Power, Voice, and Empowerment: Classroom Committees in a Middle Level Language Arts Curriculum

The authors describe a collaborative relationship between a new middle level language arts teacher and a teacher educator in which they implement “classroom committees.” This project enabled students to be responsible for their classroom environment as they worked together to problem solve issues that were important to them. Bryant and Daniels feel strongly that “Classroom Committees can be a powerful tool for teachers in their effort to resist standardized teaching and passive compliance with policies passed down from those who do not know their students.”