Learning to Coconstruct Critical Learning Processes in an Urban School-University Partnership

Abstract

This article tells the story of how university and school personnel collaborated to revise a fifth-grade writing program. The project was named Rethink/Rewrite because it focused on having students consider contrasting portrayals of people and events in their social studies textbooks and in alternative materials about the same historical periods by African Americans and native peoples. Using participant observations, field notes, artifacts, and meeting records, this article describes the evolving nature of the 2-year collaboration from a top-down model of communication to one of equitable participation and how the university and school personnel eventually reconceived literacy instruction as part of their collaboration.