Hence, your task is primarily to collaborate with your colleagues in the same school and districts and identify the inequities that exist in your school and in the school districts.  Find out if there are discrepancies in resources such as technology, income, housing, health, and funding. Interview others and as a team find out about microaggressions and biases they do exist. Research on the teaching force, ethnicity, poverty standardized tests, programs offered in the schools etc do these benefit the achievement of every child.

Next, you will develop an Equity Action Plan inclusive of steps and the process for implementation incorporating ways to achieve and sustain equity at the school and district levels with your peers.

In addition, you will write a letter to your school and the community to advocate and create an awareness for the need of equity and access, and social justice that you have observed in your school system (ILA 4.4). Using the information garnered from your findings, you will include suggestions, strategies and activities that the school in collaboration with parents can use at home to bring awareness to diversity and equity, which will supplement and support the student’s literacy growth.

Reflection: To put everything together you will reflect on diversity and equity and its overall importance in learning to read and write in the classroom.  Reflect on how diversity is valued or addressed in your school campus (ILA 4.1). In addition, you will focus on language diversity and how it applies to teaching English in different regions across the state and country.  Further, you will identify your own language use, biases, stereotypes and microaggressions and suggest ways understanding self will help bring about equity in your teaching (ILA 4.2) to help students become more engaged in what they’re learning.

Finally reflect on a memory when you, as a young child, felt (or did not feel) safe, nurtured, visible, and /or empowered, and your reaction(s) to this experience. How will all these experiences help in your teaching to meet the needs of all children?