Crystal Badders Stemley Road Elementary School, Talladega, AL
	Cindy Cleveland Stemley Road Elementary School, Talladega, AL
	Sara Schwabacher Associate, Community and Parent Engagement

When you walk into Crystal Badders' and Cindy Cleveland's third grade classroom at Stemley Road Elementary School, a Foundation School in Talladega County Alabama, you know you are in a place where students are valued and challenged. You are surrounded by student writing, photographs, and anchor charts. Students' lives are evident on the walls, in the books on the shelves, in writing notebooks and in conversations. Families and community members are welcome, although there are many obstacles to their coming to school in this rural, low-income community. In spite of that, the presence of families is felt everywhere in the classroom.

Teachers have crafted techniques to integrate families and community into their classroom instruction. When students are involved in decisions about what they study, the people who have meaning and significance in their lives are present. Through the curriculum, the classroom moves out into the community and the world comes into the classroom. Students' families, neighborhoods, communities and cultures are celebrated and become indispensable instructional resources.

Stemley students this year are exploring the school-wide theme of "Hopes and Dreams" for this year and for the years to come. Since their goal is for students to develop perseverance, determination, and service to others as lifelong character traits, Crystal and Cindy began their year with a unit of study on "Heroes."

Here's Crystal and Cindy's description of what they did:

Our hero unit was a great success!

We launched the unit by using a K_W_L_ chart about Heroes. We explored the character traits of historical, local and family heroes. We read biographies for crafting reading and studied the components of biographies while writing about a child hero we researched and then a family hero.

The class particularly connected to their research on Mattie Stepanek, a child hero. Mattie, who was born with a rare neuromuscular disease, published the first of his six books of poetry ("Heartsongs") at the age of 5. He worked for peace and global tolerance and died three weeks before his 14th birthday. The class used the Internet to research Mattie's life and poetry, and wrote a class book about him.

Before we interviewed someone in our family, we learned how to interview by watching the video "Classroom Interviews" by Paula Rogovin. Students took notes on a three column sheet with headings Noticing, Wondering, Wow. We focused on the comprehension strategy of "questioning" and composed "thick" and "thin" questions. Students used questions to interview classmates then developed an oral presentation based on their questions. For Family Homework, students interviewed someone in their family and wrote a biography about this person. Many of our students chose a grandparent as their hero. One child wrote that her Paw-Paw is her hero because he goes on day by day with cancer.

Because the biographies were based on interviews with family members, the students clearly cared about what they wrote and the final products were filled with details that brought these family heroes alive. Excerpts from some of the pieces give a flavor:

One student chose to write about her mom who is a nurse for the Air Force:

"She makes people feel better and once she went on a plane because some people were sick. She stopped working when she had me, then she went back to work when she got a babysitter. My mom was happy when she got her job again."

Another wrote about her firefighter dad:

"He said the best accomplishment he has made in his life is becoming a firefighter because he gets to help people everyday. My dad is brave. He is also very funny. He draws, writes, thinks, and cares really good. Someday, I want to draw, write, think, and care like he does. I love my dad."

Still another wrote about her mom dropping out of school but going back after she had children and getting her diploma:

"My mom is my hero because she went back and got her education."

A boy in the class wrote about his sister as his hero:

"Cassie not only helps me, she helps everyone. She saved me when I was drowning in a big pool. She went to the same school that I do now and when she went to school, it was great!"

Finally, a student whose uncle is in the Air Force wrote:

"He doesn't fight in the Air Force, he builds jets. he's became a sargent. He really likes to build aircrafts and enjoys learning about the Air Force. He works the hardest during wartime. He works for United States protection."

The unit's culminating activity was a whole class interview of a community hero. The students interviewed a local policeman and wrote about him in a range of genres. Some students sent him "Thank You" cards "for protecting us." After the completion of the unit, Cindy and Crystal reflected on what they had learned from conducting this lesson:

This unit was well packed with information but one lesson we learned through reflection is "Less Is More." Sometimes we as educators put too much into a unit of study.

We believe the family interview and writing connected the students to the unit. They were able to identify with the heroes we studied and could identify with the characteristics of each individual. The families also were up to date with the unit and the children were extremely excited to share their stories with others.

They also seemed to really enjoy studying the child hero Mattie Stepanak. We researched him using the laptop computers and read some of his poetry. The children continue to discuss him and look for books which include his writings. The home component was an important piece to this unit of study and we believe the reason the children were so involved and enthusiastic about this was due to the conversations and interviews with their families. We are continuing to find ways to include parents in our studies in order to improve our parental involvement.

Parent involvement that has an impact on student's literacy development consists of three components: 1) family literacy activities at home, 2) connections between home and school, and 3) bringing the home into the classroom. This Family Heroes unit of study is a great example of classroom teachers making curriculum home-rich.

Projects that use techniques such as interviewing or family homework to deepen the home connection to curriculum and instruction are especially valuable in communities where family members are unable to be physically present in school during class hours. When families and communities are integrated into the curriculum, students become much more engaged, as was the case with Family Heroes in the Classroom.