Culturally Relevant Writing Pedagogy: An Investigation of Assessments, Feedback, and Equity

In the 21st-century education system, students enter the classroom with uniquely different backgrounds and skill sets. Teachers are charged with the task of engaging these culturally and linguistically diverse students through their instruction. To do this, though, teachers must see all students as capable learners in the classroom and allow them spaces to invite their outside lives inside the classroom. Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994) proposes that this can be accomplished through culturally relevant pedagogy, or “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (pp. 17–18). This dissertation explores the enactment of culturally relevant teaching in three different urban elementary and middle-grade writing classrooms. Qualitative case study methods were used to interview teachers and students, observe writing instruction, and collect artifacts in order to answer the question: How do teachers assess writing in culturally relevant ways? This study spotlights the diverse instructional practices of three teachers over the course of one writing unit of study, and provides examples of how culturally relevant pedagogy might be enacted in writing classrooms. More specifically, this study explores how teacher-designed writing assessments and feedback can be used to create healing spaces and promote academic success for all students.