Stories Into Practice: Understandings of Culturally Responsive ELA Curricula in an Indigenous Serving School

• Main Author: Hill, Thomas
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Indian; Ela; First Nations
• Online Access: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/42619/; http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/42619/1/hillThomas_etd.pdf

Since the earliest days of United States colonial governance, research and discourse around Native American education, and the education of Native American, Indigenous, First Nations (NA/I/FN) peoples has centered on deficit perspectives. Education has been a tool of assimilation by dominant forces intended to, “kill the Indian and save the man” (Reese, 2019). In recent decades, that deficit perspective has come to mean holding Indigenous populations to educational standards not created in relation to or with respect for their perspectives and contexts. In the last 30+ years, Indigenous communities have spoken out and have taken ownership of the education of their children. They have advocated for and implemented local knowledges and methodologies to make the instruction and pedagogies in their community more culturally relevant and appropriate (Lee & McCarty, 2017). This dissertation report is a case study of one of those communities that has worked toward educational independence while adhering to state and federal reporting and accountability guidelines. Through the creation of Culturally Relevant pedagogies and instructional materials, the teachers, staff, and administrators of North Mesa Elementary have taken local stories an applied them to English Language Arts instruction. By using local contexts, the teachers report stronger gains in school-based measures, as well as more positive educational outcomes that aren’t always measured or supported. The findings shared from this study shows the power that is created when a school and community come together to put their stories into practice.