2025 MidSchoolMath National Conference

Stories activate multiple areas of the brain, including the visual processing centers, emotion, and motor cortexes. This makes the experience more immersive and memorable. However, what if our students struggle to access the story? In this session, we'll share and explore strategies for sheltering stories to allow this powerful experience for all of our students. You'll learn how to enhance your teaching with specific language structures and routines to unlock the power of a sheltered story, so that not only will students engage in Math in a deep way, but they will be able to connect their own stories to the context of the classroom!

During this session, you'll engage in a story as a student, engaging in sheltered instruction strategies that will not only model the effectiveness of this important practice, but to create a lasting experience you can draw upon when planning Math lessons. The story excerpt “Salvador Late or Early” by Sandra Cisneros will prompt educators to examine themes, such as equity, trauma and the student perspective. Teachers will examine bias as we change aspects of the story to reflect new meaning. We will discuss word choice and word meaning as we connect the story to teaching. The team will identify barriers to student’s accessing the story and the power of a classroom discussion to foster understanding.