Teaching Strategies that Honor and Motivate Inner-City African-American Students: A School/University Collaboration.

Describes a school-university collaboration that developed alternative teaching strategies for motivating inner-city, African-American middle school students (effort-based grading, multiple performance opportunities, increased student responsibility/choice, and validation of cultural differences). Observations, teacher journals, and student surveys indicated that, under these conditions, most students who initially lacked motivation exhibited higher levels of engagement, interest, and confidence. (Author/SM)