This book offers specific ideas for how to teach writing in a culturally relevant way. Drawing on research-based understandings from NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, Winn and Johnson demonstrate how these principles support an approach that can help all students succeed.
How can we reach all of our students-especially those who have been ignored and underserved in America's classrooms? Maisha T. Winn and Latrise Johnson suggest that culturally relevant pedagogy can make a difference. Although it certainly includes inviting in the voices of those who are generally overlooked in the texts and curricula of US schools, culturally relevant teaching also means recognizing and celebrating those students who show up to our classrooms daily, welcoming their voices, demanding their reflection, and encouraging them toward self-discovery. Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom offers specific ideas for how to teach writing well and in a culturally relevant way. Drawing on research-based understandings from NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, Winn and Johnson demonstrate how these principles support an approach to writing instruction that can help all students succeed. Through portraits of four thoughtful high school teachers, the authors show how to create an environment for effective learning and teaching in diverse classrooms, helping to answer questions such as: How can I honor students' backgrounds and experiences to help them become better writers?; How can I teach in a culturally responsive way if I don't share cultural identities with my students?; How can I move beyond a "heroes and holidays" approach to culturally relevant pedagogy?; How can I draw on what I already know about good writing instruction to make my classes more culturally relevant?; and How can I create culturally responsive assessment of writing?

Maisha T. Winn is a former public elementary and high school teacher from Sacramento, California. Her ethnography, Writing in Rhythm: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Classrooms, follows the lives of youth poets who use the spoken word as a tool to define themselves and chart their future lives. She is also the author of an ethnohistory of black readers, writers, and speakers of the Black Arts Movement entitled Black Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Her most recent book, Girl Time: Literacy, Justice, and the School-to- Prison Pipeline, examines the lives of formerly incarcerated girls who participate in a playwriting and performance program. Winn's research has been published in Harvard Educational Review; Race, Ethnicity, and Education; Anthropology and Education Quarterly; Research in the Teaching of English; Written Communication; and English Education. She is currently an associate professor of language, literacy, and culture in the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University.