This portfolio entry centers on a project I developed for a twelfth grade Classics and Shakespeare course I taught in the autumn of 2003. The project features student teams researching the cosmogony stories of a particular culture and discovering connections between the history, geography, social, and political structures of the culture and its mythology. The students presented their findings in a two part presentation. In the first phase, students wrote scripts for their myths and performed them for the class. The second phase involved creating and presenting a multimedia and PowerPoint presentation that demonstrated the connections the students found between the myth and the culture from which it derived.

UWTEP Goals and Targets:

1C- Planning
The development of this multifaceted project demonstrates my skill in successfully integrating into my planning: knowledge of my students and the larger school community, into an assignment that draws on my knowledge of mythology and meets the learning goals set out in the district curriculum. The project afforded students the opportunity to work in collaboration with peers in presentation groups which were formed on the basis of common interests students had in learning about particular culture. Using resources available within the school community, students used technology and media sources to develop and enhance their presentations. The development of presentations, collaborative work, and integration of technology are part of the district goals for student learning. These examples serve to illustrate my commitment to careful and conscientious instructional planning.

2D- Adapting for Diversity

This project successfully integrated the required curriculum and technology into the classroom, while broadening the definition of classical literature to include cultures and writings beyond the standard western canon. This in turn allowed students to expand their understanding of their own as well as other students' cultural heritage and celebrated the diversity and perspectives of a larger world community. Students from diverse economic backgrounds were given equal access to materials and resources for development of their projects through the use of library and computer media during class time. The project also took into account the wide range of learning styles and strengths of students by affording them multiple avenues for expression of their learning. These examples demonstrate my commitment to accommodating the needs of a diverse range of students.

Reflection:

When teaching a literature class titled, Classics and Shakespeare, it appears there would be little room to discuss or spend time learning about a diverse range of cultures and mythologies. When most scholars or educators discuss classical literature, they are referring to those works and stories derived from western cultural traditions. They mean reading the works of Plato and Ovid and Homer and Virgil. The curriculum for my course included required readings writings from these and other (pardon the crude expression) "dead white guys." In developing this project I, in part, wanted to afford students a chance to extend their learning beyond the traditional classical texts and explore the stories and cosmogonies from a range of cultures, including cultures that reflect student heritage, and to explore how these cultures are informed by and reflected in their mythology. Although many of these mythologies appear to be dissimilar at first glance, the symbols and underlying themes of myths often reveal remarkable connections between cultures. In an article that points out the advantages of highlighting similarities between cultures, John Lalande writes, "a more prudent goal for the teaching of culture at the high school level... may be one which calls attention to similarities across cultures, and in so doing, first lays the foundation for a positive attitude toward the foreign culture"(1998, 574). By revealing some of the commonalities between myths, I hoped to encourage students to acknowledge and marvel at the connective threads between cultures.

In addition to my desire to expand the cultural breadth of student learning, I designed this project to be accessible to a wide range of learners and to support the diverse needs, learning styles, aptitudes, and challenges of my students. Despite the fact that the school in which I student taught, on the standard dichotomous scale of school diversity, would qualify as "not diverse," I had discovered that this label grossly misrepresented the students in my classroom. In part, this is due to the often narrow definition of diversity used to describe student populations in schools. When looking at the demographic breakdown of the student population-which is usually based largely on racial and economic data-the population appears to be largely homogonous. However, when the qualifications for diversity are broadened to include other factors such as religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, students of other languages, peer groups, and learning disabilities, a new picture of the student population emerges. In considering these multidimensional aspects of diversity I developed a strong belief that within each school labeled "not diverse," a "hidden" diversity exists. In my desire to create a community in which each of my students felt personally respected, as well as a connected to the classroom community, I created this project with student differences in mind.

A question that often arises is how best to adapt for and recognize the needs of such an expansive base of diversity. Literature on the subject dates back nearly to Plato himself and ranges from direct and explicit instruction to culturally relevant teaching. When deciding on an approach for the students in my school, and more specifically in my classroom, I wanted an approach or set of approaches that would be able to capture the interests and strengths of all my students. In a book of collected articles titled, City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row, Martin Haberman explains that the one thing teachers in diverse settings must rely upon in order to include and support all students is good teaching. The author goes on to list a series of observable classroom events such as providing students with real choices, discovering human differences, discovering major concepts and principles, involvement in heterogeneous groups, and active involvement that are indicative of good teaching and positively affect student learning. These practices each follow a basic pattern: "building environments, providing experiences, and then eliciting responses that can be reflected upon" (Ayers and Ford [Eds.] 1996, 125-129). This series of events best captures how I approached teaching this project with my students needs in mind.

The project began with a research question: How is a civilization's mythology reflected in and informed by its culture? To draw students into the project as well as to connect the project with student's experiences, we first read and discussed a number of urban legends-a series of, what I proposed, were modern myths. After thoroughly enjoying these often gruesome and bizarre tales, students were asked what possible connection these stories had to popular culture: how do these stories help to inform or reflect popular culture? After discussing possible connections, students were asked to write their own urban legend or cosmogony/ etiology (myths that explain the origins of the world or social, natural, and physiological phenomena) stories. Students brought their tales to class, shared them in small groups, and chose samples to be shared with the entire class. Along with hooking students into the concept of the project, it also served to begin the process of sharing stories and ideas with respect and interest, thus helping to establish a supportive community.

After evoking student interest, my cooperating teacher and I developed a model presentation so students would be able to see firsthand what the expectations for the project were and what their presentations might look like. A scoring rubric and presentation checklist were provided to groups so they knew ahead of time how they were to be evaluated and what components to include. Students then were placed into teams based on mutual interest in researching a particular culture. At this point students began researching their cultures using internet sources and materials placed on reserve in the school library. Mini lessons during this phase centered on research skills such as evaluating websites to make certain they were sound sources of knowledge, documenting and citing sources, and other lessons aimed at helping student develop their projects through scaffolded instruction. Students were provided with all of the tools they would need and were given time in class to collaborate and develop their projects. This provided all students equal access to technology and resources, despite possible differences in access to these tools outside of school.

Because of the multiple tasks this project involved, students had many ways in which they were able to contribute to their group presentations and engage the material according to their personal learning styles. Students engaged in activities ranging from creating PowerPoint presentation to conducting research, from creating scripts and props to finding appropriate music. Finally, students used knowledge gained from their research to develop a thesis describing the connections between myth and culture. Group members rely on and discovered each other's strengths, while further developing new skills. Many of these strengths and talents became apparent as the groups performed their myths and presented their research findings and analysis. One student, for example, showed amazing talent at presenting the research findings of his group. He showed such interest and passion for the work he and his group had done that the rest of us listened with rapt attention to his animated presentation style. Another student was able to share personal family artifacts that connected her own culture with the ancient culture she presented, directly linking her own experiences with the learning in the classroom. Many students found this project to be the highlight of their time with me. One student wrote, "The creation myth helped me learn about other cultures and see underlying themes." Another student added, "[the project] was valuable to me because we got to work in groups with people that were interested in the same thing and it was a great learning experience." These examples serve to highlight the value students found in engaging in the experience the project encompassed.

Finally, students were asked to reflect on the presentations and individually answer the research question posed at the beginning of the project. In order to help students begin the reflection process, I had the students form small discussion groups comprised of members who each researched a different culture. The students discussed and drew connections between each of their myths and the cultures from which the myths derived. While the main portion of the project primarily supported those students who learn best in interpersonal (field sensitive) experiences, this final piece was geared toward learners who favor self-reliant (field independent learning) (Ramirez and Castaneda, 1974). However, the small group discussion prior to the independent reflection allowed all students the chance to consider others perspectives before writing. Commenting on the value of this reflective assignment, one student wrote, "it gave me a chance to sit down and actually think about what we were learning about." Affording students time and a venue in which to consider their learning is doubly valuable. It gives both the teacher and the student a meaningful way to reflect on their learning, and it provides closure to the project over all.

Although I feel that my approach toward planning for and meeting the needs of my "not diverse" classroom was largely successful in this case, I do not prescribe it for all situations. Often teacher are presented with "magic bullet" solutions to dealing with the problems and concerns of education in a free and multilaterally diverse nation. There is no quick fix, no one right solution. This is, I believe, because each class of students presents its own unique puzzle to be solved. It is these students, each with a story, a mythology all their own, that we must recognize, reach out to, and invite into a warm and embracing classroom community.