Purpose

This paper aims to explore how teachers’ choice of text, centering of student voices and collaboration with the community around a language arts curriculum impacted the engagement and learning experiences of 85 11th and 12th-grade refugee background students designated as English language learners.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative self-study framework that inquired into the assumptions about teaching and learning and the roles as social justice educators framed this narrative paper. Student journaling and teachers’ reflection logs and observations of class dramatization during a lesson unit on the play Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry formed the research text and informed the thematic analysis and findings of this study. The lenses of culturally sustaining pedagogy and a third space helped unpack the vantages of student voice and community engagement in the curriculum.

Findings

In a unit whose central text was chosen based on students’ racial and ethnic identities and their interests, they actively engaged in class and role-played as teachers, generating content that fostered their linguistic repertoires and critical discussions in class. Collaboration with community partners boosted the teacher’s agency with the curriculum and created a model of collaboration and learning for the class.

Originality/value

Student voices and community engagement in learning are powerful tools for designing culturally sustaining pedagogies.

中文翻译：

---

我们自己的一个单元：让学生主导课程的一次尝试

目的

本文旨在探讨教师对文本的选择、对学生声音的关注以及围绕语言艺术课程与社区的合作如何影响 85 名被指定为英语学习者的 11 年级和 12 年级难民背景学生的参与和学习体验。

设计/方法论/途径

这篇叙述性论文构建了一个定性自学框架，探讨了关于教学和学习的假设以及社会正义教育者的角色。学生日记、教师的反思日志以及在洛林·汉斯伯里 (Lorraine Hansberry) 的戏剧Les Blancs的课程单元中对课堂戏剧化的观察形成了研究文本，并为本研究的主题分析和结果提供了信息。文化维持教学法和第三个空间的镜头有助于在课程中发挥学生声音和社区参与的优势。

发现

在一个根据学生的种族和民族身份及其兴趣选择中心文本的单元中，他们积极参与课堂并扮演教师角色，生成可培养他们的语言技能和课堂批判性讨论的内容。与社区合作伙伴的合作增强了教师在课程中的能动性，并为班级创建了协作和学习的模式。

原创性/价值

学生的声音和社区对学习的参与是设计文化可持续教学法的有力工具。