Building a Classroom Community

The purpose of this first lesson is to help the class develop an environment that is conducive to learning and sharing. Throughout this scheme of work, students will be talking about sensitive topics, such as social class, gender expectations, and discrimination, and how those concepts can impact individuals’ choices and actions, both in the world of the text and in students’ own lives. It is, therefore, important that a supportive and a reflective classroom community has been established to help students discuss these topics as and when they arise.

In this lesson, students work together to create a contract, with the aim of developing a reflective classroom community, where students are known and know one another. Creating a classroom contract is an important step in fostering and maintaining a community where students honour and value differing perspectives, question assumptions, voice their opinions, and actively listen to others. When students feel empowered to contribute honestly and wrestle with multiple perspectives besides their own, such discussions can be positive and even life-changing. Moreover, when students are involved in the creation of a classroom contract alongside their teacher, rather than receiving the rules from their teacher, they are more likely to take responsibility for upholding the norms and expectations that the group establishes to guide their interactions and discussions. 

This lesson is an important foundation lesson that you can use at the start of any scheme of work. We recommend that you and your students revisit the classroom contract periodically to review your agreed upon norms, especially before engaging with challenging content and discourse activities.

Before teaching this lesson, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Activity 1 Reflect on Past Experiences at School

• Explain to students that today they will be exploring how to build a supportive classroom community. In preparation, they will first reflect on past experiences at school.
• Project the following questions one at a time and ask students to respond in their journals. Let them know that they will be sharing their ideas with a partner.
  • When have you felt comfortable sharing your ideas and questions in a class? What happened in those moments to help you feel comfortable?
  • When have you had ideas or questions in a class but did not share them? What was happening at those moments that made you not want to share?
• Then have students turn and talk with a partner about moments when they felt comfortable or uncomfortable sharing their ideas in a class.

Activity 2 Brainstorm Expectations for Working Together

• Remind students that they will be learning about different stories in the classroom and engaging in challenging discussions that might spark debate and disagreement in the group. In preparation, they will need to establish norms and expectations for behaviour that will allow everyone to feel as if they can voice their ideas, pose questions without fear of ridicule, and be heard by others.
• Explain that in order to create and maintain this kind of safe and brave space that encourages risk-taking and where challenging, and often uncomfortable, conversations and learning can happen, they will be working together to develop a classroom contract.
• Ask students to define contract and share ideas about the purpose of contracts and the types of things they can protect. Make sure students understand that a contract implies that all parties have a responsibility to uphold an agreement. You might also define and discuss norm: ‘a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behaviour.’ ¹
• Divide students into small groups of three or four and give each group a piece of flipchart or sugar paper. Ask them to come up with no more than three norms that they feel are important for everyone in the class to follow in order to foster the kind of space that invites participation, sharing, and growth. Instruct them to record their three ideas on their papers and then hang them on the wall when instructed to do so.

Activity 3 Choose Classroom Norms and Expectations

• Ask each group to stand by their list and present their ideas to the class by reading each norm and explaining why they think it is important. Then ask students to look for places where they can consolidate ideas. Write this new list on the board.
• Have a volunteer read the new list out loud and discuss as a group whether or not the class feels like they have captured the norms and expectations that they think are important to uphold in this class.
• Finalise the list by asking students to write their initials alongside norms and expectations that they think are important (or use sticky notes). Alternatively, you can use one of the following strategies:
  • Cross the Line: Everyone stands in a row, imagining a line in front of them. Or you can place a long piece of masking tape on the floor to serve as the line. You will read a norm/expectation, and anyone who thinks that it is important to them should step over the line for a couple of seconds and then step back.
  • Stand Up/Sit Down: Everyone starts in a seated position. You will read a norm/expectation, and anyone who thinks that it is important to them should stand up for a couple of seconds and then sit back down.

Activity 4 Create and Sign the Classroom Contract

• After the class has agreed to its norms and expectations, have one or more students record the information on a piece of flipchart or sugar paper, and then ask everyone to sign their names. Hang the contract on the wall. Creating a classroom contract that can be posted on the wall keeps everyone accountable for the learning from this lesson. The real measurement of understanding, however, lies in students’ (and your) efforts to abide by the contract throughout the year.
• Let students know that they will revisit and reflect on the contract before and after challenging conversations, or if one or more of them feels like the group has strayed from its initial promise to one another.

Activity 5 Reflect on the Process of Creating the Contract

Sit in a circle for a closing discussion about the activity so students have an opportunity to reflect together on their process of creating their contract. You might draw from the following questions:

• What process did your small group use to come up with your three or four norms?
• What do you think worked well in your small group?
• How do you think you could do better the next time you work in a small group?
• What process did our whole group use to come up with our contract?
• What do you think worked well in the process?
• How do you think we could do better the next time we work on a project in a whole group?

Activity 6 Set Personal Goals for Behavior

Ask each student to complete the following sentence starters in their journals. Revise the sentence starters as needed to fit what you think your group needs at this time.

• For the next month, I am going to work on _____________ (choose a norm from the class contract).
• One way that I will work on it is by. . .
• Then have each student share their completed sentence starters in a wraparound​. Listen during the wraparound to hear the norm that each student commits to upholding, and refer back to it in future one-on-one conferences or check-ins by sharing your observations, offering praise and support, and suggesting strategies to help each student reach their goal.

• 1‘Norm’ (dictionary entry), Merriam-Webster.com, accessed 23 June 2018.

Depending on your students and their readiness for contracting, consider using one or both of the following activities to replace Steps 2 and 3 in the Activities section of the lesson plan. Alternatively, you can spread contracting over multiple class periods and incorporate the following activities into this lesson plan: