NCCRESt

part of the Education Reform Networks

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Grade 8

• Assessing Students' Attitudes and Achievements in a Multicultural and Multilingual Science Classroom
  Takes a qualitative and quantitative look at the curriculum and teaching of a two-way immersion eighth-grade solar energy science classroom and examines its implications for education policy and reform. Results for a class of 25 students indicate that the approach increases the retention rate of Hispanic students.
• Making Connections
  Discusses ways to overcome seventh and eight graders' negative feelings of diversity in the context of a study of the Holocaust. Describes the use of poetry, music and lyrics, and memoirs and novels that reflect a wide range of viewpoints to help students feel more connected to their own world.
• The Family Tree: Nurturing Language Growth through "All the Parts of Me."
  Describes a month-long project in an eighth-grade English classroom in which students (from many countries, many of them immigrants) read an array of bicultural literature, and each researched, wrote, and compiled a many-faceted Family Tree notebook. Shows how students can achieve both their own cultural authenticity and English language competence without loss of personal voice.