I attended a webinar from Martina Bex yesterday about story asking through digital platform. It was very informative and I had several key takeaways that I will use this fall. One of the biggest things that was mentioned briefly during the story asking was the use of diverse adjectives and cognates. This stood out to me because I always want to be inclusive of my students and sometimes we alienate them even though we don’t realize it. For example, when we create stories with phrase like, “Carlos is attractive,” we can potentially make students feel excluded when we overuse that word. I get it. It is a go-to word in Spanish because it is a cognate. When we overuse them, however, it may seem like we are glorifying those attributes. We need to find other adjectives and cognate to describe characters that can help students focus on traits that are less physically centered.
Here are some suggestions:
- brave
- resourceful
- kind
- compassionate
- curious
- friendly
- patient
- helpful
- hard-working
- determined
- observant
- nice
- wise
- funny
- creative
You can make a long list of these words. I hope you get the idea. Let’s focus on including some diversity adjectives along with our physical traits to have a more accepting classroom. Michele Whaley of The Deskless Classroom likes to keep words on a window shade that she can pull down and use to help students keep these adjectives in mind. What are some other diverse adjective that you think are important and do you have any ideas of how to use them other than story telling?
Here’s to a more diverse classroom!
Every day makes a difference!
John