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In this proposal, I am intending to illustrate the impact of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies with culturally relevant pedagogical practices. I will take a mixed-methods approach that will use quantitative and qualitative observations of 9th grade high school students in an English Language Arts classroom over a nine-week period. By analyzing the data, describing the research methods and process, and synthesizing previous literature on the subject, I expect to apply these strategies and practices with fidelity for the purposes of improving students' self-efficacy. Additionally, I intend to develop a professional development workshop within my department with plans for implementation across social studies and science content areas.

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In this proposal, I am intending to illustrate the impact of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies with culturally relevant pedagogical practices. I will take a mixed-methods approach that will use quantitative and qualitative observations of 9th grade high school students in an English Language Arts classroom over a nine-week period. By analyzing the data, describing the research methods and process, and synthesizing previous literature on the subject, I expect to apply these strategies and practices with fidelity for the purposes of improving students' self-efficacy. Additionally, I intend to develop a professional development workshop within my department with plans for implementation across social studies and science content areas.

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1.	Is there a statistically significant difference between the mean of the pre-writing scores and the mean of the post-writing scores due to inquiry based and culturally relevant instruction?

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1.	Is there a statistically significant difference between the mean of the pre-writing scores and the mean of the post-writing scores due to inquiry based and culturally relevant instruction?

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2.    Is there a significant correlation between post-writing scores and self-efficacy scores?

3.  What are students’ attitudes about their writing after experiencing culturally relevant instruction and inquiry instruction?

Definition of Keywords
Agent – a person who acts, or possesses power or influence to produce an effect.

Agency – Action, influence or power to produce an effect.

Frame – the amount of control teachers and students have in the selection, sequencing, or pacing of classroom activity.

Minoritized – an adjective used to describe a group of people who face mistreatment and prejudice forced on them because of their race, culture, ethnicity, or language.

Urban – an adjective used to describe a school located in the inner city.

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In a more recent conversation with students from the 2019-20 school year, I asked another question: “How many images of yourself do you see in your classes?” When the last word was uttered, I knew that in my English Language Arts (ELA) classes, the answer was no. Many of my students are African-American, yet all the content they have studied shows images opposite their culture. An examination of the core text that supports the Georgia Standards of Excellence in ELA revealed diverse content, but as the selector of which content to study, I plead guilty to reinforcing the dominant culture.

I have unwittingly created an atmosphere that Martell (2018) asserted may be injurious to students of color because messages may position students’ cultures in a manner that lacks agency or power. Could students’ disinterest, then be part protest? The 2020-21 school year has begun in the wake of a world-wide health crisis – COVID-19 – racial tensions, civil unrest, and most recently a controversial election cycle. Teachers and students are remotely teaching and learning. To mitigate these negative observations, I have narrowed my research to the following areas: culturally relevant pedagogy and inquiry-based strategies.

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A theme of the reviewed literature points to successes in students’ academic achievement. Ladson-Billings' research (1995) is rooted on three tenets that propose to accomplish the following: academic success, cultural competence, and cultural critique.

When students can navigate their educational experiences without compromising their culture, they succeed academically and "maintain their cultural integrity" (476). Similarly, McCarther & Davis (2017) concluded an occurrence of academic achievement when students' cultural values were acknowledged. They maintained that students experience empowerment and connectedness to their schools when they are granted opportunities to become change agents in matters of social justice. Thus, students' cultural competence works as a conduit for improving academic achievement (McCarther & Davis, 2017).

In the same way that building cultural competence leads to success in school, dismantling teacher-centered instruction to collaborative, student-centric instruction has provided pathways for students to access their culture, values, and the dominant culture forms in a type of redistribution of justice (Lim, Tan, & Saito, 2019). The educators’ assumptions and ascriptions of identity on students lend tremendous weight to students' perceptions of themselves and their success in school

CRP’s Implementation Requirements: Strong Beliefs of Educators and Teacher Support

In the studies analyzed for this research proposal, the educators’ belief systems for CRP among educators was a key factor in the success of its implementation and positive outcomes for students (Golden, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Martell, 2018; McArthur & Davis, 2017). When teachers are dedicated to their belief in CRP and its core criteria, these beliefs influenced their roles in the classroom, their presentation of the content, and their instructional delivery (Martell, 2018).

Freire and Valdez’s (2017)    highlighted the barriers eight teachers of a dual language program encountered when they tried to implement CRP in their practice. The study indicated that barriers - time, materials, and inexperience – caused the teachers to believe that they lacked power and agency.  Motivated by the benefits of authentic learning experiences in multicultural settings, Martell (2018) opined that pre-and in-service professional development focus on collaboration, sharing, and observation of best practices to develop teachers' pedagogical belief systems and professional capital.

Martell’s study point back to Freire and Valdez's (2017) recommendations for the need to support teachers through partnerships with administrators, universities, and community. Similarly, Latson-Billings (1995) suggested that CRP helped prepare teachers who come from backgrounds opposite those of their students.

CRP and its Connections to Inquiry

Hillocks (1995) explained that inquiry is an important and biological process that includes “observing, questioning, and constructing representations and interpretations” (p.106). He clarified that inquiry is located in personal experiences. Thus, as students connect personal their experiences to broader perspectives beyond their own, they transact meaning with others. Bass elucidated how students develop agentive stances when they use their experiences as catalysts.  She asserted students became change agents when they connected their experiences to their place in society through writing.

Meixner et al. (2018) described how narrative inquiry guided teachers’ professional development. When teachers repositioned themselves as students to create, and design text using graphics, podcasts, and visuals, they admitted feeling the anxiety students feel and developed empathy for students’ learning experiences.

A lesson learned from research on CRP and its connection to inquiry-based instruction is the advantage of collective empowerment over individual empowerment experienced by students and teachers (Meixner et.al, 2018). As teachers began to view the realities of their students, they made content knowledge more relatable and impactful.  Relatable content subsequently improved the relationships of students to their communities, teachers to those communities and students and teachers to each other.

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Teacher-researcher will use students’ scores on pre- and post- writing assessments to measure changes in writing quantitatively.  The study will also examine students’ attitudes via metacognition or reflection journals. The strategies I will implement were constructed from a course developed for teaching Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Please see Appendix A for an example of what a module asks students to do. The strategies and activities were developed by Facing History and Ourselves, a non-profit organization that creates lessons founded on history to encourage teachers and students to be advocates, or “upstanders” 

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Teacher-researcher will use students’ scores on pre- and post- writing assessments to measure changes in writing quantitatively.  The study will also examine students’ attitudes via metacognition or reflection journals. The strategies I will implement were constructed from a course developed for teaching Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Please see Appendix A for an example of what a module asks students to do. The strategies and activities were developed by Facing History and Ourselves, a non-profit organization that creates lessons founded on history to encourage teachers and students to be advocates, or “upstanders” 

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Source Text:  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Curriculum:  Facing History, Facing Ourselves (Facing History and Ourselves, n.d.).

Length of Study: none weeks

. Students will document their confidence levels and observations in a metacognition journal as they engage in CRP and inquiry through the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum.

Participants:  ninth graders

Evidence
(Data Sources/Instrumentation)
Data for this study will be obtained from a variety of sources including (1) pre- and post-writing assessments, (2) a self-efficacy formative questionnaire created by the Research Collaboration of the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (2015), and (3) metacognition journal entries.  Data collected from the pre- and post-writing assessments will include measures of progression or regression.

Assessment Sources
paired samples t-test
Pearson correlation test
Self-Efficacy questionnaire

Validity and Reliability

The research method is reliable and valid since the assessment instruments have been vetted by the Georgia Department of Education.  The self-efficacy questionnaire taken from the University of Kansas’ Research Collaboration (2015), supports research-based, programs, and practices that improve student outcomes.  The experimental group is similar in demographics and skill level to the general population of ninth graders at the school site.

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The expectations of this Capstone Research proposal will be to extend existing knowledge of cultural relevance, critical theory, and writing instruction beyond the gaps that have been created by recent social, political, and racial events. 

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The expectations of this Capstone Research proposal will be to extend existing knowledge of cultural relevance, critical theory, and writing instruction beyond the gaps that have been created by recent social, political, and racial events. 