Paper #2, Disability and Intersectionality in Public Schools

The purpose of this assignment is for you to examine disability in the context of public schools. More specifically this assignment asks you to consider what constitutes equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for children and youth labeled with disabilities/disabled children and youth. 

This assignment address the follow two learning objectives for the course:

1. 
   Critically examine normative assumptions about physical, intellectual, and social ability in educational and social contexts.
2. Link conceptualizations of disability in schools and society to issues related to social change and equitable access to opportunity.

Prompt:

Jasmine Lavine (2010) in her piece, Some Thoughts form a "Minority" Mother on Overrepresentation in Special Education asserts, "Special education becomes a stumbling block in [these] student's lives" (p. 3). Using the course materials, craft an argument that analyzes  Lavine's statement. Your response should consider how schools structure educational and social opportunity for all students. You should use a range of course materials (e.g. podcasts, guest lectures, core text readings....) to support your arguments. Papers should be 3-5pages in length.  

Paper Writing Equivalent: Using Metaphor, Art, and Mixed Media

There is a tendency in schooling to focus on traditional tools rather than contemporary ones. This tendency has several liabilities: 1) it does not prepare learners for their future; 2) it limits the range of content and teaching methods that can be implemented; 3) it restricts learners ability to express knowledge about content (assessment); and, most importantly, 4) it constricts the kinds of learners who can be successful. Current media tools provide a more flexible and accessible toolkit with which learners can more successfully take part in their learning and articulate what they know. Unless a lesson is focused on learning to use a specific tool (e.g., learning to draw with a compass), curricula should allow many alternatives. Like any craftsman, learners should learn to use tools that are an optimal match between their abilities and the demands of the task (CAST, UDL Guidelines, Expression & Communication, 2020).

In alignment with UDL, I am providing you with the following option(s) for written expression in all assignments for the quarter. The following guidelines are provided and are based on the scholarship of teaching and learning from Vanderbilt University (2020).

Construction and Composition of Assignments

• Reflect on the assigned concept, text, media, focusing on what you consider to be the most significant components and the prompts provided.
• Think of way to represent how you make sense of the concept, text, and or media. This may include any form of expression you choose. For example, create a metaphor, art piece, digital recording, photographic representation, poetry, etc.
• Clarity and depth are important.
• Provide an explication of your creative work that interprets it for others, clearly explaining your work and all of its details, with specific attention to how it captures the significant components of the concept, text, and media in the assignment.

 Criteria for Evaluating Creative Work

 Clarity

• Is it made clear to those interacting your creative piece, what the work is supposed to represent?

Accuracy

• Are details from the course materials used to construct your work accurately reflected?

Complexity

• Does your creative work and the accompanying explication reflect the complexity of the concept, text, and or media that the assignment is based on?

Comprehensiveness

• Does your creative work as articulated fully represent the concept, text, and or media that the assignment is based on?
• Knowing that our interpretations of concept, text, and or media in some way incomplete, is there anything that your work did not address that is essential to others understanding the vehicle that you have created to express the assignment.

Unity & Synthesis

• Does your creative work and its explication present a focused image that integrates as many ideas as possible from the course materials?
• Does your creative work and its explication present a set or sequence of discrete but related ideas, or does it document integrative synthesized thinking that brings multiple ideas into a singular focus?

Paper Writing Scoring Rubric: 

SCORING RUBRIC Major Assignments: The following descriptions are designed to provide anchors for various grading criteria. Because the assignment is designed to be reflective and personal in nature assignments will vary according to personal style.

High Pass (85%--100%). Is organized into sections. Each section meets all criteria provided in the requirements. The paper is completed by the due date. Course activities and readings are integrated into the paper. The paper is organized, easy to follow, and meets page length requirements. All content expressed in the paper is easily accessible, clear, and easy to understand, and follow a personal theme. APA style is followed correctly. The paper is typed, spell checked, and proofread.

Pass (70%--84%). Is organized into sections. The paper is completed by the due date. Most of the paper meets all criteria outlined in the requirements section but some portions do not. The paper is organized, easy to follow, and meets page length requirements but some do not meet these criteria. Most of the content expressed in the paper is easily accessible, clear, and easy to understand, and follows a personal theme but some do not meet these criteria. APA style is followed. The paper is typed, spell checked, and proofread.

Revise & Resubmit (60%--69%). Is organized into sections. The paper does not meet all criteria outlined in the requirements section. The paper is not organized, easy to follow, and meets page length requirements. Most of the content in the paper is not easily accessible, clear, easy to understand, and does not follow a personal theme. APA style is not followed. The paper is not typed, spell checked, or proofread. If you receive this score you MUST revise and resubmit your paper.

Reject/Fail (>60%). Is not organized into sections. The paper is not typed, spell checked, or proofread. APA style is not followed. The paper is not submitted digitally. The paper is not submitted by the assigned due date.

NOTE 1 : Some = one or more, Most = more than half.