As literacy educators, we know that the power of stories is profound. When we read stories that reflect our experiences and our interests, our identities and our communities, we feel seen and affirmed.
Sadly, many of our students believe that reading isn’t for them because they feel so disconnected from the texts they’re assigned. The implications here are twofold: students disengage from reading altogether, and they miss out on the transformative experience of representation.
When students see themselves, however, their attitude toward reading changes. They see the relevance of literacy; they experience the joy of losing themselves in a story; and they strengthen their personal and community identity.
In this blog post, we break down the research-backed importance of representation in literacy classrooms and share strategies and resources that can be easily integrated into your curriculum and instruction.
Why Seeing Yourself in Texts Is a Literacy Issue
Representation in literacy needs to be understood as a significant component of reading engagement, comprehension, and fluency.
We have years of research that demonstrate the connection between representation and literacy skills. We know, for example, that when students read texts that reflect their cultural experiences and identities, their reading comprehension and critical thinking skills improve. (1)
Specifically, one study showed that when Black students read culturally relevant texts, their reading comprehension scores increased by 15 percent and they experienced higher levels of reading enjoyment compared to peers who didn’t have exposure to relevant reading. (2)
Studies also illustrate that relevant reading experiences lead to higher levels of student engagement and motivation, which is a key predictor for students’ willingness to engage with more complex texts. (3)
In addition to the literacy benefits, representation in texts supports students’ social and emotional growth by helping them navigate the complexities of society (4) and develop empathy. (5)
The question isn’t whether representation matters—academically and socially-emotionally—in literacy classrooms; the question is how can teachers meaningfully integrate relevant and rigorous reading experiences into their classrooms?
Making Reading Relevant in Your Classroom
Integrating relevant texts into literacy classrooms doesn’t have to come at the expense of rigor and complexity. On the contrary, when we intentionally curate and facilitate reading experiences that reflect our students’ identities and interests, we create the conditions to increase text complexity for all students.
The good news: this doesn’t have to be a heavy lift for already overburdened educators.
Below are five easy-to-implement strategies to increase representation in your classroom and instruction.
Strategy 1: Start by Learning Who Your Students Are
This sounds simple, but it is so important. Our students, like all people, hold incredibly complex lives and backgrounds. Until we’ve taken the time to really get to know our students, we can’t meaningfully integrate relevant reading experiences.
One way to do this within your existing curriculum is to build in discussion questions that help students both grapple with the texts they’re reading and share connections with relevant parts of their own identities and experiences. Answers to these questions can become the foundation for understanding your students. Such questions might look like the following:
- Which character did you most relate to in this story and why?
- Which character did you relate to least, and what’s one thing you learned from this character?
- How could this text have been more relevant to you (e.g. your experiences, your identities, your interests, your communities)?
- What moments in this text felt familiar to your own life or community? What moments felt unfamiliar?
- What questions did this text raise for you about yourself, your community, or the world?
Another way to get to know your students is through student surveys. Surveys can streamline information about your students, making it easier to identify trends and commonalities in student interests and aspects of your students’ identities or experiences that aren’t represented in your curriculum.
You can download our ready-to-use and easy-to-adapt Student Background Survey to jumpstart making reading relevant in your classroom.
Notes on student surveys:
- Make sure to check your district and state policies around student surveys.
- Make sure students know they can skip any survey questions they don’t want to answer.
Strategy 2: Invite Students to Share Relevant Texts
Another way to increase relevance in literacy classrooms is to invite students to bring their own meaningful texts into the classroom. It’s important here to broaden what we consider to be texts. A meaningful and relevant text might include
- A homemade recipe book passed down from generations.
- A book/story/poem written in the students’ first/home language.
- A community- or neighborhood-based newspaper.
- A letter written by a family member.
- Lyrics to a song that connects to the students’ identity/community/culture.
In this way, students are able to define what relevancy looks like for themselves.
From here, the teacher might facilitate a small-group activitywhere students share their relevant text with some of their peers or a whole-class presentation where students can teach their text to their peers.
Strategy 3: Curate Texts with Purpose, Not Excess
Increasing representation doesn’t necessarily require more texts; it requires more intentionality. Rather than continually adding new materials on top of an already full curriculum, teachers can start by auditing the texts they already use and have in their classrooms.
A simple text audit might include questions such as
- Whose voices, identities, and experiences are most represented in these texts?
- What perspectives, communities, or experiences are missing or underrepresented?
- Which texts might offer opportunities for students to see themselves, and which might offer windows into others’ lives?
Taking time to reflect on these questions upfront can significantly reduce the need for constant supplementation later. When texts are thoughtfully curated from the start, teachers spend less time searching for “add-ons” and more time teaching and connecting with their students.
Financial constraints can be a very real barrier when it comes to building or expanding text collections and classroom libraries. Here are some ways to alleviate that burden:
- Partner with local libraries, community organizations, or local businesses for book donations.
- Apply for literacy-focused grants through professional organizations or nonprofits.
- Purchase gently used books from libraries or independent bookstores at reduced costs.
Even small additions, when chosen intentionally, can have a meaningful impact on representation and relevance.
Strategy 4: Build Choice and Independence
One challenge to representation is finding opportunities to reflect every student’s identities and experiences. After all, teachers have limited time and resources.
Rather than ensuring that every unit has representation for every student, teachers can integrate student choice into their existing curriculum to increase relevance and independence.
Here are some examples of what this might look like:
- Allow students to research and read culturally-relevant texts that thematically align with the unit of study.
- Integrate independent reading into your classroom routine so students have protected time for relevant reading.
- Broaden what counts as literacy by allowing students to listen to podcasts or audiobooks, comic books, or other forms of nontraditional literacy.
Structured opportunities for student choice that center literary representation can transform students’ reading lives, supporting both their academic skills and motivation.
Designing for Representation
The research is clear: representation isn’t simply a “nice to have” in literacy instruction. When students see their identities, cultures, interests, and experiences in what they read, they engage more deeply, comprehend more fully, and build the stamina necessary to tackle complex texts. Students can then use these literacy skills to engage with other texts they’ll encounter in their academic and personal lives.
As such, prioritizing representation is both an instructional responsibility and an equity imperative. This is why curriculum design matters. But when teachers are overwhelmed by planning and curating, it becomes harder to focus on what matters most: knowing students and creating authentic readingand learning experiences.
At Inquiry By Design, we intentionally design our curriculum to make representation possible. Our research-based English Language Arts and Spanish Language Arts programs are lean and easy to implement, reducing planning demands so teachers can shift their time and energy back to their students.
Each Inquiry By Design unit is intentionally curated with representation in mind, centering a wide range of voices, identities, and experiences while maintaining rigor and coherence. Rather than approaching representation as an optional add-on, we weave it throughout the curriculum.
If you’re interested in learning more about how our evidence-based literacy curriculum can increase representation and rigor in your classrooms, reach out today!
(2) https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1170275
(3) https://www.journal.teflin.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1562
(5) https://www.humanium.org/en/the-importance-of-childrens-representation-in-literature-and-media/