knowledge and writing compositions for students to understand the relationship between the two because they may not intuitively make the connection. Third, learning precedes teaching.

I/we must identify gaps in our knowledge then fill those gaps by setting aside time to learn what we don’t know to support implementing our curriculums with fidelity. This third point can be challenging especially when we have so many personal and professional responsibilities demanding our time, energy, and attention. Consider beginning by identifying one area of need in your own professional knowledge emerging from an assessed area of need from your students, then commit to taking intentional steps to reducing the gap in your knowledge in small meaningful ways.

What I find motivating is remembering that my continuous professional learning is what helps to ensure that I remain current and relevant in my professional practice. Further, my ongoing professional learning helps me to honour my commitment to being a lifelong learner which for me involves being open to continuous growth, change, and development. The value and importance of lifelong learning is a message I strive to share in my work with both students and teachers.

In my third and final post in this series, I’ll share insights and critical considerations for teaching grammar using a culturally relevant pedagogical approach.

With the release of the revised Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum (2023) and the addition of more explicit instruction in the language conventions needed to write, I began reflecting on my own educational experiences related to learning language conventions, particularly the one on grammar.

When I reflect on my educational experiences as an elementary student in Alberta and Ontario’s publicly funded school systems, I can recall no moment when I received explicit instruction in grammar. This is not to say that I didn’t receive explicit instruction in grammar from competent teachers, it’s just to say that I cannot recall any. If I speculate, my inability to recall explicitly learning grammar may be for several reasons. Some of those reasons may include sparse grammar lessons, studying grammar in siloed lessons that didn’t help me to understand the direct connection to writing, other areas of language and literacy being prioritized over grammar instruction, or perhaps a combination of these or a list of entirely different reasons altogether. Instead of accepting any of these speculations, I’ll just share what I’ve come to accept which is I don’t know why I can’t remember learning grammar.

What I find interesting is that I can vividly recall receiving explicit instruction in other areas of language and literacy. When I was in kindergarten, I remember reciting the alphabet with my peers and teacher, identifying upper- and lower-case letters, and explicitly learning letter sounds. In grades 1, 4, and 7 I recall learning transcription skills. First print, then cursive, and finally keyboarding. In primary and junior grades, I remember my teachers modelling then instructing me to use my knowledge of phonics to blend letter sounds together to decode unfamiliar words then segment letter sounds apart to encode and spell words. There are other foundational language and literacy skills I can easily recall explicitly learning from skilled teachers however, the absence of grammar from the above examples leads me to wonder if I received explicit instruction in the discipline, shouldn’t I be able to remember it.

Further thinking about my educational experiences as an adult student enrolled in an Ontario teacher preparation program, I recall receiving no training on how to explicitly teach grammar to elementary students. Again, I have no definitive reason to explain why grammar instruction was missing from my pre-service teacher program despite the presence of specific grammar expectations in the 2006 iteration of the revised Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum. However, I can recall explicitly learning instructional approaches to support teaching other expectations found in language curriculum.

From the absence of explicit grammar instruction in my formal schooling experiences, it seemed of minor importance in comparison to other perhaps more major areas of language and literacy learning such as phonics, transcription, and spelling. As I continue to think about these collective schooling experiences, I’ve deduced that I must’ve developed an implicit knowledge of grammar at some point because I applied it throughout my elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education to write.

Yet, what I learned from my experience working overseas in the role of English as a foreign language teacher, is that I need an explicit knowledge of grammar to teach it because I need to able to explain to students how a competent knowledge of grammar supports their writing compositions. I also accepted that my lack of explicit grammar knowledge did not absolve me of my responsibility to teach it when the school curriculum mandated it.

In my next post, I’ll share the approaches I used to close the gaps in my grammar knowledge so I could better teach students the discipline.

In my early years as a classroom teacher, I often experienced what I call the post-holiday sprint. The post-holiday sprint is returning to work after a relaxing winter break only to realize that I am behind in my long-range plans. With this realization comes the feeling that I need to burst into a metaphorical sprint to catch up to where I believe I need to be, prior to reporting on student achievement in early February. While I enjoy running in my leisure time and find sprints, at times can be a fun exercise to measure my physical fitness, I find metaphorical sprints stressful when they are unplanned, unexpected, and I feel compelled to participate.

Yet with more knowledge and experience from my years of service as a classroom teacher comes an array of skills and strategies to respond to unplanned and unexpected situations such as the post-holiday sprint. Below I’ll share four tips that I use to pace myself during the post-holiday sprint to minimize stress and avoid burn-out.

1. Start writing report cards early and begin with learning skill comments

Learning skill comments consume a significant amount of space in the elementary report card and for me they are the most labour intensive part of the reporting process. To craft individualized comments that I believe best captures how students have demonstrated their learning skills, I need lots of time. Therefore, to pace myself, upon returning to work in January, I write 3 learning skill comments either before or after the instructional day with the goal of completing the comments for all student within two weeks. I then exchange my comments with a colleague to read and review to limit the probability that my comments will need mass revisions when I submit them to my principal or vice-principal for review. Once my learning skill comments are complete, I take the same approach with subject comments. From years of experience, I’ve found that a slow steady pace to writing report cards alleviates much of the report card induced stress.

2. Use a backwards design planning approach to catch up on long range plans

To ensure my lessons are more focused and I better use my instructional time, I apply a backwards design approach to program planning. I begin by reviewing the curriculum expectations I have yet to explicitly teach found in my long-range plans. I then think of ways that students could potentially demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the concepts, skills, or strategies through rich tasks. Finally, I estimate the approximate number of lessons, activities, and work periods needed for students to potentially acquire the concept, skill or strategy. Of course, I ensure that I include time to reteach or review lessons as needed to support positively impacting student learning.

3. Plan for planning times

At the end or prior to the start of the instructional day, I define how I want to use my planning time to ensure I use the time effectively to complete essential tasks. When I started planning for my planning times, I was pleasantly surprised by how much work I could complete within 40 minutes. Even if I was able to only complete one or two items on my to do list within a given planning time, it still helped me to experience a sense of accomplishment and reduced feelings of stress associated with being behind in my program.

4. Know when to slow down and stop

There are some evenings and weekends when I opt to fully detach from work so I can enjoy time with loved ones or just rest free from the guilt that I should continue working. I think too often dedicated teachers forget that it’s okay for us to sometimes fully detach from work after the instructional day to rest and relax so that we can be more mentally and physically prepared to teach and support our students. Therefore, there are some days that I leave work promptly after the instructional day, take no work home with me, and enjoy an evening doing something that makes me happy.

The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning. This is the first sentence in the fundamental principles section of the Growing Success document. In this section, the Ministry of Education lists seven fundamental principles to support teachers with ensuring that assessment, evaluation, and reporting are valid, reliable, and lead to the improvement of learning for all students. Included in this list is providing ongoing descriptive feedback to support student learning.

In 2010 when the Ministry released Growing Success, I was in my first-year teaching. At that time, I was in a long-term occasional teaching assignment. I was hired as a Grade 7 rotary teacher assigned to teach Language and Social Studies to two classes. I was ecstatic because I received the opportunity to work with students at the age and grade that most interested me and teaching my favorite subject areas. Reading the Growing Success document that year, I strove to incorporate the seven fundamental principles in my assessment and evaluation practices. Particularly the principle on feedback because I believed and continue to believe that if I provide descriptive feedback to each student, it has the potential to improve their academic achievement.

One incident that continues to resonate with me is the feedback I received from a student. I remember spending hours reading student work then writing copious amounts of comments. I would sometimes write one to two pages worth of constructive and descriptive feedback to guide students in ways that I believed would lead them to improve the quality of their work along with a grade. I recall returning one written assignment to a student at the end of the instructional day where I watched her look at the grade, then crumple her paper into a ball and throw it into the recycling bin as she exited the classroom. I was shocked. Yet more than shocked I was disappointed in myself. I knew that I had made an error, but with a lack of teaching experience I had yet to identify what that error was.

Two years later, again teaching grade 7, this time in in a core model as a permanent teacher, I gained some insight to the experience with the student while attending a school staff meeting. A centrally assigned instructional resource teacher facilitated a session on assessment and evaluation. She shared that if teachers attach a grade to student work, they should include limited feedback. She went on to say that students think that the grade signals that they are at the end of a learning cycle so there is no opportunity for them to action the feedback to improve the quality of their work because they’ve already been evaluated. However, the facilitator also said, include enough, but not too much specific descriptive feedback to help students improve the quality of their work if students are in the assessment stage of their learning. She went on further to say that if students have ample time and opportunities to apply feedback to their work prior to being evaluated it has the potential to lead to improved student achievement.

These comments made sense and provided some clarity in relation to why the student ignored my comments when she saw the grade on her paper. The facilitators comments also helped me to understand that I provided far too much feedback to the student at the time of evaluation that may have been overwhelming and disheartening. Following this staff meeting, I began revising my assessment and evaluation practices but still I felt I had more to learn about feedback to support student learning.

Years later I read the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond.  In the book Hammond writes, “Contrary to what we may think, simply giving feedback doesn’t initiate change. It has to be accepted as valid and actionable by the learner. He then has to commit to using that information to do something different” (p. 102).

This quote helped me to understand that I need to teach students how to read my feedback then show them how to use my suggestions, if they believe them to be useful, to improve the quality of their work.

The meaning that I’ve now been able to deduce from the experience with the student in my first-year teaching coupled with my ongoing learning about assessment and evaluation practices is that I provided too much feedback at the time of evaluation where she had no time to use the information to improve her work. I also failed to teach her how to use my feedback to improve the quality of their work. I further understand that feedback between students and teachers is a reciprocal and iterative process. Students through direct and indirect ways provide information regarding how well I am supporting their learning while I provide direct feedback for how well they are progressing at developing the knowledge, skills, and competencies outlined in Ministry curriculums.

When I work with teachers, I share these insights by encouraging them to think about the ways they use feedback from students to re-think the feedback they give to students to support their learning. I also ask teachers to consider embracing the idea that as we gain more practical experience assessing and evaluating student work combined with our growing knowledge and understanding of diverse student learning needs and revised curriculum documents, our feedback practices should adjust and evolve in ways that better support their learning.

I can’t teach what I don’t know. This statement may seem redundant, but I think it’s worth reiterating. From experience I’ve learned that I need to feel confident in my knowledge and understanding of curriculum and instruction to support student learning and teacher professional development. When the Ministry of Education released the revised Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum (2023) that changed the way we teach students to read, one of my initial questions was: What was wrong with the way that I and other elementary teachers had taught students to read? I had some insight from my own educational experiences learning to read and from my experience in the role of special education support teacher working with students in junior/intermediate grades who had yet to consolidate their foundational reading skills. However, I read the full report seeking to gain a more informed understanding to support my work with students and teachers.

The inquiry found that thee cueing instructional approach included in the 2006 version of the Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum to be an ineffective method for teaching students to read words accurately and efficiently. The three cueing system taught students to use strategies to predict words based on context clues from pictures, text meaning, sentences, and letters in addition to a belief that simply immersing students in spoken and written language was enough to build their foundational reading skills. The way teachers often assessed students reading skills was through running records and miscue analysis.

The inquiry also shared that researchers in reading development have studied how children learn to read for decades. From their collective body of research, they have found that due to our innate human capacity for oral communication, the best way for children to develop their word reading skills (decoding) is by making explicit connections between oral and written language. This looks like first explicitly teaching children phonemic awareness. The sounds of the language. Alphabetics, the symbols of the language. Phonics, the ability to connect the sounds of the language to the symbols of the language. Fluency, the ability to decode words accurately, automatically, and with prosody. Vocabulary, the meanings of words and phrases. They also shared that reading comprehension, the goal of reading, is an outcome of these combined skills and knowledge in addition to an understanding of the parts of speech, sentence structures, sentence types, capitalization, punctuation, and background knowledge.

The findings from the inquiry provided the insight I needed to reconsider the instructional approaches I use, and advocate teachers use to support students reading development. The information also convinced me that shifting my instructional approaches while also encouraging teachers to shift theirs, could lead to more students developing the knowledge, skills, and strategies needed to be proficient readers.

Yet I like other teachers know that our work with students is complex, meaning there is no single approach that will work for every student. We as teachers know that that assessment data and students’ learning needs must always inform the instructional approaches we use to support student learning. Our professional judgement rooted in our knowledge of curriculum, pedagogy, students, interpretations and insights to assessment data, and our understanding of which instructional approach to utilize to best support student learning at any given time should consistently inform our practice. The more experienced we become by reflecting on our practice then revising it as needed, learning what we don’t know, and monitoring our instructional impact on student learning, the more proficient we become at knowing which instructional approach we need to utilize to support student learning at any given time. Of course, remaining aware that this is a continuous and ongoing process.

Knowing and understanding terminology is essential for me to feel competent and confident in my work. I know that I need a clear conceptual understanding of terms to ensure I use them accurately and appropriately in my work with students and teachers. In the Right to Read Inquiry it states, “This report uses terms like the “science of reading,” “reading science,” “research-based,” “evidence-based” and “science-based” to refer to the vast body of scientific research that has studied how reading skills develop and how to ensure the highest degree of success in teaching all students to read”. This led me to believe that the terms were analogous. Yet in the curriculum context section of the revised Grades 1 – 8 Language curriculum (2023) there are numerous specific references to evidence-based instruction. This then led me to question the differences between the terms and why the revised curriculum seems to exclusively focus on evidence-based instruction. In chapter 17 titled, Evidence-Based Practices in Education, in the APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol.1 Theories, Constructs, and Critical Issues, researchers Bryan Cook, Garnett Smith, and Melody Tankersley provide some clarity,

“As far as we are aware, there is no commonly acceptable definition for any of these terms, and they have been used for different purposes by different authors. Nonetheless, in this chapter we consider best practices to mean instructional approaches recommended by experts or others that may or may not be evidence-based or effective […] We use research-based as a broad term referring to educational approaches that are supported by research findings of some sort […] The term evidence-based practices represents a systematic approach to determining which research-based practices are supported by a sufficient number of research studies that (a) are of high methodological quality, (b) use appropriate research designs that allow for assessment of effectiveness, and (c) demonstrate meaningful effect size [positive impact on student learning] that merit educators’ trust that the practice works”.

From the Cook, Smith, and Tankersley chapter, I gained the insight I needed to understand why the curriculum focuses on evidence-based instructions. I now know that what the Ministry, through the curriculum, requires that we ensure the instructional approaches and practices that we use, are those that have shown to have a proven positive impact on students’ language and literacy development.

Yet, as educational researcher Steven Graham explains in his lecture on Research-Based Writing Interventions, the purpose of evidence-based practices is to share with educators’ things that have worked with other teachers and students, and for educators to use their professional judgement when applying them. The sharing of these practices is not meant to degrade or deny the knowledge, skills, or experience that teachers have developed from their practices.

I use and advocate for the use of evidence-based practices. For me, in my daily work these include practices that I know support the growth and development of early readers. I encourage all educators to consider doing the same.

Prior to the start of any professional learning session that I’m leading, I play a pre-recorded land acknowledgement. The land acknowledgement recommended by my school board was created by our Indigenous Education Department and a Treaty Partner from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations. The land acknowledgement that I and other educators in my school board use is:

The land upon which we work, live and sustain ourselves is the ancestral and treaty lands of the Miichizaagiig Annishinaabek also known today as the Mississaugas of the Credit, the rightful caretakers and title holders of this land.

We also recognize the rich pre-contact history and relationships which include the Anishinaabek and the Onkwehonwe. Since European Contact, this land continues to be home to Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. As responsible community members, we value the diversity, dignity and worth of all people.

Colonialism displaced and dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands and continues to deny their basic human rights, dignities and freedoms. We are committed to learning true history to reconcile, make reparations and fulfill our treaty obligations to the Original Peoples and our collective responsibilities to the land, water, animals, and each other for future generations.

At the end of the recording, the creators pose the question, how does this land acknowledgment compel you to take action? Since I began using it, I’ve shared with colleagues that my personal call to action has been to learn more about the histories, cultures, and experiences of Indigenous People from across Turtle Island then find meaningful ways to infuse that knowledge in my work with teachers and students. To support this objective, I’ve committed to reading books by Indigenous authors and official documents focused on Indigenous People. Some of the books and documents that I’ve read include:

• Indigenous Relations: Insights and Tips to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph and Cynthia F. Joseph
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph
• Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga
• An Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King
• The Truth About Stories by Thomas King
• If I Go Missing by Brianna Jonnie, Art by Neal Shannacappo
• Fatty Legs by Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton Illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes
• The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action
• Parts of Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future Executive Summary

My call to action emerges from thinking critically about the part of the land acknowledgement that resonates most with me which is, “We are committed to learning true history to reconcile, make reparations and fulfill our treaty obligations to the Original Peoples”. For me, this quote provides clear guidance for identifying a call to action that works to support Indigenous People in one of ways they have asked such as learning a more fulsome account of Canadian history then explicitly teaching that history to others to avoid making similar mistakes in the present and future as a token of reparations.

Earlier this year, at a professional learning session I facilitated for educators working with students in grades 6, 7, 8, I shared my call to action following the land acknowledgment. Then during the session focused on explicit instruction in literacy, I modeled how educators working with students in grades 7 and 8 could use the book, Indigenous Relations: Insights and Tips to Make Reconciliation a Reality, as a tool to help them teach some specific expectations found in the revised Language curriculum and the revised Social Studies, History and Geography curriculum. The expectations I identified included:

Gr. 7 & 8 Language Foundations for Reading and Writing

B2.2 demonstrate an understanding of a wide variety of words, acquire and use explicitly taught vocabulary flexibly in various contexts, including other subject areas, and use generalized morphological knowledge to analyze and understand new words in context

Gr. 7 & 8 Language – Comprehension: Understanding and Responding to Texts

C1.1 read and comprehend various complex texts, using knowledge of words, grammar, cohesive ties, sentence structures, and background knowledge

Gr. 7 History – New France and British North America 1713-1800

A3.2: identify a few key treaties of relevance to Indigenous people during this period […] and explain the significance of some of these agreements for different people and communities in Canada

Gr. 8 History – Canada 1890-1914

B1.2: analyse some ways in which challenges affected First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals, families, and communities during this period, with specific reference to treaties, the Indian Act, the reserve system, and the residential school system

I then read the following passage from the book.

“Treaties are negotiated government-to-government contracts or agreements, used to define rights and powers and to formalize relations between governments […] Indigenous leaders negotiated in good faith for the survival of their people as they transitioned from their formerly expansive self-determining, self-governing, and self-reliant world to subsistence and dependence, living on small reserves. The treaty articles they negotiated included education, economic assistance, health care, livestock, agriculture tools, and agricultural training. The other signatory, the Crown, had a different intent. Under John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, the Crown planned to use the treaties to remove Indigenous Peoples from their lands, gain access to natural resources, open up the country for settlers, and construct a railway from Upper Canada to the Pacific Ocean” (Joseph and Joseph, 2019, p. 45-47).

Following the reading I shared the insight that educators could use this book to help students build their background knowledge on the importance of treaties in Canada which could support their reading comprehension of this, and other passages found in the book. As a direct result, it could also help educators explicitly teach parts of specific expectation C1.1, found in the revised Language curriculum. I also shared that use of this passage could help educators clarify the meaning of the word treaty for students who may have a vague understanding of it. This would support building their vocabulary knowledge that could again support their comprehension of the text while also providing explicit instruction in parts of specific expectations C1.1 and B2.2 found in the revised Language curriculum. Further, I shared that use of this passage could help educators teach students about the historical importance of treaties in Canada which could help students understand why they remain such a central part of public discourses. By doing so they could also work towards meeting grade 7 History specific expectation A3.2 and grade 8 History specific expectation B1.2.

I concluded this portion of the session by reminding educators of how I strive to find meaningful ways to align my call to action with my work to ensure I honour my commitment to supporting reconciliation and making reparations to Indigenous Peoples. I encouraged them to find meaningful ways to do the same.