Analysis of the Question
As I began to think about what happen when student interest and prior knowledge are incorporated into curriculum, I thought that engagement was the idyllic result. Though engagement is at the core, I saw through my unit that choice, flexibility, agency, performances, effort, and risk-taking all stem from incorporating interests and prior knowledge as well. My most valuable takeaway is that while providing students with a topic that matters is essential to engaging interests, teachers must provide students with the opportunity to explore their interests through authentic assessments that bridge academic requirements and cultural relevance. In my unit, students’ degrees of understanding seemed to deepen when they were able to apply their knowledge of the Freedom Riders’ experiences to writing songs and poems. Though challenging, the assignments facilitated an authentic connection with the Freedom Riders by giving students the chance to write from a chosen point of view and to express their individual emotions, allowing them to empathize with the riders’ journey in their own ways.
During our interview, students described why they enjoyed the process of writing free verse poems. While listening to these students, I was struck by their expression of sadness they felt while learning about the Freedom Riders. As one student described his emotional reaction to the poem, “Ballad of Birmingham,” students nodded their heads in agreement. This student vividly recounts his emotions in the sound clip below.
During our interview, students described why they enjoyed the process of writing free verse poems. While listening to these students, I was struck by their expression of sadness they felt while learning about the Freedom Riders. As one student described his emotional reaction to the poem, “Ballad of Birmingham,” students nodded their heads in agreement. This student vividly recounts his emotions in the sound clip below.
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Our conversation led me to believe that the strongest way to engage students’ interest is through providing them with an innately engaging topic. Students seemed to confirm that writing free verse poems inspired by the Freedom Riders allowed them to authentically engage with the riders’ experiences. When I asked the students what the process of writing songs and poems was like, one student said, “First it was kind of hard, mostly, because, well, I didn’t go through it and they did, so I had to like put myself into their shoes and it was kind of hard because like it was actually sad to actually know that they got beaten and then they still didn’t fight back and they still marched for freedom and never gave up just so we could go to school and like live our lives.” The sound clip from our interview can be heard below.
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Understanding the courage and resilience that were characteristic of the Freedom Riders was one of my main objectives for students to achieve throughout the unit. Specifically, I hoped that the flexibility and emotional openness of poetry would act as a vehicle for facilitating this authentic connection. By asking students to apply their knowledge of the Freedom Riders in a new context, and sometimes, to work through challenges, writing freedom songs and free verse poems proved to be an authentic assessment that bridged interests and academic requirements.
Not every student will be interested in the same topic, or interested in exploring that topic through the same intelligence. In our interview, some students expressed a preference for musical intelligence and song writing while others expressed a preference for writing poetry. I asked my classroom teacher about her thoughts on incorporating individual interests into curriculum during a conversation that I documented. An excerpt from our conversation can be read below.
Not every student will be interested in the same topic, or interested in exploring that topic through the same intelligence. In our interview, some students expressed a preference for musical intelligence and song writing while others expressed a preference for writing poetry. I asked my classroom teacher about her thoughts on incorporating individual interests into curriculum during a conversation that I documented. An excerpt from our conversation can be read below.
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My takeaway from our conversation was that although it is possible to create open-ended assessments where students can explore a topic of interest through a set of guidelines, finding topics that are culturally relevant to students leads to engagement and interest. Just as Hilliard intertwined her students’ rap song discourse with figurative language, providing students with assessments that allow for application of knowledge through various contexts underscores the importance of finding topics that matter because these assessments allow students’ experiences to become both personally and culturally relevant.
I also became more aware of what it looks like when multiple intelligences are incorporated into authentic assessments. Although my initial assessment to ‘write about your favorite freedom song’ did not prove to be as constructive or engaging as I had anticipated, I realized that if I expected students to discuss the importance of conveying a message through music, it would be best for them to create their own message through music, and not just through writing the song’s message in their journals. “An important aspect of assessing intelligences must include the individual’s ability to solve problems or create products using the materials of the intellectual medium” (Gardner, p. 31, 1983). Asking students to listen to songs and to analyze the words requires linguistic intelligence and auditory learning skills, while writing a song requires musical intelligence. Students who favored this intelligence were able to explore their interests through the academic and historic context of a freedom song.
I also became more aware of what it looks like when multiple intelligences are incorporated into authentic assessments. Although my initial assessment to ‘write about your favorite freedom song’ did not prove to be as constructive or engaging as I had anticipated, I realized that if I expected students to discuss the importance of conveying a message through music, it would be best for them to create their own message through music, and not just through writing the song’s message in their journals. “An important aspect of assessing intelligences must include the individual’s ability to solve problems or create products using the materials of the intellectual medium” (Gardner, p. 31, 1983). Asking students to listen to songs and to analyze the words requires linguistic intelligence and auditory learning skills, while writing a song requires musical intelligence. Students who favored this intelligence were able to explore their interests through the academic and historic context of a freedom song.