Multilingual Learners and Academic Literacies Sociocultural Contexts of Literacy Development in Ado

SOLUTION MANUAL

MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS AND ACADEMIC LITERACIES

Shifting the discourse from a focus on academic language to the more dynamic but less researched construct of academic literacies, this volume addresses three key questions: • • •

What constitutes academic literacy?

What does academic literacy development in adolescent multilingual students look like and how can this development be assessed?

What classroom contexts foster the development of academic literacies in multilingual adolescents?

The contributing authors provide divergent definitions of academic literacies and use dissimilar theoretical and methodological approaches to study literacy development.

Nevertheless, all chapters reflect a shared conceptual framework for examining academic literacies as situated, overlapping, meaning-marking practices. This framework foregrounds students’ participation in valued disciplinary literacy practices. Emphasized in the new college and career readiness standards, the notion of disciplinary practices allows the contributing authors to bridge the language/content dichotomy, and take a more holistic as well as nuanced view of the demands that multilingual students face in general education classrooms. The volume also explores implications of the emphasis on academic literacy practices for classroom instruction, research, and policy.

Daniella Molle is a Professional Development Researcher at WIDA, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Edynn Sato is a Principal Research Scientist in the Research and Innovation Network’s Next Generation Learning and Assessment Center at Pearson, USA. Timothy Boals is a Senior Research Scientist at WIDA, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Carol A. Hedgspeth is a Research Associate at WestEd, USA.

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MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS AND ACADEMIC LITERACIES Sociocultural Contexts of Literacy Development in Adolescents

Edited by Daniella Molle Edynn Sato Timothy Boals Carol A. Hedgspeth

First published 2015

by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Routledge Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Multilingual learners and academic literacies : sociocultural contexts of literacy development in adolescents / Daniella Molle, Edynn Sato, Timothy Boals, Carol Hedgspeth [editors]. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. English language—Study and teaching—Foreign speakers—United States. 2. English language— Rhetoric—Study and teaching—United States. 3. Multicultural education—United States.

4. Education, Bilingual—United States. I. Molle, Daniella.

PE1128.A2M856 2015 428.0071’2—dc23 2014032566 ISBN: 978-1-138-84647-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-84648-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-72747-9 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo

by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

CONTENTS

Preface

ix

1 Introduction Daniella Molle

1

PART I

Academic Literacies: A Rationale and Exploration of the Construct

11

2 Academic Language and Academic Literacies: Mapping a Relationship Daniella Molle

13

3 In More Than One Tongue: Academic Literacies at Work as Living Texts Marylin Low

33

4 Adolescent Development and Everyday Language Practices: Implications for the Academic Literacy of Multilingual Learners Alison Bailey and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

53

vi Contents

5 A Sociocultural Approach to Academic Literacy in Mathematics for Adolescent English Learners: Integrating Mathematical Proficiency, Practices, and Discourse Judit Moschkovich 6 Translingual Literacies in a Social Media Age: Lessons Learned from Youth’s Transnational Communication Online José Ramón Lizárraga, Glynda A. Hull, and John M. Scott

75

105

PART II

Academic Literacy Development: Contexts and Practices 7 Bilingualism-as-Participation: Examining Adolescents’ Bi(Multi)Lingual Literacies Across Out-of-School and Online Contexts Mariana Pacheco

133

135

8 Academic Literacy Development: A Ten-Year Case Study of an Aspiring Writer Cathy Compton-Lilly

166

9 Inquire to Acquire: A Discourse Analysis of Bilingual Students’ Development of Science Literacy Laura Wright

183

10 Schooling Begins Before Adolescence: The Case of Manuel and Limited Opportunities to Learn Kathy Escamilla

210

PART III

Implications of an Academic Literacies Approach to Learning 11 The Use of Assessment in Support of the Development of Adolescents’ Academic Literacies Margaret Heritage

229 231

Contents vii

12 Building Teacher Knowledge of Academic Literacy and Language Acquisition: A Framework for Teachers’ Cross-Disciplinary Professional Learning Mary A. Avalos, Margarita Zisselsberger, Jennifer Langer-Osuna, and Walter Secada

255

13 Establishing a Foundation for Academic Literacy: The Role of Standards Edynn Sato

277

14 Literacy Development in Academic Contexts for Adolescent English Language Learners: Policy Considerations and Future Research Timothy Boals, Kenji Hakuta, and Alissa Blair List of Contributors Index

291

309 310

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PREFACE

This volume focuses exclusively on the educational experiences of multilingual adolescents. Its purpose is to offer researchers and teacher educators a conceptual framework for academic literacies, and to explore what an academic literacy approach to the teaching and learning of multilingual students may mean for instruction, policy, and research. The book foregrounds the situated and dialogic nature of academic literacies, and moves beyond a focus on the linguistic features of academic language as the benchmark of language learning. The volume brings together researchers with a range of theoretical, methodological, and epistemological perspectives. Through this work, we intend to acknowledge both the complexity of academic literacy development and the necessity of scholarly dialogue in efforts to explore it. We endeavor to bring greater clarity and specificity to the notion of academic literacies, particularly as it applies to multilingual adolescents, and to do so in a way that can guide future research in the field.

Organization of the Volume In order to provide a thorough exploration of the notion of academic literacies as it relates to the teaching and learning of adolescent multilingual students, the volume is organized in three sections following the Introduction: • • •

Academic Literacies: A Rationale and Exploration of the Construct Academic Literacy Development: Contexts and Practices Implications of an Academic Literacies Approach to Learning

Part I provides theoretically grounded discussions of the construct of academic literacies as it applies to adolescent multilingual students. The chapters explore

x Preface

the notion of academic literacies, what they encompass, and how they relate to other notions such as academic language and multiliteracies. Chapter 2 situates academic literacies in relation to academic language and provides a conceptual framework of academic literacies. Chapter 3 argues for a view of academic literacies as “living texts” that are rooted in the lived experiences of students and provide them with opportunities to find novel and meaningful means of selfexpression. Chapter 4 examines the characteristics of adolescent development that may interact with students’ social environments, in order to reveal ways that researchers and educators may expand on and authenticate a concept of academic literacies for adolescent multilingual students. Chapter 5 uses a sociocultural conceptual framework to clarify what constitutes academic literacy in mathematics for adolescent multilingual students. Chapter 6 explores the multimodal nature of academic literacies.

Part II offers illustrations of the ways in which the construct of academic literacies can be used in empirical research to document and describe the relationship between academic literacy development and classroom contexts. Chapter 7 traces the participation in literacy practices of a single student across multiple contexts, including afterschool and online settings. Chapter 8 draws on a longitudinal analysis of one student and illustrates his journey towards becoming a writer. Chapter 9 examines the inquiry practices of adolescent multilingual students in a science classroom. The author argues that a multimodal perspective allows us to recognize and value the ways in which students are able to express their knowledge.

Chapter 10 connects academic literacies to opportunities to learn and argues for a historically situated view of students’ academic literacy development.

Part III explores implications of the dynamic and situated view of academic literacies advanced in this volume for assessment, professional development, standards implementation, and policy. Chapter 11 focuses on two interrelated aspects of adolescent multilingual students’ literacy achievement: what academic literacy entails and how evidence of academic literacy can be effectively collected and used. Chapter 12 describes a framework for teachers’ professional development that builds teachers’ knowledge of academic literacies and language, puts students at the center of instructional decisions and planning, uses a discussionbased approach to develop literacy according to the purposes of the discipline, and explicitly teaches academic language within the context of specific disciplines. Chapter 13 discusses a framework and critical considerations for the development of rigorous, coherent, and practicable standards that can support students’ learning of academic literacies. Chapter 14 addresses the relationship between the construct of academic literacies and the current policy context.

Background and Acknowledgments This volume is the culmination of a series of scholarly events that involve several institutions. In 2010, WIDA and WestEd convened an academic language

Preface xi

summit in Madison, WI. The summit brought together nationally recognized scholars with a wide range of expertise in the area of second language teaching and learning (including second language acquisition, language assessment, professional development for teachers of multilingul students, and second language policy). During the summit, it became apparent that although each of the scholars approached the topic of academic language development differently, they shared an understanding of the components of academic language and a common conviction that proficiency in academic language is key to the academic success of all students and of multilingual students in particular. The summit attendees agreed that further research in this area should focus on classroom interaction and shed light on contextual factors that contribute to students’ development of academic language proficiency.

This commitment to the exploration of language use in context inspired a successful grant application for an educational research conference. The conference was funded by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and supported by the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research (WCER).

We would like to thank AERA for its support, and Felice Levine for her guidance. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Adam Gamoran, who then directed WCER. The conference took place in Madison, WI in October 2012. Timothy Boals at WIDA and Edynn Sato then at WestEd were the principal investigators of the grant. Daniella Molle was the project manager. Todd Lundberg, then a project assistant at WIDA, and Christopher Camacho at WestEd provided invaluable and steadfast support during the preparation for the conference and the actual event. They helped us think through important issues that would otherwise have remained overlooked, and made the project not only manageable but also enjoyable. The conference brought together scholars with a wide range of expertise pertaining to the teaching and learning of multilingual students. In addition, the conference represented a shift in focus from academic language to academic literacies. This change in terminology was necessary to emphasize the situated and negotiated nature of language use and language development in school settings and the strong relationship between content and language learning.

The chapters in this volume represent expanded and refined versions of many of the presentations given at the educational research conference. The conference was a highly interactive and collaborative event. Individual presentations were followed by discussions and workshop sessions, during which groups of conference participants tackled different issues related to academic literacies. By the end of the conference, a conceptual framework of academic literacies began to emerge. This collaboratively generated framework unites and shapes all the contributions to the volume. We would like to thank all conference participants for their generous participation and sincere engagement during the conference. Without the passion and commitment of the conference participants, the framework would not have emerged and we would not have had such a clear sense of purpose.

xii Preface

We owe a great debt to the reviewers who graciously volunteered their time and expertise and provided critical, constructive, and timely feedback on the chapters. In alphabetical order, these generous reviewers are: Jamal Abedi, Lilia Bartolomé, Ester de Jong, Fred Erickson, Doug Fisher, Jim Gee, Pauline Gibbons, Margo Gottlieb, Carol Hedgspeth, Allan Luke, Kate Menken, Zitlali Morales, David Pimm, Rebecca Rogers, Willy Solano-Flores, and Aída Walqui.

Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the indispensable work of our internal editors: Carol A. Hedgspeth at WestED and Becky Holmes at WIDA. Carol provided insightful feedback on the chapters and invaluable support to the editorial process as whole. Becky ensured that everyone’s work was presentable, readable, and publishable.

Daniella Molle Edynn Sato Timothy Boals Carol A. Hedgspeth

1 INTRODUCTION Daniella Molle

The persistence of gross disparities in educational outcomes between students identified as English language learners (ELLs) and students whose home language is English, along with the steady rise of the ELL population in U.S. schools in recent decades, have given great urgency to the question: How can we support the success of ELLs in school and beyond? The educational literature offers limited answers for the population of students who are the focus of this volume: adolescent multilingual students. The reasons for the limited knowledge base are numerous and diverse, and it is beyond the scope of this Introduction to discuss them in full; for a more comprehensive discussion of the topic, see Cumming and Geva (2012). Instead, in this volume we would like to focus our discussion on two limitations in current knowledge about adolescents’ literacy development.

Conceptualizations of Literacy The first and “perhaps the greatest” hurdle to the design of robust models of literacy development in adolescent multilingual students is rooted in the “fragmented and contentious” nature of most theories and research about literacy learning (Cumming & Geva, 2012, p. 5). Cumming and Geva (2012) identify three approaches to literacy learning: cognitive, sociocultural, and macrosocietal.

Stated briefly, cognitive approaches to literacy privilege the analysis of the language demands of texts and focus on the development of psychological skills in individual students. The insights gained through cognitive research have been instrumental in defining the meaning and scope of academic language proficiency in English. Sociocultural approaches to literacy development are concerned with the cultural and historical construction of literacy practices and privilege situated analyses of the affordances and constraints of these practices for particular students. Macrosocietal orientations to the study of literacy “have focused on

2 Daniella Molle

structural, institutional forces in societies [ . . . ] that systematically impose social distinctions and inequities, manifest as literacy practices and semiotic barriers, beyond the agency of individual members of society, and so conflicting with or resisted by them” (Cumming & Geva, 2012, p. 6). Although the questions and phenomena investigated through these three perspectives are interrelated, each has given rise to lines of research that have tended to remain isolated from the others. Like Cumming and Geva (2012), we see these orientations not as “competing or preferable” but rather as “complementary and offering valid, alternative perspectives on different aspects of literacy achievement and education, particularly evident in culturally diverse contexts” (p. 6).

The main objective of the present volume is to integrate elements from all three orientations in exploring how the academic literacy development of adolescent multilingual students can be supported. The volume represents a coming-together of researchers who have different perspectives on how the learning and achievement of multilingual students can be supported in U.S. schools. It reflects a scholarly conversation about the literacy that navigates the ideological tensions mentioned previously and contributes to a common research agenda—to elucidate what academic literacies are, how they develop, what contextual factors shape their development, and what constitutes evidence of academic literacy development. The dialogue among the volume’s authors began during a three-day education research conference funded by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and supported by the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research. The conference took place in October 2012 in Madison, WI. The chapters in the volume represent extended and refined versions of some of the presentations given at the conference.

The chapters are anchored in a shared set of guiding principles about academic literacies that emerged from discussion at the conference (see Academic Literacies section of this Introduction). The guiding principles provide a shared foundation among research studies that differ in their theoretical bases and methodological approaches, as well as operational definitions of academic literacies. The common foundation facilitates connections among divergent insights that deepen our understanding of academic literacy development in adolescent multilingual students.

The Language/Content Dichotomy Another limitation in the current knowledge base on literacy development is rooted in the division between language and content learning. Language and content are often addressed in a distinct or disjointed manner in policy, research, curricula, and instruction. Although this distinction between language and content is sometimes strategically important because it highlights the specific language related challenges that multilingual students may face, research suggests that such a distinction is generally counterproductive, particularly in identifying the language demands of school (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013). The language/content dichotomy has resulted in explorations of language development that do not methodically account for how such development is shaped by the content of the discipline

Introduction 3

being learned, as well as to studies of content learning that do not systematically address the ways in which language mediates mastery of content.

The present volume promotes the integration of language and content considerations through the examination of practice. We view practice as a means for fostering explorations of situated meaning making. Examining students’ participation in valued academic practices enables researchers to look at the ways in which content and language knowledge and skills interact to support and/or undermine student engagement (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013). Using practice as a conceptual tool, chapters in the volume address the learning of adolescent multilingual students in ways that situate literacy development within micro as well as macro contexts.

We call your attention to a few additional features of this volume. First, the chapters in this volume collectively highlight the heterogeneity of multilingual students, particularly in terms of their exposure to, mastery of, and relationship with academic English. Such heterogeneity is reflected in the range of terminology used in reference to this student population—authors address culturally and linguistically diverse learners, emergent bilingual students, multilingual learners, and language minority youth, as well as multilingual students who are indigenous youth, Englishproficient bilingual adolescents, students in Mexico, and long-term ELLS. The majority of the multilingual students discussed in the volume speak Spanish as their first language. This commonality, however, belies differences in their language trajectories. Some authors discuss newcomer students, while others focus on Englishproficient students; still others explore the learning of students who receive language services, some of whom are long-term ELLs, some of whom are not.

Second, the volume focuses on adolescent multilingual students in U.S. schools for a number of reasons. Secondary schools place different demands on students than elementary schools in terms of both content and language; therefore, the distinction between language and content—one of the key tensions in providing educational supports to our multilingual students—becomes more evident at the secondary, as opposed to the elementary, level (Cook, Boals, Wilmes, & Santos, 2008). Additionally, adolescence is a period in students’ lives characterized by developmental processes that distinguish it from the maturation that takes place in the younger years (see Bailey & Orellana, this volume for a more detailed explanation). Finally, most of the research on multilingual students in the United States has focused on elementary schools (Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2006) and is of limited value in understanding literacy development during adolescence.

In the following sections, we first briefly describe the volume’s conceptualization of academic literacies and the general implications of academic literacies for classroom practices, research, and policy. We conclude with a brief overview of the volume.

Academic Literacies Literacy, as discussed in this volume, does not simply refer to reading and writing.

Neither is it offered as a synonym for academic language. Instead, literacy here refers to students’ ability to make meaning across the disciplines in ways that are

4 Daniella Molle

valued in the 21st-century classroom. In the present volume, we refer to literacy in the plural in order to highlight the complexity and diversity of the pedagogical literacy practices in which students engage across contexts and disciplines. The ideological view of academic literacies espoused in this volume (Cook-Gumperz, 2006; Street, 1984) highlights the situated and negotiated nature of learning, and the plurality of the demands placed on students in each classroom. An academic literacies approach emphasizes that academic language is only one of the resources on which students draw as they engage in learning. All authors view academic literacies as situated, overlapping meaning-making practices that are: • • • • • •

multimodal, multilingual, multicultural; open, critical, creative; purposeful, strategic, pragmatic; developmental; inter/intra personal; fluid, lived, messy.

Despite the fact that all the chapters in the volume espouse the same broad definition of academic literacies, the authors diverge in the specific ways in which they operationalize this definition. Judit Moschkovich, for instance, argues that academic literacy in mathematics has three integrated components: mathematical knowledge, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse. Margaret Heritage, on the other hand, views academic literacies as consisting of cognitive resources, academic language resources, and pragmatic competence. Although these two definitions are clearly not identical, they illustrate the power of a shared conceptual framework to bring together dissimilar approaches to the study of teaching and learning. Both definitions underscore the situated nature of learning and the importance of contextualizing discussions of academic language demands and development. In addition, both definitions claim that content and language learning are interconnected.

This divergence within the scope of a shared conceptual framework is evident in other chapters of the book as well. Most authors provide their own definition of academic literacies. The authors’ approaches to academic literacies, however, are all in a dialogic relationship (Bakhtin, 1992) with the definition of academic literacies forged at the conference. This definition is described in detail in the first chapter to the volume.

Although the volume focuses on academic literacy development, the authors do not view academic literacy practices as the only practices worth acquiring.

All students are developing academic literacies and connecting them to other meaning-making practices that they value and are mastering/have mastered.

Explorations of academic literacy development support analyses of the ways in which school-based practices interact with other cultural practices (see Low, this volume; Bailey & Orellana, this volume). In some cases, these investigations

Introduction 5

highlight the constraining nature of certain academic literacy practices and their damaging effects on students’ mastery of their home language(s) as well as English (Low, this volume). For this reason, academic literacies as conceptualized in the volume do not refer to any literacy practice in evidence in U.S. schools. Instead, academic literacies encompass practices that have the potential to strengthen the opportunities available to multilingual students to define their own futures.

Classroom Implications The work in the present volume is based on the premise that the shift in the scholarly discourse from a focus on academic language to an emphasis on academic literacy practices is not just a change in nomenclature but represents a different way of approaching the teaching and learning of adolescent multilingual students. Here we will highlight the implications of this shift for classroom practice; all of these implications are discussed in more than one of the book’s chapters.

The first implication for classroom instruction is directly related to the definition of academic literacies offered here. This definition underscores the relationship between content knowledge and language use in the context of disciplinary practices. If educators take as a starting point for instruction students’ participation in disciplinary practices, then they commit to engaging all their students, regardless of language proficiency, in intellectually challenging content. In addition, when educators see language and content learning as integrated, they may be more willing to look beyond the imperfections in the students’ language and examine the meaning that students are constructing using the language resources they have on hand (Moschkovich, this volume; Wright, this volume).

At the same time, a contextualized view of learning encourages educators to provide language instruction that is authentic (in that it is embedded in practice) as well as specific (because it is connected to a discipline or subdiscipline). Such instruction should promote students’ development of metalinguistic awareness about the relationship between language use and context (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Heritage, this volume). Metalinguistic awareness is anchored in deep understanding of the particular but enables students to see patterns across contexts. Metalinguistic awareness is essential for the academic success of multilingual students because it facilitates the transfer of knowledge from one situation to another (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

Another classroom implication of the shift from academic language to academic literacies has to with the multimodal nature of literacy practices. Many of the authors in this volume (in particular Avalos and colleagues, Moschkovich, and Wright) encourage educators to think of language as encompassing symbols and visual representations as well as words. This multimodal view of language has two significant consequences.

First, it encourages educators to provide students with opportunities to represent the same concept using multiple modes. Such opportunities have been shown to contribute to students’ conceptual understanding (Moschkovich, this volume). Second,

6 Daniella Molle

this view of language contests the belief that the meaning of visual representations is self-evident (see Avalos and colleagues, this volume). Instead, a multimodal view of language emphasizes the socially constructed nature of visual representations and the necessity to discuss their use and meaning with students.

Thirdly, an emphasis on academic literacies highlights the situated and negotiated nature of meaning making. This approach emphasizes that the teacher can guide but not determine what students learn. As a result, it is essential that educators create rich opportunities for engagement with content and language that are open-ended rather than prescriptive. Several authors argue for enabling students to creatively integrate and produce knowledge as they draw on multiple cultural practices (Low, this volume). Technology may provide opportunities for students to construct dynamic and polyphonic discursive spaces in which the boundaries between languages become blurred in service of students’ multilingual imagination (see Pacheco, this volume).

Finally, the academic literacies approach proposed in this volume has implications for classroom practice because it views literacies as ideological. Since academic literacy practices embody value judgments, participation in these practices is not a neutral process. Instead, the development of academic literacies interacts with students’ identity development. Students’ participation in valued literacy practices can be supported if students see their engagement as validating and expanding, rather than constraining, who they can be and how they can express themselves (see Compton-Lilly, this volume; Low, this volume).

Academic literacy practices embody specific messages not only about what worthwhile learning is but also about the status of diverse languages. Several authors suggest that if educators want to support the full engagement of their multilingual students in academic literacy practices, they need to encourage translanguaging and polyphonic practices that draw on multiple languages as well as multiple cultural practices (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Low, this volume). One particularly powerful shape that this encouragement can take is the inclusion of oral discursive practices in the classroom curriculum. When discursive practices students use out of school become the object of analysis in school, the everyday practices are elevated to the status of valued academic practices. This elevation gives students an invaluable opportunity to see themselves as competent language users across contexts, and disrupts the everyday/academic dichotomy. In addition, as students examine the divergences and similarities between community and academic practices, they can build metalinguistic awareness and transcultural competence (Bailey & Orelana, this volume; Low, this volume). Rather than being threatening, an acknowledgement of the ideological nature of academic literacy practices can be liberating and constructive, particularly for multilingual students.

Research Implications All authors contributing to the volume discuss the research implications of their claims. Here we summarize some of the research implications mentioned by

Introduction 7

more than one author. Other research implications, which are relevant to a specific study, are not addressed.

The academic literacy approach espoused in this volume promotes a view of language as a tool for communication and meaning construction, and not as a way to replicate knowledge or language use. Exploring academic literacies and their development thus involves studying situated meaning making across time, space, and mode (Moschkovich, this volume; Pacheco, this volume; Wright, this volume). The study of academic literacies across time is essential because students’ participation in disciplinary practices is shaped by their history of engagement in other academic practices throughout their academic careers (Compton-Lilly; this volume; Escamilla, this volume). Examining literacy practices across space is also important for researchers, because no single context can offer a full picture of a student’s literacy competencies. As Pacheco (this volume) demonstrates, students’ participation in literacy practices across contexts is scaffolded differently. Students thus have divergent opportunities to learn, experience success, and demonstrate knowledge across contexts. Finally, it is essential for researchers to examine academic literacy development across modalities for two reasons. First, multilingual students may not be able to demonstrate all they know in a single mode, such as writing (Wright, this volume). Second, disciplinary knowledge itself is multimodal both in terms of its construction and its presentation (Moschkovich, this volume). In sum, research on academic literacies and their development needs to take into account the complex nature of the construct, and aim to explore students’ participation in meaning-making practices in ways that do justice to the historical, situated, negotiated, and multimodal nature of academic literacies.

It is important to discuss the relationship between academic literacies and academic language development. From an academic literacies point of view, language is much more than words. As we mentioned previously, language across the disciplines also includes symbols and visual representations (Moschkovich, this volume; Wright, this volume). The volume thus supports not the study of language per se but the situated analysis of academic discourses. Any examination of discourse, in turn, should not be separated from the exploration of students’ participation in valued disciplinary practices (Pacheco, this volume). The academic literacies approach proposed in the present volume privileges meaning over form, and argues for a situated view of language proficiency in any scholarly investigation of academic literacy development.

The academic literacies framework adopted by the authors in this volume promotes fluid boundaries between languages and cultural practices. The authors’ studies demonstrate that multilingual students employ resources in multiple languages to scaffold their own learning as well as the learning of their peers (Moschkovich, this volume; Pacheco, this volume). In addition, students draw on multiple cultural practices as they construct meaning in school (Low, this volume). Some of these practices are school-based while others are community-based. Any rigid distinction between everyday and academic risks underestimating the situated nature of learning and the polyphonic nature of student discourse.

8 Daniella Molle

The contributing authors have identified many questions related to academic literacies that merit further research. Some of these questions include: What do academic literacy trajectories of multilingual students look like across modalities, and how do those trajectories vary (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Sato, this volume; Wright, this volume)? What is the role of instruction in supporting academic literacy development (Boals, Hakuta, & Blair, this volume)? How do academic literacy practices across disciplines intersect (Moschkovich, this volume)? These are just a number of the numerous research questions that are not fully addressed by the present volume but are seen as important and pressing by the contributing authors.

Policy Implications Contributing authors have identified four policy implications of the shift to academic literacies. Each of these implications was discussed by more than one contributing author. In many cases, policy implications were inferred from the authors’ discussions and were not explicitly outlined by the authors themselves.

Currently, standardized assessments as well as school accountability policies promote a strict separation of languages. From the point of view of students’ participation in academic literacy practices, however, such separation is both artificial and counterproductive (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Escamilla, this volume; Low, this volume; Pacheco, this volume; Wright, this volume). Multilingual students do not possess the same language resources in all the languages they use.

Consequently, asking them to draw on only one language at a time may severely restrict the amount of content knowledge that can come to light during assessment. In addition, a separation of languages ignores the multiple ways in which students’ home languages and discursive practices may support their engagement in learning.

One way to overcome this important shortcoming in current assessment and accountability practices would be to change the way in which students are viewed.

Rather than positioning students as repositories of knowledge that are separate from others (what Brian Street has called an autonomous view of literacy), policies can encourage assessments that seek to capture students’ participation in disciplinary practices (an ideological view of literacy). Many of these practices overlap among content areas, while others do not (Boals, Hakuta, & Blair, this volume). Assessments that are rooted in an academic literacies approach would acknowledge the situated nature of learning, allow collaborative as well as individual problem solving, and encourage the use of multiple languages (Heritage, this volume). In addition, such assessments would view language proficiency as context-dependent.

Many of the contributing authors critique the separation of language and content in current policies. They argue for assessment, accountability, and teacher education policies that take into account the interconnectedness of content

Introduction 9

knowledge and language competence (Avalos and colleagues, this volume; Heritage, this volume; Moschkovich, this volume; Sato, this volume). The academic literacies framework presents content and language as two aspects of a multifaceted construct. Any policies that aim to support high-quality instruction for multilingual students should reflect this complexity, and strive to promote language development through content learning and engagement in rigorous, intellectually challenging disciplinary practices.

A third implication of the academic literacies approach for policy stems from the multimodal nature of language. Most current language assessments do not reflect a sophisticated view of language that includes words as well as symbols and graphic representations. This stripping away of the complexity of disciplinary discourses fosters a limited view of what we consider language proficiency and restricts the ability of language specialists to support literacy development beyond alphabetic literacy (Moschkovich, this volume). Moreover, an overreliance on writing in current assessments masks the content knowledge of multilingual students whose writing does not meet disciplinary expectations (Wright, this volume).

Finally, the findings of several authors have implications for the duration and content of the instructional interventions supported by policy and sought by schools. Short-term interventions seem to be of limited value because academic literacy development depends on students’ history of engagement in academic literacy practices (Compton-Lilly, this volume; Escamilla, this volume). Instead of a wide range of ever-changing short-term interventions, policies should encourage a consistent academic literacies focus across standards, assessments, instructional materials, and professional development (Boals, Hakuta, & Blair, this volume).

In addition, the interventions in which multilingual students take part should be specifically designed for multilingual students. They should include a focus on oral language and metalinguistic awareness as well as reading and writing (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Escamilla, this volume). The evaluations of such intervention should not focus on language or content learning in isolation but instead on the extent and quality of the opportunities provided to students to develop academic literacies (Escamilla, this volume).

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Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Cook, H. G., Boals, T., Wilmes, C., & Santos, M. (2008). Issues in the development of annual measurable achievement objectives for WIDA consortium states. Working paper. Wisconsin Center for Educational Research: University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Cook-Gumperz, J. (Ed.). (2006). The social construction of literacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Cumming, A., & Geva, E. (2012). Purpose and approach. In A. Cumming (Ed.), Adolescent literacies in a multicultural context (pp. 1–22). New York: Routledge.

Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, B., & Christian, D. (2006). Educating English language learners: A synthesis of research evidence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, O., Quinn, H., & Valdés, G. (2013). Science and language for English language learners in relation to next generation science standards and with implications for common core state standards for English language arts and mathematics. Educational Researcher, 42(4), 223–233.

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

PART I

Academic Literacies A Rationale and Exploration of the Construct

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2 ACADEMIC LANGUAGE AND ACADEMIC LITERACIES Mapping a Relationship Daniella Molle

The purpose of this chapter is to situate the construct of academic literacies as conceptualized in this volume (see the Introduction for more details) in relation to the construct of academic language. I will discuss the implications of an academic literacies approach for the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students in U.S. schools. I will then use empirical data from a middleschool classroom to provide a concrete illustration of some of these implications.

Academic language has become a popular and important construct in education, particularly in scholarship related to the academic success of culturally and linguistically diverse students (Cummins, 2008; Valdés, 2001; Zwiers, 2005).

Despite its frequent use, the term academic language is contested and complex (Anstrom et al., 2010). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to summarize and critique the literature on academic language. Instead, the present discussion of academic language addresses a portion of the primarily U.S.-based literature that stands in productive contrast with the academic literacies approach the volume espouses. One of the main aims of the chapter is to draw a distinction between academic language and academic literacies that is useful in highlighting key features of academic literacies. The differentiation between academic language and academic literacies as approaches to conceptualizing the demands of schooling is strategic rather than evaluative.

Recent reviews of the literature on academic language point at an emerging consensus on several points: • • •

Academic in academic language refers to the language used in school by which students process and produce knowledge; Academic language is key to students’ academic success; Academic language can be described as comprising four levels: discourse, grammar/syntax, and vocabulary;

14 Daniella Molle

• •

Academic language varies across content areas; and Academic language and everyday, conversational language are not opposites but should be thought of as a continuum1 (Anstrom et al., 2010; Snow & Uccelli, 2009).

Of particular importance to the present discussion are the ways in which context is addressed in some of the literature focusing on academic language.

Most of the recent scholarship related to academic language is informed by systemic functional linguistics as well as sociocultural theories of learning (e.g., Scarcella, 2003). Context is considered primarily in terms of apprenticeship within a discipline-specific discourse community. This discourse community is usually approached as a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991)2 in which experts need to help novices gain greater “control of a range of semiotic resources as well as [ . . . ] an understanding of social and linguistic expectations for participation” (Colombi & Schleppegrell, 2002, p. 2). Research on academic language has made important contributions to our understanding of the nature of academic discourse by highlighting systematic variations in oral and written texts from different content areas (see Bailey, 2007; Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteiza, 2004, among others).

The academic language approach to the teaching and learning of language can be characterized as the academic socialization model (Lea & Street, 2006).

According to Lea and Street (2006), the academic socialization model “is concerned with students’ acculturation into disciplinary and subject-based discourses and genres. Students acquire the ways of talking, writing, thinking, and using literacy that typified members of a disciplinary or subject area community” (p. 369). While the academic socialization model recognizes variations in language use across contexts, it “presumes that the disciplinary discourses and genres are relatively stable and, once students have learned and understood the ground rules of a particular academic discourse, they are able to reproduce it” (Lea & Street, 2006, p. 369).

Apart from the academic socialization model, Lea and Street (2006) outline two additional models for language and literacy development: the study skills model and the academic literacies model. The former model is informed by theories of learning that view language learning as a cognitive process located in the individual. The study skills approach “focuses on the surface features of language form and presumes that students can transfer their knowledge of writing and literacy unproblematically from one context to another” (pp. 368-369). By contrast, the academic literacies model “is concerned with meaning making, identity, power, and authority, and foregrounds the institutional nature of what counts as knowledge in any particular academic context” (p. 369). While the academic literacies approach is similar to the academic socialization one, it also differs from it in that “it views the processes involved in acquiring appropriate and effective uses of literacy as more complex, dynamic, nuanced, situated, and involving both

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 15

epistemological issues and social processes, including power relations among people, institutions, and social identities” (p. 369).

The academic literacies model is rooted in a view of context as situated, negotiated, and overlapping social practices. This view of language use and language learning highlights contextual variation not by discipline or subdiscipline but by activity system (Cole & Engeström, 1993), such as an individual classroom. As Lea and Street (2006) put it, “the academic literacies model goes further [than the acculturation model] by focusing on the relationship of epistemology and [language production] not just in the subject area in general but also more generally, in institutional requirements (e.g., regarding plagiarism, feedback), as well as in more specific contexts such as variation across individual [teachers’] requirements and even individual student assignments” (p. 369). A focus on the contested and negotiated nature of academic literacy practices supports discussions of larger forces that shape learning environments in schools (such as language policies; see Escamilla, this volume) as well as investigations of literacy development in specific classroom or after-school settings (Compton-Lilly, this volume; Pacheco, this volume).

It is important to stress that the three approaches to conceptualizing and exploring teaching and learning are not mutually exclusive but are instead overlapping and porous. An academic literacies approach to classroom research does not dismiss the value of teaching adolescent English language learners grammatical structures or discipline-specific features of genres. Outlining the differences among the three approaches is useful in highlighting what the shift from a focus on academic language to an exploration of academic literacy entails: it is a shift in emphasis from language features to language in use, from regularities in disciplinary expectations to the variability and unpredictability of classroom interactions, from student apprenticeship to identity development and positioning, and from reading and writing to multimodal discourse.

Although guided by sociocultural theories of learning, research representing the academic literacies model is informed by multiple theories and methodologies, as the chapters in this volume demonstrate.

Academic Literacies The meaning and significance of literacy in people’s lives have undergone many dramatic shifts through the centuries (for an overview, see Cook-Gumperz, 2006). One important transformation in the way we understand literacy has taken place during the last few decades with the emergence of the New Literacy Studies (Gee, 2011). This field established an “ideological, cultural, and economic perspective that is lacking from conventional notions of literacy” (Christenbury, Bomer, & Smagorinsky, 2009, p. 9). Since the 1980s, literacy has been seen in the scholarly literature not as a set of abstract skills individuals can possess but rather as contextually valued and concrete social practices (Street, 1984). A definition of social practice often used in the academic literacies literature is the one provided

16 Daniella Molle

by Scribner and Cole (1981) in their groundbreaking research on the relationship between literacy and schooling. Scribner and Cole (1981) define practice as a recurrent, goal-directed sequence of activities using a particular technology3 and particular systems of knowledge . . . [A] practice always refers to socially developed and patterned ways of using technology and knowledge to accomplish tasks. Conversely, tasks that individuals engage in constitute a social practice when they are directed to socially recognized goals and make use of a shared technology and knowledge system. (p. 236) The socially recognized and goal-oriented nature of practice makes all practices, including literacy practices, subject to power relations. One reflection of these power relations in social institutions such as schools is their tendency to recognize some practices as legitimate and others as deficient (Cook-Gumperz, 2006). Literacy practices thus reflect value judgments about the kinds of knowledge and skills students need to acquire and the social identities that they should develop. Literacy is, in other words, much more than the ability to use words correctly and involves “ways of talking, interacting, thinking, valuing, and believing” (Gee, 2008, p. 45).

The social and cultural view of literacy has highlighted the existence of not one but many literacies. Literacies are multiple not only because they refer to different historically and culturally situated social practices, but also because they involve multiple modes of representation. The discussion of literacy and its development thus expands from a focus on reading and writing verbal texts to an exploration of meaning-making processes that involve multiple modalities as well as language domains. As the New London Group (1996) put it, “language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes” (p. 64).

It is also important to address what makes literacies academic. In discussions of academic language, the term academic usually means “of school” (Snow & Uccelli, 2009). When it comes to literacies, however, such a definition seems too broad. Three distinctions between sets of literacy practices seem relevant here.

The first distinction is between official literacy practices promoted by schools (such as taking notes) and unofficial practices discouraged by schools (such as stealthily passing notes to friends during class) (Bloome, 2009). The term academic as used in this volume refers to the former set of practices. Second, academic refers to the pedagogical practices used in school to support student learning in the disciplines.

These pedagogical literacy practices are different from the practices in which experts in the disciplines (such as geographers or astrophysicists) engage. Finally, we need to distinguish between practices that have the potential to “give students the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their aspirations” (New London Group, 1996, p. 63) and practices that simply take place in school. Again, it is the former set of practices that are the focus of the present discussion.

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 17

Academic Literacies and Academic Language: A Framework for the Relationship In much of the literature on schooling, the term literacy refers to learning to read and write (e.g., Leung, 2008). Viewed in this manner, literacy learning falls under the more expansive process of language learning because language involves all four language domains of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In the present volume, however, we take a divergent view of literacy. As mentioned previously, literacy here refers to situated meaning-making practices that may involve all four domains of language as well as other modalities. Thus, literacy learning subsumes language learning.

What is, then, the place of academic language within the broader construct of academic literacies? Figure 2.1 provides one representation of the relationship.

Language Competencies in Multiple Languages

Critical Understanding

Disciplinary Concepts, Problems

Academic Literacy Practices

Interplay of Multiple Modalities

FIGURE 2.1

Social Norms, Roles, Identities, Relationships

Intellectual Challenge

Lenses for exploring academic practices with a focus on culturally and linguistically diverse students

18 Daniella Molle

As I will discuss later in this section, the relationship between academic language and literacies in the figure is both explicit and implicit. The figure was designed based on contributions made by the participants at the Academic Literacies conference and represents a synthesis of emergent thinking.

The purpose of Figure 2.1 is to provide a tool for exploring the teaching and learning of multilingual students from an academic literacies perspective. The figure elucidates a number of important and interrelated dimensions through which the practices of academic literacies can be investigated. Each piece of the pie in Figure 2.1 represents a possible focus for analysis, or a lens that can be used to temporarily foreground a specific dimension of an academic literacy practice. These dimensions are interconnected and overlapping, and the distinctions between them are drawn for analytical purposes. The figure is intended to serve as a heuristic in studying culturally and historically situated literacy practices, and the different ways in which these pedagogical practices support the development of particular skills, knowledge, and dispositions in adolescent multilingual students. Each of the six lenses is briefly described below.

Language Competencies in Multiple Languages This dimension of an academic literacy practice speaks to the importance of recognizing and leveraging the wide range of linguistic and cultural resources that students bring to school (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Lee, 2000; Low, this volume). This dimension also highlights the significance of providing students with meaningful opportunities to develop their academic language competence in multiple languages (Valdés, 2001). An academic literacies perspective emphasizes the importance of being able to navigate the discursive norms of multiple languages and communities in a world that is becoming increasingly more diverse (New London Group, 1996).

Social Norms, Roles, Identities, and Relationships This dimension underscores the social nature of learning. One way to describe the social environment in which literacy development takes place is through an exploration of classroom scripts, or norms of participation that govern the engagement of students with content, each other, and the teacher (e.g., Gutiérrez, 1993). Prevalent discourse patterns in classrooms have implications for the meaning-making opportunities available to multilingual students (Pacheco, 2010). Another way in which the social environment can be explored is through the interaction among peers, particularly in small-group settings. The quality of collaborative inquiry in which students have the opportunity to engage affects their content as well as language learning (Donato, 2004). A third way through which the classroom learning environment can be approached is through the study of language ideologies, or teachers’ and students’ beliefs and practices about language and language use. Teachers’

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 19

language ideologies not only shape their relationships with students but also guide the pedagogical practices they design (Relaño Pastor, 2008; Razfar, 2003). Each of these three approaches to describing the social ecology of a classroom foregrounds different factors that shape the opportunities for learning and identity development available to students.

Disciplinary Concepts and Problems This dimension addresses the content knowledge and skills that students are learning though an academic literacy practice. It refers both to the specific content that is the focus of instruction and to the larger questions students may be exploring and broader understandings they may be developing.

Intellectual Challenge The lens of intellectual challenge refers to the opportunities that adolescent ELLs have to develop high-order thinking skills as they engage in an academic literacy practice. High-order skills are a broad category that subsumes a range of cognitive processes, including students’ ability to reason (or draw conclusions based on evidence), interrogate (or question one’s claims and assumptions as well as the claims and assumptions of others), make connections (or find relationships among disparate concepts, contexts, and phenomena), and transfer knowledge (or apply knowledge gained in one setting in a novel setting). The intellectual challenge of the instructional tasks in which multilingual students participate matters for a number of reasons. First, students feel more engaged if they are involved in meaningful and challenging learning (Gibbons, 2009). Such engagement is crucial in the face of statistics that indicate a disproportionally high dropout rates and more frequent placement in lower academic tracks for linguistically diverse students (Christian, 2006). Second, there is an iterative relationship between students’ use of high-order thinking skills and their in-depth understanding of content (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). This relationship is particularly evident in the case of transfer.

Students are able to transfer knowledge to new settings if the knowledge they have mastered is organized in a conceptual framework (in-depth understanding). At the same time, the opportunity to apply knowledge to new settings (transfer) facilitates the emergence of such a conceptual framework. High-order skills thus both promote and are supported by in-depth understanding of content. Finally, high-order thinking skills are considered essential in preparing students for the demands of higher education and the labor market (Chief Council of State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010; National Research Council [NRC], 2012). In sum, the opportunity that linguistically diverse students have to engage in high-order thinking is as much a matter of learning as it is a matter of equity.

A set of high-order thinking skills important for all students and for culturally and linguistically diverse students in particular are metacognitive and

20 Daniella Molle

metalinguistic skills. While metacognitive skills enable students to predict their performance and monitor their evolving understanding, metalinguistic skill support students in expanding and adjusting their language use as well as in navigating oral and written discourses in multiple languages (Chamot & O’Malley, 1996; Jiménez, García, & Pearson, 1994). Both metalinguistic and metacognitive skills are essential for the success of students because they support them in becoming independent learners who can set goals for their own learning and are invested in the learning outcomes they achieve (Bransford et al., 2000).

Interplay of Multiple Modalities This dimension of academic literacies highlights our growing awareness of the multiple ways in which language and other modes of representation are intertwined in knowledge production (New London Group, 1996). The ability to “integrate multiple media simultaneously to re-interpret and recontextualize information” is essential for students’ success in the content classroom (Lemke, 2002, p. 26; see also Moschkovich, 2012). Students need opportunities to develop critical awareness of the affordances and constraints of each mode and to experiment with the diverse ways in which modalities can be integrated to achieve different purposes (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012). The multimodal nature of disciplinary discourses is of particular relevance to the education of multilingual students for at least two reasons. First, multiple modes of representation are often seen as ways to engage students cognitively while lowering the language demands of an instructional task. Second, culturally and linguistically diverse students come in our schools with a wide range of experiences with technology and multimodal academic discourses. It is thus essential for them to have numerous opportunities to engage in literacy practice that require the critical and deliberate integration of multiple modalities to achieve specific purposes. Such work can support students in developing a deeper understanding of the nature of academic discourses not only from the point of view of language, but also in terms of the use of multiple modes of representation.

Critical Understanding The critical understanding lens of academic literacy practices addresses the extent to which students have opportunities to frame their content and language learning “in relation to the historical, social, cultural, political, ideological, and valuecentered relations of particular systems of knowledge and social practice” (New London Group, 1996, p. 86). Such critical awareness is particularly important for language minority students for at least two reasons. First, linguistically and culturally diverse students’ lives are full of tensions among different languages and value systems (Anzaldúa, 1987, González, 2006). A critical awareness can assist them in seeing such tensions not as conflicts between individuals but rather as phenomena

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 21

that can be situated historically as well as socially and politically. Second, critical understanding of the values and beliefs embedded in the multiple discourses of which students are part can help multilingual students make strategic choices about positioning themselves in both speech and writing. A critical understanding can enable students to engage in dominant discourses without relinquishing their subjectivities. Such awareness can make more deliberate the code switching that is already a hallmark of students’ everyday lives. Critical understanding can have significant implications for students’ identity development and, by extension, for their content as well as language learning.

Relationships Between Academic Language and Literacies There are at least two levels at which the relationship between academic language and literacies in Figure 2.1 can be discussed. First, the piece of the pie devoted to language competencies indicates that academic language development is one of the lenses through which literacy practices can be examined. The second type of relationship between academic language and literacy is implicit in Figure 2.1.

Academic language plays a role in supporting the learning and engagement of adolescent multilingual students related to any of the dimensions outlined in the figure. No matter whether we are investigating the development of metacognition or interpersonal relationships, we can (and should) ask ourselves: How is development multilingual students of valued competencies associated with this lens supported through language differentiation and language instruction?

Repositioning Academic Language The main contribution of Figure 2.1 to discussions about the teaching and learning of multilingual students is that it repositions academic language. Heretofore, academic language instruction has been discussed primarily in terms of providing students with access to challenging grade-level content and supporting students’ reading and writing development. Figure 2.1, on the other hand, anchors all language differentiation and instruction in academic literacy practices. It forges an unbreakable link between academic language learning and students’ participation in such practices.4 The figure thus highlights the fact that in order to be successful in school and beyond, culturally and linguistically diverse students may need purposeful and systematic language instruction in areas that are not typically viewed as the purview of the language educator, such as the development of inquiry-based norms of interaction (social norms dimension) or the “translation” of meaning from one modality to another (interplay of multiple modalities dimension). The figure makes content and language inseparable and situates content as well as language learning within the multidimensional context of a practice.

The six lenses in Figure 2.1 are not the only ones that matter in determining the extent to which a specific literacy practice has the potential to support

22 Daniella Molle

culturally and linguistically diverse students in developing “powerful forms of literacy and identities as language users and meaning-makers” (Gutiérrez et al., 2011, p. 236). These dimensions do, however, reflect features of high-quality instruction identified in the scholarly literature on the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students as well as in recent national documents intended to guide curriculum development for all students, including those learning multiple languages (CCSSO, 2010; NRC, 2012).

Implications of the Shift From Academic Language to Academic Literacies The work in the present volume is based on the premise that the shift from a focus on academic language to an emphasis on academic literacy practices is not just a change in nomenclature but represents a different way of approaching the teaching and learning of adolescent multilingual students. The purpose of this section is to describe in greater detail some specific implications of this shift.

Moving Away From the Deficit Model of What Students Know and Can Do It has been widely documented that culturally and linguistically diverse students’ performance in schools is often seen from the perspective of what the students lack in order to be academically successful (González et al., 2005; Gutiérrez, Morales, & Martinez, 2009; Popkewitz, 2007; Trueba & Bartolomé, 2000).

A focus on academic literacies challenges these deficit discourses by highlighting the social and situated nature of all learning: “Rather than focusing on student deficits, an approach using the academic literacies model foregrounds the variety and specificity of institutional practices, and students’ struggles to make sense of these” (Lea & Street, 2006, p. 376). An academic literacies perspective recognizes that students have knowledge of a wide range of (oral or written) literacy practices but that these practices are valued differently in the social contexts of U.S. schools. From an instructional point of view, the learning of academic literacies should involve the collaborative investigation of the “range of genres, modes, shifts, transformations, representations, meaning-making processes, and identities involved in academic learning within and across academic contexts” (Lea & Street, 2006, p. 376). Such investigations engage students, content-area teachers, and language specialists as collaborative partners. An academic literacies perspective supports a view of students as competent learners with rich and valid prior knowledge and experiences. It is through a deep understanding of the language patterns, reasoning, values, and beliefs embedded in those experiences that students can develop academic literacy (Gutiérrez, 2008; Lee, 2000). In sum, academic literacies foreground power relations and focus on how and why we come to know rather than on what we do or do not know.

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 23

In terms of its view of students as capable and competent, an academic literacies perspective on the education of multilingual students does not need to differ from an academic language perspective. Both approaches emphasize the importance of what students already know and can do in supporting their further language growth and understanding of content. An academic literacies perspective, however, adds an important political dimension to the discussion of what students bring to school. It highlights the fact that educators’ ability to incorporate students’ prior knowledge and experiences into the classroom is closely tied to educators’ perceptions of schooling, language learners, and their communities. An academic literacies perspective requires that educators acknowledge the context-bound value judgments about knowledge and abilities inherent in the academic practices promoted in schools.

Emphasizing Identity Development An academic literacies perspective on the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students provides a framework that connects student learning of content as well as language to the social identities students are encouraged to develop as they participate in classroom discourses. The framework subsumes the question of “what can students say?” to the question “who can students be?” in classrooms (see Compton-Lilly, this volume; Pacheco, this volume). From an academic literacies perspective, students should have repeated opportunities to use language critically, generate new knowledge, use their imagination, and act on social realities (Cummins, 2006). The consistency of these opportunities is important because it encourages students to see themselves as competent not only in the past and present but also in the future. In other words, the goal of educators is to provide students with opportunities to establish histories of engagement with content and language that support students’ identities as capable, critical, and creative. There is, however, an iterative quality to the relationship between student identity development and teachers’ views of students. Providing language learners with intellectually challenging academic tasks is essential for their positive identity development but can only occur if teachers assume that students are capable learners (Gibbons, 2009). By the same token, students can have opportunities to develop identities as critical and capable users of multiple languages only if languages other than English are welcome in the classroom and seen as relevant to student learning (Gutiérrez et al., 2011).

Identity as a construct is approached differently in the academic literacies as compared to the academic language literature. This difference is related to the divergent views of context discussed earlier in this chapter. The academic language literature tends to view identity as related to disciplinary boundaries. From this standpoint, students need guidance in learning how to express themselves as novice historians or mathematicians. This process involves noticing the differences in thinking and reasoning among the disciplines and the ensuing divergences in

24 Daniella Molle

the features of oral and written texts. An academic literacies perspective does not deny the importance of disciplinary differences for students’ academic success but situates discussions of these differences in classroom discourses. In particular, an academic literacies perspective on the teaching and learning of multilingual students asks how students are positioned by teachers and their peers as they engage in learning the patterns of thinking, reasoning, and knowledge production in the disciplines. Are students included as valued and contributing members of the classroom community even at low levels of proficiency? Are they expected to generate new knowledge? Are they seen as critical and capable navigators and producers of a wide range of texts? Do the knowledge and skills they are acquiring support them in positioning themselves as active and capable members of their communities? From an academic literacies standpoint, identity development is seen as a process that is essential for student success and that is contingent on the sustained opportunities that students have as they go through school to see themselves as creative and critical meaning-makers, language users, and social actors.

Constructing Language Proficiency as Situated The variability inherent in the situated nature of literacy practices means that students cannot be expected to perform the same way across contexts. An academic literacies perspective on language learning highlights the multiple areas of divergence as well as overlap across academic practices. An awareness of both is equally important in helping students develop critical thinking and metalinguistic skills.

The features of academic practices that cut across contexts can be used to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and help students build schemata that apply to a variety of situations. A critical awareness of the situated nature of literacy practices, on the other hand, helps students gain awareness of the nuances of language and the ways in which language can be used to achieve different purposes. Students bring their existing language knowledge to every new situation and even if that knowledge is sufficient to meet the task’s demands, the quality of the students’ performance will depend on the support they receive in determining the demands of the new task and drawing on the knowledge they possess (Bransford et al., 2000).

An academic literacies perspective constructs proficiency as situated and multifaceted beyond differences in student proficiency by language domain and content area. Variations in student language competence across language domain and discipline tend to ones foregrounded in the literature on academic language.

From an academic literacies perspective, however, students’ ability to process or produce a text may depend on the role that they are asked to play as a reader or author, or on their background knowledge of the specific genre that they are encountering. For instance, student expectations that a summary consists of a list of key points may meet one teacher’s requirements but not those of another, who may expect to see a critical evaluation of the ways in which the points hang together to make a coherent argument. In the latter case, the student’s work may

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 25

be judged as less proficient from a language as well as a content standpoint since the ideas will not be phrased, organized, and made to cohere in a way that meets the teacher’s expectations.

Incorporating Different Modalities Academic literacies as defined in this volume highlight the interaction between language and other semiotic systems. Rather than focusing exclusively on the use of language, an academic literacies perspective encourages explorations of the relationships between language and other modalities such as graphs, tables, drawings, and equations (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; Lemke, 1990). From an academic literacies perspective, it becomes important to explore the affordances and limitations of all modalities (including language) as well as the role of language in connecting multiple modes of representations and shaping the ways in which those representations are interpreted.

Academic literacies create spaces in which multiple modalities can be discussed as semiotic systems in their own right. This is a different approach from the one typically used in the academic language literature, which privileges the modality of (written) language. When the relationship between language and other modalities is addressed from an academic language perspective, the discussion tends to focus on the ways in which language is used to make references to graphs, tables, or pictorial representations. An academic literacy approach views all modalities as semiotic tools and privileges the strategic use of each modality in the generation of knowledge. This point of view does not negate the significant role that language plays in forging relationships between knowledge representations in multiple modalities and promoting specific interpretations of these representations. An academic literacy perspective does, however, situate the discussion of language as a modality within a larger discussion of how multiple modalities interact in creating meaning and how the affordances and limitations of each modality can be used strategically to achieve different purposes.

Viewing Language as a Tool Rather Than an End The theoretical foundations that underpin the focus on academic literacy practices force us to consider language use in relationship to other factors, such as students’ identity development and cognitive engagement, among others. Academic literacies embrace the perspective on language as a tool for making meaning. This view of language bridges the content/language dichotomy and makes moot the old question of whether language learning comes before content learning or vice versa. Language learning should always happen in the context of meaningful and critical engagement with academic (oral and written) texts (e.g., Enright, 2010).

In addition, language and content learning are only two of the multiple dimensions of academic literacy practices (see Figure 2.1). A focus on academic literacy

26 Daniella Molle

practices identifies all these dimensions as relevant at the same time as it allows us to temporarily privilege one over the others in order to support students’ engagement in the practice as a whole.

An academic literacies perspective on the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students takes as its unit of analysis the historically and socially situated pedagogical practice. By contrast, in most of the literature on academic language the unit of analysis is the text. The text may be oral or written (though it is usually written), and may range from an assignment completed by a student, to a textbook, to a set of content standards. The use of practice as the unit of analysis makes it impossible to separate a text from the context in which it is created. This separation is, however, possible from an academic language point of view. Academic literacies place the use of language within an instructional context which is itself culturally, politically, and historically situated.

Academic Literacies in Practice In this section, I offer a description of one way in which the academic literacies framework can be used to explore the strengths and needs of multilingual students in a specific classroom setting.

The data on which the section draws was collected during the spring of 2011 from a suburban middle school in the Midwestern United States. The school had about 700 students of whom about 8% were classified as english language learners (ELLs).

A little more than half of the students spoke Spanish as their first language. The research was conducted in an eighth-grade mathematics classroom in which three of the students were ELLs at intermediate levels of English language proficiency. The classroom was selected for the study because of the nature of the classroom discourse, which allowed for the participation of multilingual students in whole-group as well as small-group discussions. Two researchers observed the classroom every day during a three-week-long instructional unit. The data collected included audio-recordings of classroom and peer discourse, researcher field notes, classroom documents (classroom assessments and handouts), and interviews with the teacher and multilingual.

The aim of this research project was to explore factors that facilitate the classroom engagement and content learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Before we began the study, we expected that the teacher’s explicit attention to academic language would be one of these key factors. We intended to document instances at which academic language was the focus of discussion and use this analysis to describe some of the main ways in which the teacher was supporting the content learning of multilingual students. Soon after we began our research, however, we were forced to shift perspective. As we sat at tables with the students and observed (and often guided) their engagement with mathematics content, we realized that our predetermined focus on academic language would not give us the insights we sought. Our participation in the classroom quickly convinced us that what students were learning depended not so much on their ability to

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 27

comprehend word problems or provide definitions of key terms as on the types of interactions that they had with their peers and the teacher. As Moschkovich (2012) points out, in order for us to understand what mathematics students were learning and why, we needed to foreground not the language the students were using but the mathematical practices in which they were engaging.

As we observed the participation of the three ELL students, we considered all the dimensions identified in Figure 2.1. We saw that the students used Spanish to talk informally and often jokingly among themselves but that they relied on their knowledge of English to understand the classroom instructions and the problems in the textbook (language competencies dimension). In terms of the social norms, we discovered that most of the conversations among the ELL students and their peers seemed to focus on procedural steps and the right answer to a problem.

Students were more concerned with the result rather than the process of problem solving (social norms dimension). Many of the problems were difficult for students because they dealt with abstract concepts such as ratio and scale factor (disciplinary concepts dimension). We saw students make a sustained and sincere effort to solve the problem but we were still not sure that they were using highorder skills. As we sat at their tables, we tried to focus the discussions on conceptual understanding with mixed success. In terms of student work, the norms of the classroom seemed to privilege completing steps and having a result to show.

The teacher often explained why specific procedures made sense but students were rarely put in a position to justify their choices (intellectual challenge dimension). Most of the problems that the students needed to solve involved modalities other than language. Drawings of figures or real-life objects that resemble figures (such as a rectangular plot of land) were very common in the textbook.

We noticed that the students were often unable to connect the information provided in a figure with the information included in the text of a problem. They were also not accustomed to drawing figures themselves to aid them in understanding what information was given and what was sought (interplay of multiple modalities dimension). Finally, we noticed that students were not always able to transfer the knowledge they had gained from one problem to another. Although they could construct ratios in problems that explicitly required it, they needed guidance in seeing the relevance of ratios in problems about similar figures. In accordance with the social norms of getting a right answer, students did not seem interested in using creativity to explore divergent ways of solving problems although the teacher welcomed and accepted such differences. Instead, students seemed to prefer choosing one way to solve problems and sticking with it (critical understanding dimension).

As we gradually gained the insights described above through observation and analysis, we asked ourselves what kinds of support would make the biggest difference to the learning of the multilingual students in the class. We knew from our interactions with the students that they were willing and able to learn the material presented to them but that they needed consistent and careful guidance. We thus felt that it

28 Daniella Molle

was the manner in which they received this guidance that had the greatest potential to support them in experiencing sustained success with mathematics. If the multilingual students were able to engage in collaborative inquiry in small groups, they would be better supported in interpreting word problems, connecting different representations, and evaluating dissimilar approaches to finding a solution.

The social norms dimension stood out as the one we needed to prioritize as we worked with the students and gave feedback to the teacher about what we were observing. In our interactions with the students, we made consistent efforts to position them as collaborators in inquiry. In our feedback to the teacher, we focused on the social norms that could support the collaborative inquiry that the teacher hoped was taking place in small groups but which was largely absent from the discussions we observed and recorded.

Our foregrounding of social norms did not preclude a focus on academic language. On the contrary, as we discussed how students’ participation in collaborative inquiry could be supported, we identified two main areas in which students needed language scaffolding. The first area was related to social interaction. We discussed with the teacher what collaborative inquiry could sound like, and the types of questions students might need to ask themselves and their peers at different stages of solving a problem. In order to fully participate in such inquiry, however, the students needed guidance in interpreting the language-heavy word problems in the textbook. This was the second area in which we felt the students needed explicit language instruction. We discussed with the teacher the importance of giving students the opportunity to learn and practice using comprehension strategies to find out what is given as well as sought in a word problem. In sum, our conversations about academic language development were targeted at supporting students’ adoption of particular social norms. This is an illustration of the implicit relationship between academic language and any dimension of academic literacies.

The academic literacies perspective we adopted had for our study all the implications outlined in the previous section. It supported us in viewing the culturally and linguistically diverse students with whom we were working as competent and capable meaning-makers and language users. The academic literacies approach legitimized a move we felt we needed to make away from an explicit focus on academic language per se. We contextualized our discussion of students’ language needs in terms of their identity development as collaborators in inquiry.

We emphasized that social norms which focus on reasoning and sense making can support students in the crucial work of taking apart word problems before attempting to solve them, connecting knowledge representations in multiple modalities, justifying decisions about procedural choices, and applying relevant knowledge to new contexts. A focus on collaborative inquiry as an academic literacy practice in mathematics allowed us, we felt, to identify the types of instructional support that could best help students in being successful in the mathematics classroom in which we met them as well as in future instructional contexts.

Academic Language and Academic Literacies 29

Conclusion An academic literacies perspective on the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students constructs the language educator not as someone whose job it is to teach academic language but as someone tasked with supporting the academic literacy development of multilingual students. This shift in focus does not put into question the importance of academic language knowledge and skills for students’ success in schools and beyond. Instead, it lends even more importance to the work of language educators by underscoring the role that language plays in supporting students’ engagement in academic literacy practices in all content areas. Academic literacies do not isolate language from the context in which learning happens but place language at the center of learning. This framework for the relationship between academic language and learning does, however, promote a different vision of the role of the language educator in U.S. schools. The language educator is someone who engages in close and critical observation and evaluation of students’ participation in academic literacy practices and who requires the collaboration of both content-area teachers and the students themselves to understand that participation in sufficient depth. Based on this collaborative needs assessment, the language educator can choose a temporary focus for his/her language differentiation and language instruction. Whatever the language focus, its purpose will be to advance students’ language proficiency through their development as critical language users and creative knowledge builders.

Notes 1 For sample research on the complex relationship between everyday and academic language, see Gutiérrez, Bien, Selland, and Pierce (2011), and Moschkovich (2003).

2 See Barton and Tusting (2005) for a critical discussion of the term community of practice.

3 The term technology as used by Scribner and Cole in the context of literacy practices refers to tools for producing and disseminating texts. The practice of writing letters, for instance, requires the following technology: a script, materials to write with (pen and paper), and means of transmitting messages (post).

4 The focus on practices as foci for instructional design and the acknowledgement that language plays a key role in shaping students’ participation in these practices is evident in some of the current national standards documents, and in particular in the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) which serves as a foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards.

References Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K–12 English language learners.

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Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.

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Barton, D., & Tusting, K. (Eds.). (2005). Beyond communities of practice: Language, power and social context. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Christian, D. (2006). Introduction. In F. Genesee, K. Lindholm-Leary, W. Saunders, & D. Christian (Eds.), Educating English language learners: A synthesis of research evidence (pp. 1–13). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Cole, M., & Engestrom, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition.

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Cook-Gumperz, J. (Ed.). (2006). The social construction of literacy (Vol. 25). New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Cummins, J. (2006). Identity texts: The imaginative construction of self through multiliteracies pedagogy. In O. Garcia, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. Torres-Guzmdin (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools (pp. 51-68). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Cummins, J. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and theoretical status of the distinction.

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Donato, R. (2004). Aspects of collaboration in pedagogical discourse. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 284–302.

Enright, K. A. (2010). Academic literacies and adolescent learners: English for subjectmatter secondary classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 44(4), 804–810.

Gee, J. P. (2008). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (3rd ed.). London; New York: Routledge.

Gee, J. P. (2011). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (4th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Gibbons, P. (2009). English learners, academic literacy, and thinking: Learning in the challenge zone. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

González, N. (2006). I am my language: Discourses of women and children in the borderlands.

Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Gutiérrez, K. (1993). How talk, context, and script shape contexts for learning: A crosscase comparison of journal sharing. Linguistics and education, 5(3-4), 335–365.

Gutiérrez, K. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(2), 148–164.

Gutiérrez, K., Morales, P. Z., & Martinez, D. C. (2009). Re-mediating literacy: Culture, difference, and learning for students from nondominant communities. Review of Research in Education, 33(1), 212–245.

Gutierrez, K., Bien, A. C., Selland, M. K., & Pierce, D. M. (2011). Polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies: Mediating emergent academic literacies for dual language learners. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11(2), 232–261.

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Lea, M. R. (2008). Academic literacies in theory and practice. In N. H. Hornberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., pp. 634–645). San Francisco, CA: Springer.

Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2006). The “academic literacies” model: Theory and applications. Theory Into Practice, 45(4), 368–377.

Lee, C. (2000). Signifying in the zone of proximal development. In C. Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research (pp. 191–225). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, C., & Smagorinsky, P. (Eds.). (2000). Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Leung, C. (2008). Second language academic literacies: Converging understandings. In N. H. Hornberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., pp. 556–572).

San Francisco, CA: Springer.

Moschkovich, J. (2003). What counts as mathematical discourse? Paper presented at the 27th International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education Conference Held Jointly with the 25th PME-NA Conference (Honolulu, HI, Jul 13–18, 2003).

Moschkovich, J. (2012). Mathematics, the common core, and language. Retrieved from http:// ell.stanford.edu/publication/mathematics-common-core-and-language National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.

Popkewitz, T. S. (2007). Alchemies and governing: Or, questions about the questions we ask. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39(1), 64–83.

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Relaño Pastor, A. M. (2008). Competing language ideologies in a bilingual/bicultural after-school program in southern California. Journal of Latinos in Education, 7, 4–24.

Scarcella, R. (2003). Academic English: A Conceptual Framework (Technical Report 2003-1).

Santa Barbara, CA: University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute.

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Schleppegrell, M., Achugar, M., & Oteíza, T. (2004). The grammar of history: Enhancing content-based instruction through a functional focus on language. Tesol Quarterly, 38(1), 67–93.

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3 IN MORE THAN ONE TONGUE Academic Literacies at Work as Living Texts Marylin Low

I’ve come to recognize that texts are momentary stabilizations and then you give them back to the flow of meaning. They are appropriated by other people who will take from them what they will regardless of your intent. Every reading of a text is basically a translation, not a transmission of original truth from one moment to another.

- Stuart Hall . . . [writing] requires that the writer drop down to a place where words and the world intersect in active interpretation, where each pushes, cajoles, entrances the other into alternative formations . . .

- Della Pollock Drawing from Stuart Hall (in Drew, 1998, p. 239) and Della Pollock (1998, p. 84), this chapter refuses the notion of academic or school literacy defined, taught, and used as complete, closed, autonomous texts of meaning. Instead, it opens to academic literacies as/in the flow of meaning in multiple forms of translation . . . where words and worlds intersect in active interpretation and living texts reside. Translation, as filmmaker Trinh Minh-ha confides, is a “question of grafting of several cultures onto a single body” (1992, p. 144). Writing out of the Pacific, young peoples’ school literacy learning practices incite a grafting of new life onto a single text, often in more than one tongue.

With a desire to bring literacies back to life (Low, 2007), I turn to Halliday’s (1993, p. 94) claim that “language is the process by which experience becomes knowledge” and ask how we might keep knowledge alive in the literacies that circulate in multi-tongued classrooms? Halliday offers that language is a theory of human experience—we learn as we enact our culture, a sociocultural perspective that informs a functional view of language as a means for learning about the

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world (Halliday, 1994). I have used this language-based theory of knowing and learning in previous work to explore how teachers respond to texts of adolescent English learners (Low, 2010).

This chapter draws on a sociocultural view of learning about the literacy learning experiences of bilingual youth. Central to this view is the relationship between learning and the social situations in which it occurs. Learning, including the learning of literacy, is seen as taking place in the context of actual social practices in which students co-participate. This view challenges us to consider the social situations in which students learn, how students are socialized into using language and literacy in particular ways, and what social practices/contexts lead to the production of certain kinds of texts, especially in places of learning where literacies are situated between and within two or more worlds (Cook-Gumperz, 2006; Moschkovich, this volume).

This chapter benefits from sociocultural contexts of the Pacific classrooms in which I work—where English is not the native tongue of the majority of teachers and the adolescents they teach. Learning in two or more languages is the norm, often unsystematic yet complex in its undertaking. Linguistic experiences are embedded within unique contexts of oral traditions and global encounters. Multiple languages live in the islands, those languages “born and raised” there and others that arrived from distant shores (colonizer languages such as German, Japanese, English; other Pacific languages spoken by migrants; and more recently, Asian languages such as Korean and Mandarin). Exposure to this array of languages invites translanguaging (García, 2009), complexity, contingency, and diversity in everyday young people’s talk. And, bilingual youth of the Pacific are not alone. Similarly, other “[i]ndigenous youth in seemingly remote settings live in linguistic ecologies that are far more complex than the word ‘bilingual’ or even ‘multilingual’ implies” (Wyman, 2012, p. 8). Youth in these communities are exposed to creative layerings of a variety of linguistic repertoires, global media flows, and “voiced” words of others, decentering the idea that one main language is needed to express and perform “knowing” (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005).

The main research for this chapter comes from conversations—texts of different kinds: deep conversations with adolescent bilingual writers, especially those who offered samples of their writing; with educators in and out of Pacific classrooms; with colleagues in academia in the Pacific, Canada, across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe over the years; and, with people outside of academia including cab drivers, nieces and nephews, and youth and their families working in places I have traveled. Some of the most provoking conversations were people’s responses to an idea, a printed page, a visual, a voice that, in turn, invited deeper complex ideas and inquiry. Many of these “primary sources of data” were not transcribed, these texts are momentary stabilizations . . . give[n] . . . back to the flow of meaning. They linger long enough to enrich a text . . . change an argument.

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Experiences in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands Conversations allowed me to experience a variety of instances of living texts at work by youth in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). These instances are shared in response to the question, how does academic literacy develop in adolescent English learners? More ‘Pacificly’ the question becomes, what literate pathways do the life experiences of emerging bilingual youth in the Pacific take?

Through these instances, an evolving understanding of literacy emerges as youth writers and readers respond to the processes and products of their literate lives.

An Instance of Transculturation and Performative Texts New movements in media technology and the immense global movements of people, cultures, products and ideas of the 21st century now disrupt “progressive” discourses of academic literacies that were fashioned under very different circumstances. Using the Internet (websites, e-mail, YouTube), educational opportunities and other resources available to them, Pacific youth have begun the complex process of transculturation (Pratt, 1992), a process by which Western culture is reread and reinterpreted in ways that make sense within local cultures and politics. Youth engage in cultural-pedagogic literacy events that actively interpret existing knowledge rather than repeat it passively and, in doing so, rearticulate individual and national identities, rethink key cultural values, and take social action often in ways that make subtle use of insider language/knowledge and not-always-so-subtle stylistic performance that creates a sense of localness and agency. Youth take on the role of interpreters and shapers of society in the various ways they use language. In the Pacific, youth often infuse their heritage— their experience—with poetry and performative writing by including chants, songs, and oral traditions that call for social action.

A young Marshallese woman, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, offers an instance of transculturation in the performance of her poem, Tell Them.1 She tells of a proud people who do not want to leave their islands. However, climate change is impacting this nation atoll, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, in ways that may force them to migrate from the land and ocean they love. Below are selected excerpts from Kathy’s poem published in the local newspaper, The Marshall Islands Journal (Friday, July 20, 2012, p. 18, excerpts offered here with permission from the author). She calls on the youth of today to take action and she is being heard.2 The power of Kathy’s words and performance conveys a message that, if written as a traditional essay—what Lankshear (2000) calls literacy basics—might otherwise go unread/unheard.

Tell Them . . . show them where it is on a map tell them we are a proud people toasted dark brown as the carved ribs

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of a tree stump tell them we are descendants of the finest navigators in the world tell them our islands were dropped from a basket carried from a giant tell them we are the hollow hulls of canoes as fast as the wind slicing through the pacific sea we are wood shavings and drying pandanus leaves and sticky bwiros at kemems . . . . . . tell them about the water how we have seen it rising flooding across our cemeteries gushing over our sea walls and crashing against our homes tell them what it’s like to see the entire ocean level with the land tell them we are afraid tell them we don’t know of the politics or the science but tell them we see what is in our own backyard tell them that some of us are old fishermen who believe that God made us a promise tell them some of us are a little bit more skeptical of God but most importantly tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we are nothing without our islands.

Copyright 2014 Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner. Used by permission.

Academic Literacies as Living Texts 37

Alejandra Jensen,3 after experiencing Kathy’s living text, offers: In her poem Tell Them, Kathy gives us an inside view of this true devastation that befalls those living in the Marshall Islands. She speaks as a young woman negotiating her identity in a world that so easily forgets the existence of her and her people dotted around the many Islands of the Pacific. Kathy paints us a picture using words as her brush, there are no hidden meanings, what is at stake here is a future living in the Marshall Islands for her and her people.

Kathy simultaneously construes her experience, enacts the role relationship between performer and audience, and structures her text to reinterpret the West through her island experiences. Kathy’s choice of language and mode interact with the social contexts of her experience in ways that invoke strong responses from those that witness this literary experience . . . writing performed as a living text. Participating in slam poetry during her high school and college years, she continues to communicate deeply to the world and her community through the powerful medium of performed poetry. Marshallese and English confidently collide and coincide as a shy and deeply thoughtful youth is socialized through a poetic discourse that incites and invites.

Words, fragments, and lines that [we] love for no sound reason; blanks, lapses, and silences that settle in like gaps of fresh air as soon as the inked space smells stuffy.

(Trinh, 1989, p. 25)

An Instance of Live(d) Experience and Literacies Performance brings many of us back to questions of languages, literacies and live(d) experience (Aoki, 2005). Aoki reminds us that the literate meanings of live(d) experience can never wholly arrive. He offers, “live(d) . . . marks the double meanings of experience. The first of these is “lived experience,” referring to past experiences that are assumed to be historically recollectable. The second is “live experience,” referring to ongoing experiences of the moment” (his emphasis, p. 414). He teaches us that literacies live in these double meanings and are always on the move.

Wolfreys (2000, p. vii), expanding on this notion of doubled meaning, offers: . . . what is read is only a momentary recognition. It is perhaps a fleeting response to a certain pulse or rhythm . . . what is read is never wholly read. Something remains, something is left behind, something is missed altogether, something other is still yet to be read.

Other catalytic readings by Patti Lather, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Bennington continue to startle static notions of academic literacy. They take the

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The voceilo are valteun the Pacifice Ousen is very pig and very same beicac the voceilo is the one ousen the are Mang voceilo in a the

FIGURE 3.1

Grade 8 student’s writing sample

reader somewhere else in understandings of experience—somewhere that offers a fresh perspective on experience and the process by which experience becomes knowledge— lived, rather than planned, literacies of school that emerge as the learning self enters new worlds. In asking youth what it means to read, responses are different from the typical “we haven’t got time to read in any other way because we need to get to the point where we no longer need to read.”

I share an experience of writing by a Chuukese youth where “reading has no end . . . a text never comes to rest in a unity or meaning finally revealed” (Bennington & Derrida, 1993, p. 56). This young man, a Grade 8 student, strives to construe meaning in a language he is unfamiliar with, literally. Figure 3.1 is a sample of his written text.

He tries to get to the point as he has been instructed to do. He can’t finish . . . doesn’t know how to finish . . . and so he just lets go.

English sounds expose themselves and continue to confuse. Same letter symbols . . . different sounds. A messy cacophony is applied to the familiar symbol correspondence he knows in his first language. He writes voceilo for volcano . . . ousen for ocean as these are the letters he associates with the sounds he hears. He knows volcano and ocean. He lives on a volcanic island in the middle of the north Pacific. He knows his environment. His father and uncles have taught him well.

Yet, this new tongue silences him. He has moved to an urban center from an outer island where drought coupled with sea level rise have made it almost impossible to live. His home is a low island and his elders have taught him how to live sustainably off the land and the sea. They have taught him about his environment—its wet and dry seasons, the plants, birds, insects and sea life that live there—and the stewardship required of their care. He easily reads his environment, sharing in his first language while the messiness of English halts his meaning.

In a conversation between the author (ML) and this student (SS), he chose to speak in his first language, Chuukese. A translator sat nearby. What is shared here is an excerpt of the conversation in translation—not in transmission—of his meaning.

ML: Tell me more about volcanoes and the ocean.

SS: The teacher said to compare types of volcanoes. I tried but I didn’t understand why. I would rather tell her what I know about the low island I am from or the one this school is built on. I want to write about my place, my experience with the mountain and the ocean. They are one, not separate.

Academic Literacies as Living Texts 39

Our lives depend on them. I don’t know the name of the volcano or how it was formed but I can tell you about the soil and the noni fruit my mother uses for medicine. I can tell you that some of our volcanoes sank back to the bottom of the ocean and left coral reefs that formed lagoons. Some volcanoes didn’t sink all the way and are now low islands in the lagoon. That’s what you see (points to the lagoon). Those islands in the lagoon, they were once tall mountains and their edges touched reef. That was a long time ago.

Knowing different types of volcanoes is not so important to me. Knowing what a volcanic mountain is, how this lagoon is formed and the islands in it – now that is important to me. I look at the textbook, can’t read it, get lost, not my place. Ask me to read and write about this place (again points to the lagoon, the reef, and the islands within) and I have no trouble at all.

ML: You are very knowledgeable about your place. How did you learn so much?

SS: My father, older brothers and uncles teach me. They let me come with them when they go to get coconut and breadfruit. I watch what they do. Fishing too. They know where the fish hide – the tides, the moon, the wind tell us where the fish are . . . especially the reef fish. That’s what we like to eat.

ML: You are using some English in this conversation with me. Thank you.

I wish I knew more of your first language. Tell me what it’s like to write in English about something important to you.

SS: I don’t know English. English doesn’t know me. It thinks differently than I do. We study English but I don’t have enough words and how they work doesn’t make sense. We are to learn English but my teachers use Chuukese most of the time with some English words. Some books we have are English. It’s hard for us. I don’t hear the sounds very often. The way we speak English sounds like my first language. It doesn’t sound like you.

Writing is hard. It’s more than words, it’s to-the-point writing that is different how I think. I wish I could use my language. Then you could know what I know. Can I ask you a question?

ML: Sure, what would you like to ask?

SS: Why does it always have to be in words? When I think, I see – of things I’ve done, places I go, my grandfather showing me how to do something.

If I could show you (draw) those pictures, there would be so much more.

ML: Visuals are a good idea. Why don’t you include drawings in your writing?

SS: My teachers don’t think it is a good idea. They want me to write . . . only write. They say that’s what I need for college. But, I can’t. So I sit, write a few words I know and wait for the class to be over. I am bored. The topic, types of volcanoes, doesn’t mean to me.

I reread his short text on volcanoes and think about the stories untold.

Momentarily motivated to write about a volcano he knows, he begins to ink the words onto the page . . . incomplete . . . life of a text halted in its tracks as a situated practice in which this writer is not a co-participator of learning.

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An Instance of Interconnections in More Than One Tongue This instance, from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), highlights the intimate interconnections between life as experience and multiple literacies as the process by which such experiences become knowledge. Implications of this ambiguous relationship pose enormous questions to our literate lives, especially in school as a place of learning and to the telling tales that underlie school literacy practices by those living in two or more languages. Notions of school literacies must consider how literacies can be nurtured, encouraged, and sustained, and what must be preserved of literacy basics to invoke the re-generativity and transformation that new literacies in more than one tongue can provide.

When asked what it was like to take on writing in English, Coco Fusco (1995, p. 7) offers: If I had stayed in Mexico and had written only in Spanish all these years, my Spanish would be much more complex, but I don’t mind that.

I think that what it has lost in possibilities of vocabulary and syntax, it has gained in conceptual strength. I am very interested in subverting English structures, infecting English with Spanish, and in finding new possibilities of expression within the English language that English-speaking people don’t have.

Is this what teaching adolescent English learners entails? A willingness to remain open to new literacies in the making . . . new possibilities of expression that emerge between languages?

In a high school classroom in the Marshall Islands, students engage in traditional compare/contrast activities across the disciplines. They search for information and document their findings in a graphic organizer (GO). One student, learning about plate boundaries, chose to record her notes in a GO typically used for classifying, in this case three types of plate boundaries: divergent, convergent, and transform-fault boundaries (Figure 3.2). Once organized and her notes from the textbook entered into the GO, she was tasked to describe the similarities and differences between the three types of boundaries.

Her teacher provided her with words and structures used in Marshallese to construct ideas of compare and contrast (Table 3.1). Drawing from those terms, she constructed a discourse of compare/contrast ideas from the GO about plate boundaries.

Gaining confidence in the concepts of compare/contrast and how to construct them about plate boundaries in Marshallese, she then turned to the English chart (Table 3.2), noting that there were more words in Marshallese for similarities and more words in English for differences. Knowing these lists were not exhaustive, she raised this interconnection in languages with her classmates and a cultural discussion ensued. When comparing in English, are differences emphasized? Did she make more statements of similarities when she used Marshallese? Why were

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FIGURE 3.2 Student’s GO of three types of plate boundaries

TABLE 3.1 Constructing compare/contrast in Marshallese

Language of comparison

Language of contrast

jimor, einwot, bar, ejja einwot, ejja bareinwot, einwot juon, eirwot juon, ej einwot juon, bareinwot, uwaer wot juon, jonan wot,

oktak, oktak jen, ako, mene, ijoke, botaab, mekarta

Sample sentence frames ____ im ____ rej aolep wor aer ____.

Eionwot juon ____ im ____.

Uwaer wot juon ____ im ____. ____ im ____ re jimor _____ konke ____.

Ein juon wot juon konke ____.

____ ej eoktak jen ___ konke ej ____.

Mene ___ ej ___, ____ ej ____. ____ ej ____.

Ijoke, ____ ej ____. ____ ej ____.

Ilo bar juon waween, ___ ej ___.

Ein juon jen juon konke ____.

there so many more words for similarity in Marshallese than English? Was this a cultural perspective expressed in language?

The bilingual writer, a high school Marshallese student, guided by literacy basics, yet curious about and open to cultural nuances in language, offered the following text on plate boundaries.

42 Marylin Low TABLE 3.2 Constructing compare/contrast in English

Language of comparison

Language of contrast

both, same, also, like, similar alike, likewise just as, in the same way, as well as

different, different from, but, although, however, on the other hand, whereas, instead of, in contrast to, conversely, even though, unlike, on the contrary, yet, despite, differ, variation, otherwise

Sample sentence frames ___ and ___ both have ___.

___ is ___different than ___ because ___.

Both ___ and ___ are ___.

___ is ___, but ___ is ___.

___ and ___ are the same because ___.

Although ___ has ___, ___ has ___.

___ also has ___.

___ is ___. However, ___ is ___.

___ is like ___ because ___.

___ is ___. On the other hand, ___ is ___.

Plate Boundaries What are plate boundaries? All giant tetonic plates move, lots of energy released along the borders resulting in shaking that changes Earth’s. Ein juon jen juon konke borders. Diverging plates (pulling apart), converging (coming together) im transforming plates (sliding horizontally past each other) rej aolep wor aer move. It makes me wonder how the Marshall Islands came to be.

Divergent boundaries are plates that move away from each other. Form rifts and mid-ocean ridges. Some example is mid-Atlantic Ridge and Red Sea. It occupies a huge rift valley. This is not like the Marshall Islands.

Convergent boundaries oktak divergent boundaries because the plates are moving towards each other. They colliding to form oceanic trenches, mountain ranges, volcanoes, and island arcs. Oceanic-continental plates push into and subduct under continental plates. An example is Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Ijoke, moving oceanic-oceanic plate boundaries result in erupted lava and volcanic waste that pile up on the ocean floor until a submarine volcano rises above sea level to form a island volcano.

This is closer to the Marshall Islands. We live on the coral reefs that surrounded submarine volcanoes that fell back to the ocean floor.

Different again are continental -continental plates meet head on neither is subducted but instead rise up such as Himalaya Mountains and Tibetan Plateau.

Transform-fault boundaries have plates slide past each other while moving opposite. Three examples are San Andreas Fault zone, Pacific Plates, and North American Plates. These plates einwot juon: huge amounts of energy is released causing tremors that change the surface of the Earth.

Determined to use the vocabulary and constructions offered her, both for plate boundaries and compare/contrast, she works place-based thinking into the fabric

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of her writing. Inky spillages everywhere as she attempts to reproduce a syntax trained to obey and maintain the myths of a “standard” English. Her meaning rich in promise, yet, is not wholly graspable to an English eye. When asked about her writing, she offered: At first, I stay in English, to listen my teacher and use words. It helps but I wasn’t saying what I know . . . all I want to say. I was thinking how Marshall Islands formed. So many new ideas came to my mind and I just had to use Marshallese to say it better than just English. It’s good my teacher speaks Marshallese.

For this writer, such “inbetween” spaces are generative in their ambiguity and design. The teacher, in this instance, opens to difference, giving ownership to the author of the text. Attempts to only anchor literacy theory or practice to a fixed point may have led to breakdowns in such a living web of interconnections. How was this learner socialized into writing the text she did? What would the discursive pathways of emerging bilinguals be if we, as teachers, forced them to take one main language path? Or, if we encouraged them to stay open to the generative sparks provoked by difference in culture and experience and language? Situated practices of writing as living systems are constituted by extensive interconnected webs of dependencies between literacy basics and new literacies, between generic ideas of plate boundaries and local ideas of how the Marshall Islands formed, between Marshallese and English.

Two Instances of Storytelling as a Living, Textual Inheritance Without question, students will always have to confront what is basic in literacy if literacy is truly basic to experience. But, what if the life of languages and literacies occurs in the tensive, mediated interplays between the forms and disciplines and established wisdoms of/in literacies in more than one tongue? Thought about in this way just might “signal a glimmer of the deeply (inter)dependent life of language [and literacies] that goes beyond our desires for fixity and clarity” (Jardine, 2000, p. 52) and remind us of the life within and beneath the letters on (and off ) the page.

I draw on storytelling in the classroom as an example of a living, textual inheritance. Jardine, Clifford, and Friesen (2002) offer, “the geographies that children are raised in and the stories they bring with them to school . . . , [as teachers,] we find ourselves faced with, surrounded by, in the middle of, and living with these matters” (p. 52). Children’s storytelling practices, they continue, “are all the ways they have been handed down, all the writing and talking and quarreling and forgetting and remembering and teaching and learning” (p. 53 [italics theirs]).

Through story, literate and living relationships remain open and supportive, sustainable and nurturing. Understanding stories as living keeps teachers open to

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how future storytellers may understand and tell stories differently—a story in the making . . . a mediating of the old and the new.

An excerpt below from a Sāmoan legend, Sina and the Origin of the Coconut Tree, and the situated oral literacy practices are in a form that has evolved from intergenerational storytelling now translated and made literate. The telling of oral stories, engendered in the everyday discourses of experience and deeply connected to the earthly surroundings from which they are derived, has long been a medium of sociohistorical preservation for oral cultures in the Pacific (Gere, Kozlovich, & Kelin, 2002; Koki, 1998). Replete with ambiguity and “the spell of the sensuous” (Abrams, 1996), they perform cultural teachings, giving meaning to everyday, place-based encounters. Daily experiences and traditional language habits evolve as a result of ongoing cultural change, especially as individuals and communities become more involved in global processes and the demands they place on literacy practices in school. Youths’ storied practices—the way they use words and the word choices they make replete with gestures—renders a living text unique to their ways with words.

During the telling of a tale, the storyteller often pauses to make sure the audience is actively listening. The storyteller does this by saying, “O upu o fagono Pe moni.”

If the audience quickly responds with “Aue! Aue! Aue! E logofa’atutuila,” the storyteller continues. Learning language (and culture) through active listening prepares students for their own performative tales. Implicitly, they learn to retell stories using their own ways with words (Heath, 1983) and funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005); ways that draw on the language resources they bring to the textual task—a living (academic) literacy, potentially rich in the art of language use.

I share two instances of storytelling as academic literacies at work, the first from one Grade 5 classroom filled with bilingual learners, including the teacher, located in American Sāmoa where rich oral traditions abound. Every morning the teacher starts her class with a story. The students gather around her on a mat, a familiar routine that includes any parents who can spend time in the classroom. The teacher uses pictures she has drawn on chart paper to generate and extend the vocabulary students bring to the mat. They listen to a legend about Sina, an eel and the coconut tree.

The story begins in the village of Laloata, behind Apia, where a couple lived with their daughter Sina. One day the mother went out to get some water. As she drew the water, she noticed an eel clinging to the side of the bowl. The woman took the eel home to be a pet for her daughter. Sina received the gift gladly, and kept her pet in a bowl of water. When the eel grew too large for the bowl, Sina placed it in a nearby pool. The eel continued to get bigger and by the time it was fully grown, the eel was in love with Sina. Sina, however, did not return that love. . . .

In the vernacular, she asks the students to share their experiences with eels and coconut trees. A lively discussion ensues. She then shifts to English to engage

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students and parents in a similar discussion. The teacher uses key vocabulary in the questions she raises and comments she makes. She encourages the students to use them, too.

She begins the story, using local places familiar to the students to establish the setting and tells of an animal’s unreturned love for a human. The students listen intently, trying to follow the story, curious to know how it would end. The teacher draws on her skills as a storyteller, offering a cultural opening and closing to the story and rich expressions that brought the story of the little eel to life. At the end of the story, she passes the story on to three students sitting on the mat.

As the others return to their seats to learn more about eels and coconut trees, the teacher asks to sit beside the three “new” storytellers. They nod in approval.

The parents in the room remain on the mat to listen. The teacher asks the students to retell the story, taking turns in the retelling. Using the pictures to remind them of the events and vocabulary they could use, one takes a deep breath to begin his story—of a little eel that develops a love for Sina. When the eel speaks, the storyteller’s voice changes, animating the little eel just like the teacher did. If one forgets a part of the story another remembers, they politely interject. The story is over quickly, not yet detailed in describing events and activities but demonstrative of their collaborative and collective listening and storytelling comprehension abilities.

The teacher thanks the students and sends them off to continue their work on eels and coconut trees. She takes a moment to record what she has learned, adding to the literacy profile of this group of learners while thinking about how she might help them comprehend and retell stories in more detail the next time. She then takes a few minutes to talk with the parents about the experience, inviting them back for the next day. This teacher, I soon learn, is more unique than not, in her approach to creating rich language and literacy experiences for her students.

The second instance draws on fieldwork with middle-grade students at another school in American Sāmoa and asks what they may bring to storytelling and how storytelling might or not contribute to extending and deepening their oral language use and academic literacy practices. For school-aged youth of American Sāmoa, storytelling has been practiced in at least two languages (Sāmoan, their first language [L1], and English, the language of school) and is based on live(d) experiences in and with stories at home, school, church and community. The L1 has been valued as a rich resource for learning the language and literacy(ies) of formal schooling. However, in the last 10–15 years, the belief that the academic language needed at school is learned through English, not the local language, has become a increasingly dominant view. As teachers rely more and more on the American textbooks given to them as well-intentioned solutions to increase student achievement, storytelling in its traditional form and practice has become more removed from most students’ literacy experiences at school. In 2013, a shift in revaluing the local language and traditions in American Sāmoa is now taking place under the guidance of a new director of education. The period of ineffective use of the local language and culture, though, has taken its toll.

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Below, a 12-year-old emerging bilingual offers a written retell of the legend in two languages.

In English: I look at the eel and then the eel cried and then the eel ran away at my friend’s house and then my friend see a eel and then the eel ran away from my friend’s home and then ran away to somebody’s house and then the eel he saw a girl the eel was see the girl holding the coconut and then the eel bite the coconut and then the eel was eating the coconut after he eat the coconut he ran away from the girl and then he ran home and he ran to the store the man saw a eel walking at the road the eel was going to get the bag and then the eel was going to find somewhere else to sit at and then he don’t want to sit there and he go somewhere else to sleep and then he ran away and then he saw a fish and then the fish bite the eel and then the eel ran away and then some more fish came to get some more eels the eel was going to get the rock and then he thought it was a coconut and then he eat it and then he get bite.

In Sāmoan: Sa alu au i le fale a lau uo ae latu loa au ae fai mai lau uo pe ma eve i luma o le fale fai mai loa na ia e fai ma ta’aloga o le tulipe na pau lou uo i le taimi na tamoe ai na ia tagi loa ae tago au milimili lana ulu.

Written text, the favored mode of school, requires of its adolescent writers explicitness, complexity, and high demands of cognition—long-standing traditions of the West. Such learning conditions teach students particular restricted ways with words, and these practices, in the instance above, are being perpetuated until at least Grade 6. Heavy reliance on “and then” as a strategy to connect story events limits textual life and restricts its performative nature. Similarly, while the Sāmoan text offers broader lexical choices, it is reduced to temporal simplicity in its organization. The legend as told above offers a Western rendering that negates the oral richness of a Sāmoan legend and the multiple strategies that engage active listeners. That students are drawing on what seems to be a narrow range of language resources in both languages is troubling, especially when telling stories in an interactive, cooperative, and collaborative situation is their living inheritance and has the potential to promote and extend their discursive abilities at school.

Mary Schleppegrell (2004, p. 16) reminds us that, To characterize only school language or written discourse as explicit, complex, and cognitively demanding ignores the cultural and experiential roots of knowledge about language use at school, and devalues the explicitness, complexity, and cognitive demand of interactional spoken language.

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In this instance, inequities seem to lie in a perpetuation of everyday practices that belie the vibrant performative qualities of oral traditions of storytelling. Stories students read, predominantly from basal readers, are characteristically aligned with assumed developmental stages of reading and mostly unfamiliar settings and characters for students in the Pacific. Teachers surround students with these stories repeatedly and in good faith, unwittingly perpetuating practices that quite likely fail to build on potential and real emerging storytelling abilities students may bring to school. It is living languages that are at stake here, “not as an inert set of instruments that are at our beck and call, but as something that houses us, something we are in, something which responds to us and something to which we are responsible” (Jardine, 2000, p. 57).

How might we encourage literacies to be inflected by the patterns of students’ experiences and the rhythms of their voices? How might we take their living oral stories to print, experimenting with what Pollock (1998) calls “performing writing”—the need to make writing speak as writing—an undoing of the fixity that is characteristic of most school writing practices? High Talking Chief Fofo Sunia concurs: “Sāmoans certainly performed their writing before the missionaries arrived” (personal communication, May 12, 2007, emphasis his).

Provoking a sense of urgency to rethink literacy as complex, moving webs of interrelations (Jardine, 2000), a text is invoked where languages and literacies, . . . like living species, evolve, grow, change, live, and die in relation to the other languages [and literacies] and also in relation to their environment. . . .

(Hornberger, 2003, pp. 320-321) Has written storytelling at school been given a death sentence as the retell suggests? Written words without life . . . now endangered and richly complex, aural discursive practices are parked at the classroom door.

An Instance of Visualizing Science as Literacies at Work In another example of texts being brought to life, colleague Dr. Lori Phillips integrates science with language arts and art as she works with teachers and students in a seventh grade classroom on a project called Picturing Science.4 It combines photography, science, writing, and art to involve multiple modes of literacy.

Students are encouraged to look at their environment through new perspectives, engaging creatively with those elements in what they study.

Students pose a question of inquiry about their environment and then go about documenting their observations through drawing and photography, labeling to classify and developing vocabulary from their images. Students are then asked to write both scientifically and metaphorically about the visualizations they have created. Several strategies are used to develop student writing: building vocabulary through drawing, brainstorming descriptive words and phrases, and

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using directional words and analogies to describe images. The examples about algae below showcase resulting student academic literacies and their growing abilities to imagine, think, and reason.

Below are the texts of three Pacific youth, enabled through processes described above. Student A writes alone while students B and C engage in a co-writing event. The experience was integrative as the seventh graders’ learning was contextualized within their world and community, yet they were held responsible for science practices and knowledge considered “academic.” These students were learning in English, not their first language, and often struggled to find the words to construct the meaning that would communicate their knowledge. In each case, shared are a first draft based on what they drew and a final description after they experimented with analogies and descriptive words that supported the detailed observations they had made documented through the visual.

Student A First draft: Hydroclathrus algae lives in the water. It is primary producer in food chain. It is food for most living animals in the ocean. It is food for some cultures people.

Final description: A lonely clump of Hydroclathrus drifts through the water like a single cloud floating aimlessly through an angry sky. Being a primary producer it is the basis of the food chain. Hydroclathrus directly or indirectly feeds almost everything in the marine world. Algae, like Hydroclathrus, can also be used to feed humans and in some cultures algae are considered a delicacy.

Student A: I’m really into learning the environment and I want to draw this picture what I saw. It made science more interest. To write was easy once teacher let me play with words and ideas. I want to write the picture and I imagine it was something else. I forgot I was learning science. I was writing something I want to say.

Teacher: I remember one student who wouldn’t write. The most I could get from him was a few words and a sentence. Going through this process with him was transformative. He knew about algae in his first language. We didn’t understand him though. So when we asked him to take a picture and draw what he knew, he went straight to the algae and took the picture. He was so excited and drew many images before he settled on this one. I was worried about the writing but he wanted to write this time. He kept asking me for words to tell his story about the algae. I couldn’t believe it was the same student.

Co-writers B & C First draft: I found Dictyosphaeria algae on the lava rock. It likes the sun.

There are lots of algae in Kaneohe Bay because years ago the sewers spilled and algae got too much nitrogen. You can see many other algae in the bay.

Final description: A tuft of olive-colored Dictyosphaeria algae is plucked from

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a lava rock shelf. The algae have been basking in the sun absorbing some of the rays of Sharks Cove. Dictyosphaeria took over Kaneohe Bay in the 50s & 60s after the sewers overflowed and the algae, spreading like wildfire, were over-nitrified. The algae drowned and hedged resources from other algae in the bay. In the intertidal other algae can be seen rooted to rocks or gracefully swaying and billowing in the cool currents.

Student B: So many times my teacher tell me read the book about something. Then we write and get test. I don’t understand. Here I can show I know in drawing and words.

Student C: I heard we were going to learn about the ocean in science and me and my partner was happy. We learn many things at school but we couldn’t remember because they don’t matter. But where I come from, life in the ocean matters to us. Our family depend on it. It hard to draw details but we want to. We want to tell story about this life. At first, we write plain words . . . too simple . . . not what we know. We are excited to learn new words to talk about algae. I like “plucked” and “basking” words.

They are new and fun – we like “gracefully swaying and billowing” too.

We remember that picture in our minds. We shared some words from our language but we wasn’t allowed to use them.

Teacher: I was so determined to have the students follow the strict structures of classifying in science that I wasn’t listening to their experiences or their words, especially those from the outer islands. This project helped me realize the assets our English learners bring. While they might not have the language resources to write like a native-speaker of English, they have rich experiences that I have been ignoring. They also taught us words in their language about life in the ocean that we don’t have words for in English. They are creative thinkers, thinking in two worlds, in more than one tongue, and I was holding them back.

When invited to play in/with language and life experiences, students discursively realize the multiple ways that even the simplest of inquiries can be offered a response. As co-inquiry and co-participants, co-writers “B & C” opened to the rich resources before them that had been hidden from sight. Creating the space for students to be guided, yet freed of a locked in, step-by-step, procedure that sutures their words, they lay down their own path of literacies with words and images to communicate what they know.

Such literacy practices recognize and value the many modalities (e.g., print, visual, gestural, technological) entwined in everyday meaning making—a futures-oriented approach to literacy (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Pahl & Rowsell, 2006) that is taken up here. Pluralizing literacy/ies opens to possibilities beyond traditional forms of print-bound school practices that continue to dominant today.

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Academic Literacies as Living Texts Instances of adolescent literacies in school offered in this chapter begin to incite, startle, provoke, complicate what it means to learn to write in more than one tongue.

Pacific bilingual youth, eager to connect school learning with their lives, resist writing in only one tongue. For indigenous young people in the Pacific, historical school policies about writing in English mock their desire to re-invent, re-write, re-engage with local practices that strengthen who they are as writers and as Pacific youth.

Other young people, like Fusco, trouble and are troubled by spaces in between the languages they are learning. Which pathways they take is highly suspect to the social situations in which they learn, how they are socialized into using language and literacy in particular ways through access to others, and what local and global practices/ contexts lead them to produce certain kinds of texts (Low & Palulis, 2004).

A view of literacies as enabling the ability to use the senses, to imagine, to think, and to reason questions the notion that those who lack traditional, basic literacies are unable to do these things. By calling on youth to build from experiences that grow from the borders of more than one tongue, and from experiences with multiple modes and media, a place of newness emerges . . . one in which situated practices invite them to re-imagine, rethink, reason and write differently (see also Hull, Lizárraga, Roche, & Scott, this volume).

We might expect that Pacific education systems attentive to its students and their sociocultural encounters would design learning that enables them to make productive use of their live(d) experiences. While schools continue to be stubbornly print-bound, youth are becoming multimodal (orally, visually, technologically) in their literate lives through encounters at home, in the community, and with satelliteblessed global media. Students want opportunities to employ ways of telling, designing, and making texts relevant to them. This does not take away from the need for explicit instruction in print literacy. However, becoming literate, especially in Pacific schools, must include relevant and explicit dialogue with and amongst youth that relates to preferred modes of meaning making (e.g., visual, oral, action, print) and the proclivity to act in particular ways – ways that promote a mix of local and global literate lives.

Youth regularly experience monolingual ideology practiced in multi-tongued classrooms where pedagogical models of English instruction continue to focus on code transmission, even though it is not the language practices experienced on the ground (Horner & Lu, 2012). Through the instances offered in this chapter, alternative practices working their way inside out and outside in are emerging in schools, illustrating the fluidity, hybridity, and performed character of language, literacies and identity. Pacific young people use their agency to deploy language resources as they strive to make meaning rather than communicate or replicate pre-existing meanings, especially those meanings that do not matter to them. The texts of bilingual youth give life through their desire to speak.

Rethinking literacies as living texts allows for closer observation of students’ engagement with literacy practices—how students, teachers, and parents move between linguistic, actional, technological, and visual forms of meaning making.

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While many youthful literacies emerging in the Pacific continue to be a product of colonial encounters, a willingness on our part to remain open to the flow of meaning can lay the groundwork for new and original designs in subtle ways that benefit learning anew in more than one tongue. Such living texts are in active interpretation, where each pushes, cajoles, entrances the other into alternative formations and inevitably center our attention and devotion towards a generative and deep understanding of writing texts requires of us and of the literate lives we live now and in the future.

Special Note In rethinking the language and literacy/ies of school, especially for English learners, Margo Gottlieb has been instrumental in assisting teachers to understand and apply the role of language in learning. In 2011–12, she brought to the island of Tutuila, American Sāmoa, her passion and expertise for improving the lives of students through language(s). I thank Margo for her dedication and commitment to her work, for advocating for a chapter in this book about academic literacies of Pacific youth, and for the unending privilege of learning in language with her.

Notes 1 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9D88ST9qbw 2 For example http://pacific.350.org/rewriting-her-story; http://jacket2.org/commentary/ocean-leveling-land-0 3 http://pacific.350.org/rewriting-her-story 4 http://picturing-science.prel.org

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Low, M. (2007). Living (in) literacy(ies) in new times. In P. Puamau and F. Pene (Eds.) The basics of learning literacy and numeracy in the Pacific (pp. 1–18). Pacific Education Series No. 4. Suva: Fiji: Institute of Education, The University of the South Pacific.

Low, M. (2010). Teachers and texts: Judging what English language learners know from what they say. In A. M. Paran & L. Sercu (Eds.), Testing the untestable in language education (pp. 241–255). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Low, M. & Palulis, P. (2004). Laboured breathing: Running with and against internationalizing texts of currere. Transnational Curriculum inquiry, 1(1).

Martin, J. R. (1992). English text. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Matthiessen, C. (1995). Lexicogrammatical cartography: English systems. Tokyo, Japan: International Language Sciences Publishers.

Pahl, K. & Rowsell, J. (Eds.). (2006). Travel notes from the New Literacy Studies. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Pollock, D. (1998). Performing writing. In P. Phelan & J. Lanes (Eds.), The Ends of performance (pp.73–103). New York: New York University Press.

Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge.

Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The language of schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Trinh, Minh-ha T. (1992). Framer framed. New York: Routledge.

Wolfreys, J. (2000). Readings: Acts of close reading in literary theory. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Wyman, L. (2012). Youth culture, language endangerment and linguistic survivance. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

4 ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT AND EVERYDAY LANGUAGE PRACTICES Implications for the Academic Literacy of Multilingual Learners Alison Bailey and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana In Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, authors Carola and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Irina Todorova (2008) describe their interdisciplinary, longitudinal study with 400 adolescent immigrant students who have lived in the United States for an average of seven years. The authors report that just 7 percent of the cohort scored at or above the average of their native Englishspeaking peers for English Language Proficiency on the Bilingual Verbal Abilities Tests (BVAT) (Muñoz-Sandoval, Cummins, Alvarado, & Ruef, 1998).1 Counter to a number of existing naïve beliefs about multilingual learners, the Learning in a New Land study found that it did not matter what first language the adolescents spoke or what country of origin the students and their families had hailed from; the same levels of English language proficiency performance were reported for adolescents whether they were from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Mexico.

The students in the Learning a New Land study put a human (and specifically adolescent) face on the more typical large-scale reports of student performance offered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Such reports have compared students who are acquiring English language abilities against their proficient English-speaking peers and have interpreted differences as gaps in the academic achievement of those who are acquiring both a new language and new academic content knowledge. For example, Wilde’s analyses of the 2008 NAEP reading scores show students who are categorized as English language learners (ELL students) scoring 30–46 points lower than English-proficient students, with the gap widening from 4th grade to 8th grade and again slightly from 8th to 11th grade (Wilde, 2010).

The NAEP figures are possibly distorted by the fact that students who have successfully acquired English are reclassified and then removed from the reported

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performance of the ELL student group (Saunders & Marcelletti, 2013). Moreover, these figures address the academic achievement gap of students acquiring English from a monolingual perspective, ignoring the achievements these students may have in terms of competencies in additional languages and in content knowledge that can be expressed through more than one language. An alternative to the monolingual assumptions of student academic achievement, and development more broadly, is needed, both in order to better evaluate adolescents’ language development and to better support it, in culturally and developmentally appropriate ways. In this chapter, we offer new ways to address student achievement and development, that are not couched in comparisons with monolingual development, but that highlight the multicompetencies of developing multilingual adolescents and build on their everyday multilingual practices.

In this chapter, we have chosen to refer to the students we write about as multilingual learners rather than as ELL students or bilingual learners. Our use of “multilingual” is intended to emphasize the linguistic experiences of many students growing up in the globalized world, not just the specific experiences of students who are labeled “ELL students” in school. Indeed, it is normative, in many urban communities today, for students to have varying degrees of competency in several languages, combinations of languages, and/or varieties of language, and to draw from their multilingual repertoires in the course of their daily lives. For example, one person might speak a first language (L1) indigenous to the American continent, a regional/social dialect of an L1, the standard form of an L1, a regional/social dialect of English as a second language (L2), and/or a standard variety of English as L2.

As Blommaert (2010) notes, competencies may also vary across a lifespan— with adolescents showing skill in particular kinds of language practices and not others—as well as across domains. Some adolescents may understand a great deal of their home language, but not feel comfortable speaking it; they may understand and read other languages in their environment, but not have experience in writing them. Included in this multilingual group are students who are receiving educational services to help them learn English, students who are emergent bilinguals as a result of formal dual-language programming or informal support of two or more languages at home and in the community, and those who are speakers of non-standard varieties of English. Indeed, rather than attempting to label the differences between the adolescents themselves (e.g., as ELL students, emergent bilinguals, or bidialectical), one might focus on the commonalities that these adolescents have: They are living in communities where flexibility and diversity in language practices is the norm; thus, they are exposed to multiple and varied uses of language, and this should be taken into account when measuring their language development (i.e., not just measuring it in English) as well as when designing ways to support their further growth.

The Learning a New Land study follows adolescent multilingual students from their initial optimism through the frustrations and disappointments that many of

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them experienced as they transitioned to young adulthood. In subsequent publications based on the study, we learn that the informal language of the students and their opportunities to converse in English with their peers and others in nonacademic contexts best predicted their English language proficiency outcomes in school (Carhill, Suárez-Orozco, & Páez, 2008). The language opportunities that these adolescents received or made for themselves during recess and hallway interactions at school and in neighborhood contexts were critical. There is increasing evidence that everyday informal but nevertheless complex and extensive language experiences (e.g., language brokering) have a positive impact on the academic performances of multilingual adolescents (e.g., Dorner, Orellana, & Li-Grining, 2007). Yet, much like other adolescent behaviors that others may not commonly know or recognize as achievements (Dornbusch, Herman, & Morley, 1996), translanguaging practices such as code-switching and language brokering are largely hidden from the views of educators and others who shape students’ schooling experiences.2 Our main goal is to bring these language practices into view and to connect them with important developmental milestones in other areas of multilingual adolescents’ lives, not just the linguistic changes but the cognitive and psychosocial changes that they are concurrently undergoing. Examining the characteristics of adolescent development that interact with students’ everyday language practices alongside the more commonly held expectations inherent in academic content standards and curricula for literacy may reveal new ways for researchers and educators to support the literacy of multilingual adolescents, and to view these adolescents’ linguistic competencies in more hopeful and pedagogically strategic ways.

We begin with a definition of academic literacy that highlights the ties between oral language and literacy that are critical for understanding how everyday language practices can serve as a resource for academic literacy. Next, we outline key developments during adolescence, in the areas of language, cognition, and psychosocial development, that may ultimately make adolescent literacy different from literacy engagement at younger ages. We situate the multilingual adolescent within a predominantly monolingual description of development to highlight what may be similar or different in multilingual contexts. This is followed by a review of code-switching and language brokering as two key translanguaging practices likely to be experienced by multilingual learners, and brief descriptions of their use and development. We then relate these language practices to the formal expectations articulated in new academic content standards for language use in school contexts where academic literacies are typically taught and tested (Smith & Moore, 2012). Based on these reviews, we suggest how adolescent literacy might be cultivated in both culturally and developmentally appropriate ways.

More specifically, we argue that the everyday multilingual language practices of adolescents, which are often, but not exclusively, predominant in the oral domain, may hone metalinguistic, cognitive, and psychosocial development, and

56 Alison Bailey and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

that these developments may, in turn, help to foster students’ comprehension of school-related text and other artifacts (Bailey, 2012). Ethnographic and, to a lesser degree, correlational studies of multilingual students’ engagement in translanguaging reveal these practices to be instrumental in cultivating sophisticated kinds of language skills. These practices require further study to understand their value for building the kinds of academic and disciplinary literacy that are required in school, particularly with regard to their impact on student knowledge-building.

Academic Literacy At its broadest, academic literacy involves making meaning from interactions with others and with the information and ideas of others, both orally and visually, in the ephemeral “here and now,” and when removed, in time and space, from others by virtue of interacting through literate forms of language that use devices that are more durative, such as symbols and images captured in texts, including digital texts that can be accessed in a myriad of ways (e.g., via computer, phone, or tablet) (Frey, Fisher, & Gonzalez, 2010). Perhaps more narrowly defined than academic literacy is disciplinary literacy that is specific to a content area (e.g., the language of science). It has been argued that disciplinary literacy requires students to engage in social, semiotic, and cognitive practices (Fang, 2012). This is consistent with sociocultural perspectives of literacy that recognize “that the learning and use of symbols is mediated by and constituted in social systems and cultural practices” (Moje, Overby, Tysvaer, & Morris, 2008, p. 109). Moreover, Moje et al. (2008) argue that power, identity, and agency shape whose social systems and cultural practices get to be valued by the wider society. Thus, multilingual adolescent students contend with multiple academic literacies and all of their facets, but within this broad domain, we are particularly interested in relationships between predominantly oral language practices and literate forms of language.

Defining academic language and literacy constructs has been controversial, in part because Cummins’ (1981) seminal work on the distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive-academic language proficiency (CALP) suggests that social or conversational uses of language are less complex than academic language. This distinction has now been critiqued as too simplistic a dichotomy; there is evidence that some conversational features of language are acquired late in language development and that some academic language features are acquired early in language development, debunking a “simple” versus “complex” contrast between the language demands of BICS and CALP (Scarcella, 2003; for a rejoinder, see Cummins, 2008), and, moreover, that everyday interpersonal and intrapersonal uses of language (e.g., deceiving, expressing love, self-expression, and introspection) can be considered as complex as academic uses of language (Bailey, 2007, 2013). Some everyday language practices, such as language brokering, involve interactions with highly specialized language forms and genres; arguably, a jury summons, bank statement, or

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credit-card application may involve more complex language than many school tasks (Orellana, 2009; Orellana, Martinez, Lee, & Montaño, 2012).

In addition, the controversy of defining academic language and literacy constructs remains for the very reasons that led to a dismissal of everyday oral language practices as relevant for school; the focus of academic language studies has been almost exclusively on written texts, and there has been a general assumption that literacy is distinct from orality. The intention of the chapter is to show how informal language practices are consonant with much of the knowledge that schools say they want to develop in the fostering of academic literacy. This chapter will contribute to efforts to consider more seriously the relationships between literacy and orality and between everyday and academic literacies. We also challenge the idea of neat separation of language by contexts, genres, and forms, because in both everyday and academic practice, there is much more blurring of the distinctions among contexts, genres, and forms than is generally recognized (Orellana et al., 2012). For example, correlational studies (e.g., Snow & Dickinson, 1991) have found that certain features of oral language, such as decontextualized referents for objects not found in the “here and now” (e.g., necessity for a definite determiner and noun, the book, when referring to a book returned to the library, instead of the demonstrative pronoun that and a pointing gesture to a book still in view on the shelf), surface in literate forms of language.

Such language is likely prerequisite in the acquisition of literacy (cf. the language experience approach to literacy; Dickinson, McCabe, Anastasopoulos, PeisnerFeinberg, & Poe, 2003). At the very least, it has been argued that certain features of oral language (e.g., the control of meaning and form in narrative discourse) serve as an early “rehearsal” of literate forms of language, within the oral language domain (Bailey & Moughamian, 2007). Furthermore, most states’ adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Achieve Inc., 2013) may change how oral language has typically functioned in the classroom, with greater emphasis on the oral communication of content-area knowledge and the requirement of a greater degree of sophisticated interaction and collaboration among students for content learning in the classroom.

Adolescents engage in a wide range of oral language experiences outside school, and multilingual learners, in particular, have experiences that no monolingual students can emulate because of the very nature of the multilingual learners’ ongoing option of using two or more languages to express themselves (Cook, 2005). Thus, the ties between oral language use and literacy in adolescent multilingual students warrant their own review and further investigation. In the following section, we begin by outlining key developmental changes that students undergo in adolescence, with a particular emphasis on multilingual student development where it may differ from the findings and assumptions of prior research on monolingual students.

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Adolescent Development Adolescence—roughly the period between 12 and 18 years of age—is a time of physical and psychological development that is characterized by asynchronies in the progression to maturity. While children may grow in physical size and their language(s) increase in sophistication, their emotional understanding may lag behind their cognitive functioning by many years. In the following subsections, we briefly outline some key developments in the linguistic, cognitive, and psychosocial domains, highlighting how adolescence is a period of rapid but frequently asynchronized growth across the domains, with important implications for multilingual adolescent development and educational practices. Figure 4.1 provides an attempt to summarize different trajectories of development, providing approximate ages (e.g., early adolescence, later adolescence and adulthood) of onsets and denoting whether or not the extant literature suggests that development in specific areas may be precocious or challenging for multilingual students.

Linguistic Developments During Adolescence Regardless of an individual’s language or languages, during adolescence, there is an increase in knowledge and abilities across a host of linguistic and discourse features and characteristics. Such knowledge includes increases in the pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic knowledge and uses of language (Nippold, 1998).

In the area of metalinguistic awareness—the reflection on and manipulation of language—knowledge shifts from the phonological manipulations of language during childhood, which are associated with learning to read, to the sophisticated manipulations of word-, sentence- and text-level structures (Ely, 2005).

For example, by adolescence, individuals are able to deliberately select words for the effects they may have on the listener. Multilingual learners may even have a heightened attunement to such metalinguistic awareness due to the need to flexibly control and contrast two linguistic systems (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010); indeed, adolescent language brokers interviewed by Orellana (2009) were very explicit in their discussion of why they chose particular ways of saying things in each language, based on their assumptions about their audiences, as well as on how they wanted to represent themselves to those audiences.

Adolescence also sees the development of language needed for formal reasoning, and the development of persuasion, negotiation, and other language functions of the academic content areas (Nippold, 1998; Christie, 2012). Moreover, adolescence is a time for growth in understanding and use of abstractions (Christie, 2012) and figurative language (e.g., similes, idioms, and proverbs). According to Tolchinsky (2004) only by adolescence are students found to use metaphors creatively. Use of metaphors is increasingly demanded in academic writing but is also present in oral language practices, as Lee (2001, 2007) has shown with bidialectical speakers of African American English and the everyday practice of “signifying.”

Adulthood

Schematic of selected developments in adolescence with approximate onsets and multilingual impact

Complex understanding of attributes and self-esteem

Academic achievement motivation (possible reversals)

Coordination of affect and cognition

Flexibility in degree of emotional autonomy

Working memory and information processing

Perspective taking

Abstract thinking

(sound level) Metalinguistic awareness (word, sentence, and text level s)

Expansion of pragmatic repertoire (persuasion, negotiation)

Abstract and figurative language; creative use of metaphor

Later Adolescence

Note: Arrows outlined with solid black lines: possible benefits conveyed by multilingual experiences.

Arrow outlined with dashed black lines: possible challenges to multilinguals due to negative schooling experiences (and other factors).

FIGURE 4.1

Key Psychosocial Developments

Key Cognitive Developments

Key Linguistic Developments

Early Adolescence

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The disciplinary natures of oral language and literacy also play important roles during adolescence. For example, in historical discourse in the English language, abstractions are frequently used to refer to complex or lengthy processes or series of events in a compressed fashion. Lexical metaphor is used to give agency to historical entities that otherwise do not have their own volition, as with the use of the verb “saw” in the following example, written by a 15-year-old student cited in Christie (2012): “The First World War saw many young Australian and New Zealand men enlist . . . ” (p. 113). Linguistic as well as cognitive benefits of bilingualism may, in fact, enhance the creative language abilities of students; for example, bilingual Spanish-and English-speaking 6th-grade students have been found to use qualitatively more complex metaphoric language in their written English on an inquiry-science task than their monolingual English-speaking peers (Kessler & Quinn, 1987).

Cognitive Developments During Adolescence Basic cognitive skills such as working memory and information processing become fully mature during adolescence (MacArthur Network studies, e.g., Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich, 2009). Congruent with increasing maturity in linguistic capabilities, adolescence is also a period marked by increased abstract thinking. The ability to reflect on abstractions of knowledge and concepts allows adolescents to develop critical-thinking skills (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). Importantly for the subsequent focus on language practices in this chapter, growth in cognition during adolescence allows for the increasing ability to take the perspective of the communicative partner (Hoff, 2009). Adolescents’ multilingual experiences may provide them with metacognitive advantages that may particularly hone their abilities to interact with others from a wide variety of linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds (Brisk & Proctor, 2012), as well as hone other cognitive (e.g., problem solving, sustained cognitive control) abilities that are not necessarily as advanced in their monolingual peers (Adesope et al., 2010; Bialystok, 2007). In a recent study by Guan, Greenfield, and Orellana (2013), young adult children of immigrants were measured on a “transcultural perspective-taking” task (assessing their ability to see social scenarios from different perspectives, as informed by divergent cultural values). Language brokering experiences were found to predict higher levels of performance on this task as well as on measures of empathy.

Psychosocial Developments During Adolescence There is enormous social and cultural variation in factors related to the emotional and psychosocial development of children and adolescents, as well as heterogeneity of these factors within cultures (Chen & Eisenberg, 2012). The cultural practices of North American middle-class families of European descent are most

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often reflected in school settings, and adolescence is typically believed to be a time of increasing emotional autonomy from parents or other caregivers. In this context, adolescents are socialized to become independent individuals, achieving greater self-reliance and an increasing sense of responsibility for decision-making (Lamborn & Steinberg, 1993). However, these developments may not be representative of the psychosocial functioning of all social and cultural groups. For example, the emphasis on independence rather than interdependence may not be representative of the social orientations of working-class North American communities (Stephens, Fryberg, & Markus, 2012), nor may this emphasis capture the complexities of psychosocial development that are suggested by cross-cultural studies. Keller (2012) finds that autonomy can have either an individual focus or a communal focus, so that adolescents being raised in non-Western cultural contexts may have the flexibility for both an independent perspective and an interdependent perspective on their actions, depending on differing contexts.

The study by Guan et al. (2013) suggests that this flexibility can be captured in scores on transcultural perspective-taking.

Adolescence is also a time of unevenness in psychological development, and, in some cases, seemingly even reversals in developmental trajectories. Motivation, particularly in the academic domain, is one area that may decline, rather than increase, with age (Graham & Williams, 2009), and this decline may co-occur while an adolescent’s understanding of motivation constructs (e.g., attributions, self-esteem, notions of effort) becomes more complex over time. In the face of other challenges that adolescent multilingual learners encounter (e.g., acquiring English for academic purposes, possible cultural differences in and expectations for psychosocial development, high risk of living in poverty), the loss of academic achievement motivation may occur more readily. Loss of such motivation has been found to contribute to underachievement and can put multilingual students at risk for dropping out of school (Callahan, 2013).

Developments in the area of friendship formations are also taking place during adolescence and are related to growth in interpersonal motivation. These developments often involve a process of social grouping, which, during adolescence, can be impacted by attributions (e.g., racial and ethnic stereotypes) (Graham, Taylor, & Ho, 2009). On one hand, adolescents who are learning English may be at greater risk for poor psychosocial outcomes in terms of social identity formation, due to racial and ethnic stereotyping that they may face (Phinney, Berry, Vedder, & Liebkind, 2006) as well as to the stigma that may be attached to being an L2 speaker of English (Casanova, 2012). On the other hand, adolescents may make their L1 a central and positive component of their social identities, as Imbens-Bailey (1996) reports for second-generation Armenian American adolescents. Similarly, Oh and Fuligni (2010) found that proficiency in L1 may help immigrant-background Latino and Asian American students better cope with the stresses of adolescence. (Also see Harklau [2007] for a review of the topic.)

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Finally, it has become increasingly clear that adolescence is a period when the coordination of both the affect and the cognition that are necessary for psychosocial functioning is not yet fully mature (Steinberg et al., 2009). For example, adolescents may lack resistance to peer influence and impulsivity, resulting in some of their behaviors and decision-making being less mature than their abilities in the area of cognitive reasoning would predict. Indeed, it has been argued that psychosocial abilities are on a slower developmental trajectory than cognitive abilities, and that psychosocial maturity is not likely to be reached until individuals are in their twenties. (For an alternative interpretation of Steinberg et al.’s MacArthur Network studies, see Fischer, Stein, & Heikkinen [2009]).

Nevertheless, the linguistic abilities and multicultural experiences of multilingual adolescents may have a positive impact on their psychosocial development.

Children who are exposed to and/or are learning two or more languages develop into individuals with greater positive attitudes and tolerance toward other cultures, languages, and peers (Genesee, 2008). Moreover, by frequently serving as language brokers for their families, multilingual students demonstrate psychosocial abilities in order to successfully navigate cultural norms and the demands of the home and of wider society (Mushi, 2002).

This overview of linguistic, cognitive, and psychosocial developments during adolescence has been necessarily truncated, but it illustrates the myriad of changes that multilingual adolescents are likely undergoing at the point where they are acquiring English as a second (or additional) language in U.S. schools.

Collectively, these developments may have implications for how multilingual adolescent students may use their everyday language experiences as an academic literacy resource, a subject to which we now turn.

Everyday Language Practices of Multilingual Adolescents This section focuses on two translanguaging practices, namely code-switching and language brokering. These practices are part of a multilingual repertoire of language practices that have surfaced in ethnographic studies adopting a “funds of knowledge” perspective (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) or a “cultural modeling” approach (e.g., Lee, 2001) to reveal racial/ethnic-minority and adolescent multilingual students’ everyday language uses and language routines as linguistic resources.

While there are distinctions between these practices, there is also considerable overlap, and both practices are common in multilingual environments. Both involve flexibility and versatility in communicative norms, and the recognition that things can be said in different ways, for different purposes, and/or for different audiences. In both, language is a resource that can be used to transmit information, make meaning, and make things happen in the social world, while also involving aesthetic dimensions that can be exploited to signal particular identities and sensibilities and to affiliate with or distinguish oneself from others.

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Code-switching Practices Code-switching is most commonly defined as the alternating and concurrent use of two languages in conversation (Broersma & De Bot, 2006). For example, MacSwan (2012) cites Belazi et al. (1994), for the following example, from an utterance beginning in English and concluding in Spanish, “The students habían vistó la película italiana” (p. 325). Switches can occur within a sentence (as in the previous example), between sentences, or even between speakers, such as a conversation conducted in parallel across two different languages, with the speakers comprehending both languages but each conversing in a different language, a situation reported by parents of conversations with their children (Pagett, 2006).

Initially (and still, in popular thinking) considered a deficiency (Amastae & Olivares, 1982; Zentella, 1988) causing confusion between, or limited development of, two languages, code-switching has increasingly been viewed as sophisticated bilinguality. For example, it is governed by systematic syntactic rules that determine when switches can occur within a sentence (MacSwan, 2000, 2012; Martinez, 2010; Poplack, 1980). Code-switching also contributes to multilingual social/interactional functioning (Pagett, 2006; Reyes, 2004).

Children’s code-switching, in particular, was thought to be initially limited to linguistic transfer, for example borrowing words from one language to fill lexical gaps in the other (de Houwer, 2005). However, Vu, Bailey, and Howes (2010) report sociopragmatic uses in addition to word borrowing uses for children as young as 5 years switching between languages. For example, a child will switch languages to follow his or her interlocutor’s own switching behaviors perhaps to demonstrate an affiliative stance toward the interlocutor. Vu et al. (2010) also found children switch between languages to gain the interlocutor’s attention or to change speaking roles (e.g., switched to English to speak for the teacher doll in a story completion task presumably because they identified English as the language of their early childhood educators), suggesting even young children use their two languages strategically for both linguistic and sociopragmatic purposes.

Children become even more attuned to their linguistic environments as they become older, and consequently, code-switching takes on greater interactional function. Specifically, as students mature, they become attuned to situational changes that might require a switch in language, such as differences in interlocutors, settings, and topics, and become sensitive to the emphasis that others place on certain words or phrases (Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004; Gumperz, 1982).

Code-switching can serve a role in forming group identity or membership (e.g., race/ethnicity) and also in creating social situations in which the use of two languages signals belonging to the worlds of each language group (Zentella, 1997).

Such intentional uses of code-switching demonstrate the practice as an effective communicative mechanism. Furthermore, research on hybrid language usage— itself a form of translanguaging—posits code-switching as a systematic process that is strategic and affiliative among those multilingual adolescents who share the

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code (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, Alvarez, & Chiu, 1999; Martinez, 2010).

Having such linguistic resources available can become part of the important process of identity formation at this point in multilingual adolescent development.

While children may be skillful at code-switching from an early age, as they mature, they may intentionally use code-switching in some contexts and not others. For example, Rivard (2010) reported that a formal church setting elicited little code-switching from bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking adolescents. She argues that the formal setting may have made code-switching behaviors less likely to occur, and that, rather, the adolescents may have preferred to reserve code-switching for less formal settings. One implication of these findings is that the school context, as another formal setting, may not be the easiest place to observe code-switching unless it is overtly sanctioned and deliberately utilized for pedagogical purposes. This is true in the case of hybrid language practices in classroom spaces, which strongly emphasize meaning making as well as form, and so authentically support students’ expression in all the languages they know and can utilize (Gutiérrez et al.,1999). Juxtaposing and interweaving two or more languages can be important for the development of both languages, particularly if the two languages share common root words (cognates) by which to expand the vocabulary of both. Moreover, because they require attention to both meaning and form, code-switching practices may hone skills, such as working memory and inhibition control, that are thought to be underlying skills necessary for academic literacy (Bialystok & Peets, 2010).

Language Brokering Practices Tse (1996) defines language brokering as “interpretation and translation in everyday situations by bilinguals who have no special training” (p. 486). While even very young children engage in some kinds of language brokering, adolescents living in multilingual communities are frequently called upon to do this linguistic work which involves many different kinds of language-related tasks, performed for family and community members: filling out forms, answering the phone, reading and explaining written materials of many different genres, and providing oral interpretation in a wide array of situations, such as doctor appointments, parent/teacher conferences, and making purchases in stores (Orellana, 2009; Valdés, 2003). In performing these tasks, these adolescents navigate a wide array of cultural norms, communicating both within and across the boundaries of their home and dominant cultures (Mushi, 2002). The variety and complexity of the tasks that language brokers are called upon to perform often increases throughout adolescence, both because families may see older youth as more capable of engaging in complex language negotiations, and because older youths have more independent movement in the world, through which they encounter more people who need interpretation services. In the following example from Dorner, Orellana, and Jiménez (2008, p. 526), 15-year-old Jasmine describes one occasion in which she noticed a person in need and stepped up to offer her help:

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Sometimes I do [translating] for some other people when I see they don’t know what’s going on. Like one time, we were at the laundromat and there was this lady and I think she didn’t know English. She was just standing there, and I was like “Why is this lady just standing there,” you know?

I think that the coins were stuck to wash, and she was afraid to ask anyone, ’cause I think she thought nobody would listen to her, ’cause she didn’t know how to communicate. So I asked her, “Do you need any help?” I told her in Spanish. And she’s like, “oh yeah,” and she started telling me that the coins got stuck, and that she didn’t know who to ask and she thought that she had to pay again, but she didn’t have enough money.

And I was like, okay, then, let me just go and talk to her [the laundromat attendant], you know, and I went and she told me that it was like broken or something.

Language brokering practices are likely valuable for academic literacy skills for several reasons. First, in addition to providing oral interpretation in a wide range of contexts (e.g., doctors’ offices, parent/teacher conferences, restaurants, stores), language brokers often are called upon to read and explain specialized written texts of various genres: credit-card applications, mortgage applications, bank statements, report cards, informational leaflets, letters, jury summonses, and others. In the following example from Dorner et al. (2008, p. 528), Miguel, also 15 years old, describes a range of oral and literate tasks involving his interpreter and translator roles, particularly for family: The last thing I think I did was for [school parent/teacher] conferences— I translated. And like, she [mom] changed the plan for the phone, so we could get more calls, so I had to call the company and tell them about it.

And then, like, we get bills in the mail and, say, if we want some changes— I have to read that. And then like my dad’s car, the new sticker [car registration], and when you go take the car to test [for emissions].

Many of the texts that brokers read involve the kinds of decontextualized language that we previously described as closely associated with literacy (Snow & Dickinson, 1991) and with specialized vocabulary and genres. Language brokering requires students to navigate texts in diverse written genres (Perry, 2009), and brokers develop a range of strategies to parse these texts, unpack their meaning, and help make them understood by their recipients (Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Meza, 2003; Perry, 2009). Language brokers with a focus on meaning making, integrate oral language, literacy skills, and cultural and pragmatic competencies, in interpreting written materials.

Although much research has focused on the potential negative implications of language brokering this practice has for youth development, such as depression (Buriel, Pérez, De Ment, Chavez, & Moran, 1998), adolescent stress (Jones &

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Trickett, 2005; Kam, 2011), and internalizing symptoms (Chao, 2006), more recent research has considered its positive effects on social, cognitive, and academic measures. (See Orellana & Guan [forthcoming] for a review of research of the developmental implications of language brokering, and consideration of ways in which the most negative effects of the practice may be mediated.) Positive social effects that have been found in the practice may be particularly valuable for adolescents from non-dominant social groups; for example, Weisskirch (2005) found a greater sense of ethnic identification and belonging in adolescents from these groups (also see Weisskirch et al., 2011). The practice has also been associated with biculturality (Acoach & Webb, 2004; Buriel et al., 1998); transcultural perspective-taking and empathy (Guan et al., 2013).

Language brokering has also been associated with academic gains. Language brokers self-reported higher grade-point averages than their peers (Buriel et al., 1998). Acoach and Webb (2004) found that language brokering had a direct effect on academic self-efficacy, which, in turn was associated with higher gradepoint averages for high school students. Fifth- and sixth-grade students with extensive experience as language brokers scored higher on standardized tests of reading and mathematics than did those with less experience, even when earlier (first-grade) reading scores were controlled for, suggesting that the practice itself enhanced academic competencies (Dorner et al., 2007).

Everyday Language Practices and New Academic Content Standards As everyday language practices of many multilingual adolescent students, both code-switching and language brokering can be considered in relation to the CCSS for English Language Arts & Literacy.3 The CCSS include specific expectations (e.g., task appropriateness and audience awareness) that would seem to be well aligned with the skills inherent in these everyday oral language practices.

Brisk and Proctor (2012) make a similar point, noting that the CCSS for oral language expect students to present their own thinking and understand others’ perspectives.

The processes underlying code-switching and language-brokering practices include executive control or functioning—heightened attention, organizational skills, and problem-solving abilities—and metalinguistic awareness, which are the same processes and skills underlying not only the academic literacy that we have discussed in this chapter, but many other academic tasks and forms of learning (e.g., arguing from evidence in science, explaining mathematical problem solving). Furthermore, these are also skills that have been found to be particularly precocious in bilingual students (e.g., Bialystok & Peets, 2010; Yoshida, 2008).

Moreover, the underlying sociocognitive processes involved in language brokering, in particular, may serve to hone important skills for multilingual students, beyond the competencies considered in the CCSS or NGSS. For example, these

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skills and processes might foster important developments in the psychosocial domain (e.g., motivation, impulsivity control) and given the slower psychosocial trajectory that adolescents are on, they may especially benefit from these important non-scholastic skills and processes.

Cultivating Adolescent Literacy in Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Ways Before concluding, we want to suggest some ways in which understandings of developmental processes and of the everyday language practices of adolescents living in multilingual environments might inform educational practice aimed at fostering academic language development. There are many ways in which we can envision building on everyday translanguaging experiences; in this section, we suggest a few general principles.

First, as we have noted, adolescents are growing in their capacity to take on different perspectives and to engage in metalinguistic reflection. Adolescents who traverse cultural and linguistic borders in their everyday lives have many opportunities to cultivate metalinguistic awareness and transcultural competencies.

Schools might enhance the development of those competencies simply by helping adolescents to become more conscious of their own everyday skills and reflective about them. This could involve helping adolescents to articulate the strategies they use as they communicate with and for different speakers; the decisions they make about when, where, and why to code-switch (or not), and for whom and how to broker language for others; and the challenges they face when translating and interpreting diverse kinds of texts. Teachers might also guide students in identifying how academic literacy requires skills similar to these everyday practices: sensitivity to audiences, texts, and circumstances, and conscious decisions about language forms. (For more specific suggestions and lesson ideas, see Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Martinez et al., 2008; Martinez, 2010; Orellana et al., 2012; Orellana & Reynolds, 2008.)

We suggest an approach to pedagogy that leverages the everyday language experiences of adolescents living in multilingual contexts, and that treats multilingualism as normative, not deviant. This approach demands some rethinking of both monolingual norms in education and traditional ways of approaching bilingual education, (e.g. with strict separation of languages). Creese and Blackledge (2010) suggest ways of rethinking bilingual pedagogy to recognize, endorse, and support translanguaging, and to use students’ full linguistic toolkits to support their overall literacy development (also see Garcia [2009]). This can be done whether or not teachers speak the languages of their students; the first step is to acknowledge everyday competencies in order to help students to see the relationship between what they do every day and what is asked of them in school.

Valuing the everyday practices that multilingual adolescents engage in will not just enhance literacy development in school; it will likely also make everyday

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language activities even more powerful learning experiences. Rather than fostering the idea that everyday and academic literacies are distinct (a message that is conveyed by well-meaning teachers who say such things as “That kind of language is fine at home, but in school . . . ”), teachers can help adolescents to see how things they do every day can help them in school, as well as how what they learn in school can support their everyday language work. This is especially important for adolescents who have come to see their own multilingualism as a deficit rather than an asset—a perspective that, sadly, too many multilingual adolescents develop as they internalize the norms of a monolingual-centric society (Martinez, 2010).

Conclusion The predominantly oral language practices described in this chapter would benefit from further study, treating them as both agents and outcomes of adolescent development. The education field needs to know more about the trajectories of language and literacy development of adolescent language brokers, as well as variations in translanguaging practices and competencies across adolescents, language groups, and communities. We need research that unpacks better the ways in which adolescent developmental processes both shape and are shaped by translanguaging practices such as language brokering and code-switching. The field also needs a better understanding of the relationship between academic literacy development and predominantly oral language practices such as code-switching.

We do know this: language brokering and code-switching (as two dimensions of translanguaging practices that are common in multilingual communities) involve complex social, linguistic, cultural, cognitive, and pragmatic knowledge that has received little recognition in schools. These competencies seem to overlap, in important ways, with the competencies that are considered integral to academic literacy. Unfortunately, the full range of linguistic resources that students have available to them, particularly in the form of oral language abilities, may not receive sufficient attention in school (Coady & Escamilla, 2005). Thus, we argue for recognition of the skills and experiences of adolescents living in multilingual environments as the field builds and expands understanding of the construct of adolescent academic literacy. We hope not only to have piqued interest in, but to have convincingly argued for, the value of further explorations of academic literacy at the intersection of adolescent development and the oral language and literate lives of adolescent multilingual students.

Notes 1 The average standard score for the cohort was just 75 points, with 76 percent of the adolescents in the study scoring one standard deviation or more below the normed average score for the assessment (i.e., 15 standard score points or more below the mean of 100). The BVAT assesses bilingual abilities in English and one of 17 other languages,

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providing a score of English Language Proficiency and, acknowledging that bilinguals may have language abilities distributed across two languages, also a Bilingual Verbal Ability score. It is designed for use with students from five years to adulthood.

2 The notion of “translanguaging,” a relatively recent term (see Garcia, 2009), helps situate code-switching and language brokering within a broader set of intentional linguistic practices. Translanguaging emphasizes that “languages are part of a repertoire that is accessed for their communicative purposes; languages are not discrete and separated, but form an integrated system for them [language learners]; multilingual competence emerges out of local practices where multiple languages are negotiated for communication; competence doesn’t consist of separate competencies for each language, but a multicompetence that functions symbiotically for the different languages in one’s repertoire” (Canagarajah, 2011, p. 1).

3 We speculate that that the practices of code-switching and language brokering by multilingual adolescents are indeed everyday occurrences and are widespread. However, we have not found studies of the prevalence of these practices in the multilingual adolescent population.

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5 A SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH TO ACADEMIC LITERACY IN MATHEMATICS FOR ADOLESCENT ENGLISH LEARNERS Integrating Mathematical Proficiency, Practices, and Discourse Judit Moschkovich This chapter uses a sociocultural conceptual framework to provide an integrated view of academic literacy in mathematics (ALM) for adolescent multilingual students. The proposed definition of ALM includes three integrated components: mathematical proficiency, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse. The chapter first describes each component of ALM and then provides two analyses grounded in the proposed definition of ALM. The first example is an analysis of how each component of ALM might appear in the solution to a mathematical task, a word problem. The second example is an analysis of a transcript showing students involved in ALM, using questions adapted from those of Gee (1999). These two analyses show how the three components of ALM are intertwined, and how ALM is both situated and hybrid. The chapter closes by describing the implications of this integrated view for mathematics instruction that supports ALM for multilingual students, arguing that the three components of ALM should not be separated when designing instruction for adolescent multilingual students.

Several terms have been used to connect mathematics and literacy, including numeracy, quantitative literacy (Steen, 2001), and mathematical literacy.

Numeracy has multiple meanings, ranging from the capacity to deal with numbers, to interpret quantitative information, or to understand quantitative aspects of one’s environment. Mathematical literacy is broader than numeracy. It is not exclusively mathematical knowledge because it is “about an individual’s capacity to use and apply this knowledge” (Jablonka, 2003). For example, items in the mathematics literacy test of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were selected because they could arise in real life situations.

When considering mathematical and scientific literacy, Yore, Pimm, and Tuan (2007) invoked the following distinction: “Norris and Phillips (2003) referred to

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the two interacting components of discipline-specific literacy as the fundamental sense—being literate in the discourses of the discipline—and the derived sense— being knowledgeable in the content of the discipline (cited in Yore, Pimm, & Tuan, 2007, page 561).” I will use the phrase “competence in using mathematical discourse” to refer to the first aspect, literacy in the discourse (or discourses) associated with mathematics, and “mathematical proficiency” to refer to the second aspect, proficiency in the content of mathematics (although elsewhere this might be called mathematical literacy). Academic literacy in mathematics as defined here includes not only mathematical proficiency and competence in using mathematical discourse, but also participation in mathematical practices.

Typically, “literacy” is interpreted as referring to words and “mathematics” as referring to numbers. For example, we could imagine that solving the word problem below involves literacy in reading and understanding the words, and mathematics in extracting the numbers and relating them through arithmetic operations: Jane, Maria, and Ben each have a collection of marbles. Jane has 15 more marbles than Ben, and Maria has 2 times as many marbles as Ben. All together they have 95 marbles. Find how many marbles Maria has.

However, academic literacy in mathematics is more complex than simply combining alphabetic literacy with proficiency in arithmetic computation. Reading and solving this word problem entails not only mathematical proficiency (proficiency in the content of mathematics) but also competencies in using mathematical discourse as well as mathematical practices. These three components cannot be separated when considering mathematical tasks, analyzing student mathematical activity, or designing mathematics instruction. In the case of this word problem, reading the word problem involves not only alphabetic literacy but also competence in mathematical discourse—reading and comprehending a mathematical text—in this case, a particular genre of mathematical discourse, an algebra word problem.

Further, the mathematical discourse component of solving this problem, or the “reading” of the word problem, cannot be separated from the mathematical practice of “making sense” of the word problem. Typically for word problems, making sense involves identifying each of the mathematical quantities, how these quantities are related, and modeling the situation mathematically (using numbers, arithmetic operations, or algebraic symbols). While reading and understanding the problem, one also needs to make some strategic decisions, usually referred to as the metacognitive aspects of mathematical problem solving (Schoenfeld, 1992): decide what strategy to use (making a guess and checking, writing an equation, etc.), what arithmetic computation will model the relationship among the quantities, etc. In these ways, mathematical discourse and mathematical practices are intricately intertwined during problem solving activity.

The view of ALM presented here is different than previous approaches to academic language in several ways. First, the definition includes not only cognitive

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aspects of mathematical activity—such as mathematical reasoning, thinking, concepts, and metacognition—but also sociocultural aspects—participation in mathematical practices—and discursive aspects—participation in mathematical discourse.

Most importantly, this is an integrated view of these three components of ALM working in unison, rather than isolating academic language from mathematical proficiency or mathematical practices. A sociocultural perspective of ALM1 provides a complex view of mathematical proficiency as participation in discipline-based practices that involve conceptual understanding and mathematical discourse.

In addition, the sociocultural perspective used in this chapter expands ALM beyond simplified views of mathematics as computation and language as words.

This definition includes the full spectrum of what researchers in mathematics education refer to as mathematical proficiency, balancing computational fluency, conceptual understanding, and reasoning. Simplified views of academic language focus on words, assume that meanings are static and given by definitions, separate language from mathematical knowledge and practices, and limit mathematical discourse to formal language. In contrast, the view of ALM proposed here sees meanings for academic mathematical language as socioculturally situated in mathematical practices and the classroom setting. A complex view of mathematical discourse also means that mathematical discourse involves not only oral and written text, but also multiple modes, representations (gestures, objects, drawings, tables, graphs, symbols, etc.), and registers (school mathematical language, home languages and the everyday register).

The sociocultural theoretical framework draws on situated perspectives of learning mathematics (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, 1998) as a discursive activity (Forman, 1996) that involves participating in a community of practice (Forman, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Nasir, 2002), developing classroom socio-mathematical norms (Cobb et al., 1993), and using multiple material, linguistic, and social resources (Greeno, 1998). Mathematical activity thus involves not only mathematical knowledge, but also mathematical practices and discourse, and a sociocultural framing makes mathematical discourse a central aspect of mathematical practices.

Beyond the assumption that mathematical activity is simultaneously cognitive, social, and cultural a sociocultural perspective brings several assumptions for framing activity and learning to a definition of ALM: • • • •

The focus is on the potential for progress in what learners say and do, not on learner deficiencies or misconceptions; Activity is mediated by language, signs, and social interaction; Discourse is central to participation in practices; Participants bring multiple perspectives to a situation, representations and utterances have multiple meanings for participants, meanings for words are situated and constructed while participating in practices, and multiple meanings are negotiated through interaction;

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• •

Social interaction that leads to learning principally involves joint activity (not just any type of social interaction); Appropriation of practices is a central metaphor for describing learning (but learners do not merely imitate practices, they sometimes actively transform them).

Shifting from a simplified view of academic language in this content area as words to an expanded view of ALM that integrates mathematical proficiency and practices is crucial for the education of adolescent multilingual students.

Research and policy have repeatedly, clearly, and strongly called for mathematics instruction for this student population to maintain high standards (American Educational Research Association [AERA] 2004) and high-cognitive demand (AERA, 2006). In order to accomplish these goals, mathematics instruction for adolescent multilingual students needs to move beyond defining ALM as low-level language skills (i.e. vocabulary) or mathematical skills (i.e. arithmetic computation) and use an expanded definition of ALM to describe and prescribe instruction that supports ALM. Such instruction (a) includes the full spectrum of mathematical proficiency, balancing computational fluency with high-cognitive-demand tasks that require conceptual understanding and reasoning; (b) provides opportunities for students to participate in mathematical practices; (c) allows students to use multiple modes of communication, symbol systems, registers, and languages as resources for mathematical reasoning, and (d) supports students in negotiating situated meanings for mathematical language that is grounded in mathematical activity, instead of giving students definitions divorced from mathematical activity. The first step in making these shifts in instruction is to develop the expanded view of ALM as proposed in this chapter.

The rest of the chapter is organized into four main sections. The first section provides summary descriptions of each component of ALM. The second section provides a detailed analysis of how each component might appear while solving a word problem. The third section provides an analysis of a transcript showing students involved in ALM, using questions adapted from Gee’s (1999) questions for Discourse analysis. The analysis of the transcript illustrates that ALM is situated in that learners engage in negotiated situated meanings for words and phrases that are grounded in the local sociocultural setting and coordinated with ways of viewing inscriptions. The analysis of the transcript also illustrates how ALM is hybrid (Gutiérrez et al., 1999), in the sense that learners draw on multiple resources—modes of communication, symbol systems, as well as both everyday and academic registers. These two analyses show how the three components of ALM cannot be separated when analyzing tasks, how the three components function together during student activity, and how ALM is both situated and hybrid.

In the fourth and final section I consider the implications of the proposed definition of ALM for instruction and future research.

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Academic Literacy in Mathematics2 In this section, I provide a summary of each of the three components of ALM: mathematical proficiency, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse.

These descriptions will ground the subsequent analyses of the opportunities for ALM in a word problem and of a discussion between two students engaged in ALM. The sociocultural framing described above motivates the integration of these three components and the shift to a complex view of mathematical discourse.

Mathematical Proficiency A current description of mathematical proficiency (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001) shows five intertwined strands: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Conceptual understanding, or comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations; Procedural fluency, or skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately; Strategic competence, or competence in formulating, representing, and solving mathematical problems (novel problems, not routine exercises); Adaptive reasoning, or logical thought, reflection, explanation, and justification; and Productive disposition, a habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy.

We can think of procedural fluency as knowing how to compute. Although mathematical proficiency is often reduced to procedural fluency in arithmetic this is only one component of mathematical proficiency. It is crucial that we define ALM for adolescent multilingual students as more than computation or symbol manipulation.3 Conceptual understanding, strategic competence, and reasoning are as, if not more, important than fluent arithmetic computation, for example for applying mathematics and knowing what computation to use when (Hiebert & Carpenter, 1992).

Conceptual understanding is more difficult to define, less well understood, and has multiple aspects. Conceptual understanding is fundamentally about the meanings that learners construct for mathematical solutions: knowing the meaning of a result (what the number, solution, or result represents), knowing why a procedure works, and explaining why a particular result is the right answer.

Other aspects of conceptual understanding are connecting procedures to concepts and connecting procedures to multiple representations such as words, drawings, symbols, diagrams, tables, graphs, or equations (Hiebert & Carpenter, 1992).

Reasoning, logical thought, explanation, and justification are closely related to

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conceptual understanding. Student reasoning is evidence of conceptual understanding when a student explains why a particular result is the right answer or justifies a conclusion. For example, if students understand addition and multiplication, they have made connections between these two procedures, they can represent them in multiple ways, and they can explain how multiplication and addition are related, saying that whole number multiplication can be described as repeated addition.

Adolescents need to develop conceptual understanding along with procedural skills, in part, because conceptual understanding and procedural fluency are closely related. Research in cognitive science (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999) has shown that people remember procedures better, longer, and in more detail if they understand, actively organize, elaborate, and connect new knowledge to prior knowledge. In mathematics this means that to remember how to compute students need to understand, elaborate, and organize procedures. Rehearsal may work for memorizing a grocery list (and even then organizing the list will improve memorization). Rehearsal, however, is not the most efficient strategy for remembering how to perform demanding cognitive tasks such as computing with fractions, using proportional reasoning, or applying algebraic thinking.

The emphases on high-cognitive demand, conceptual understanding and reasoning are motivated by empirical research on effective mathematics teaching as well as equity considerations for multilingual students. Mathematics instruction for multilingual students should provide these students access to high-quality and effective mathematics instruction. According to a review of the research (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007), mathematics teaching that impacts student achievement and conceptual development provides students opportunities to attend explicitly to concepts and time to wrestle with important mathematics. Mathematics instruction for multilingual students should follow these general recommendations for effective mathematics teaching by focusing on conceptual understanding (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007) and maintaining high-cognitive-demand for mathematical tasks (AERA, 2006; Stein, Grover, & Henningsen, 1996), for example, by encouraging students to explain, represent, and discuss their reasoning.

By extension, instruction that supports ALM should emphasize these aspects of mathematical proficiency.

This view of mathematical proficiency has important implications for instruction for multilingual students that supports ALM. If adolescent EL students need support in procedural skills for whole number multiplication, instruction should balance a focus on procedural fluency or drill approaches to multiplication facts with other aspects of mathematical proficiency that help students understand, represent, apply, and connect multiplication to other important mathematical ideas. This can be accomplished, for example, by representing multiplication using arrays and area models, solving multidigit multiplication exercises by grouping and regrouping and making a connection to the distributive property, and solving multiplication word problems. Instruction can also support an

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integrated approach to ALM by designing multiplication lessons that focus not only on mathematical proficiency but also provide opportunities for students to participate in mathematical practices—solving problems, looking for regularity, etc.— and discourse—reading word problems, explaining solutions orally and in writing, providing mathematical justification, etc.

Mathematical Practices The five strands of mathematical proficiency provide a cognitive account of mathematical activity focused on knowledge, metacognition, and beliefs. From a sociocultural perspective, mathematics students are not only acquiring mathematical knowledge, they are also learning to participate in valued mathematical practices (Moschkovich, 2004, 2007c, 2013). Some of these practices include problem solving, sense making, reasoning, modeling, and looking for patterns, structure, or regularity.4 Using the term practice shifts from purely cognitive accounts of mathematical activity to accounts that assume its social, cultural, and discursive nature. I use the terms practice and practices in the sense used by Scribner5 (1984) for a practice account of literacy to “highlight the culturally organized nature of significant literacy activities and their conceptual kinship to other culturally organized activities involving different technologies and symbol systems” (p. 13). This definition when applied to mathematical practices implies that these are culturally organized, involve symbols systems, and are related conceptually to other mathematical practices. From this perspective, mathematical practices are not only cognitive— i.e. involve mathematical thinking and reasoning as described in the four strands of mathematical proficiency—but also social and cultural—they arise from communities and mark membership in communities—and semiotic—they involve semiotic systems (signs, tools, and their meanings).

Academic mathematical practices can be understood in general as using language and other symbols systems to think, talk, and participate in the practices that are “the objective of school learning.” There is no single set of mathematical practices or one mathematical community.6 Mathematical activity can involve different communities (mathematicians, teachers, or students) and different genres (explanations, proofs, or presentations). Practices vary across communities of research mathematicians, traditional classrooms, and reformed classrooms.

However, across these various communities and genres, there are common practices that can be labeled as academic mathematical practices.

Two sources for descriptions of mathematical practices are the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards (NCTM, 1989, 1991, & 1995) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematical Practices (CCSS, 2010a, 2010b). The CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice overlap in important ways with the NCTM Standards and the National Research Council definition of mathematical proficiency. Although the NCTM Standards

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did not explicitly label these as practices, they focused on problem solving, sense making, reasoning, modeling, and looking for patterns, structure, or regularity (Koestler et al, 2013). The Common Core State Standards recently introduced the following list of eight “Standards for Mathematical Practice” (for more details see www.ccsstoolbox.com): 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them; Reason abstractly and quantitatively; Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others; Model with mathematics; Use appropriate tools strategically; Attend to precision; Look for and make use of structure; Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

The Common Core documents state that these standards7 “describe varieties of expertise that mathematic educators at all levels should develop in their students” and connect these standards to other “processes and proficiencies” such as problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, and connections (NCTM Standards, 1991 & 1995), as well as to the five strands of mathematical proficiency (conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, and productive disposition). These standards are general, i.e. they do not refer to any particular mathematical topic or concept. This is both an advantage, because we can then look for such general practices, but also a disadvantage, because many important mathematical practices are tied to specific concepts (for examples see Cobb et al., 2001 and Example 2 in this chapter).

These standards are also specific to mathematics and, other than modeling, do not include applying mathematics to science situations.

A sociocultural framing of mathematical practices has implications for connecting practices to discourse. In particular, discourse is central to participation in many mathematical practices, and the meanings for words are situated and constructed while participating in mathematical practices.8 As students participate in mathematical practices they are using mathematical objects and applying mathematical content, as well as learning to communicate mathematically by making conjectures, presenting explanations, and constructing arguments (Brenner, 1994). CCSS Mathematical Practice Standard 3, “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others,” and Mathematical Practice Standard 6, “Attend to precision” (discussed below) seem especially connected to mathematical discourse.

Mathematical Discourse There are multiple uses of the term language: to refer to the language used in classrooms, in the home and community, by mathematicians, in textbooks, and in test

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items. It is crucial to clarify how we use the term, what phenomena we are referring to, and which aspects of these phenomena we are focusing on. Many uses of the phrase academic language in recommendations for teaching mathematics reduce its meaning to vocabulary or grammar (for example, see Cavanagh, 2005). Work on the language of disciplines (e.g., Pimm, 1987; Schleppegrell, 2007) provides a more complex view of mathematical language as not only specialized vocabulary—new words and new meanings for familiar words—but also as extended discourse that includes other symbolic systems as well as artifacts (Moschkovich, 2002), syntax and organization (Crowhurst, 1994), the mathematics register9 (Halliday, 1978), and discourse practices (Moschkovich, 2007c). (For a description of key features of mathematical discourse, see Moschkovich, 2007c). Here, I use the phrase mathematical discourse, rather than mathematical language, to refer to the communicative competence necessary and sufficient for competent participation in mathematical practices. Elsewhere, I describe some assumptions in a sociocultural approach to mathematical discourse (Moschkovich, 2007c): mathematical discourse is more than language (it involves other symbolic systems as well as artifacts), discourse is embedded in mathematical practices, and meanings are situated and develop through participation in mathematical practices.

Academic mathematical discourse10 has been described as having some general characteristics. In general, particular modes of argument, such as precision, brevity, and logical coherence, are valued (Forman, 1996). Abstracting, generalizing, and searching for certainty are also highly valued. Generalizing is reflected in common mathematical statements, such as “The angles of any triangle add up to 180 degrees,” “Parallel lines never meet,” or “a + b (always) equals b + a.” What makes a claim mathematical is, in part, the attention paid to describing in detail when the claim applies and when it does not. Mathematical claims apply only to a precisely and explicitly defined set of situations. Mathematical claims are often tied to mathematical representations (symbols, graphs, tables, or diagrams).

Academic mathematical discourse is not principally about formal or technical vocabulary (Moschkovich, 2007c) and when describing mathematical discourse we should not confuse “mathematical” with “formal” or “textbook.” Textbook definitions and formal ways of talking are only one aspect of school mathematical discourse. In classrooms students use multiple resources, including everyday registers and experiences, to make sense of mathematics. It is not always possible or constructive to tell whether a student’s competence in communicating mathematically originates in their everyday or school experiences. It is thus important to avoid construing everyday and academic registers as opposites (Moschkovich, 2010a).

A shift to a more complex view of mathematical discourse is particularly important for defining ALM for adolescent multilingual students. For example, a simplified view of mathematical discourse can lead to the assumption that precision lies primarily in individual word meaning, and assumption that could have dire consequences for multilingual students, as they are likely to use imperfect

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language to describe their mathematical thinking.10 For example, one interpretation of CCSS Mathematical Practice Standard 6 “attending to precision,” is that precision lies in using two different words for the set of symbols “x+3” and “x+3 =10.” If we focus on precision at the individual word meaning level, the first is an “expression” while the second is an “equation.” However, the mathematical practice of attending to precision should not be interpreted as using the perfect word. Attending to precision can also refer to deciding when and what kind of precision is necessary during a computation, including when an exact answer is or is not necessary, a mathematical practice that does not require a precise word. Attending to precision is also involved in making precise claims, a practice that is not at the word level but at the discourse level. For example, we can contrast the claim “Multiplication makes bigger,” which is not precise, with the claim “Multiplication makes the result bigger, only when you multiply by a positive number greater than 1.” When contrasting the two claims, precision does not lie in the individual words nor are the words used in the second, more precise, claim formal mathematical words. Rather, the precision lies in specifying when the claim is true. In a classroom, a teacher’s response to the first claim focusing on precision at the word level might be to ask a student to use a more formal word for “bigger.” In contrast, a teacher focusing on precision at a discourse level would ask “When does multiplication make a result bigger?”

Mathematics instruction for multilingual students needs to shift from simplified views of language as words, vocabulary, or definitions and carefully consider when and how to emphasize correct vocabulary and formal language. Such views severely limit the linguistic resources teachers can use to teach mathematics and students can use to learn mathematics, and separate language from mathematical proficiency and practices. Focusing instruction on words, vocabulary, or definitions, limits students’ access to the five strands of mathematical proficiency and curtails students’ opportunities to participate in mathematical practices (for examples of instruction for multilingual students focusing on word activities see de Araujo, 2012a and 2012b). In contrast, the view of ALM proposed provides a complex view of mathematical discourse while also connecting mathematical discourse to mathematical proficiency and practices.

Summary In sum, ALM involves (at least) three intertwined components: mathematical proficiency, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse. A definition of ALM is more than a theoretical exercise. A clear definition of ALM prepares teachers to choose (or design) tasks that support ALM, provide opportunities for multilingual students to participate in ALM, and recognize ALM in student activity. When designing instruction we can consider how each component of ALM might appear and how to provide students opportunities to participate in the three aspects of ALM. The examples analyzed in the next two sections, a

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word problem and a discussion between two students, illustrate how these three components cannot be separated when considering mathematical tasks, analyzing student mathematical activity, or designing mathematics instruction.

Considering ALM in Mathematical Tasks If we want students to participate in ALM as defined here, then we first need to use mathematical tasks that will provide opportunities for students to engage in the full spectrum of mathematical proficiency, in mathematical practices, and in mathematical discourse. For students to participate in ALM, we need to select tasks that require more than using numbers, computation, or symbol manipulation and organize classroom instruction so that students actively use concepts and show their conceptual understanding through explaining and justifying.

The analysis in this section considers the opportunities for ALM that might be possible in a mathematical task. For this first example I describe the opportunities for each of the three components of ALM— mathematical proficiency, practices, and discourse—that a word problem might provide. This example illustrates how the ALM in a task depends on the solution strategy used for that task and the activity structure for the task. In particular, opportunities for mathematical proficiency depend on the strategy and opportunities for mathematical practices and discourse depend on the activity structure. The example also shows how the three components of ALM are intricately intertwined.

I use the following questions to consider how each component of ALM might appear while working on a mathematical task: • • •

What opportunities for mathematical proficiency does the task provide?

Does the task require high-cognitive demand?

What opportunities for mathematical practices can the task provide? How can the activity structure for the task provide opportunities for mathematical practices?

What opportunities for mathematical discourse can the task provide? How can the activity structure for the task provide opportunities for mathematical discourse?

Example 1: Opportunities for ALM in a Word Problem Below I provide an analysis of the ALM in this word problem: Jane, Maria, and Ben each have a collection of marbles. Jane has 15 more marbles than Ben, and Maria has 2 times as many marbles as Ben. All together they have 95 marbles. Find how many marbles Maria has.

What mathematical proficiency might be involved in solving this word problem?

This task is described as addressing the Content Standard “Create equations and

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inequalities in one variable and use them to solve problems.” It is labeled as a novice task, which are short items, each focused on a specific concept or skill, as set out in the Common Core State Standards. However, since this problem can be solved arithmetically (without algebraic symbols) or algebraically, the mathematical proficiency involved in solving the problem depends on the solution strategy used. If the problem solver decides to guess at an answer and check that answer, they would use one aspect of mathematical proficiency, procedural fluency, to accurately apply arithmetic operations. For example, one could guess that Maria has 20 marbles, then Ben would have 10 (20 divided by 2), and Jane would have 25 (10 + 15).

Arithmetic proficiency combined with mathematical discourse would then be used to read the word problem again while checking whether this guess actually works in the original word problem, when adding 20 + 10 + 25 to equal 55. Since this is less than 95, the guess for the number of marbles that Maria has needs to be larger.

Early algebraic proficiency might be reflected in a solution that organizes numerical guesses in a table. Algebraic thinking (without necessarily using algebraic symbols) would be reflected in a solution using an algebraic habit of mind (Driscoll, 1999), for example abstracting from repeated computation. If the problem solver decides to write an equation, then proficiency in algebra would be required for a solution that arrives at one of several possible linear equations, depending on which quantity is chosen to be the variable. For x defined as the number of marbles Maria has, the equation would be 95 = x + x/2 + (x +15). Solving that equation for x would require procedural fluency in manipulating the algebraic symbols.

What mathematical practices11 might be involved in solving this word problem? As described earlier, “reading” this word problem cannot be separated from the mathematical practice of “making sense” of the word problem. As one reads, one needs to make sense of each of the mathematical quantities, how these are related, and model the situation mathematically (using numbers, arithmetic operations, or algebraic symbols). The problem solver has to extract multiple pieces of information (what the unknown quantity is, how the quantities are related, etc.) and make strategic decisions that involve metacognition (Schoenfeld, 1992): deciding what strategy to use (making a guess and checking that guess, writing an equation, etc.), what arithmetic computation will model the relationship among the quantities, etc. If a student uses a “guess and check” strategy and organizes guesses in a table, they might use the mathematical practices “Look for and make use of structure” or “Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning” to then generate an equation. Opportunities for students to participate in mathematical practices in this task (or any task) depend on the activity structure for the task. Whether a task includes other mathematical practices depends not on the task as it is written, but on the activity structure for the task. For example, if theactivity structure required that students write down an explanation for their solution, discuss their individual solution in pairs or small groups, arrive at a common group solution, and then present their group solution and explanation, then this task would provide opportunities for other mathematical practices, such as constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others.

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What mathematical discourse might be involved in solving this word problem? As a start, students would need to read and understand the text that describes the situation. The purpose and structure of the text is different than texts in other content areas and specific to the genre of algebra word problems, so reading this word problem involves different literacy skills than reading other school texts.

The purpose of the text is not to tell a story, make an argument, or persuade the reader. Instead, the text provides a situation to be modeled using mathematics. The structure of the text is that some information is given that describes a real world situation and sets the stage, and then there is a question posed for the reader. The discourse complexity lies not in understanding any technical mathematical terms, but using background knowledge to imagine the situation, three people with different quantities that are being compared. Although while reading the word problem one has to extract multiple pieces of information, the focus is only on the mathematical aspects of the situation—what the unknown quantity is, how the quantities are related, etc. The reader needs to disregard any other aspects of the text or the situation (the setting, who the protagonists are, why they collect marbles, etc.) that are not relevant to the mathematical solution.

Beyond the reading of the word problem, opportunities for students to participate in mathematical discourse in this task (or any task) depend on the activity structure for the task. Whether a task includes mathematical discourse depends not on the task as it is written, but on the activity structure provided for the task and the classroom norms for what constitutes a mathematical explanation, justification, or argument. For example, if the activity structure required that students write down an explanation for their solution, discuss their individual solution in pairs or small groups, arrive at a common group solution, and then present their group solution and explanation, then this task would provide opportunities for several aspects of mathematical discourse, such as presenting one’s reasoning, arguments, and justifications using oral and written modes, as well as using multiple symbol systems such as tables or diagrams.

Uncovering ALM in Student Activity If students are participating in ALM as defined here, then we see or hear them engaged in the full spectrum of mathematical proficiency as they participate in mathematical practices, many of which are discursive. ALM for adolescent multilingual students involves much more than numeracy or computation, so if students are participating in ALM, we see or hear them using more than numbers, computation, or symbol manipulation; they actively use concepts and show their conceptual understanding through explaining and justifying. Since mathematical discourse is multimodal and multi-semiotic (O’Halloran, 1999), opportunities for ALM include multiple modes of communication, sign systems, and types of inscriptions. Because adolescents need to learn much more than arithmetic, ALM includes many mathematical topics.

One might assume that English learners cannot participate in ALM as defined above because they do not know mathematical vocabulary or they need to

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learn English first. However, research has documented that multilingual students can, in fact, participate in discussions where they grapple with important mathematical content12 and participate in mathematical practices. Instruction for this population should not emphasize low-level language skills over opportunities to actively communicate about mathematical ideas. One of the goals of mathematics instruction for students who are learning English should be to support all students, regardless of their proficiency in English, in participating in discussions that focus on important mathematical concepts and engage students in mathematical practices, rather than on low-level linguistic skills. By learning to recognize how multilingual students actively use ALM, teachers can provide opportunities for multilingual students to participate in all three components of ALM in integrated ways.

The analysis in this section shows ALM during student activity.13 We see students actively engaged in doing and discussing mathematics as they working on high-cognitive demand tasks. For this data example I describe how each of the three components of ALM—mathematical proficiency, practices, and discourse—are evident in student activity. The example illustrates how mathematical discourse—talk and text—is embedded in mathematical practices. These mathematical practices involve concepts, ground mathematical meanings, and focus students’ joint attention on mathematical inscriptions.

The example also shows how mathematical meanings are situated in coordinated talk and inscriptions. The example shows how ALM involves hybrid resources in that participants use multiple modes of communication, multiple sign systems, multiple registers (everyday and academic), and, in this case, also two languages.

In the analysis, I use the following questions, selectively and loosely following Gee’s (1999) questions for Discourse analysis: •

•

•

How are students displaying mathematical proficiency? How are students participating in mathematical practices and discourse? These focus questions show the complexity of ALM. What resources do students use to communicate mathematically? What sign systems are relevant to the discussion? These focus questions illuminate how ALM is multimodal and multi-semiotic.

What are the situated meanings of words and phrases? This focus question illuminates how mathematical meanings are not given or static but instead situated in the sociocultural context of a discussion.

Example 2: Describing Lines Using Hybrid Resources The transcript shown below is from an interview with two ninth-grade students conducted after school. The students had been in mainstream English-only mathematics classrooms for several years. One student, Marcela, had some previous mathematics instruction in Spanish. The two students were working

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8a. If you change the equation y=x to y=-0.6x, how would the line change?

Y

(y = x)

+8

- 10

+10

X

-8

STEEPER

A. The steepness would change.

Why or why not?

FIGURE 5.1

NO

YES

LESS STEEP

Problem for Example 2

on the problem in Figure 5.1 after they had worked on problems with positive slopes greater and less than 1.

We join the students after they had graphed the line y = –0.6x by hand on paper (Figure 5.2) and were discussing whether this line was steeper than the line y = x. (y=x)

Y +8

X –10

+10

(y=-0.6x) –8 (y=-x) FIGURE 5.2

Lines drawn by Marcela and Giselda

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Giselda first proposed that the second line was steeper and then decided it was less steep. Marcela repeatedly asked Giselda if she was sure. In the excerpt below, Marcela proposed that the line was less steep and then she explained her reasoning to Giselda. (Transcript annotations are in brackets. Translations are in italics beneath the phrases in question.)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Marcela: Giselda: Marcela: Giselda: Marcela:

6.

7.

Giselda: Marcela:

No, it’s less steeper . . .

Why? See, it’s closer to the x-axis . . . [looks at Giselda] . . . isn’t it?

Oh, so if it’s right here . . . it’s steeper, right?

Porque fíjate, digamos que este es el suelo.

[Because look, let’s say that this is the ground.]

Entonces, si se acerca más, pues es menos steep.

[Then, if it gets closer, then it’s less steep.] . . . ’cause see this one [referring to the line y = x] . . . is . . . está entre el medio de la x y de la y. Right? [is between the x and the y] [Nods in agreement.]

This one [referring to the line y = –0.6x] is closer to the x than to the y, so this one [referring to the line y = –0.6x] is less steep.

How were the students displaying mathematical proficiency, practices, and discourse? This task certainly involves mathematical proficiency beyond computing since the task requires connecting two symbol systems (equation and graph), a typical way for a task to involve conceptual understanding (Leinhardt et al., 1999; Moschkovich et al., 1993). The task requires conceptual understanding of the concept of slope, in part because the qualitative comparison means that computation is not a useful strategy. To answer the questions the students needed to show conceptual understanding of how slope works, particularly when the slope of a line is negative and between 0 and 1. The prompt to explain why the line would be steeper or less steep provides an opportunity for explaining and justifying one’s reasoning, and thus requires high-cognitive demand.

The task requires using graphing software (not during this excerpt but after deciding on a joint response and explanation) to check the steepness of the second line, and thus involves using technology for learning mathematics and the CCSS mathematical practice “using tools appropriately.”14 However, whether the task includes other mathematical practices or mathematical discourse depends on the activity structure provided by the directions for working on these problems. The activity structure required that students discuss their individual responses, arrive at a joint pair solution, and write down a solution and explanation after students had reached agreement (and before graphing the equation on the computer). Without this activity structure this task would not necessarily engage students in mathematical practices such as constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. Thus, opportunities for mathematical practices in this task (or any task) depend on the activity structure for the task.

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There were several aspects of mathematical practices and discourse evident in this discussion. First, students had to read and understand the text that provides the directions. Beyond this aspect of mathematical discourse, mathematical practices and discourse were closely intertwined during this discussion. Marcela was using mathematical discourse that reflects several important mathematical practices, as she stated assumptions explicitly and connected her claims to two mathematical representations (graphs and equations). First, she was using phrases that reflect mathematical practices. The phrase “If___, then ___” reflects the practice of reasoning abstractly, and the phrase “Let’s say this is ___” reflects the practice of constructing arguments. She was also participating in the practice of paying attention to precision by stating an assumption explicitly so that the claim was precise when she said “Digamos que este es el suelo, entonces . . . ” [Let’s say that this is the ground, then . . . ]. When she said, “Porque fíjate, digamos que este es el suelo” [Because look, let’s say that this is the ground], Marcela explicitly stated the assumption that to decide whether a line is steeper or less steep, we first need to state the reference line for making this claim. She was also connecting a claim to the graph, another important mathematical practice. She supported her claim by making a connection to a mathematical representation. She used the graph, in particular the line y = x (line 5) and the axes (lines 5 and 7), as references to support her claim that the second line was less steep. She used axes as reference to support a claim about the line saying “Está entre el medio de la x y de la y” (Is between the x and the y).

What resources were students using to reason and communicate mathematically? They combined multiple modes of communication, symbol systems, registers, and languages. Marcela also coordinated several modes of communication—reading text, reading a graph, reading an equation, and speaking. She coordinated two mathematical symbol systems, the graph—the line y = x, the axes—and the equations. She was reading, interpreting, and understanding not just the meaning of the English text in the problem, but also reading, interpreting, and understanding the meaning of the equation and the lines on the graph.

Marcela also combined everyday and academic ways of talking to clarify the mathematical meaning of her description. She used two phrases that are typical of academic mathematical discourse, “Let’s say” and the construction “If __, then__,” regularly used in academic mathematical discourse to construct arguments. She combined these academic ways of talking with informal ways of addressing her peer. Marcela used her everyday experiences and the metaphor that the x-axis is the ground (“Porque fíjate, digamos que este es el suelo” [Because look, let’s say that this is the ground]) as resources for making sense of this problem.

Rather than finding everyday meanings as obstacles, she used an everyday situation to clarify her reasoning. The everyday experience of climbing hills thus provided a resource for describing the steepness of lines, showing that everyday meanings need not be obstacles for mathematical reasoning (Moschkovich, 1996). Lastly, the students used two languages as resources for their explanations and discussion, showing that both home and school languages—the language of

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the home and the academic language of instruction learned through previous schooling—offer resources for mathematical reasoning and that students can use two languages in the service of communicating a mathematical explanation.

What were the situated meanings of words and phrases? In the discussion above, the students were negotiating and clarifying situated meanings for “steeper” and “less steep.” These meanings were grounded in the mathematical concept of slope, in talk coordinated with an inscription (the graph), and in mathematical practices. The meaning of these phrases depended on how an utterance was coordinated with a focus of attention on particular features of the graph, the axes and the line y = -x as references. These meanings were also situated or embedded in mathematical practices. The practice of connecting claims to the graph focused students’ attention on the mathematical inscription and the practice of attending to precision grounded the meaning of these phrases in a precise relationship to the axes and the line on the graph.

In general, meanings are “situated” in several senses. The multiple meanings of words, phrases, and utterances, or written text are situated locally in the ecology of each classroom, in the history and interactions that precede work or a discussion of a mathematics problem. In each exchange, meanings are also situated in time and may shift among participants and for an individual participant at different times. Meanings are also situated with respect to artifacts used in the exchange such as objects (manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc.), drawing, graphs, and so on. Meanings for utterances are also situated in practices, in particular where and how participants focus joint attention (Rogoff, 1990) and view inscriptions (Goodwin, 1994; Stevens & Hall, 1998).

This mathematical discussion illustrates how ALM involves situated meanings for utterances, rather than static meanings for words, and how mathematical discourse involves not only utterances but also coordinating utterances with a focus on representations. Analyses of conversations in other settings have shown that meanings for utterances are situated in activity and coordinated with particular ways to view and focus attention on inscriptions (Gee, 1996; Goodwin, 1994; Hindmarsh & Heath, 2000; Stevens & Hall, 1998). Ways of viewing inscriptions have been described as connected to professions (Goodwin, 1994) and disciplines (Stevens & Hall, 1998).

This classroom mathematical discussion, like other conversations, involved situated meanings for utterances—rather than static meanings for words—that were coordinated with the inscriptions—the graph and the equations. Mathematical discourse is thus not simply about using a particular meaning for an utterance, but rather coordinating the meaning of an utterance with a particular focus of attention. (For a more detailed analysis of this coordination see Moschkovich, 2008).

Conclusions The definition, descriptions, examples, and analyses in this chapter show how a sociocultural conceptual framework broadens notions of ALM, expanding it

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beyond competence in using words and computation. The proposed definition of ALM integrates three central components of mathematical activity: mathematical proficiency, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse. The analyses show how the three components of ALM cannot be separated when analyzing tasks or student activity. The second example illustrates how ALM is situated, in that learners engaged in ALM negotiated situated meanings for words and phrases grounded in the sociocultural setting and coordinated with ways of viewing inscriptions. The second example also illustrates how ALM is hybrid, in that participants drew on and coordinated multiple resources—modes of communication, symbol systems, as well as both everyday and academic registers (see also Low this volume; Wright, this volume).

The view of ALM presented here has important implications for mathematics instruction. First, instruction needs to consider not only cognitive aspects of mathematical activity—mathematical reasoning, thinking, concepts, and metacognition— but also sociocultural aspects—participation in mathematical practices—and discursive aspects—participation in mathematical discourse (see also Molle, this volume; Pacheco, this volume). Most importantly, because these three components of ALM function together during mathematical activity, instruction intended to support ALM for multilingual students should not address academic language as an isolated goal, but integrate mathematical proficiency, practices, and discourse whenever possible. Instruction should also include the full spectrum mathematical proficiency, balancing computation fluency, conceptual understanding, and reasoning. And lastly, instruction should implement a complex view of mathematical discourse. Below I discuss these three key considerations for designing mathematics instruction for multilingual students that supports their development of ALM.

Provide Opportunities for Integrating Three Components of ALM A sociocultural framing of ALM implies that instruction should provide opportunities for joint problem solving, appropriation of mathematical practices, participation in mathematical discourse, and negotiation of situated meanings for mathematical language (see also Avalos et al., this volume). Since the three components of ALM function together in intertwined ways during mathematical problem solving, isolating one component during instruction can have unintended consequences. Isolating mathematical discourse from mathematical proficiency or practices removes the context, concepts, and practices that ground the meanings for mathematical language. Isolating mathematical proficiency from mathematical practices or discourse limits access to an impoverished version of mathematical activity that does not parallel mathematical expertise. Therefore, opportunities for multilingual students to focus on language need to be connected to mathematical activity. Instruction should avoid lessons where students are given definitions in a vacuum or do vocabulary work divorced from mathematical work.

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One of the goals of mathematics instruction for multilingual students should be to support all students, regardless of their proficiency in English, in participating in discussions that focus on understanding and reasoning, rather than on low-level computational skills. Another goal for mathematics instruction for multilingual students should be to support all students, regardless of their proficiency in English, in participating in discussions that focus on high-cognitive demand tasks, conceptual understanding, and reasoning, rather than on pronunciation, vocabulary, or low-level linguistic skills. One way to accomplish these two goals is by integrating the three components of ALM describe in this chapter.

Adolescent multilingual students learning mathematics need opportunities to engage in mathematical practices and discourse because these are both important for conceptual understanding. Mathematical activity occurs in the context of mathematical practices that provide the goals and purposes for doing mathematics. Student participation in mathematical discourse is also important in supporting conceptual understanding. The more opportunities a learner has to make connections among multiple representations, or to explain why something is the case, or to describe their reasoning, the more opportunities that learner has to develop conceptual understanding. But not all kinds of communication will support conceptual understanding. Communication needs to be focused on important mathematical concepts and be embedded within mathematical practices. Communication that provides opportunities for students to participate in mathematical practices (explaining, constructing arguments, justifying, and proving) supports conceptual understanding. Communication that includes multiple modes (talking, listening, writing, drawing, etc.) also supports learners in making connections among multiple ways of representing mathematical concepts and thus supports conceptual understanding. Conceptual understanding, mathematical practices, and mathematical discourse should thus be closely connected when designing instruction.

Maintain High-Cognitive Demand and Focus on Conceptual Understanding Mathematics instruction for multilingual students needs to provide this student population equitable access to mathematics instruction that goes beyond low-level computational skills. Therefore, mathematics instruction for adolescent multilingual students should begin with tasks that require high-cognitive demand, conceptual understanding, and reasoning. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2010) provide guidelines for focusing on students’ mathematical reasoning and sense making. Instruction should balance conceptual and procedural knowledge, connect the two types of knowledge, use high-cognitivedemand-math tasks, maintain the rigor of mathematical tasks throughout lessons and units, and provide opportunities for students to engage in the standards for mathematical practice.

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A focus on conceptual understanding does not mean that students should be taught to recite definitions of concepts or draw pictures by following a set of steps modeled by the teacher. Classroom discussions, in pairs, small groups, and whole class, which focus on concepts, mathematical practices, and student explanations of their solutions, have been shown to support both procedural fluency and conceptual understanding (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007). Students should be focusing on making connections, understanding multiple representations of mathematical concepts, communicating their thinking, and justifying their reasoning. In order to engage students in mathematical practices, instruction needs to include time and support for mathematical discussions and use a variety of participation structures (teacher-led, small group, pairs, student presentations, etc.) that support students in learning to participate in such discussions (see also Avalos et al., this volume).

Implement a Complex View of Mathematical Discourse Previous research provides several guidelines for mathematics instruction for multilingual students that address language: (1) treat language as a resource, not a deficit (Gándara & Contreras, 2009; Moschkovich, 2000 & 2002a); (2) address much more than vocabulary and support multilingual students’ participation in mathematical discussions as they learn English (Moschkovich, 1999, 2002a, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c); and (3) draw on multiple resources available in classrooms— such as objects, drawings, graphs, and gestures—as well as home languages and experiences outside of school. Overall, instruction for this population should not emphasize low-level language skills but, instead, provide students opportunities to actively communicate about their mathematical solutions, ideas, and reasoning.

When teaching multilingual students mathematics, instructors need to shift from simplified views of language as words, vocabulary, or definitions. Such views severely limit the linguistic resources teachers can use to teach mathematics and students can use to learn mathematics, and separate language from mathematical proficiency and practices. Focusing instruction on words, vocabulary, or definitions, limits students’ access to the five strands of mathematical proficiency and curtails students’ opportunities to participate in mathematical practices (for examples see de Araujo, 2012a and 2012b). In contrast, the view of ALM proposed provides a complex view of mathematical discourse.

The definition of ALM provided here reflects a complex view of mathematical discourse as the interaction of three semiotic systems—natural language, mathematics symbol systems, and visual displays. The complexity of mathematical discourse in the classroom involves: • •

Multiple modes (oral, written, receptive, expressive, etc.); Multiple representations (including objects, pictures, words, symbols, tables, graphs, etc.);

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• • •

Different types of written texts (textbooks, word problems, student explanations, teacher explanations, etc.); Different types of talk (exploratory and expository); and Different audiences (presentations to the teacher, to peers, by the teacher, by peers, exploration with peers, etc.).

Instruction that supports ALM for multilingual students and, in particular competence in mathematical discourse, should not be interpreted as helping students acquire static meanings for words provided by the teacher or a textbook. As the examples in this chapter show, mathematical meanings are situated. Instruction should provide opportunities for students to negotiate and refine meanings that are grounded in mathematical activity. The design of instruction that provides opportunities for mathematical discourse should consider not only the task but also the activity structure and routines used in the classroom.

A shift to a complex view of mathematical discourse is particularly important for defining ALM for adolescent multilingual students. A simplified view of mathematical discourse can lead to the assumption that precision lies primarily in individual word meaning, an assumption that could have dire consequences for multilingual students, as they are likely to use imperfect language to describe their mathematical thinking. It is important to consider what we mean by precision for all students learning mathematics, since all students are likely to need time and support for moving from expressing their reasoning and arguments in imperfect form. However, it is essential for teachers of multilingual students to consider when and how to focus on precision for multilingual students. Although students’ use of imperfect language is likely to interact with teachers’ own interpretations of precision, we should not confuse the two. In particular, we should remember that precise claims can be expressed in imperfect language and that attending to precision only at the individual word meaning level can get in the way of students’ expressing their emerging mathematical ideas.

In sum the framework described here can be used to design instruction in mathematics for multilingual students. Table 1.5 describes how to use this framework to select mathematical tasks and plan lessons.There are several promising approaches for supporting discussions in mathematics classrooms that use a complex view of mathematical discourse (for example Herbel-Eisnemann et al., 2013; Chapin et al., 2003; Smith & Stein, 2011). Although these approaches do not focus on multilingual students, these approaches to classroom discussions provide resources for practitioners and a place to start when designing instruction supporting mathematical discourse for multilingual students.

Implications for Future Research Overall, research on ALM for adolescent multilingual students should use a broad definition of mathematical discourse that includes symbol systems such as

Academic Literacy in Mathematics 97 TABLE 5.1 Using a framework for academic literacy in mathematics to design lessons

Math Proficiency

Math Practices

Which strands of math proficiency are possible with this task?

Can the task be modified to include more strands or address one strand in more depth?

Which math practices are Which mathematical necessary (or possible) for discourse practices are solving the problem? possible?

What participation structures are necessary to engage students in those math practices?

Math Discourse

What typical math texts are involved (or possible)?

What modes, purposes, representations are involved (or possible)?

Does the task require high Are additional math cognitive demand? practices possible?

What is necessary to maintain high cognitive demand?

Can the task be modified to require higher cognitive demand?

Are there any discourse resources that are specific to these students or their community?

Are participation structures compatible with students’ home community norms?

algebraic symbols, graphs, tables, and diagrams. Research on ALM for adolescent multilingual students should not reduce mathematical proficiency to procedural fluency, but should include other strands, especially conceptual understanding and reasoning. In order to provide a full picture of competencies in mathematics, research on ALM for EL should include participation in mathematical practices and discourse.

There is a great need for research that examines ALM for multilingual students.

Future research on ALM for adolescent multilingual students will need to focus on how instruction can support ALM. We need more research that provides the details of how to integrate mathematical proficiency, practices and discourse during instruction with multilingual students. We also need research that

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carefully examines how to support students in refining mathematical discourse and move from informal ways of talking or writing to more formal explanations and justifications (Moschkovich, 2010b; Schleppegrell, 2010).

A topic in need of further research is ways in which multilingual students learn to read mathematical texts (Moschkovich, 2010b; Schleppegrell, 2010). Studies need to examine how multilingual students learn to read different mathematical texts (textbooks, word problems, etc.). In designing this research it is important to differentiate between reading textbooks and reading word problems, two different genres in mathematical written discourse. When working with adolescents learning to read English, it will be important to distinguish between those who are competent readers in a first language and those who are not. Another topic for future research is ways in which mathematical practices intersect with the practices of other disciplines, especially science and engineering (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013; Quinn, Lee, & Valdés, 2012). Exploring commonalities and differences between practices in these fields would help clarify how to best support multilingual students in developing academic literacy not only in mathematics but also in the physical and biological sciences.

Notes 1 The sociocultural perspective of ALM described here builds on previous work that appeared in several publications where I described a sociocultural view of mathematics learners who are bilingual and/or learning English (Moschkovich, 2002a & 2007b), of mathematical discourse (Moschkovich, 2007c), and of mathematical practices (Moschkovich, 2013). In other publications (Moschkovich, 2008 and 2009) I described how mathematical discourse is situated, involves coordinated utterances and focus of attention, and combines everyday and academic registers (also in Moschkovich, 2011).

The definition of ALM used here brings together and builds on different aspects of those analyses.

2 The phrase “academic literacy in mathematics” arose from expanding a previous topic of “academic language in mathematics,” to shift from a focus on language as words to a broader sense of literacy as participation in practices that involve multiple modes of communication (oral, written, receptive, productive) and multiple symbol systems (written text, numbers, graphs, tables, etc.).

3 It may be obvious that mathematical proficiency for adolescents should include mathematical topics beyond numeracy, such as algebra, geometry, or statistics, because these are the courses adolescents typically take in high school. It may not be as obvious that mathematical proficiency for adolescents should also involve much more than fluent computation or symbol manipulation (whether this occurs in arithmetic, algebra, statistics, or calculus).

4 For this discussion of mathematical practices I draw principally on three sources, my own work on mathematical practices (Moschkovich, 2004, 2007c, and 2013), the NCTM Standards, and recent standards for mathematical practices produced by the CCSS. Although many researchers have used the concept of mathematical practices, it is not my goal here to review different uses of the construct of mathematical practices.

Cobb, Stephan, McClain, & Gravemeijer (2001) define mathematical practices as the “taken-as-shared ways of reasoning, arguing, and symbolizing established while discussing particular mathematical ideas” (Cobb et al., p. 126). For Cobb et al. mathematical practices, in contrast to social norms and socio-mathematical norms, are specific to

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particular mathematical ideas. For this discussion I will assume that some mathematical practices are general (see CCSS Standards for examples of general practices) and others are specific to a particular topic or concept.

5 In using the terms practice and practices in the sense used by Scribner (1984), I make a distinction between the concept of practices and other common uses, for example practice as repetition or rehearsal, or practice as in “my teaching practice.”

6 For a discussion of multiple mathematical practices, see Moschkovich (2002b).

7 This is a list of standards, not practices (I thank my colleague Patricio Herbst for bringing my attention to this distinction) that provide a start in the direction of describing standards for mathematical practices in classrooms. However, these standards should not be interpreted as providing a definition, an exhaustive list, or a description of all the important mathematical practices that students need to develop mathematical proficiency. These standards (like any set of standards) are open to multiple interpretations, depending on theoretical perspectives used to frame mathematical activity. For example, although the word practices can signal a sociocultural framing, without such a perspective it is still possible to interpret these practices as purely cognitive.

8 For the sake of brevity, I am putting aside the relationship between mathematical practices and mathematical discourse, including questions regarding whether all mathematical practices are discursive, whether some are more discursive than others, and so on. These complex issues are discussed elsewhere (Moschkovich, 2013).

9 The mathematics register is a complex construct that includes styles of meaning, modes of argument, and mathematical practices and has several dimensions such as the concepts involved, how mathematical discourse positions students, and how mathematics texts are organized.

10 For examples of accurate mathematical thinking expressed through imperfect utterances see Moschkovich, 2002a, & 2012.

11 This task is a selection from “Creating Equations 1” Mathematics Assessment Resource Service, University of Nottingham. Available at http://map.mathshell.org/materials/ tasks.php?taskid=292#task292.This is one of the novice level tasks, which are described as involving only two of the CCSS mathematical practices (MP2 – reason abstractly and quantitatively; MP6 – attend to precision), and doing so only at the comparatively low level that short items allow. However, this analysis of the task includes not only MP2 and MP6 but also MP 1— make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

12 For examples of lessons where English Learners participate in a mathematical discussions see Moschkovich (1999, 2008) and Khisty (1995).

13 The examples I use here, a word problem and students working with graphs, involve algebra because this has been the focus of my research. However, other mathematical topics (geometry, statistics, etc.) also provide opportunities for ALM. 14 This example using graphing software illustrates how academic literacy in mathematics also includes using technological tools, for example to explore representations of functions (i.e. with graphing calculators or software), to do dynamic Geometry (i.e.

Geometer Sketchpad), to carry out simulations (i.e. Simcalc for the mathematics of change, see http://www.kaputcenter.umassd.edu/products/video/), or to collect and analyze data (i.e.Tinker Plots and Fathom for probability and statistics, see http://www. keycurriculum.com/resources/tinkerplots-resources/tutorials/tinkerplots-basics).

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Moschkovich, J. N. (2007b). Bilingual Mathematics Learners: How views of language, bilingual learners, and mathematical communication impact instruction. In N. Nasir, & P. Cobb (Eds.), Diversity, Equity, and Access to Mathematical Ideas (pp. 89–104). New York: Teachers College Press.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2007c). Examining mathematical Discourse practices. For The Learning of Mathematics, 27(1), 24–30.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2007d). Using two languages while learning mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(2), 121–144.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2008). “I went by twos, he went by one:” Multiple interpretations of inscriptions as resources for mathematical discussions. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17(4), 551–587.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2009). How language and graphs support conversation in a bilingual mathematics classroom. In R. Barwell, (Ed.), Multilingualism in mathematics classrooms: Global perspectives (pp. 78–96). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters Press.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2010a). Language(s) and learning mathematics: Resources, challenges, and issues for research. In J. N. Moschkovich (Ed.), Language and mathematics education: Multiple perspectives and directions for research (pp. 1–28). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2010b). Recommendations for research on language and mathematics education. In J. N. Moschkovich (Ed.), Language and mathematics education: Multiple perspectives and directions for research (pp. 151–170). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2011). Supporting mathematical reasoning and sense making for English Learners. In M. Strutchens, & J. Quander (Eds.), Focus in High School Mathematics: Fostering Reasoning and Sense Making for All Students (pp. 17–36). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

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Moschkovich, J. N. (2012). Mathematics, the Common Core Standards, and Language: Mathematics Instruction for ELs Aligned with the Common Core. Proceedings of the annual conference of the North American chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Kalamazoo, MI:Western Michigan University.

Moschkovich, J. N. (2013). Issues regarding the concept of mathematical practices. In Y. Li, & J. N. Moschkovich (Eds.), Proficiency and Beliefs in Learning and Teaching Mathematics: Learning from Alan Schoenfeld and Günter Toerner. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 257–275.

Moschkovich, J. N., Schoenfeld, A., & Arcavi, A. (1993). Aspects of understanding: On multiple perspectives and representations of linear relations, and connections among them. In T. A. Romberg, E. Fennema, & T. P. Carpenter (Eds.), Integrating research on the graphical representation of function (pp. 69–100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Nasir, N. (2002). Identity, goals, and learning: Mathematics in cultural practice.

Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4(2&3), 213–247.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1995). Assessment standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM. Norris, S. P., & Phillips, L. M. (2003). How literacy in its fundamental sense is central to scientific literacy. Science Education, 87(2), 224–240.

O’Halloran, K. (1999). Towards a systemic functional analysis of multisemiotic mathematics texts. Semiotica, 124(1/2), 1–29.

Pimm, D. (1987). Speaking mathematically: Communication in mathematics classrooms. London: Routledge.

Quinn, H., Lee, O., & Valdés, G. (2012). Language demands and opportunities in relation to Next Generation Science Standards for English language learners: What teachers need to know. Commissioned Papers on Language and Literacy Issues in the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, 94, 32.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.

Scarcella, R. (2003). Academic English: A conceptual framework. Technical Report 2003-1, University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute. Irvine, CA. Schleppegrell, M. (2007). The linguistic challenges of mathematics teaching and learning: A research review. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 23, 139–159.

Schleppegrell, M. (2010). Language in mathematics teaching and learning: A research review. In J. N. Moschkovich (Ed.), Language and mathematics education: Multiple perspectives and directions for research. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition, and sense-making in mathematics. In D. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook for research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 334–370). New York: Macmillan.

Scribner, S. (1984). Studying working intelligence. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.), Everyday cognition: Its development in social context (pp. 9–40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Smith, M. S., & Stein, M. K. (2011). Five practices for orchestrating productive mathematics discussions. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

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Stein, M. K., Grover, B., & Henningsen, M. (1996). Building student capacity for mathematical thinking and reasoning: An analysis of mathematical tasks used in reform classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 455–488.

Stevens, R., & Hall, R. (1998). Disciplined perception: Learning to see in technoscience.

In M. Lampert & M. L. Blunk (Eds.), Talking mathematics in school: Studies of teaching and learning (pp. 107–149). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Warren, B., Ogonowski, M., & Pothier, S. (2005). “Everyday” and “scientific:” Rethinking dichotomies in modes of thinking in science learning. In R. Nemirovsky, A. Rosebery, J. Solomon, & B. Warren (Eds.), Everyday matters in science and mathematics: Studies of complex classroom events (pp. 119–148). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Yore, L. D., Pimm, D., & Tuan, H. L. (2007). The literacy component of mathematical and scientific literacy. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5(4), 559–589.

6 TRANSLINGUAL LITERACIES IN A SOCIAL MEDIA AGE Lessons Learned from Youth’s Transnational Communication Online José Ramón Lizárraga, Glynda A. Hull, and John M. Scott

We live in an interconnected world, awash in flows, with capital, people, information, texts, languages, and media moving, shifting, and blending across geographic, cultural, and political borders (Appadurai, 1996; cf. Beck, 2000; Maira & Soep, 2005). Appadurai, who earlier most powerfully articulated the nation-spanning, border-crossing potential of current patterns of globalization, has recently emended this metaphor of flows, acknowledging not just smooth circulations, but “global bumps, borders, black holes, and quarks, the diacritics of the new global order” (2013, p.1). We write this chapter knowing that the migration of people and the movement of texts are everywhere, bringing changes, and perceptions of changes, to demographic and semiotic landscapes (Blommaert, 2010; Blommaert & Rampton, 2011; Vertovec, 2007). Our interest is to explore the implications of these changes for conceptions and practices of literacy, including academic versions (cf. Canagarajah, 2002; Luke, 2003; Stornaiuolo, Hull, & Nelson, 2009). Global flows are uneven and unequal, and their impacts on the lives of most are uncertain, making paramount the role of creative, critical, and ethically alert educations for the widest spectrum of citizenry. As North American educators and researchers, we hope to contribute to understandings of the transnational language and literacy practices of youth within the U.S. and elsewhere, in such a way as to make conceptions of literacy both responsive to and transformative of our changing world (Hull, Zacher, & Hibbert, 2009).

While multilingual and multimodal language and literacy practices have long been part of many communities’ communicative repertoires (Canagarajah, 2013a, 2013b; Finnegan, 2002), those practices have of late intensified and transformed through the mediation of digital tools and connectivities, wherever these resources are available. However, most conceptions of language, literacy, and learning in U.S. schools have yet to take such shifts into account, remaining

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persistently monolingual, logocentric, and constrained by the histories, conventions, and demands of specific institutional contexts (Canagarajah, 2011; May, 2014; Street, 2014). Nowhere is this more apparent than in discussions of “academic language” and “academic literacies,” which still tend to position students’ everyday and evolving semiotic practices as peripheral, marooned on the outside of those language and literacy practices that are inculcated in formal school contexts and deemed legitimate and valuable.

In this chapter we call for a broadening of conceptions of what counts as valuable and essential literacy to include translingual, transmodal, and trans-presentational practices, which include creating, negotiating, transforming, and sharing texts across multiple codes, channels, and symbol systems. We refer to those who are learning to participate in semiotic “contact zones” (Pratt, 1991; cf. Canagarajah, 2002)—that is, to create and circulate and interpret texts across diverse and asymmetric contexts, languages, ideologies, and modalities—as “emergent translinguals” (building from Garcia’s term, 2009, “emergent bilinguals”). We believe that their experiences can inform thinking about academic literacies, loosening the grip of a singular institutional context, and foregrounding how texts function in the world and how people engage them in a range of settings. At the same time, our youthful informants and their translingual, transmodal language practices lay bare values, strivings, and transgressions that obviate any belief that communication across difference is automatically or easily achieved.

Using data from an exchange between Latin@,1 Spanish/English/Spanglishspeaking adolescents in two San Francisco Bay Area schools with an American international school in Jalisco, Mexico, our research aims to describe the language and literacy practices involved in exchanges via an online social network; explain participants’ uses of varieties of English, Spanish and hybridized codes, taking into account relations of authority and intimacy; and suggest how both transmodal artifact production and sharing as well as complex language patterns and hybridization strategies reveal possibilities for expanding conceptions of academic literacy in our social media age.

Theorizing Language and Literacy in a Global World “Diversity . . . is not what it used to be,” writes Vertovec (2007) about Great Britain, where he coined the term “superdiversity” to capture the extraordinary range and mix of newcomers originating from new patterns of immigration (p. 1024). An important part of that diversity all over the world is linguistic, prompting May (2014) to identify a “multilingual turn” in critical applied linguistics, where researchers increasingly explore “the dynamic, hybrid, and transnational linguistic repertoires of multilingual (often migrant) speakers in rapidly diversifying urban conurbations worldwide” (May, 2014, p. 1). Blommaert and Rampton (2011) similarly signaled the broad shifts that have occurred in the study of language in a superdiverse world. They note: “Rather than working with

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homogeneity, stability and boundedness as the starting assumptions, mobility, mixing, political dynamics and historical embedding are now central concerns in the study of languages, language groups and communication” (p. 3). Such shifts require an approach to researching language practices alert to “metapragmatic reflexivity,” or language users’ self-conscious, strategic, and evaluative semiotic practice. In addition, researchers of language in superdiverse contexts are tasked with challenging named languages (i.e., Spanish and English) as being bounded and naturalized; treating linguistic acts as one semiotic tool among many; and recognizing that access to linguistic resources is never devoid of relations of power (cf. Blommaert and Rampton, 2011; Canagarajah, 2013a, 2013b; Kramsch, 2000, 2012; May, 2014). In the present study, we examined the practices of youth who themselves demonstrated the above-mentioned awareness as they engaged in interactions locally and with distant others online, constructing selves and seeking legitimacy as participants in a global exchange.

Our research blends such sociolinguistic perspectives on language in a superdiverse world with sociocultural perspectives on literacy, specifically the tradition of New Literacy Studies (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Gee, 1996; Street, 2003), where literacy is theorized as plural, diverse, socially-constructed meaning-making practices. Rather than autonomous skills that are universal and neutral, this understanding of literacy posits that such practices are always multiple, situated, ideological, and power-laden ways of using language and other symbol systems to communicate, construct meaning, and enact identities in varied social and cultural worlds. Whereas sociolinguistic perspectives generally still privilege spoken language (Lillis & McKinney, 2013), sociocultural perspectives on literacy take material texts, whether paper, digital, or artifactual, as their centerpiece, but don’t typically give equal time to talk and interaction. Literacy and language use are of course conjoined in practice, and our research with Latin@ adolescents addresses their spoken and written languages (Spanish, Spanglish, English) and their production and sharing of textual artifacts, both in person and online.

Translingual and Transmodal Perspectives Researchers of language and literacy in contexts of superdiversity, including the Internet, have offered a number of terms to capture salient language and semiotic practices, including “metrolingualism” (Pennycook, 2010); “polylingual languaging” (Jørgensen, 2008); and “hetero-graphy” (Blommaert, 2008). Looking across these concepts and the communicative phenomena they describe, Canagarajah (2013b) proposes “translingual practice” as an umbrella term. A translingual orientation expects language users to draw on a repertoire of codes that they appropriate, blend, and mesh, as needs be, in their negotiations with other language users across continually evolving communicative contexts.

Translingual communication goes beyond words to includes diverse semiotic resources—oral, written, visual, and embodied—which themselves coalesce in

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meaning making (Canagarajah, 2013b). In focusing on semiotic resources, rather than just on words, researchers from sociolinguistic traditions join scholars from the New Literacy Studies, who have for some time been alert to language and literacy practices that are multimodal and digital (Bennett, 2008; Kress & van Leeuwin, 2001).

In previous work we have been interested in such practices especially as they connect to the enactment of identities, both through the curation of online profiles and presence (Hull & Scott, 2013) and the creation of “new narratives of the self” (Stevenson, 2003, p. 346; Hull & Katz, 2006). In our current study, we explore how youth communicated translingually and transnationally with local and distant peers by creating and sharing digital arts via social media, examining how these practices helped our young language users to decode varieties of English and Spanish and to create new semiotic norms. This perspective on young language learners allowed us to explore the translingual practices of these students as legitimate and powerful discursive tools.

We also extend our previous work on multimodality (i.e., Hull & Nelson, 2005) by examining, in the spirit of a translingual framework, how multimodal artifacts cross temporal dimensions in circulation through global networks of participation. We found this “transmodal” expansion necessary in order to think beyond static, discrete properties and affordances of modes as either braided (Mitchell, 2004) or orchestrated (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001) to create new meanings. Rather, semiotic representations of these modes— vis-a-vis icon, symbol, and index (Peirce, 1992, 1998)—were blurred and contested in the online exchanges we observed. This was especially the case for multimodal artifacts, such as profile pages on social networking sites, where users engaged in ongoing performative curations in interaction with curations by other participants on the network. Such practices push us to consider not just static forms of representation through multiple modalities, but a range of potential meanings or trans-presentational strategies engaged during the communication and curatorial transactions among participants across the network.

The Promise of Digital Socially Networked Environments In recent years online spaces have been examined and championed as productive sites for the creation of positive participant identities, especially through the strategic use of language and other semiotic resources. Lam (2008), for example, has examined the important role that language plays in computer-mediated spaces where body-less pragmatics function, since the physical cues associated with most other forms of communication that foster community are reduced. There, language becomes a primary way of asserting social categories and normative behaviors. Further, what Lam refers to as the “hybridization of language”—visà-vis text, video, audio and other semiotic codes—can facilitate the formation of

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international and transnational digital communities, allowing “diasporic populations to sustain and recreate social relations of various sorts, and to foster multiple forms of group belonging and cultural participation across national borders” (2008, p. 306).2 Other scholars who have investigated how young people make meaning in interactive online contexts have posited that social networks afford new textual possibilities and challenges for youth to develop an expanded communicative repertoire (Beach & Doerr-Stevens, 2011; Beach, Hull, & O’Brien, 2011; DePew, 2011; Dowdall, 2009; Hull & Nelson, 2005; Hull, Stornaiuolo, & Sahni, 2014; Richards & Gomez, 2010). This expanded repertoire has proven especially important for language learners who can design a self in online spaces, where concerns of outsider-ness relating to accent are not foregrounded, and where there is a respite from spontaneity (Lam, 2000). Such advantages are highlighted in our discussion below of Julieta,3 who established and maintained a virtual relationship in written English, a language that she did not feel very comfortable speaking.

The English language is still dominant in online spaces (Danet & Herring, 2007; Lam, 2008; Black, 2005), where it is often viewed as an instrument for domination in a neo-colonial project (cf. Lin & Martin, 2005). We acknowledge this role, but in this chapter focus on exploring the role of English in the translingual practices that occur in the post-colonial contexts of the U.S. and Mexico, examining how it serves as a lingua franca for negotiation across across post-colonial contexts and contact zones. Lam notes that English is a prominent language of choice online, carrying the status of lingua franca. However, she also points out that English is used in combination and conjunction with “native, national, or heritage languages” (2008, p. 307) and thus is transformed to serve the purposes of a particular community. Her hope, like ours, is that transnational youth cultures will thrive online through multiple writing systems and different ways of representing via media, as they exercise meta-linguistic awareness and creativity in how they communicate and develop hybridized codes in service of information sharing and identity development.

Emergent Translingualism as an Additive Perspective While Latin@ language learners have demonstrated a semiotic inventiveness and meta-linguistic awareness online and off, policy-makers and educators in the U.S. have long viewed students who come to school speaking a language other than English as deficient. Labels such as English Language Learner (ELL) and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) have served to reify autonomous notions of language proficiency that position students who don’t learn and use the bounded language of standardized English as low-achieving and unsuccessful in school (Valdés, 1996; Valdés & Figueroa, 1994; Garcia, 2009). Subtractive schooling practices, under assimilationist agendas, have also historically devalued home

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cultural and language practices (i.e., Spanish and Spanglish language and Mexican culture), intending to supplant them with what were considered more desirable mainstream U.S. values and standard academic English (Valenzuela, 1999).

Zentella (2007) views these policies as an instance of Hispanophobia whereby the language practices of Latin@s are viewed as inadequate, deviant, and un-American.

The term emergent bilingualism (Garcia, 2009; Bartlett & Garcia, 2011) counters the deficit perspective associated with the current, ubiquitous label of English Language Learner (ELL) by suggesting that Latin@s come to the classroom with a wealth of linguistic practices, skills, and knowledge that should be leveraged in order to expand linguistic repertoires. Building on this perspective, we have adopted the term emergent translingual to describe the participants of our study, proposing that youth use language in more complex and expansive ways than for the purpose of gaining proficiency in two bounded languages. We believe that our term captures the spirit of student language use in both the online and offline contexts, as youth craftily negotiated home, school, and peer languages in becoming translingual.

Data Sources and Methods Our work with Latin@ emergent translinguals in the U.S. and Mexico continued a long-term, design-based research project that linked youth in the U.S., India, South Africa, and Norway by means of a private digital social network, Space2Cre8 (i.e., Hull & Scott, 2013; Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2014; Hull, Stornaiuolo, & Sterponi, 2013; Smith & Hull, 2012; Stornaiuolo, DiZio, Hellmich & Hull, 2013). Previous studies using this platform, and a curriculum that asked participants to create and share digital multimodal narratives, yielded examples of students developing potent constructions of online selves and cosmopolitan habits of mind in their efforts to negotiate meaning and relate to others across cultural, linguistic, and geographic differences. Our aim in the current study was to shift our focus to students who shared certain cultural and linguistic resources, as do children of Latin@ immigrants in the U.S. and youth in Mexico, but were separated nationally, geographically, and socio-economically, thereby putting in play different contact zones. We were especially interested in linking children in California with children in Mexico, since the families of many children with whom we worked in California schools had immigrated from Mexico. We expected that children’s shared cultural and linguistic resources would result in compelling hybrid/multimodal texts that made use of Spanish and English and Mexican and American references. Our research questions asked: (1) How did students who shared linguistic and cultural resources, but who differed geographically and socio-economically, make strategic use of language and other symbol systems? (2) What social functions did these practices serve, and what successes and challenges did students experience in achieving them? (3) How were resources and functions distributed across communicative spaces and tools, on and offline, publicly and privately?

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Study participants included fifth, sixth, and seventh graders at one school in Mexico and two schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Escuela de Las Americas (EDLA) was a private pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade international school located in the city of Guadalajara, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Its mission was to educate youth in a bilingual, bicultural, and secular setting that fostered critical and creative thinking. At the time of our study, EDLA served a total of 1431 students with the support of 161 teachers and teacher assistants, and 19 academic administrators and counselors. Seventy-nine percent of the student population was of Mexican national origin and had Spanish as a native language, while 4 percent were US nationals, and 7 percent held dual citizenship from the U.S. and Mexico. The school designated the remaining 10 percent of the school population as “other”.

As an international school, EDLA is part of a growing transnational movement to create schools and networks of schools, many of which cater to elite, ex-patriot populations, especially in China, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, although there are also examples of networks of private, for-profit schools that serve an emerging middle class.4 We chose EDLA as a research site largely because of the contrast it provided: the school was secular while the U.S. sites were parochial schools, and EDLA was better resourced and its student population wealthier than the school research sites in the U.S. Yet the student populations were similar in age, languages, and cultural backgrounds. Our intent with this contrast was to interrupt customary “polarities of interpretation” (Silverstone, 2007) and to provide opportunities for students to connect across a range of boundaries, including social class. In addition, EDLA had the technological and pedagogical resources needed to sustain a digital exchange between Mexican students and their youthful counterparts in the United States, including access to the Internet. Two U.S.-origin and U.S.-educated teachers at EDLA served as facilitators of the research project and instructors of the Space2Cre8 curriculum that guided students in their creation of digital narratives.

The two U.S. schools were located in the San Francisco Bay Area and belonged to a network of Catholic private schools. Both schools served students who hailed from surrounding under-resourced, low-income communities. Most of the students who attended these schools were children of recent immigrants from Latin America and Asia, with a smaller population of African American students. As ministries of the local archdiocese, both schools had as their mission to educate “the whole child” and aid in both academic and spiritual development. The schools’ technological infrastructure was supported by federal funding awarded competitively through the State of California via a “21st Century Learning Centers” grant. This funding was key in providing access to technological tools, skills, and practices for youth and communities who had been historically marginalized.

A mixed-method approach was used for data collection and analysis.

Quantitative data were collected via an automated history-tracking system

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that recorded each participant’s activity on the social network, Space2Cre8.

Qualitative data consisted of observational field notes of students’ interactions offline as they created digital stories and other digital products; semi-structured interviews conducted by researchers in students’ preferred language (Spanish or English); and student-created and student-uploaded content, such as digital stories, videos, YouTube content, music, and photos.

Data were gathered over the course of three months for nineteen students at each of the American sites and eight students at the site in Mexico. Of the total 46 participants, nine were selected as focal cases for more in-depth investigation by virtue of their notable activity (creation of products/artifacts, chats, etc.) on the network. These students were then interviewed, which allowed us to connect quantitative data on network activity with a content analysis of the digital artifacts and students’ personal reflections and explanations of those artifacts and activities, along with the offline contexts of the production and sharing of those artifacts revealed through observational field notes.

With the results of the automated tracking system, we tabulated the frequency and types of participants’ postings to the digital network—including their digital products and artifacts, commentary on digital products, and their communications with other participants. Observational field notes and interviews were examined through open-ended and focused thematic codings (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Dyson & Genishi, 2005), including strategies that Canagarajah suggests are characteristic of translinguals (2013a; 2013b). Through these analyses we aimed to elucidate the nature of individuals’ and groups’ engagement online; their semiotic, linguistic, and social choices, intentions, and aspirations; and their learning about the technology, communication, themselves, and their peers in other countries. Digital artifacts were analyzed using previously developed multimodal analysis techniques (Hull & Nelson, 2005), focusing on how those products conveyed meaning through different semiotic systems (such as image, sound, and language) and through combinations of multiple modes of meaning-making. In addition, artifacts and texts produced or curated by participants were analyzed, not only as individual artifacts, but as ongoing bodies of work that were offered or performed in relation to each other. This focus added a temporal and relational dimension to analyses—organized by archiving student artifacts mined from activities engaged across the network—and highlighted the emergence of artifacts and the nature of participants’ responsivity to one another. In conjunction with interviews, we examined the content and form of the works produced and curated over time, which revealed how participants articulated their online presence across a range of activities and interactions.

Findings and Discussion Translingual and transmodal orientations recognize that users regard all of the codes and modalities in their repertoires as falling on a continuum that they

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access intentionally as they negotiate meaning. Yet, our study revealed that the deployment and reception of such codes and modalities are not always a smooth transaction, and that types of language and modes continue to dominate in certain spaces. Thus, we have organized our findings and discussion across three specific domains of interaction and self-expression. First, we discuss the use of Spanish and Spanglish in both online and face-to-face communication as codes of private and intimate spaces. We turn next to the use of English in online translingual interactions, looking particularly at how English was performed within and through multimodal artifact production and digital storytelling strategies.

Finally, we discuss the online acts of trolling and spamming as transmodal and trans-presentational, highlighting the subversive dimensions of language and literacy practices while illuminating how the common technical language of social networking interfaces (such as “username”, “loading”, and “error”) informs yet another set of linguistic codes that students negotiate in performing a digital self.

Spanish and Spanglish as Private and Intimate Spanish and the code-meshed Spanglish (Spanish/English) emerged on the network as private languages that were primarily used in chats between users from the same participant sites. These codes were perceived as better suited for friendly and playful exchanges, and if given the choice to interact face-to-face (via video chat), youth would have preferred to use Spanish. However, at no point was Spanish a language of the public space on the network, despite users at both national sites self-identifying as predominantly Spanish/English bilinguals.

Spanglish was legitimized by youth as a preferred language of engagement with friends and loved ones, and was observed to be widely used by our participants in their offline interactions with each other at the U.S. sites. Spanglish allowed for a form communication between bilinguals that leveraged the unique meaningmaking qualities of both English and Spanish relating to ideological and affective associations with language codes.

An analysis of the instances in which Spanish/Spanglish was used, supplemented with data from interviews, suggests participants’ translingual dispositions relating to language awareness and social values, as deployed through the strategies of envoicing and recontextualization (Canagarajah, 2013a, 2013b). To communicate successfully in global contexts, Canagarajah suggests that translinguals need an awareness of language as being open for negotiation, unbounded, and mobile; the social values of an openness to diversity and a strong ethic for collaborating with others; and learning strategies characterized by a willingness to learn from trial and error and adapt to situations. These same dispositions are manifested in the various strategies that translinguals deploy to negotiate meaning and co-construct communicative norms with others.

The first of these strategies is envoicing, where identity and location are encoded in the texts and speech acts that are produced. Through the act of envoicing, translinguals make conscious choices in their use of codes in order to populate an interaction

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with the histories, emotions, and ideologies that are associated with those choices.

Recontextualization is the act of assessing and adjusting the communicative act in order to make it relevant to the context at hand and to maximize intelligibility. The interactional negotiation strategy involves a continuous prompting of the interlocutor for the purposes of co-construction of meaning. Through this practice interlocutors proverbially poke and prod their counterparts in order to activate participation in negotiating the acceptance of the envoiced artifact or text. The strategy of interaction was especially relevant for our analyses of how participants elicited responses from each through the use of language codes and modes to co-construct communication norms.

Our translingual participants used the strategies of envoicing and recontextualization to channel values and attitudes that are typical of Latin@ parenting, specifically as they relate to commanding respect and developing an authoritative stance. In our examples, youth used Spanish and Spanglish to envoice the home and recontextualize these codes to make them relevant to the exchange at hand and signal the interruption of transgressions in online interactions. These strategies were evident in instances where students code-switched to Spanish and used Spanglish (codemeshed English and Spanish) during casual online chats relating to friendships and relationships in participants’ offline lives. Often these exchanges were triadic in nature, where two participants talked about a relationship with a third.

Excerpt 1 offers an exchange between a seventh-grade girl and boy (both U.S. children of Mexican immigrants who were Spanish dominant) during which the light-hearted nature of the exchange was interrupted as soon as Gilberto (Spanish dominant, child of Mexican immigrants) made a comment that Natalie (also Spanish dominant, child of Mexican immigrants) did not appreciate. At that moment she switched to Spanish in order to communicate the seriousness of his transgression and to halt the interaction. This strategic use of envoiced Spanish speaks to an awareness by our translingual participants that certain codes of language carry certain valances in expressing emotions and attitudes (Dewaele, 2010; Koven, 2006). The following are lines of text taken directly from an online chat between Gilberto and Natalie, with code switching indicated in italics and translations/clarifications in parentheses.

Excerpt 1 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Gilberto: Natalie: Gilberto: Natalie: Gilberto: Natalie:

hello hi bby:* hayyy im so sexy hii bby :* u liceleo ugh ya para con eso -.-

(hi baby, kissing emoticon) (hi baby, kissing emoticon) (you like Leo) (stop with that already, aggregated emotion)

In the above example, Natalie tolerated Gilberto’s overtures, chatting in English, only until he associated her romantically with another student, at which time she immediately took him to task in Spanish, telling him to “stop with that already.”

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Another triadic conversation is illustrated in Excerpt 2, but this time Spanish is deployed by a female participant in an effort to enlist another girl in swiftly mediating her interaction with a boy in her class. Here we see seventh-grade U.S. students Julieta (Mexican-born, Spanish dominant) and Amelia (U.S.-born, Spanish dominant) use chat to comment about another student who is being a nuisance to Julieta. Amelia responded using code-switched Spanish, accepting Julieta’s invitation to engage using these codes, despite not knowing exactly who she was: Excerpt 2 7. Julieta: dile a moises que no queiro ser su amiga 8. Amelia: ok ya le digo eres julieta right ????

9. Julieta: si 10. Amelia: oky dokey 11. Julieta: ok

(tell moises that I don’t want to be his friend) (I’ll tell him you’re julieta) (yes)

Most notable about Julieta’s language choice here, as further discussed below, was her decision to use Spanish as the language of first contact and sustained communication with her peers at her own school, as opposed to her use of English to first communicate with students in Mexico. This choice speaks to an assumed intelligibility that sprang from a shared physical space at the school where Spanish and Spanglish were observed to be widely used. It also perhaps indexes a desire to speak with authority by using a code that would get the job done efficiently and unambiguously.

Our interviews with key participants gave us further insight into their particular decisions to use or not use Spanish or Spanglish on the Space2Crea8 site.

Their choices seemed to be pragmatic in some instances and ideological in others.

Elizabeth’s ideas relating to language practices were similar to those of many of her peers at the California sites: “When I speak Spanglish, I talk to my mom, my dad and my brothers and my cousins that live here. And when I talk in Spanish, it’s to my uncles and my family in Mexico. And then when I speak in like just English is to mainly the teachers here” (interview, June 18, 2013).

Spanish and Spanglish were widely reported as being the language of family and friends. These codes were strongly associated with cultural authority, intimacy, respect, and friendship. That is, when deployed in conversation, these codes were envoiced to carry the weight of home. Elizabeth further illuminates a common language choice of most of our participants: “If I had the choice, then I would [use] Spanish. Like some parts in Spanish and other parts in English” (interview, June 18, 2013). Our field notes showed that many of our participants engaged with each other casually in Spanish and Spanglish. Despite these strong associations between intimacy and friendship and the use of Spanish and

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Spanglish—and their ubiquitous use of Spanglish con los friends—our youthful participants in the U.S. and Mexico rarely engaged with their international counterparts in any language other than English. It is safe to assume that this was the case because they were yet to become amigos.

Despite the ubiquitous use of English with their counterparts in other countries, one of our participants, Julieta, used interactional (Canagarajah, 2013a, 2013b) negotiation tactics to convince her new friend in Mexico to switch to Spanish, in an effort to move the conversation into a more intimate space—a gambit that was short-lived. Their chats on the network had, up to that point, been predominantly monolingual in English until Julieta appeared to decide to take the friendship to the next level: Excerpt 3 12. Julieta: 13. Sara: 14. Julieta: 15. Sara: 16. Julieta: 17. Sara: 18. Julieta: 19. Sara: 20. Julieta: 21. Sara: 22. Julieta: 23. Sara: 24. Julieta: 25. Sara: 26. Julieta:

can you write something in spanish oh Hola Como estas?

(Hi How are you?) bien y tu (fine and you) tambien que estas haciendo (me too, what are you doing) oyendo musica (listening to music) que oyes (what you listening to?) estoy oyendo heart attack (I’m listening to) ah sabes esa cancion (you know that song) si y es conoces (yes and it’s are you familiar with) what do you try to say that I know that song and you don’t say sabes only conoces in sentence that (know, familiar with) ohhh yep i like space2cre8

In Excerpt 3, Julieta had used an interactional strategy to encourage Sara to switch to Spanish as part of her effort to build intimacy with her new friend. However, this move was soon thwarted by Sara’s correction of Julieta’s Spanish. Specifically, Sara pointed out that Julieta had incorrectly used the word sabes (to know) instead of the word conoces (be familiar with). In this instance, the unifying force of a shared code suddenly became distancing as Julieta’s Spanish proficiency was called into question. As a result, Julieta returned to English, the language she had been using previously, to continue her exchange with Sara. We are reminded here of the volatility of online communicative negotiations and that translingual transactions are not always successful.

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Moreover, this exchange underscores how power relations come into play in the language choices of youth in online spaces. In this case Sara, a child who was more socio-economically and linguistically secure, felt authorized to close off a cosmopolitan overture that had been offered by Julieta. In effect, Sara’s access to a more standardized register of Spanish, by virtue of her socio-economic status and access to social and cultural capital, was utilized to diminish the authority of Julieta who did not yet have access (or chose not to reveal it) to such a register of the language.

Translingual English Online For both participants in the U.S. and in Mexico, English emerged as the lingua franca of the public spaces of the network. Whereas the chat texts in the analysis above appeared in private spaces of the Space2cre8 website, which we define as visible only to those participating in that space at that moment, the public spaces—such as profile page walls, newsfeeds, and artifact galleries—were visible to the entire Space2Cre8 community. That English dominated in these public spaces compared to the Spanish/Spanglish in the chats was at first surprising to us, given that Spanish was the first language and home language of many students in both Mexico and California. Yet despite these shared linguistic and cultural resources, English was prevalent of public spaces, suggesting how students’ communicative strategies were nested in language ideology, specifically informed by the contexts of school and the privileging of English in all three Space2cre8 sites, both as the academic language and the language of power. However, rather than passively acquiescing online to a static, binaristic pattern of codeswitching, students fluidly negotiated available codes through translinguistic strategies of envoicing, recontextualization, and interaction, populating a diversity of words with specific meanings and communicative intentions.

Our participants in the U.S. expressed little surprise that our Mexican participants possessed English skills, but they were taken aback at how proficient at English the Mexican students were. In our interview with seventh grader Elizabeth, she stated, “I sort of got the idea that they spoke English, but I didn’t think it was gonna be really fluent like how they did have it. I thought it would be like, not that good,” (interview, June 18, 2013). Such assumptions about language proficiency were challenged as soon as the first profile pages and digital narratives from Mexico, all in English, were published on the Space2Cre8 network.

Carmen, a participant from Mexico, created a profile page that was one of the most visited on the site, and a digital narrative that was one of the most watched by participants in the U.S. (See Figure 6.1). Her profile page and her narrative employed English text and oral English, respectively. When asked about her use of English during an interview, Carmen explained, “My parents mostly speak Spanish ‘cuz they lived here most of their lives, but my brothers and I speak English. And me and my friends normally speak English. So I’m pretty used to

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English really”5 (interview, September 10, 2013). She considered Spanish to be her first language, but presented English as her primary language in school and in her daily interactions with her friends. When asked about her decision to produce her digital narrative in English, she said that she did so because she thought it would reach a wider audience, although she was aware that most of the students she would be interacting with on Space2Cre8 spoke Spanish. She added that when engaging in activities online, her default language was English, especially when meeting somebody new.

Carmen viewed English as a necessary language for anyone wanting to be a member of a global community—which she saw herself as. She had traveled to the U.S. several times and had worked on school projects that, she stated, “prepare you for when you’re an adult. It shows you how part of the world works. For example, [Model United Nations] shows you how the government and politics [work]” (interview, September 10, 2013). Carmen was cognizant of the privilege she enjoyed by having access to English, and she further saw her facility with English as an instrument for connecting to the world more widely and being helpful to society. In that respect, she recognized the global power that this code currently has. Her use of English in her narrative had a slightly more nuanced purpose, however.

One way to view Carmen’s online productions and communications is to locate them within the hegemony of Global English and its association with American neo-colonialism. For instance, in Carmen’s digital movie, narrated in English, she named her favorite “youtubers”, or popular amateur video channels on the video sharing site youtube.com, such as Sam Pepper, Joey Graceffa, as

FIGURE 6.1

Compilation of screenshots from Carmen’s digital narrative

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well as her favorite rap and rock musicians bands, such as Eminem and the All American Rejects, all of whom are English-speaking. The exportation of North American and English-speaking entertainment and pop cultural commodities can be understood in one way as a hegemonic force, where to participate in this global youth culture, one must not only speak English, but also be keen to the layers of popular culture references and discursive contexts that shape the meaning of these media. However, positioning Carmen only as a passive consumer here would fail to recognize her as an active producer of media, which was exhibited in her digital story and in her interest in digital photography, where her use of English served as a means for asserting her own voice within global media flows. Her digital story video, once uploaded and shared on her Space2cre8 profile, became part of a continuous parade of shared and produced artifacts composed of sound, including her own voice, as well as image and text, all of whose meanings and significance to her audience and peer network depended on their ongoing curation, and where the performance of this online identity can therefore be understood as a transmodal enterprise of fluid and dynamic participation over time. In this way, her productions and curations were also populated with values that transcended those ascribed to the bounded code of Global English, often perceived as just a colonizing tool, but in Carmen’s case, one that also allowed agency and cultural engagement in her reach toward cross-cultural understanding.

In her digital story, Carmen used images of her school, family, friends, and her favorite activities (See Figure 6.1) to convey a fuller picture of what it means to be a contemporary Mexican. She explained that she wanted to combat commonly held stereotypes about her country: “Well, one of the stereotypes is that we don’t have much money, or there’s no modern economy or technology and like for example where we live, they get surprised when they actually see the truth.” Although she recognized the option of using Spanish, she felt that using English would allow for access to a wider web-based audience. Her translingual and transmodal disposition in relation to English contests ideas relating to the relationship between language and national and cultural identity. In sum, Carmen claimed that her use of English online did not make her any less Mexican, but rather helped a broader audience understand the variety of experiences that exist in her country, despite misconceptions to the contrary.

The use of English served a somewhat different purpose for the translingual practices of a participant at one U.S. site. Unlike Carmen, Julieta did not consider English to be her dominant language. In fact, she noted that Spanish was her first language and maintained that it was the code she was most comfortable using.

She spoke Spanish with all of her family members and had just begun learning English a few months prior to the beginning of our study. Our observations of Julieta in the classroom suggested that she was shy and quiet but quickly making friends. Yet, despite her slight, admitted discomfort about using English, Julieta adopted it as a language of first contact with students in Mexico in an attempt to be hospitable. When asked why she used English when communicating with

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Sara from Mexico, she stated that she used English “because I asked her whatever would be easiest for her.”6 Julieta also used English in the creation of her public profile on the network.

She further revealed that she used English in writing online in ways she would not have been able to do orally or if she were tasked to communicate simultaneously with others online. In effect, Julieta was able to create her profile page (with the username rock_girl) and carefully craft her chats by having the advantage of a space where the pressures of spontaneity were not as present (for example, she used an online dictionary when she found it necessary). Such spaces were, in fact, not unfamiliar to Julieta. She had been a member of moviestarplanet.com, a social network site where users can create personalized avatar celebrities, and it is from this experience that her rock_girl username derived. In an interview she confessed, “I don’t really listen to Rock. I just wanted to use that name” (interview, June 20, 2013). She further explained that this was a username that she generally used for other social networking sites, capitalizing on its coolness factor in spaces where English dominates.

While Julieta’s initial contacts on digital networks were made in English, we found that she translingually meshed this code in order to move a communicative act into a more intimate space (as seen in Excerpt 3). Thus, her desire to use and learn English was qualified not by a desire to portray an online identity (albeit a “cool” persona), but to enhance her initial intelligibility in a space that she recognized to be dominated by that code. As such, Julieta exhibited a keen ability to use existing and developing codes and modalities as part of a repertoire for negotiating communicative intelligibility and developing increased intimacy with new acquaintances online.

Trolling and Spamming as Trans-presentational Practices Trolling and spamming usually signify negative forms of participation in online spaces. To troll is to intentionally take actions that are abusive or disruptive in relation to an online community, while spamming is associated with unwanted advertisements or other bothersome intrusions. As online citizens, we do our best to expose the troll and block the spam. In this section, however, we will put aside the negative connotations of these activities—as serious as we acknowledge them to be in many online contexts (Agatston, Kowalski, Limber, 2007; Juvonen & Gross, 2008; Mishna, Saini, & Solomon, 2009; McQuade, Colt, & Mayer, 2009) — in order to consider their playful, humorous incarnations. Specifically, our work with youth during international exchanges revealed practices that we came to understand, building on our translingual and transmodal orientation, as “transpresentational”. That is, through trolling and spamming, in these more playful instances, participants asserted a presence in online spaces that was both disarming for the unsuspecting interlocutor uncertain of the motivations of the student who was trolling, at the same time that these disruptive strategies facilitated a creative

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engagement with others, demonstrating both a knowledge of cyberculture activities as well as a sense of humor and performative complexity.7 In such acts of subversive, disruptive behavior, students parodied dominant cultural and social self-representations as a means of performing cultural understandings while seeking affirmation from other participants. Thus, instead of viewing these practices as desires to thwart potential interactions with others, we position them (somewhat paradoxically) as invitations to connect. Our notion of trans-presentational therefore works from this paradoxical representational position, wherein the performance of an online presence is both fractured and unfolding, offering representational glimpses into the student’s life that, if perceived only in isolation, inspire confusion and misdirection, but when recognized as an ongoing, parodic project, reveal an active and engaged presence within the online community.

One such instance of trans-presentational strategies was in the selection of usernames. These included names such as “username”, “loading”, and “invalid”, each of which, when revealed on screen, was intended to confuse viewers by referring not to people, but to system processes and user-interface language. When users scroll through a list of usernames that abide by conventional naming practices— such as carlos234, genesis234, wallywest1—and then stumble upon the username “username”, suddenly they pause, wondering if an error has occurred or if the username had not been revealed. This momentary pause in the process of scrolling is enough to achieve the desired affirmation: standing out in a sea of usernames by inciting confusion, and thus being recognized not through the representation of one’s identity, but through a trans-presentation that acts to paradoxically shed the user’s identity while simultaneously to assert it. The username “invalid” works similarly, as in “invalid posted a new video”. Seeing such an ambiguous term appear as an agent commands attention because users do not expect an entity that the system has deemed invalid to be posting materials, and thus, this anomaly draws users into clicking on the name or at the least attending to it.

One U.S. student who chose such a username, “loading”, was clear about why he did so: “to troll people and make them think that the username is loading.” “Loading” (Spanish dominant, son of Mexican immigrants), was one of the highest-performing students in his class, an avid video game player with a satirical sense of humor. His intelligence, fluency in videogame discourses, and humorous disposition are important when considering both his aptitude and cunning in his acts of trolling, as well as his chief motivations for doing so. “Loading’s” strategy in choosing such a screenname assumes that if users believe that the page they have landed on is still loading, then the instinct is to freeze at that spot, waiting for the system to respond. In so doing they will have frozen on “loading’s” particular event (such as a video posting, photo posting, or status update), achieving his ultimate purpose of asserting his presence and gaining recognition of his participation. Asserting such a presence in the public spaces of the online network, such as in the newsfeed where a browsing user can easily scroll past one’s posting without taking notice, requires a creative and strategic positioning not only of

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interesting artifacts, but of one’s own online persona as well, and the selection of these confusing, trolling usernames demonstrates one such effort.

Beyond just this inventive selection of usernames, crafting an intriguing—or in the case of trolling, a confusing or misleading—“About Me” statement can also play an important role in the performance of an online identity and in seeking engagement with others. For “loading,” an effective “About Me” statement meant maintaining his persona as a humorous and playful troll. When a student on the network arrived at “loading’s” “Profile Page” after realizing “loading” was not an action of of the computer but an actual user, she discovered an “about me” section that read, “fried chicken hallelujah/jk fried chicken heaven/im a human.” During an interview, “loading” was asked to explain what his “about me” passage meant, and he was specifically probed with the question, “Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of the troll to admit here that he is human?” “Loading” responded, true to form, “Exactly, I’m trolling them by telling them that I’m a human, but they already know that I’m a human, ‘cuz if I wasn’t a human, how would I be typing that?” Looking more closely at his “About Me” passage, we can see that “loading” seemed to offer a non sequitur about fried chicken, then refuted this statement with “jk” (or “just kidding”), only to repeat the chicken reference, juxtaposed this time to a different though related religious reference, as if he were demonstrating through this performance his human-ness by wavering in his statements about himself (something that a machine lacking in selfawareness cannot do). “Loading” then overtly stated that he is a human as a point of redundancy, both signified through the act of typing itself, but also in the stylistic construction of his “About Me” statement on fried chicken. Although this linguistic play may seem silly on the surface, it becomes quite profound within the context of trolling, and likely has even more meaning and significance within the student’s immediate peer group as a kind of inside joke.

While it has become commonplace to think of online spaces as opportunities for self-representation, we offer the concept of “trans-presentation” to highlight the online tactic of disguise or concealment for the purpose of gaining visibility and inviting participation, a tactic which stands in contrast to overt revelation and explanation of self. In an effort to meld with the functioning of the interface, our participants like “loading”, who engaged in trans-presentation, offered their viewers something to see, but simultaneously forced them to question what they were seeing. In this moment of questioning, they produced engagement not in presence, but in an absence or a gap that slowly became filled in as this engagement led to inquiry, and inquiry to affirmation. In an online context that is an attention economy, where we compete for eyes, our participants recognized that they could not gain this attention (and thereby achieve affirmation) merely by reproducing patterned forms of re-presentation, but instead by subverting and confounding these procedures through trans-presentational means.

Although Julieta’s and “loading’s” pages and creative efforts on the site are markedly different, the strategies they employ in navigating and employing

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semiotic and linguistic resources to generate their online personas share some important characteristics, specifically in relation to the translingual, transmodal, and trans-presentational practices described throughout this chapter. Much like Julieta’s translingual blending of Spanish and English in representing aspects of her interests and family life in digital artifacts and in her direct online communications with distant peers, “loading’s” trans-presentational use of the technical interface language on the site to subversively connect with others while also revealing his affinity for gaming demonstrates how these students move between and across social and cultural contexts at global scales in their efforts to connect with others in articulating an online presence. While the simple presence of his username and biography isn’t sufficient for viewers to acquire deep knowledge of “loading’s” interest in gaming and other online activities, we would argue that, in a way similar to the transmodal qualities of Julieta’s digital video shared alongside the ongoing curation of her page, “loading” is able to weave each artifact and textual communication into an unfolding story, carefully and purposefully maneuvering through a messy and complicated milieu of discursive spaces, as he goes about the process of forging an online identity.

Conclusion This project sought to explore the online communicative practices of transnational youth as a means of questioning doctrinaire conceptions of language and literacy. More particularly, we examined the online and offline activities connected to a digital social network for insights into how emergent Spanish/English translinguals negotiated difference, attempted friendships, and enacted identities through conversations and the creation and circulation of artifacts. Our findings add to an emerging theoretical and empirical literature that emphasizes the juxtaposition, intersection, and blending of languages and other semiotic systems as part of everyday communicative practice, and the always strategic, often agentive, sometimes transgressive stances of young language learners, as they draw upon meaning-making repertories that cross languages, modes, and spaces. Our study paints a picture of youthful language and literacy practice that suggests there is much to appreciate and to build upon in terms of children’s translingual engagement, even as it calls attention to the social, institutional, and ideological challenges of communication across borders, even when linguistic and cultural resources are held in common.

The youthful Latin@s in our study, who shared a Mexican heritage, strategically used registers of Spanish, Spanglish, English and other symbol systems to establish and maintain relationships with peers in their schools and with their international counterparts. Spanish and Spanglish were used in online interactions between youth at the same sites to more effectively and unambiguously communicate transgressions and to assume authoritative stances. Spanish and Spanglish were also reported as languages associated with family, friendship and

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intimacy, and were widely used in offline interactions among youth in the U.S. English emerged as the language of first international contact by both our U.S. and Mexico participants, asserting its power as a perceived global language and as lingua franca of online spaces. The English language, as well as U.S. and British cultural imagery and music, were also dominant in the digital narratives created and shared by our participants, who intentionally employed these codes and modalities to reach a global audience and to communicate a nuanced portrait of national identity.

Carmen’s English narration and the American and English-speaking entertainment and pop cultural commodities in her multimodal productions and curations were populated with values that transcended those ascribed to the bounded code of Global English, and facilitated cultural engagement and cross-cultural understanding. “Loading’s” trolling strategies demonstrated a keen use of ubiquitous online technical language to initially confuse or misdirect users, but to ultimately (and innovatively) reveal and assert an active and engaged presence in an online community. Julieta’s use of English illustrates a youthful participant’s skillful use of a code to initiate and sustain an online friendship, with little to no fluency in said language in her offline practices.

Previous research (e.g., Black 2005; Lam, 2000, 2004, 2009) has signaled that digital spaces can be safe spaces for language learners to enact positive selves that sometimes remain undeveloped or invisible in school-based formal classroom contexts. Our study similarly illustrates such affordances, but also calls attention to how varieties of language use and opportunities for language growth can take place at the confluence of tolerant institutional contexts, designed online spaces, and supportive social groupings. The expansion of Julieta’s linguistic repertoire to include a register of English was made possible by such a confluence. She participated in an after-school program where translingual strategies and dispositions were freely allowed, if not actively fostered. She used an online platform that provided multiple modalities for constructing and sharing written texts and artifacts free of the constraints of time. She interacted with peers who shared access to cultural and linguistic resources that allowed for possibilities of increased intimacy and where variations of Spanish could be accessed for the purposes of scaffolding. In such a context Julieta was able to courageously use English, although it is not the language that she is most comfortable with in the physical space of her classroom.

Throughout our study, we referred to emergent translinguals (building from Garcia’s term, 2009, “emergent bilinguals”) as those who are learning to participate in semiotic “contact zones” (Pratt, 1991; Canagarajah, 2002). With this term we called attention to our youthful Latin@ participants as thoughtful and capable individuals who brought a wealth of prior knowledge and assets to bear in their communicative negotiations. We offer this term as a counter to the deficit associations of labels such as English Language Learner (ELL), which would circumscribe Julieta’s identity as lacking adequate proficiency in spoken English.

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There is greater value, we suggest, in recognizing such a learner’s sophistication in accessing and deploying codes and modes in ways that foster a critical and productive presence in online networks that, while not always recognized or even accepted in more traditional academic contexts, promote communication strategies and skills crucial for thriving as citizens of a 21st-century digital world.

A major purpose of this volume is to broaden conversations about academic language to include perspectives on academic literacies. We argue in parallel that current conceptions of academic literacies should promote and foster for all students the language competencies that position them to converse effectively across distance, time, modality, and culture. We understand the impulse to narrow academic literacies to conventional print-based and argumentative texts, especially where young language learners are concerned, for school success can hang in the balance of demonstrating mastery of conventional forms and genres. Yet these very impulses can inadvertently constrain instruction and limit learning, separating language learners from their semiotic repertoires and their impulses toward meaning making and symbolization. The findings of our study of emergent Latin@ translinguals in the U.S.A and Mexico suggest that these learners require access to varied genres and text types along with opportunities to participate in translingual and transmodal creative practices. These should position them to communicate and learn in a digital and interconnected world, where opportunities grow and challenges abound to create and share textual representations with distant, diverse, and unfamiliar audiences (Corpus Ong, 2009; Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2014; Rizvi, 2009; Werbner, 2008).

However, an attention to new and bigger audiences, along with different and varied tools, genres, and textual forms, only begins to help us adjust to the sea change that now engulfs communication and literacy. We hope this chapter inspires interest in the heightened communicative challenges and literate opportunities brought about by the potential movements across contexts—geographic, social, cultural, linguistic, ideological—of heterogeneous, hybridized, continually evolving texts —lingual, visual, audible, multimodal. We believe that previous work to explicate these hybrid communicative acts using frameworks of multimodality now seem inadequate and insufficient as we observe the semiotic boundaries of discrete codes and modalities being blurred. Through our adoption of the concept of trans in translingual, transmodal, and trans-presentational, we want to embrace the liminal state—that fluid, open, yet still contested space found in between the more bounded and structured linguistic codes—that emerges when youth negotiate meaning and representation in digital spaces as strategies for performing online identities, forging connections, and participating in a global community.

Having confirmed the theoretical power in our project of a translingual framework, we also hope that future empirical studies will extend and amplify it. Canagarajah (2013a, 2013b) helpfully proposed a set of negotiation tactics for translingual communication, including envoicing, recontextualization, and

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interaction. These went some distance toward but did not completely capture the sophisticated and complex ways in which our youth attempted or achieved mutual intelligibility in online spaces. For example, although Julieta wanted to collaborate with her counterpart in Mexico, her attempt to recontextualize Spanish in this interaction was shot down by an interlocutor who had access to a more powerful, standardized register of this code. Thus, while Julieta’s aforementioned use of English demonstrated agency and courage, her ability to use Spanish in the same way was thwarted by a more knowledgeable (and powerful) other. In effect, while the youthful participants on both sides of our exchange had an opportunity to mesh codes and modalities that were at their mutual disposal, their interactions were fraught with relations of power that made them anything but an equitable translingual event. To provide another example, “loading” demonstrated an awareness of how to transform bounded notions of language in his appropriation of the technical language of the network in his online profile, but his activities diverged from the interactional strategy, which has clear mutual intelligibility as a primary goal. Instead, he chose to establish a presence in an online community by disrupting the flow of the network and initially creating confusion.

“Loading’s” digital literacy and agency are characterized by acts of trolling that in effect hacked the expected norms of digital communication in revealing both an advanced understanding of how to garner attention in a networked environment and to use this attention to spark communication with peers and showcase his interests.

In complicating these translingual negotiation tactics, we are reminded of Appadurai’s claim that global flows of texts, codes, and modes, are not smooth circulations, but “global bumps, borders, black holes, and quarks, the diacritics of the new global order” (2013, p.1; 2006). As illustrated above, our notion of “trans” includes bumpy, uneven, and pressured negotiation and maneuvering between discursive online and offline spaces. This is the kind of textual complexity, diversity, and mobility that we believe is part and parcel of “superdiverse” (Vertovec, 2007) contexts. We hope, as researchers heed calls for a “multilingual turn” and a “new norm” for our interactional repertoires (cf. May, 2014; Blommaert, 2010), that attention will be paid to what youthful communicators can teach us about online worlds and how translingual, transmodal, and transpresentational habits of mind and semiotic strategies might inform the academic literacies of tomorrow.

Our findings have implications for reconceiving the academic literacy development of emergent translinguals. Participants’ desires to produce and share video artifacts suggests the power of transmodality in academic settings, not just in terms of increased engagement or interactivity, but also because video artifacts can serve as complex hybrid texts around which students participate in equally complex academic literacy and meaning-making practices. With the prevalence of remixed artifacts, and the determined emergence of translingualism, academic literacy is under pressure to adapt to a hybrid world, one where students have

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opportunities to carefully and critically navigate a complex linguistic and cultural terrain, and where they may draw upon their now customary practices of hybridization and transformation of discourses, including those of the academic variety. The reluctance of the participants in our study to do so publicly might be a symptom of a perceived slighting of alternative or hybridized meaning-making practices in academic contexts.

Although it remains difficult for us to confirm that our participants tactics ultimately succeeded in garnering the kinds of attention and affirmation from the rest of the online community that participants desired and intended, and though we recognize that once the gig is up and the trolls are discovered, their tactics lose their effectiveness, we do find these practices to be intriguing in relation to notions of schooling and academic literacy. In a typical academic context—and from the bounded perspective of academic language—subversive tactics would likely be immediately dismissed or even reprimanded as a kind of refusal to participate appropriately. Yet in this online context, we discovered the practices to be centered around generating more authentic and involved participation. Here, working through fragments and states of between-ness and disruption was actually a highly valued ability to capture attention in an attention-driven context while also providing opportunities for affirmation in highly liquid and fluctuating contexts with distant and unknown audiences. We observe these kinds of skills emerging across 21st-century commercial economies, such as in advertising, marketing, and game/app development, where more subtle and subversive means are required to capture more eyes.

The powerful influence of popular culture and its global reach and students’ critical and informed navigation of this landscape supports its use as a valuable literacy practice to draw upon in the classroom. However, more than just a bridge to academic materials, as it is customarily represented, these literacy practices deserve to be valued in their own right, as students seek out new resources, compete with each other in displaying and sharing valued artifacts, and reveal, at times, a critical awareness of the representations of people and culture within the materials. We believe that supporting this kind of engagement with multimodal texts and popular culture discourses, as well as fostering opportunities for the hybridization of global discourses and languages, can lead to the kinds of dispositions, knowledge production, and literate sensibilities that are vital in 21stcentury learning contexts and a global interconnected world.

Notes 1 Our use of the term Latin@ complements our work in this paper by questioning and complicating binary notions of identity construction. Latin@ blurs the ascribed gendered lines of the Latino/a term and the inherent sexism and heteronormativity of the Latino term.

2 Cf. Block (2014), who argues that research on second language acquisition and multilingulism could helpfully be framed in reference to embodiment and multimodality,

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3 4 5 6 7

rather than only in reference to language. See also Katz, who argues for and illustrates in her edited volume “the increased potential for meaning making in educational contexts where bodily engagement and movement are more conscious parts of the mix” (2013, p. 4).

Pseudonyms are used for all participants and school sites.

See, for example, Gems (www.gemseducation.com); Avenues: The World School located in New York City (www.avenues.org); and the Innova Schools located in Peru (www.innovaschools.edu.pe).

This interview with our Mexican participant was conducted completely in English.

This interview was conducted in Spanish and translated to English.

We note that none of our trolling examples come from female students, and in fact, we observed very little if any such practices on the part of girls.While our focus here is not so much on examining differences in gender across online practices, we believe there is evidence to suggest that girls (for many reasons) may assert their online presence and participate in ways different from boys in reproducing certain gendered norms or categories.

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PART II

Academic Literacy Development Contexts and Practices

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7 BILINGUALISM-AS-PARTICIPATION Examining Adolescents’ Bi(Multi)Lingual Literacies Across Out-of-School and Online Contexts Mariana Pacheco

Academic literacies—in English and students’ home languages—have been constructed as the specific literacy practices and discourses needed for students to participate effectively in schools and classrooms, but this construction has been questioned as overly simplistic (Valdés, 2004; Zamel, 1998). Indeed, English academic literacies for adolescent bilinguals include school-based reading, writing, and oral discourses that vary across diverse content areas, text genres, text-based practices, and multimodal forms of engagement in literacy activity. A growing body of research has expanded oversimplified constructions and documented the heterogeneous literacy practices characteristic of classrooms that serve emergent bilingual students (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 1999; Martinez, Orellana, Pacheco, & Carbone, 2008; Martinez, 2010; Pacheco, 2010a, 2010b; Gutiérrez, Morales, & Martinez, 2009). These studies show that in classrooms serving emergent bilingual students what “counts” as academic literacy is affected by the extent to which students’ home languages are utilized in the classroom, teachers’ beliefs about literacy teaching and learning, accountability policies, and mandated curricula. Further, these studies illustrate that the instantiation of academic literacies in classrooms is coordinated, organized, facilitated, and coconstructed by teachers and students alike and that language practices play a fundamental role in literacy teaching and learning.

Despite the current accountability emphasis on individually accomplished and standardized predetermined academic literacy outcomes, the research presented in this chapter addresses collaborative literacy activities in which bilingual students participate across out-of-school settings and contexts, including school tasks undertaken at home (e.g., homework). It documents the forms of assistance, guidance, and support available across human and material (e.g., online dictionaries) resources that facilitate participation and the participatory process. This research seeks to transform

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deficit-based discourses pertaining to bi(multi)lingual students—also known in schools as English language learners (ELLs)—into asset—and strength-based discourses that recognize these students’ bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires.

Since constructions of literacy related to ELLs have tended to rely on “the default scripts of risk, difference, and deficiency” (Gutiérrez et al., 2009), the purpose of this chapter is to advance discussions about the sociocultural, sociohistorical contexts of literacy practices wherein youths’ bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires are differentially embraced, leveraged, and expanded. While an important body of empirical research has documented bilingual youths’ rich and varied participation across home-community and transnational spaces (for example, González, 2001; Gutiérrez, 2008; Orellana, 2009; Sánchez, 2007; Skilton-Sylvester, 2002; Zentella, 1997, 2005), it has minimally reshaped dominant views of literacy as an individually accomplished and decontextualized process. These views are perhaps most keenly reflected in “top-down” labels that locate academic competencies and incompetencies within individual students (e.g., “below basic”), reproducing an overemphasis in educational policy and practice on changing students rather than changing schooling contexts and structures (Cole, 1998, 2005).

This chapter illuminates a situated view of one focal bilingual adolescent’s participation in out-of-school settings and contexts (e.g., church, teen newspaper, home, and Facebook) and the sociocultural, sociohistorical conditions that enable particular literacy practices. Thus, this ethnographic study employs a bilingualism-as-participation lens that examines “the efforts of individuals, their companions, and the institutions” (Rogoff, 1995, p. 159) in which bi(multi)linguals participate. Rather than examining the extent to which adolescents are or are not bilingual and biliterate, this study analyzes the embedded and situated nature of bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires across out-of-school and online contexts, including, but not limited to, academic literacy tasks and practices (e.g., homework). This lens contributes to discussions about academic literacy an analytic shift away from students’ individually accomplished competencies and abilities to a focus on the mutually constitutive roles of co-participants, policies, cultural communities, and institutions in these contexts. The larger multi-year ethnographic study is ongoing; this chapter focuses on data collected on one student whom I call Sara.1 My analysis illustrates that multiple literacy practices—and Sara’s opportunities to participate in these practices—were enacted in distinct ways. At times, individuals sought to accommodate Sara’s strengths, needs, and development; in other instances, the organization of content-specific tasks failed to provide her with some much-needed assistance and strategies that would help her leverage her cultural, linguistic, and intellectual resources. The purpose of this chapter is to amplify researchers and teacher educators’ perspectives on academic literacies. Rather than provide a narrow focus on the presence or absence of academic literacies per se, it conceptualizes academic literacies as dependent upon a constellation of conditions and circumstances that enable, promote, and extend adolescents’ bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires.

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My hope is that this chapter’s focus on bilingual youths’ participation across settings will help to shift the focus away from their limited or lacking literacy skills and capabilities to a focus on the practices, approaches, and accommodations that peers, adults, cultural communities, and institutions enact to help them thrive.

Academic Literacies: A Sociocultural, Sociohistorical View Academic literacies are situated, dynamic, contextualized, and mutually constituted across the normative tasks and activities that co-participants accomplish in different spaces, including classrooms (Gee, 2004; Gibbons, 2002, 2009; Gutiérrez, 2008; Lave & Wenger, 1991; New London Group, 1996). They are co-constructed with particular individuals, in particular contexts (e.g., classrooms), and through the use of particular tools and artifacts such as textbooks and graphic organizers. As such, they are instantiated, enacted, and negotiated in distinct ways, such that they differ from classroom to classroom even as they might share similar characteristics that “count” socioculturally as academic work in public schools; that is, what “counts” as “academic” is negotiated and accomplished socioculturally as teachers and students engage in the specific types of discourse practices, interactions, forms of thinking, participation structures, and knowledge sharing that are valued in particular spaces.

Academic literacies are not neutral, apolitical, or ahistorical. Rather, they are achieved interactionally as teachers and students make decisions or are guided to use specific social, cultural, and cognitive resources depending on how power is exercised in these spaces. In other words, academic literacies are fundamentally affected by power relations since the specific activities, tasks, practices, and discourses believed to constitute these literacies depends on what individuals make these decisions. The plural form of academic literacies, from a literacy-as-socialpractice perspective, acknowledges that they vary from context to context, as they are situated, dynamic, and fluid as well as multimodal (see Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Knobel, 1999; Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000; Street, 1993). In this view, studies of academic literacies must account for the particular circumstances, individual actions and efforts, power relations, and institutional policies and practices that shape literacy practices in particular contexts.

Accounting for the sociocultural, sociohistorical circumstances that give rise to academic literacies is particularly essential with regard to bilingual adolescents. Academic literacies include the particular set of skills, discourses, and practices that bilingual adolescents—or ELLs—need to acquire and develop in order to succeed in school (August & Shanahan, 2006; Gibbons, 2009; Short, Echevarría, & Richards-Tutor, 2011; Walqui & van Lier, 2010; Valdés, 2004).

The challenges these students experience in mainstream content-area classrooms are usually attributed to their limited academic literacies. Still, various curriculum approaches and programs have sought to address this issue (e.g., Chamot & O’Malley, 1994; Echevarría, Vogt, & Short, 2013). While it is especially

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important to organize rigorous, high-quality programs and practices for bilingual adolescents, it is equally important to acknowledge the cultural, political, historical, and institutional circumstances that affect their opportunities to acquire and develop these literacies. For these adolescents, for example, academic literacies are affected by number of years of formal schooling and by primary language proficiency as well as by broader language and accountability policies and local school tracking practices (Callahan, 2005; Gándara, Rumberger, Maxwell-Jolly, & Callahan, 2003; Gutiérrez et al., 2002; Koelsch, 2006; Pacheco, 2010b; Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). Thus, rather than establishing whether bilingual students possesses academic literacies, highlighting the sociocultural, sociohistorical conditions that enable particular literacy practices accounts for the mutually constitutive roles of the contexts, co-participants, policies, and institutions in which they occur. Such studies can illuminate the extent to which literacies across languages are available for bilingual adolescents’ appropriation.

Learning Across Contexts The conceptualizations informing this study were that literacy teaching and learning are constituted by individuals’ participation across sociocultural contexts that are mediated by tools, artifacts, everyday practices, joint activities, and goals. Drawing on cultural-historical theoretical perspectives, learning and development simultaneously affect and are affected by individuals, including youths and adults, engaged in joint mediated activity (Cole, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978); that is, as youths and adults creatively and meaningfully undertake socioculturally coordinated literacy activities, they help create mutual learning opportunities as they engage collaboratively in problem-solving activity. Zones of proximal development, or the distance between that which learners can accomplish independently and that which they can accomplish with the assistance of others (Vygotsky, 1978), emerge through collaborative engagement in literacy activity across settings and contexts. The construct emphasizes the assistance, or scaffolding (Griffin & Cole, 1984; Gibbons, 2002, 2003, 2009), that co-participants provide. In relation to literacy, the analytical focus shifts from individuals to what those individuals can and do accomplish under specific circumstances and to the sociocultural organization of literacy tools and artifacts among co-learners (Cole & Griffin, 1983; Pacheco & Gutiérrez, 2008).

Further, a full accounting of joint literacy practices attends to the institutional and power relations that affect these practices both inside and outside of school.

Street (2005, p. 11) explains: If we recognize that literacy practices vary with context and that different practices may be appropriate for different kinds of activity, then we must also recognize that these differences are not simply neutral: The relation between communicative practices is also constitutive of power relations.

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These perspectives not only attend to the instantiation of literacy across contexts and settings but also illuminate the individual values, beliefs, and histories that shape these practices. In other words, literacy practices take their form and shape as distinct individuals jointly negotiate their participation in particular settings and institutions.

A Bilingualism-as-Participation Lens Drawing on sociocultural, sociohistorical conceptualizations of learning across contexts, my theorizing of bilingualism-as-participation postulates that bilingual youths’ multiliterate competencies might be better understood through their changing participation in varied literacy tasks and activities across settings and contexts. To capture how individuals construct contexts for bilingual youths, the beliefs about learning that shape these contexts, and the significance of the home and English language in these contexts, I draw on situated conceptualizations of the relationship between participation and learning (Lave, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991, 2001; Rogoff, 1990, 1995; Wenger, 1998). Specifically, the notion of legitimate peripheral participation illuminates the situated, embedded forms of involvement by a range of members of the cultural community and how over time full or relatively expert community members structure learning activities and opportunities for novices. In this view, participation in the cultural community facilitates and advances learning as members increase levels of control, select key opportunities, and ratify access for newcomers. As novices increase their participation, and, hence, their learning, over time, they simultaneously hone skills and gain access to a holistic understanding of the community’s valued practices and outcomes.

An articulation of the role of language in participatory learning is helpful for distinguishing between the teaching of language and the learning of it in and for practice: There is a difference between talking about a practice from outside and talking within it [ . . . ] Legitimate peripheral participation in such linguistic practice is a form of learning, but does not imply that newcomers learn the actual practice the language is supposed to be about.

(Lave & Wenger, 2001, p. 119) Rather than a didactic, transmission-oriented approach to language learning, a specialized lexicon and distinct forms of language use are made available for acquisition and appropriation through repeated and ongoing opportunities to participate in the valued practices of the community. It is important to note that even though deep engagement in talk about a practice affords some learning, it does not necessarily facilitate learning of a valued practice.

Rogoff contributes to these conceptualizations by emphasizing both changing cultural practices and changing cultural communities, as well as by providing tools for analyzing the multilayered forms of assistance, guidance, and support. In her view,

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learning emerges as individuals shift their participation in a cultural community’s valued practices and activities (Rogoff, 1995, 2003; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). The usefulness of this conceptualization is its empirical and analytic focus on “the efforts of individuals, their companions, and the institutions they constitute and build upon to see development as grounded in the specifics and commonalities of these efforts, opportunities, constraints, and changes” (Rogoff, 1995, p. 159). This conceptualization reveals, for analytic purposes, the specific ways in which bi(multi)lingual literacies across social languages, discourses, registers, and genres are socioculturally facilitated, promoted, and advanced within particular communities and with particular peers.

Examining changes in participation over time can illuminate the particular roles and activities that expand bilingual youths’ competencies and repertoires through strategic forms of assistance, guidance, and support enacted in these contexts. This lens provides a unique way to interrogate how literacy activity is accomplished collaboratively and how co-participants help students along the way. As discussed earlier, a bilingualism-as-participation lens shifts the analytic focus away from what bilingual adolescents can and cannot accomplish across languages and instead focuses analyses on their changing participation in literacy activity across languages, in order to investigate the sociocultural, sociohistorical conditions that significantly enable and support it. A focus on what bilingual adolescents accomplish through their bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires, as they participate in different settings and institutions and use appropriate tools over time, deemphasizes the analytic focus on youths’ individual skill, ability, and competence. Thus, the data analyses presented in this chapter are narrowly focused on the coordinated efforts of co-participants and institutions, including the assistance, guidance, and support they provided to facilitate literacy across languages.

Methods The larger ongoing study is being undertaken in Maintown, a midsized Midwestern community with a long-standing Euro-American demographic majority and smaller percentages of Native Americans, Hmong, African Americans, and Latinos.2 Thriving dairy farms and meat-packing industries have recently attracted Latino immigrants and migrant workers, providing a unique opportunity to investigate bilingual and biliterate adolescents’ participation across settings and institutions that are currently experiencing an influx of Spanish speakers. The following research questions guide the study: 1.

2.

How do adolescents employ their bilingualism and biliteracy as they accomplish tasks in English and Spanish across in-school, out-of-school, and online contexts?

What roles do peers, teachers, and other co-members play in the participatory process, including types of assistance, guidance, and support they provide in these roles?

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In this study, I employ ethnographic methods to study bilingualism and biliteracy (studying youths in their classrooms is pending). These methods allow me to study the socioculturally situated nature of bilingual youths’ goal-directed participation and the fluid roles that they and their co-participants enact in and through two languages, as well as their varied dialects, registers, genres, and codes. As an interpretivist qualitative approach, ethnography is suited to the study of bilingualism (and biliteracy) as a socially, culturally, historically, politically, and ideologically produced construct across time and space (Heller, 2009). Thus, consistent with a cultural-historical theoretical perspective, I examine the tensions, contradictions, and conflicts inherent to any collective activity system (Engeström, 1986; Engeström & Sannino, 2010). These problems of practice in an activity system provide a unique opportunity to examine how they are negotiated, resolved, and reconciled across participants.

I have recruited six study participants and collected data on three Latina bilingual adolescents. I have undertaken participant observations of these youths’ participation in routine literacy activities in their homes, in community settings (e.g., church, after-school programs, and extracurricular activities), and online (i.e., Facebook). If the situation permitted, I took field notes to document everyday literacy activities and audio-recorded interactions during home visits, car rides, and free time with youths at extracurricular events. I have also completed informal interviews, collected artifacts (e.g., flyers), copied school-related documents (e.g., review tests), taken photographs, and audio-recorded interviews in students’ home-community spaces to substantiate the nature of everyday literacy activities (Creswell, 2009; Heath & Street, 2008). I also relied on research memoranda to write down preliminary analyses, impressions, and reflections immediately after participant observations, in order to document practices I might not have fully captured or emerging questions and linkages to previous observations (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995; Marshall & Rossman, 1999). Additionally, I created analytic memos throughout the research process, which allowed me to unpack, and make preliminary connections across, observations, interviews, and artifacts.

Inductive data analysis was centered on the collaborative efforts of individuals and co-participants across contexts and how challenges were mediated through particular forms of assistance, guidance, and support, especially as these forms pertained to routine literacy activities (Creswell, 2009; Miles & Huberman, 1994). I utilized theoretically derived coding during multiple readings of field notes, transcripts, Facebook text, and artifacts. Specifically, I identified patterns and regularities related to observable tasks and activities, participation structures, literacy practices, interactions, distributions of roles and responsibilities, and relevant topics and themes that emerged across settings and contexts—and across languages. I coded literacy practices across English and Spanish as well as use of within-language registers, discourses, genres, and dialects (e.g., Spanglish, Chicano Spanish) to enact these practices. I also analyzed code-switching and translanguaging 3 practices that deploy two languages for different purposes, such as displaying a Spanish-language sign but commenting on it in English or

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linking to English-language music videos but commenting on them in Spanish or Spanglish. Major themes and claims were derived from revisiting the research questions, ongoing analyses, and theoretically relevant links across data.

Results This chapter centers on Sara, who was a ninth-grader and former early-exit transitional bilingual education student at the time of data collection. By many criteria, she might be considered successful: she was in mainstream and honors classes, maintained at least a B average, intended to obtain a college degree, and engaged in extracurricular activities (e.g., track). Her case provides an opportunity to examine the long-term schooling experiences of a former ELL student who is English proficient, navigating mainstream content-based courses, and relatively academically successful.

Data analyses revealed that the particular roles, practices, and assistance available across contexts and languages helped constitute Sara’s academic and linguistic competencies and incompetencies, defined here as her ability or inability to complete literacy tasks successfully. In some contexts (e.g., her church), individuals deliberately promoted and accommodated her bilingualism and biliteracy to include her (and her family) as full community members. In other contexts, she found variable opportunities to access the kind of help, assistance, guidance, and support that she needed to undertake valued literacy tasks. The data show that, across contexts and institutions, individuals were variably committed to enhancing her bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoire, as reflected in structured opportunities for assistance, support, and guidance across languages. Finally, interview data reveal that Sara was developing a conscious awareness of her and her peers’ imbalanced and discrepant language, literacy, and schooling experiences.

Bilingualism and Biliteracy at Church One context in which clear accommodations were made for Sara’s and her family’s bilingualism and biliteracy was their church. Although the congregation had historically been English-language dominant, the recent participation of growing numbers of Spanish-speaking families was embraced, as shown by fluid Spanish and English usage among churchgoers, and accommodated through the concurrent translation of normative literacy activities, such as songs and sermons. Greetings in both languages were common (e.g., ¡Buenos dias!). Song translations were projected on a large wall facing the congregation as the different language speakers sang along in their respective languages (a common literacy activity), as shown in this example: When the spirit of the Lord moves in my heart [Si el espíritu de Dios se mueve en mí] I will dance as David danced [Yo danzo como David] (field notes, October 10, 2010)

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Pamphlets, Bibles, announcements, posters, and flyers were available in English and Spanish throughout the church. Thus, both languages were legitimated as valuable by occupying “official” church spaces and by routine usage among church leaders and members alike.

According to the Spanish-speaking Pastor Ramón, these literacy and language practices were organized deliberately, to keep bilingual youths, who preferred English, engaged in religious worship with their parents. If the church offered a Spanish-only service, Pastor Ramón feared, “no van a poner atenció”, (they would not pay attention). The priority of the church leadership was joint worship among youths and their parents, and concurrent translations served this need in the religious community. Moreover, these language practices accommodated joint worship by the growing number of mixed-language couples. The following transcript of a portion of a typical sermon illustrates how concurrent translations were instantiated: Pastor Smith: Pastor Ramón: Pastor Smith: Pastor Ramón: Pastor Smith: Pastor Ramón:

What you created . . .

Señor tu creaste . . .

The heavens and the earth . . .

Los cielos y la tierra . . .

We trust in you, Jesus . . .

Confiamos en ti, Señor Jesús . . . (audio recording, October 10, 2010)

This example illustrates that the discourses and practices specific to this religious community were made available in both languages for all church members.

Analysis further revealed that Sara acquired these discourses in highly contextualized ways; for example, she understood phrases such as “Oh, Dios de justicia y poder”, [“Oh, God of power and rightness”], which differ significantly from those used in home, school, or community discourses. During a participant observation at her church, I was impressed by her understanding of the Spanish-language phrase “Seré ungido con aceite fresco”, [I shall be anointed with fresh oil], given my unfamiliarity with this phrase or with the word ungido [anointed, blessed]. The following exchange revealed the contexts where Sara became familiar with it: MP: Sara: MP: Sara: MP: Sara:

Do you know what the word ungido means?

Yeah, it means kinda like pure. [ . . . ] Where do you see it?

It comes out in the Bible a lot. My mom makes me read the Bible.

In Spanish?

Yes, sometimes we read it together. Sometimes she makes me read it alone. (field notes, October 31, 2010)

This discussion illustrates Sara’s contextualized knowledge of the meaning expressed in the phrase, which connotes purity, rather than centering on the

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decontextualized meaning of the isolated word ungido. Furthermore, her explanation reveals that she encountered the same term in multiple contexts—at home, in the Bible, and at church, which included interactions with her parents, coworshipers, and church peers. This account suggests that she similarly encountered other religious terms, phrases, and expressions across multiple contexts.

Additionally, church sermons were linked to major current events, providing intertextual links between church-specific discourses and everyday news events (Fairclough, 1992). For example, in reference to a recently foiled terrorism plot, the pastors made commentaries such as “Pray that God destroys terrorism,” and when a congregant shared a story about her son surviving an accident with a drunken driver, the pastor remarked, “He was walking with God” (field notes, February 6 and 13, 2011). These practices underscore that Sara’s repertoire of literacies and language was broader than home and school discourses (Gutiérrez, 2008; Hornberger, 2003; Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000; Orellana, 2009; Pacheco, 2009; SkiltonSylvester, 2002). At church, since the leadership intentionally accommodated the increasingly Spanish-speaking congregation, Sara was habitually exposed to literacy practices across languages, which she could acquire and appropriate. In many ways, the church setting was a clear illustration of cultural practices changing within a changing cultural community (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff, 1990, 1995), in which, as these changes occurred, individuals from different language backgrounds took on new roles and responsibilities requiring the development of new literacy practices and strategies (e.g., concurrent translation).

A Community-Based Teen Newspaper Sara also participated at a nonprofit, community-based teen newspaper, referred to in this chapter as the Maintown Gazette, which a group of college graduates started in a Southside Maintown neighborhood in 1992. The Gazette had a circulation of about 22,000 but has recently posted more online content due to budget constraints. During newsroom hours, about 40 middle and high school students wrote about a range of assigned and self-selected topics, depending on the teen journalists’ length of time in the program and their writing proficiency.

Five adults comprised the paid part-time editorial staff and adult volunteers were a regular presence.

According to the Gazette staff, as youths improved their journalism skills and proficiencies over time, they assumed a range of roles and responsibilities. As novices, teen journalists summarized original magazine, encyclopedia, Internet, state and national newspaper, and textbook sources; to a lesser extent, they also wrote book reviews, opinion editorials, and special interest articles about museums, landmarks, historic sites, and local attractions. Novice teen journalists were required to outline their article drafts on paper, whereas later drafts were written, edited, and revised on laptop computers. As the teen journalists honed their skills and proficiencies, they could participate as expert teen journalists who took on denser and

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more complex topics (e.g., biofuels, women’s health) and edited and revised novice teen journalists’ article drafts; if the staff deemed them responsible and highly competent, they could also participate as teen editors. Teen editors undertook leadership roles, assumed most of the editing and revising duties, and wrote about challenging topics (Pacheco, 2012a).

A routine newsroom activity was the writing conference, which could include editorial staff members, teen editors, and/or teen journalists. Typically in dyads, participants worked together for about 20–45 minutes on various writing skills and topics, depending on the teen journalists’ writing proficiency, the difficulty of an original article source, and whether an article was near publication. These conferences provided teen journalists sustained opportunities for assistance, guidance, and support with the task of writing a polished, publishable newspaper article. Also, the intensive process of drafting, editing, and revising was mediated by unrestricted access to human and material resources such as laptops, texts, and co-journalists with varied levels of writing competencies. The newsroom space and distribution of assistance, guidance, and support facilitated collaborative writing such that articles were often jointly accomplished.

The Gazette included a handful of bilingual or trilingual teen journalists, teen editors, and editorial staff members, but newsroom activity was accomplished in English, the language of the newspaper and the article sources. Although journalism in English might have created challenges for Sara and her fellow bi(multi) linguals, a network of assistance, guidance, and support unique to this literacy and writing context was readily available. Sara began at the Gazette as a novice teen journalist. Her significant challenges with English-language writing during more than 2 years of her experience there were mediated by the robustly assistive, guided, and supportive nature of the collaborative writing process, especially the writing conferences.

Table 7.1 represents my analysis of writing conferences between Sara and three editorial staff members. I found these conferences to be responsive, situated, and wide-ranging in their focus, depending on article topics and Sara’s literacy repertoire. The column on the left lists the conference topics, the column in the middle lists the editorial staff members involved, and the column on the right lists the skills and strategies addressed during the conference.

The table illustrates that writing conferences were varied but responsive to Sara’s growing experience as a teen journalist. Depending on the nature of the article (e.g., summary, book review), Sara received assistance with “defogging” ambiguous and cluttered writing, making more effective and strategic word choices, and developing audience awareness when summarizing source content for the Gazette readership. For example, during one writing conference, Elsa, an editorial staff member, focused on effective and succinct leads meant to “hook” the reader into the article. Elsa made edits and revisions to the lead paragraph directly onto the hard copy as Sara observed, making sense of Elsa’s jotting. The following transcript pertains to an article about bats and shows Elsa noting that

146 Mariana Pacheco TABLE 7.1 Writing Conferences

Topic

Staff

Focus

Book review

Denise

Genre: book reviews Journalistic style Parallelism Reading comprehension

Japanese whaling

Stephanie

Bats

Elsa

Jellyfish

Elsa

Underlining Word choice Word choice Audience awareness Leads (or “hooks”) Content: measurement Content: mammals Audience awareness Adding details Defogging Connection to school writing

the lead paragraph should include a clear transition from a general description of how animals use body parts for distinct purposes to a specific focus on how bats use their body parts: Elsa:

Sara: Elsa:

Sara:

You can look at animals, like claws, that can give us clues to how they use those parts of their body. And then I changed this to [reading] “one wellknown bat is” to have a transition, because that kind of clues our reader into the fact that we might be talking about more than one kind of bat.

We don’t really say— Not one, but many animals.

We don’t really tell them that because if we say [reading] “one well-known bat is,” that kind of can clue our reader on the fact that, subtly says, well, we might be talking about more than one kind of bat, right?

That makes sense. (audio recording, November 20, 2008)

In this example, Elsa emphasizes the need for lead paragraphs that clearly articulate the coming article content and presents a writing strategy that transitions the article from being generally about many animals to being about one particular animal—the bat. After revising the introductory sentence to “One well-known bat is . . . ” Elsa explains that highlighting “one well-known bat” indicates the possibility of more bat species being discussed later in the article.

She emphasizes that, rather than straightforward disclosure, this particular strategy “clues our reader” in and “subtly says” that the article will address “more than one kind of bat.”

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During writing conferences, the teaching and learning of writing skills and journalism strategies were addressed, fluidly and dynamically, and in meaningful, responsive ways, to developing teen journalists like Sara, who struggled with English-language writing. Thus, the Gazette was a context that promoted situated literacy learning such that skills, abilities, and strategies were embedded within everyday newsroom literacy practices and discourses. Given the robust levels of assistance, guidance, and support provided, which depended on whether the article was near publication or the complexity of the topic or article source, teen journalists like Sara were not positioned as “at risk” or struggling in the newsroom setting. Unfortunately, a narrow policy focus on discrete skills intended to mitigate academic “risk” and deficiency has narrowed opportunities for ELLs and their teachers to be similarly responsive, supportive, and helpful (Gutiérrez et al., 2002; Olson, 2007; Pacheco, 2010a).

Bilingualism Online Sara also engaged in unique literacy practices online, mostly on Facebook, which was her preferred social-networking site. In order to document her online literacy practices across languages, I examined her Facebook posts, links, updates, comments, tags, and exchanges with her “friends” and “friends of friends” for the duration of seven months. My analysis centered on the joint and interdependent literacy practices that involve varied and distinct forms of writing and expression across languages, codes, and registers (Fought, 2003; Potowski & Rothman, 2011; Valdés & Geoffrion-Vinci, 1998). Literacy activities were sometimes connected in comment chains about particular posts on Sara’s Timeline, which displays a chronological overview of a user’s past and current activity, events, and musings.

She shared major life events, sustained peer relations, commented on ongoing tasks or activities (e.g., homework), posted photos of friends and family, linked to YouTube music videos, emphasized her religious beliefs, and highlighted her hobbies and interests (for example, she often commented on her enjoyment of running and posted photos of women running). Thus, her online content, topics, and discourses were varied.

Also, Sara enacted unique discourses and identities online. For example, she pretended to be a rapper by using her version of a discourse specific to that cultural community, as illustrated by the following short rap that she posted on her Timeline to enact a “rapper” identity: Yooo I’m [Sara], yeah yeah, bored trynna write an essay but I cant (no no.)

So instead imma waste my time trynna rap LOL hahaha snaP! Ayyyyyye!

(Facebook post, February 2, 2012) The discourse markers that index “being/doing” a rapper identity included her use of “Yooo” and “Ayyyyyye” to introduce and conclude her short rap and

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her use of rhyming patterns such as “yeah yeah” and “no no.” She also used creative spelling to emulate this rap discourse—for example, “imma” for “I’m going to” and “trynna” for “trying to”—and the slang term “snaP” with a capital P for emphasis. Given her accurate and inaccurate spellings (e.g., “waste” and “trynna,” respectively) and correct and incorrect punctuation (e.g., commas, exclamation points, capital letters), her use of creative spelling suggests that these discursive choices were deliberate. Thus, Sara not only had access to rap discourses but also could appropriate them to creatively enact a rapper identity, albeit around a topic less pertinent to that identity (i.e., homework).

Sara also engaged in online literacy practices that revealed her appreciation for self-reflection, introspection, and contemplation. For example, she often posted links to YouTube videos of popular and Christian music in Spanish and English (e.g., “Dios te lo debo todo a tí” [“God, I Owe It All to You”]). She often paired these links with song lyrics, as in this excerpt from Elvis Presley’s “My Way”: For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught.

To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels.

(Facebook post, October 9, 2011) Her preference for particular music genres and song lyrics related to living a full, reflective, and honest life exposed her religious dispositions as well as her personal reflections about the types of people whom she valued in their social world. Sara mostly used English to undertake these literacy practices, but she also occasionally used Spanish, Spanglish, and Internet slang in both languages, as well as multimodal resources such as signs, emoticons, images, and music (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). After coding her language practices across Facebook activities (e.g., photo tags, status updates), Table 7.2 highlights some of the language practices that corresponded with different topics and posts, including illustrative examples.

These data show that, across topics, Sara’s bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoire included not only English and Spanish but also distinct registers, discourses, genres, and dialects within these languages. For example, she employed codeswitching in response to a friend’s “I miss you” comment: “A lot more. [: Muchoooooo muchoo mucho [Very much, very much, very much]. ❤” (Facebook post, January 7, 2012). In her response, she used both “A lot more” and “Muchoooooo . . . ”, and employed distinct signs (“[:” and “❤”) to express affection and/or love. Her addition of “-ooooo” reflected enthusiasm. One other example illustrates that Sara and her bilingual friends engaged in bilingual play, though this was a less common practice: she and a friend joked about a “For Lease Navidad [Christmas]” sign in which “for lease” is a play on the Spanish word “feliz”, typically used in the Spanish-language Christmas greeting “Feliz Navidad”.

Analyses reveal that Sara employed several mediational tools (e.g., popular culture, rap discourses, photos, and hyperlinks), as well as varied identities (e.g., a runner, a joker, and a Mexican), in her online literacy practices. Across languages,

Rap

Quotations

Song lyrics (religious)

Spirituality/religion

“My Way”(song): “For what is a man, what has he got?”

“Dios te lo debo todo a tí” (song): “Siempre regreso a mis viejos caminos . . .”

“You get one chance, not three wishes.” – ??

Gracias tía!

Crank that soulja boy!! Haha

“FOR LEASE” Navidad Your right beansz tnx :) A lot more. [: Muchoooooo muchoo mucho. ❤ lol denada Blexi =) Conforming to Facebook society — — Lms for a truth is? (: Back from my run :) SUPPORT VISIBLE CHILDREN Elvis Presley—“My Way” I’m [Sara], yeah yeah, bored trynna write an essay but I cant . . .

Como me faltaban oír esas palabras. :’)

:), :DDD, ❤ “Dios te lo debo todo a tí”

Example

Thank you aunt!

God I owe it all to you: “I always return to my old roads”

I really needed to hear those words

Very, very, very much You’re welcome

Christmas

God I owe it all to you

Translations

Note: All texts in this table are reproduced as written and represented originally on Facebook, including abbreviations, spellings, and hyphens and dash marks.

English language; Spanish language English language; urban discourse

English language; Internet slang; urban discourse English language; Spanish language

English language

Hobbies Link: social action Link: song (YouTube) Schoolwork

Relationships; social life Link: Christian song (YouTube) Joking/teasing Ethnic identity Relationships Social life Timeline post

Sign/Image Spanish language

Code-switching Code-switching; Internet slang

Topic/Post

Language Use

TABLE 7.2 Online Language Practices

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her online literacy repertoire included urban discourses, code-switching and hybrid forms, Internet slang, and signs. Thus, Facebook provided a flexible, coconstructed literacy space that allowed Sara to effectively appropriate the specialized literacy and language practices associated with particular social identities, such as “doing/being” Christian by posting YouTube videos for Christian songs.

Importantly, her “friends” celebrated and sustained these language practices and identities by responding to her comments, cheering her on (e.g., “Have a good run!”), and using signs and symbols to reflect emotions (e.g., excitement).

Together, Sara and her “friends” promoted valued, acceptable, and appropriate ways to participate on Facebook as adolescent girls, which indexed the kinds of people they wanted to be and perhaps esteemed in the social world. These literacy and language practices were distinct from those in other contexts: as discussed earlier, writing at the Gazette was often content-based and undertaken in content-specific discourses within a journalism genre, while literacy and language practices at Sara’s church were more narrowly focused on Christian doctrine. In contrast, Facebook allowed Sara to employ a wider range of literacy skills and competencies and to highlight multiple aspects of her life experience.

Bilingualism at Home I visited Sara’s family home once a week for several months, but overwhelmingly on Sundays, after I accompanied the family to church services. Sara’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez, were Mexican immigrants who moved to the Midwest with Mr. Alvarez’s family to pursue economic opportunities in the early years of their marriage. Sara has one younger brother.

Discussions with Mrs. Alvarez revealed her deep commitment to her children’s Spanish-language maintenance, as she required her children to speak Spanish exclusively at home. She explained that Sara could speak English “todo lo que quiera pero en la casa tiene que hablar español” [all she wants, but she must speak Spanish at home] (field notes, September 25, 2010). Language use at home was distributed across family members and everyday practices, such as reading the Bible in Spanish but cheering for their favorite football team in English. Despite Mrs. Alvarez’s expectations, translating between English and Spanish had become a larger family practice because she and her husband highly valued bilingualism and Spanish-language maintenance. Still, she felt insecure “porque no sé nada de eso de la gramática y los acentos” [because I don’t know anything about grammar and accents] (field notes, September 25, 2010), but insisted on Spanish being spoken in the home because it allowed her to socialize her children in/through “nuestra cultura” [our culture] (field notes, February 6, 2011). Another way in which Mrs. Alvarez sought to maintain the home language and impart cultural and religious values to her children was to coordinate a weekly family Bible discussion. The family members read either aloud or in silence but jointly discussed the Bible in Spanish. Sara referenced these discussions occasionally: for example, as discussed earlier, she attributed her knowledge of the phrase “Seré ungido con aceite fresco” to

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these discussions. Thus, literacy and language practices deliberately undertaken across languages at home were closely linked with embodying particular cultural and religious values and identities. In many ways, these home literacy practices reflect other bi(multi)lingual students’ English and Spanish social worlds, meaning that these students came to understand particular languages, discourses, and specialized vocabulary in/through their participation in highly specific contexts and settings (Moll & Dworin, 1996; Moll, Saez, & Dworin, 2001). By participating in religious activities at home and church, Sara acquired an expansive bi(multi) lingual literacy repertoire that might have helped her make links between homecommunity literacy practices and her schoolwork.

Schoolwork at Home One dominant literacy activity in the home was Sara’s homework because it was labor- and time-intensive. I often collected school artifacts that allowed me to examine Sara’s schooling experiences, ascertain her awareness about academic languages and literacies, and inquire into her ongoing struggles. Her history schoolwork was especially daunting for her. For example, during one participant observation, I helped her with an academic essay in which she was required to demonstrate her knowledge of the Civil War. I was particularly struck by the jottings, notes, and markings that she made on a history review sheet (see the Appendix to this chapter). Document analysis revealed that she applied several problem-solving strategies to make the review sheet comprehensible and to access its content, which demonstrated her appropriation of ways to make sense of inaccessible English-language texts she might have encountered previously in school. Her primary challenges were unfamiliar content-specific phrases, terms, and vocabulary, such as “separation of powers” and “legislative branch,” which have specialized meanings in the context of history content. I discussed this artifact with her to obtain clarifications and to confirm my initial interpretations. She explained that she scanned the history review and underlined unfamiliar phrases, terms, and vocabulary, and that she used Internet resources (e.g., online dictionaries, Wikipedia, Ask.com) to comprehend the history review and similar tasks.

The most common problem-solving strategy Sara used was to underline unknown words and phrases and provide dictionary definitions for them, as illustrated in Figure 7.1:

FIGURE 7.1

Ratify

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As shown in Figure 7.1, she underlined “ratify” and then defined it, in the margin, as “confirm by approval.” However, it was unclear from the document whether she understood the entire phrase (“They ratify treaties and confirm judicial appointments”). Importantly, Sara’s jottings, notes, and markings in this context seemed directed at establishing meaning and making the text comprehensible relative to her bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoire and her history content knowledge. Figure 7.2 reveals this sense making:

FIGURE 7.2

Inferiors

In this example, she underlined “inferiors” and linked a line to the dictionary definition “less powerful opposite of superior.” She also drew a short horizontal line to her phrase “‘on top’ more powerful,” with quotation marks around “on top.” Sara confirmed to me that “‘on top’ more powerful” was her definition of “superior.” Thus, it appeared that she actively engaged her knowledge and available resources to self-monitor her sense making and her comprehension of the elusive history review.

Document analyses showed that she occasionally misapplied strategies. In Figure 7.3 below, she defined the terms “anti-draft” and “riots” separately rather than as the joint phrase “anti-draft riots” in reference to the Civil War draft of 1862:

FIGURE 7.3

Anti-draft riots

Here, she underlined “anti-draft” and drew a line to link it to “not ‘rough draft’—final,” with quotations around “rough draft.” She also underlined “riots” and drew a line to link it to “noisy, violent public.” It appears that she lacked the content or experiential knowledge about wartime drafts and riots to connect “anti” to “draft” or to recognize that the linked adjective-plus-noun phrase “anti-draft riots” described a particular type of social action in the context of the Civil War draft. Thus, although she self-monitored her sense making as she completed schoolwork at home, it seems that she lacked opportunities to confirm her problem-solving estimations and calculations related to academic language and content or to clarify questions and ambiguities.

Bilingualism-as-Participation 153 TABLE 7.3 Comprehension Strategies

Strategy

Example(s)

Dictionary definition Dictionary definition within dictionary definition

Government: “To Guide and make decisions for members” Veto: “authoriton (sic) rejection of a bill & prevent its enactment (→ to make into law)” United States Constitution: “Document that contains the fundamental (basis of) laws” Separation of powers: “division between 3 branches of gov.”

Defining abstract concepts (not words) Defining symbols (texts)

United States Constitution: “Document that contains the fundamental (basis of) laws and principles by which the U.S. is governed” Language meaning Enforce: making Sara: “to make happen?”; Dictionary: “To compel/force observance of” Consensus: Sara: “agreement?”; Dictionary: “majority opinion/general agreement” Inferiors: Dictionary: “less powerful, opposite of superior”; Sara: “‘on top’ more powerful” Linking with symbols Arrows, ovals/circles, lines, flow lines, number sign [#] Test-taking strategies Underlined/boxed key terms (“primary purpose”); noting repeated test items Confirming knowledge Consensus: “agreement?”

Conceptual associations “Senate” + “House of Representatives” = “BOTH LEGISLATIVE BRANCH” Reframing “Anti-slavery citizens” → “Abolitionists” → “Against slavery” Request for assistance “Ask [teacher] if I can have a dictionary” Misapplication of strategy Anti-draft: “not ‘rough draft’—final” Other resources used - Dictionary.com - Google.com - Wikipedia.org - Ask.com - ChaCha.com - Answers.Yahoo.com

I was acutely interested in analyzing how Sara approached and resolved her challenges with schoolwork. Table 7.3 represents my document analysis of Sara’s strategies for accessing and comprehending the history review, including corresponding illustrative examples.

The strategies Sara used and the material resources (i.e., the Internet) that she used to apply them show that for her to participate fully in the history review, or to reap any potential benefits, she developed a variety of approaches and strategies that she nonetheless misapplied at times.

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Sara’s Reflections: “The Words Are Like the Content” Throughout the study, it was clear that Sara was increasingly aware of the fundamental relationships among language, literacy, and learning, as well as the importance of developing problem-solving strategies to achieve academic success. During interviews, Sara expressed some reflections on language, literacy, learning, and schooling. She expressed intense levels of distress about her challenges with English-language academic and content-based tasks, especially when vocabulary was too challenging, as revealed in this interview transcript: Sara: I know these words aren’t gonna go away and I know I’m not just gonna magically understand every single word [ . . . ] I feel like if I just keep working on it, then I’ll know enough to get through.

MP: Are you still struggling with the vocabulary or the content or both?

Sara: Both, cus I think the words are like the content, cus most of the time, when I don’t understand what a word means, it’s because that’s the main part of the whatever I’m reading, and so that’s the content. And I’m like, well, how am I supposed to understand this if I don’t know what the word means? (interview transcript, May 13, 2011) This transcript suggests that, despite Sara’s efforts, learning content through incomprehensible language still seemed elusive because for her “the words are like the content” and English academic language represented a persistent obstacle to content-area learning. As such, it was a salient aspect of her schooling experiences. Her rhetorical question (“how am I supposed to understand this?”) has implications for educators of ELLs since it suggests that even students like Sara, who are relatively successful after transitioning to English-only courses, continue to struggle with academic work.

Sara also acknowledged that schoolwork required tremendous amounts of labor- and time-intensive diligence, dedication, and determination for her, as she felt it did not for other students: Sara:

I reached a breaking point. I thought, no one else has to do this, why do I have to do this? I’m not trying to conform or anything, you know? But it’s like, I’m tired (pause) I failed English and I’m retaking it cus I didn’t do the essays. And I didn’t do the essays cus we had to use big words and I don’t like big words cus I got sick and tired of looking them up. (interview transcript, May 13, 2011)

Her comments reveal a painful awareness and consciousness about her efforts, compared to her perception of her peers’ minimal efforts. She attributed her failure in her English course to her unique, acute obstacles; it is evident that the

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demands of English academic schoolwork were seriously intensifying her sense of distress. (As described earlier, the “big words” in the history review required intensive—and, at times, unsuccessful—efforts for her to access any potential benefits.) Her sense of defeat is a stark reminder of the potential consequences that may result when educators fail to provide needed forms of assistance, guidance, and support.

Discussion Through a bilingualism-as-participation lens, analyses of Sara’s participation across out-of-school and online contexts reveal the situated, sociocultural nature of literacy and the particular circumstances and conditions that accommodated and expanded her bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoire. Across her experiences at church, at the Gazette, on Facebook, and at home, she participated in the following practices: (1) particular discourses across and within languages, (2) tasks and activities in different languages, (3) opportunities to enact and embody distinct identities, and (4) varied roles and responsibilities. Across these experiences, individuals and institutions made different efforts to assist, guide, and support her full participation in the valued practices of the cultural community.

At church, the institution accommodated the increasing number of bilingual/biliterate congregants and instantiated religious discourses across English and Spanish, which created unique opportunities for Sara to appropriate these discourses in this and other contexts. At the Gazette, where activities were conducted in English, teen journalists found varied, accessible, and robust forms of assistance, guidance, and support, which significantly mediated Sara’s challenges with English academic literacies. Facebook, on the other hand, provided numerous opportunities for her to enact varied discourses, including code-switching, Internet slang, and urban discourses, as well as to enact varied identities—from Christian to rapper—across and within languages, and she deployed her diverse social, cultural, and linguistic tools creatively and multimodally in this flexible space. At home, her mother structured Spanish-language maintenance opportunities by coordinating Bible-reading discussions and by requiring Spanish-language usage at home, which allowed her to socialize her children to particular cultural and religious values. In this way, she expanded Sara’s bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoire. Schoolwork that she completed alone at home revealed the all-consuming nature of academic English, particularly since she had few opportunities in this context to resolve her cursory interpretations and emergent content understandings.

Because Sara felt disproportionately burdened by academic work, she had a deepening consciousness about her educational plight and expressed a growing sense of marginalization.

Thus, church members, Facebook friends, and Gazette editorial staff members reconfigured, reorganized, and re-mediated everyday literacy and discursive

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activity (Cole & Griffin, 1983) suggesting that they were committed to her participation as a full and valued community member. This responsiveness required co-participants to routinely contemplate their knowledge of the cultural, linguistic, and intellectual resources that Sara brought to bear in these contexts.

Conclusion and Implications Academic literacy for bilingual adolescents has been described as “double the work” of their native English-speaking peers, since they must simultaneously acquire and develop content-area knowledge and English-language proficiency, including academic English (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). Learning about bilingual youths’ out-of-school and online literacies can enhance opportunities to make innovative, meaningful links to in-school literacies through responsive curriculum approaches. In this regard, this study has meaningful implications for practitioners interested in leveraging and expanding students’ bi/multilingual literacy repertoires.

Sara’s case is not generalizable to all ELLs because this student population is diverse in many respects. Nonetheless, her case increases awareness about the out-of-school literacy lives of bilingual adolescents and illuminates the ample repertoires that they bring to bear in school contexts, which educators tend to overlook in the current high-stakes assessment era. Specifically, researchers have explored ways to leverage bilingual students’ out-of-school translation, Spanglish, and hybrid language practices in home-community spaces in the service of academic literacies (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, Alvarez, & Chiu, 1999; Martinez et al., 2008; Orellana & Reynolds, 2008; Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Meza, 2003; Pacheco, 2009, 2012b). Sara’s case shows that some bilingual adolescents participate in dynamic literacy practices across changing settings and contexts that rely on hybrid, heteroglossic languages.

Practitioners might benefit from deeper knowledge of bilingual adolescents’ participation in out-of-school and online literacy practices to better understand the conditions that support the instantiation of these practices. This knowledge might shift the analytic focus away from discrete academic outcomes toward conceptualizing the classroom as a cultural community (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff, 1994; Rogoff, Matusov, & White, 1996) and re-mediating the social organization of joint literacy activity (Cole & Griffin, 1983) to coordinate students’ full and meaningful participation in the classroom community. To this end, practitioners need to facilitate full participation by making specific discourses, participation structures, learning and language objectives, and strategies for assistance, guidance, and support explicit to students. Further, practitioners can investigate the problem-solving strategies and approaches that students like Sara use with regard to their English academic schoolwork, and use this knowledge to extend students’ repertoires for accessing content-area knowledge. Selfmonitoring seems germane to this approach since research has demonstrated that

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self-assessment can help ensure comprehension of texts, particularly for bilingual students (Jiménez, García, & Pearson, 1995, 1996; Palincsar & Brown, 1984).

Practitioners might also explore opportunities to help students link the practices, strategies, roles and responsibilities, and learning approaches in which they participate across settings, institutions, and contexts to their in-school tasks. It is possible that, like Sara, bilingual adolescents have access to and are beginning to appropriate academic literacy practices in home-community spaces.

Practitioners can deepen their knowledge of these opportunities, even if doing so requires educators to remain open and unbiased about what “counts” as academic literacy. For example, Skilton-Sylvester (2002) documented the ways in which a Cambodian bilingual adolescent who was educationally “at risk” creatively used gestures, theatrics, movements, and other multimodal resources to perform narrative storytelling at home. Similarly, the valuable skills, such as analyzing, comparing, interpreting, inferring, and summarizing, that Sara honed during Bible discussions at home, and perhaps even at church, could be leveraged in school. Her work at the Gazette clearly “count” as academic literacy, but exploring these literacy practices at home and church might present a greater challenge. Finally, learning more about bilingual adolescents’ online literacy practices (e.g., signs, videos), in which they use novel, creative, and innovative languages and discourses can highlight their co-construction of dynamic multimodal spaces. Across languages, these adolescents often use Internet slang, inventive spelling, code-switching and translanguaging practices, and multimodal engagement. Since online contexts provide bilingual adolescents with opportunities to access their full literacy repertoires, practitioners might incorporate content-based blogs, Facebook pages, websites, chatting sessions, and digital stories to expand the multimodal ways in which these adolescents participate in academic literacy across content areas.

Research Implications Knowledge of bilingual adolescents’ out-of-school literacy practices, “if identified by research (particularly ethnographic and multiyear studies), might be used to better engage students in the classroom and bolster [ . . . ] literacy development” (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007, p. 40). Since literacy approaches with regard to bilingual adolescents, and ELLs in particular, are dominated by accountabilitydriven concerns to effectively and efficiently develop these students’ academic English and literacies, research in out-of-school settings must, in my view, substantiate a “literacy as social practice” perspective (Gee, 2004; Gibbons, 2002, 2009; Gutiérrez, 2008; Lave & Wenger, 1991; New London Group, 1996).

Interpretive qualitative research is especially relevant to investigations about the bi(multi)lingual repertoires bilingual youth possess as it enables examinations of the sociocultural, sociohistorical circumstances that enable, support, and facilitate literacy teaching and learning practices. Such research approaches raise issues

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about generalizability to an already diverse student population; however, this research can illuminate how literacy practices and participation in these literacies are coordinated, organized, and re-mediated effectively given the diverse literacy histories, languages, discourses, knowledge, and life experiences that bilingual adolescents embody (Cole, 1998, 2005; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003).

In this vein, I have focused on bilingual adolescents’ participation in literacy activity across settings and institutions, using a bilingualism-as-participation lens.

I hope that this research can substantiate the ways in which this lens might inform curriculum approaches and language programs for ELLs and bilingual students.

Approaches that value and leverage their bi(multi)lingual literacy repertoires might shift discourses from centering on deficits to centering on the specific types of assistance, guidance, and support that educators might coordinate to help them expand their repertoires and achieve their potential.

Notes 1 All names used in this chapter are pseudonyms.

2 “Latino” refers to individuals residing in the U.S. who are of Mexican, Central American, or South American descent.

3 Code-switching refers to ongoing alternation between two or more codes, or languages, at the word, phrase, intersentential, or sentential levels (Peñalosa, 1972; Zentella, 1997).

Translanguaging includes code-switching but goes beyond it by employing bilingual practices deliberately and strategically for social and educational purposes (García, 2009).

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Appendix

FIGURE 7.A1

History review sheet, page 1

FIGURE 7.A2

History review sheet, page 2

FIGURE 7.A3

History review sheet, page 3

8 ACADEMIC LITERACY DEVELOPMENT A Ten-Year Case Study of an Aspiring Writer Cathy Compton-Lilly

Conducting longitudinal research has been a life-changing experience. I am constantly reminded that what we observe and what we experience includes what came before and what will follow. I am also reminded that development over long periods of time, including literacy development, is not just about learning more or being able to engage with more complicated tasks, it is about essential changes in what we do and who we are. Temporality becomes visible as the present is revealed as being inextricably linked to how people view past experiences in relation to their hopes and dreams for the future.

While many of the chapters in this book deal with language and literacy issues related to the teaching of English Language Learners, this chapter focuses on a low-income African American child who is a monolingual English speaker.

This account is important, as academic literacy entails secondary discourses (Gee, 1990/2012) that all children must acquire to participate successfully in school.

Thus, this longitudinal analysis of academic literacy on the part of an Englishspeaking student provides an informative and significant case for the exploration of academic literacy for children who bring multiple languages to school.

In this chapter, I draw on a longitudinal analysis of one student, Peter Horner (a pseudonym), who was one of my former first-grade students. I followed Peter and six of his classmates for ten years as they moved from Grade 1 through Grade 11. In this chapter, I present samples of Peter’s writing from each phase of the longitudinal study and explore his development of academic literacy as he became a skilled writer. I open the chapter by situating this chapter within the volume’s discussion of academic literacy. In particular, I draw on the work of Gee (1990/2012) and Lemke (1995, 2000) to explore academic literacy from a lens that attends to social practices, identities, and relationships. I then briefly present the methodological processes I used to document Peter’s journey. Finally,

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I share samples of Peter’s writing and identify dimensions of emerging academic literacy by moving between Peter’s written artifacts and interview data related to literacy practices, social affiliations, and his identity as a reader and a writer.

Academic Literacy: A Lens on Social Practices, Identities and Relationships As described in Chapter 1 (see Molle, this volume), we take a unique view of academic literacy. In particular, academic literacy, like all forms of literacy, is recognized as situated within lived meaning-making practices that involve reading, writing, listening, speaking as well as a range of other modalities (i.e., image, music, sound). As described in Chapter 1, various lenses have been used to explore academic literacy practices, including the analysis of various language competencies, multimodalities, disciplinary concepts, and social practices, identities, and relationships. While in this chapter I focus on academic reading and writing, I recognize that academic literacy can be developed and expressed through a range of modalities including print, image, words, and sounds.

In this chapter, I focus on the ways Peter, a monolingual English-speaking African American student, developed academic literacy over a 10-year period. I attend specifically to the social practices, identities, and relationships that accompanied Peter’s development of academic literacy.

Primary and Secondary Discourses To explore Peter’s literacy development, I draw on a set of theoretical constructs grounded in New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1990/2012; New London Group, 1996; Street, 1995). Gee uses Discourse with a capital D to refer to particular ways of talking, acting, interacting, and being that involve people that share a particular interest or affinity. Drawing on Gee’s description of Discourse, I argue that academic literacy is an example of what Gee (1990/2012) refers to as a secondary Discourse. Secondary discourse is in contrast to a capital “D” primary Discourse – “distinctive ways of speaking/listening and often, too, writing/reading” (p. 152) that people are apprenticed to early in life. Secondary discourses, including academic forms of literacy, involve later apprenticeship within established groups and institutions that are generally learned through a combination of acquisition and formal learning. While secondary discourses build on ways of being acquired through primary discourses, secondary discourses generally involve relatively formal situations and people beyond intimate friends and family.

Gee (1990/2012) described both primary and secondary Discourses as identity kits that people access to play particular roles in particular contexts. For example, academic forms of reading, writing, speaking, and listening (as well as viewing, interacting, dressing, valuing, etc.) are recognized and interpreted as evidence of being a successful student. As Gee (1992) recognized, Discourses contribute

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to the construction of identities as people interact with others. Affinity spaces in which people choose to participate around common endeavors and interests involve acquisition of and engagement with particular secondary Discourses. As will be evidenced by data later in this chapter, Peter and his friends created various affinity spaces in which being a reader and a writer and engaging with academic Discourses was valued and respected. While at times these affinity spaces were supported by school initiatives and teachers, Peter’s academic literacy was also supported in affinity spaces that extended across peer groups thriving in outof-school spaces and informal school spaces including the school cafeteria and after-school clubs.

Identity Construction and Shared Discourses Identity is a construction that takes place over long periods of time. According to Lemke, “The language others speak to us, from childhood, shapes the attitudes and beliefs that ground how we use all our powers of action” (1995, p. 1). Lemke (2000) recognizes meaning construction as a socially and historically mediated process that draws on existing accounts of the world. Everyday experiences that occur in the present are interpreted through references to available texts, existing discourses, and semiotic formations. Meanings respond to and operate within macros systems, including institutions, organizations, traditions, and conventions.

Thus meanings that are developed in the present are continuously negotiated as they come in contact with historically constructed institutions, practices, and policies. Shared discourses contribute to “persistent habits of speaking and acting” (Lemke, 1995, p. 24) that are characteristic of particular affinity groups and contribute to shared worldviews, beliefs, opinions, and attitudes.

However, these meanings are constantly challenged and negotiated among group members and in relation to outside influences. Negotiations—among the everyday and the institutional, the lived and the historical, the present and the past—are described by Lemke (2000) as involving multiple timescales ranging from far-reaching historical events to our own life stories and ongoing experiences. It is at the intersections of these multiple timescales that meanings are constructed and revised. The longitudinal data presented in this paper invites analysis of the constructions of meaning and self over time. In short, we can examine how Peter draws on meaning grounded in the past and the present as he constructs an identity that includes academic forms of literacy that have been fostered within affinity spaces that support and value academic discourses.

Methodology Peter’s case study provides a lens on the complex social interactions and situations that surround Peter’s experiences with academic literacy across time. The full collective case study included seven cases that explored intersections among

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literacy, school learning, and life as students moved from first grade through high school. The qualitative longitudinal study drew upon four research phases occurring three and four years apart. In the initial phase of the study, I randomly chose ten of my first-grade students to participate in a series of interviews focusing on concepts about reading; the initial study was planned as a one-year study.

This research involved periodic restudy (Saldaña, 2003) of the same group of children and their parents at three- and four-year intervals over a ten-year period. The families participated in the study when the children were in Grades 1, 4–5, 7–8, and 10–11. In first grade, the students attended a large urban school (Rosa Parks Elementary School)1 where 97% of the students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. This school served children from the lowest socioeconomic population of a mid-sized northeastern city referred to as Cityville which had the eleventh highest child poverty rate in the nation. The school was on the state’s list of “schools in need of improvement” and would be taken over by the state if test scores did not improve during the initial research year. Four years later, consistent with the high mobility rate in this district, many of the case study students had left Rosa Parks Elementary School to attend other schools in the district.

The initial phase of the study involved a range of data sources including four interviews with children and parents, fieldnotes containing my reflections and classroom observations, student portfolios and classroom assessments, and audiotaped class discussions, all collected when the students were in first grade. In Phases 2 and 3, I conducted two interviews with students and parents, administered reading assessments, and collected writing samples. All interviews were collected in Peter’s home. During Grades 1, 5 and 8, I interviewed Peter and his mother (Mrs. Horner) at his mother’s apartment. In Grade 11, I interviewed Peter and his grandmother at his grandmother’s home. Table 8.1 shows the research phases, participants, data, and analysis.

During the final phase of the project, writing samples and reading assessments were collected and I observed students in their high school classes, interviewed their English language arts teachers, and invited the students to create a set of reflective texts (e.g., photographs, journal entries, drawings, audiorecordings).

In order to explore Peter’s development of academic literacy, in this paper, I draw primarily on data sets that invited Peter, his mother, and his grandmother to reflect on his development as a reader and a writer. These data sets include interviews and Peter’s own writing.

Analysis of Longitudinal Data Once audiotapes were transcribed, data from each phase of the study was coded to identify salient categories of information. During the first and third phases, data was coded into categories and contrastive analysis methods were used to organize these categories across cases. During the second and final phase, data were coded separately for each family and case summaries were crafted. I then looked across

170 Cathy Compton-Lilly TABLE 8.1 Research phases, participants, data and analysis

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Grade 1

4 parent interviews Coding across 4 student interviews studies Ten families Fieldnotes Portfolio/classroom assessments Classroom discussions Grades 4/5 2 parent interviews Case study 2 student interviews development Nine original families Reading assessments One new family Writing samples Grades 7/8 2 parent interviews Coding across 2 student interviews studies Eight original families Reading assessments Plus one family added in Writing samples grades 4/5 Grades 8-11 3 parent interviews Case study 3 student interviews development Seven original families Reading assessments Plus one family added in Writing samples grades 4/5 School observations Interviews with teachers Optional writing, photos, audiotapes journals, and/or drawings

the cases to identify inter-case patterns and larger categories of data. As data was coded from each phase of the study, a chart was created to link similar themes across various phases of the research project.

In addition to the themes identified through the coding of data at each phase of the project, I eventually conducted a longitudinal analysis across the four phases of the research to identify repeated themes, stories, and patterns. For example, references to Peter’s being a “good student” recurred during all four phases of the project. Likewise, stories that presented reading and writing as social activities also recurred. This longitudinal analysis allowed me to consider not only accounts offered at a particular point in time, but also repeated accounts that developed across time as Peter acquired the dispositions, identity, and practices associated with being a writer.

To analyze the changes I witnessed in Peter’s writing, I placed the writing samples I had collected in chronological order. I noted not only changes in his writing abilities and literacy practices, but also examined data (e.g., interviews with Peter, interviews with Peter’s mother and grandmother) that revealed his growing interest in and commitment to writing. Lemke’s construct of timescales (2000) provided tools for highlighting the ways the meanings and identities were constructed, developed, and revisited across time. In particular, ongoing events

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were made sense of in relation to things that had transpired at earlier points in time as well as historically constructed understandings of what it meant to be a writer.

Discussion My Interest in Peter’s Academic Literacy Development Like Peter, I am a monolingual reader and writer. I am also a White, currently middle-class woman whose development as a writer differed in many ways from Peter’s. I did not consider myself to be a writer until I encountered graduate school when my own experiences as a teacher led me to believe that I had things to write about.

In particular, I have been concerned with the literate trajectories of the lowincome, primarily African American students whom I taught in severely underfunded schools and communities. My concern is about equity for students who are clearly capable, yet historically underserved in schools across the U.S. Like Peter, I grew up at the poverty line. Thus my own story of drawing of academic resources to move beyond poverty draws me to Peter’s story in the hope that within his story of academic success we can learn significant lessons to serve other children.

Introducing Peter I remember Peter as a polite and kind young man who was well liked by the other children and easy to teach. He learned quickly and brought a sincere joy of learning to the classroom. Based on his mother’s reports, and later his grandmother’s reports, good behavior and a positive attitude characterized Peter’s school trajectory.

For the first five months that Peter was in my first-grade class, his family lived in a subsidized apartment complex that supported single mothers who were working to get their lives on track. Mothers and their children lived in the facility for up to one year while they found employment, became independent of welfare, and secured their own apartments. Although Peter’s mother appreciated the program and its amenities, she left the complex in February to get her own apartment, stating “It’s not for everybody and I just think that [its] for the type of people that need instruction.” Ms. Horner had a regular job working in customer service for the local telephone company. While her job did not pay much, it was a regular income and her family no longer relied on support from social services.

On one of my early visits to his home, Peter shared his growing collection of children’s books. His mother proudly noted that he had over a hundred books.

Peter reported that he read books and the words on the boxes of his video games.

In first grade, Peter noted that the older kids at daycare helped him with reading:

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“Sometimes when I have homework, when I don’t know what the word says, they help me out.” Across the ten-year study, Peter consistently associated reading and writing with friendship.

Writing and Academic Literacy Development: Peter’s Story In this section I present Peter’s writing over time and explore his development of academic literacy. I offer writing samples from each phase of the project.

Grade 1: The Beginnings of Academic Literacy First grade is a time of immense growth for most students. This was true of Peter.

To illustrate Peter’s growth during Grade 1, I present two writing samples—one from the fall of first grade and the other from late in the school year.

In the fall of first grade, I read the children a question/answer book in which the author asked a question on one page and answered it on the next. The children were asked to create their own question and answer books about a topic of their choice. Peter was the only child in the class who wrote a riddle book. He opened with a classic riddle about a chicken and then created his own variation.

Figure 8.1 shows Peter’s writing sample.

The text of Peter’s sample is as follows: Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side?

How does a chicken lay a egg?

When he poops there is his egg.

Clearly Peter has not yet mastered the discourses associated with academic literacy; his vocabulary consists of common words familiar to most young children in U.S. schools. In addition, “poops” is a word that is rarely used in the classroom and almost never encountered in children’s literature. While he captured the question/answer format, Peter had not yet mastered the genre of riddle. His riddle described how he believed chickens laid eggs rather than presenting an ironic or humorous response.

FIGURE 8.1

Grade 1 Riddle

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FIGURE 8.2

Grade 1 A Dog Named Wishbone

By June, some discourses associated with academic literacy began to appear in Peter’s writing. Figure 8.2 shows Peter’s writing sample.

His story can be read as: A dog named wishbone! He loved to use his imagination. On fieldtrip[s] too. At school, he is great! Good! He goes over [to] her. The brown dog [is] good! He woo[ul]d not fight. He walk over there. Her boyfriend came.

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While not formatted at the top of the page, Peter’s story opens with his title: A Dog Named Wishbone! His account suggests a narrative structure despite the details being muddled. The reader can infer that Wishbone is a good dog that meets a female dog who has a boyfriend. While a conflict was set up, this conflict was avoided and the dogs did not fight. Several ideas are presented in the story, but never developed or linked to the narrative. For example, we never learn how the fieldtrip is connected to the ensuing events, discover the identity of the brown dog, or learn the significance of Wishbone having an imagination. While a narrative is suggested, the plot is unclear and details are missing. Peter does use a notable word—“imagination”; however, his language tends to be closer to spoken language than written language (e.g., “He walk over there” rather than “He walked over to the Brown Dog”). His omission of the words “to” and “is” suggest that he may be recoding abbreviated oral language statements rather than capturing syntactical patterns associated with written language and academic literacy.

However, something else was occurring with Peter. As I maintain throughout this chapter, academic literacy is about more than meeting school standards for speaking and/or writing. Acquiring academic literate discourses requires that students claim identities as being the sort of people who speak and write in ways consistent with expectations for people considered academic. For Peter, this became evident when I considered his written words in conjunction with other data collected during Grade 1. Themes related to behavior and being good occurred not only in his story of Wishbone, but were echoed in my field notes when I wrote about Peter and in my interviews with mother. One of my first field note entries about Peter included the following: “[Peter] often brings books from home to share with the class at independent reading time. Peter loves to please. He works hard and is very focused.” Comments like these were common. Peter himself echoed these messages about being good in school when he recounted his experiences with playing school with his cousins saying he taught his cousins school rules including Don’t fight and No running in the hallways.”

Peter’s mother noted that he “gets such a joy from going to school. He loves his teachers and his classmates.” While Peter never described himself as a writer when he was in first grade, his dedication to being a good student was clearly apparent and, I argue, contributed to emerging identity as the type of person who could become a writer.

Grade 5: Writing a Story By fifth grade, Peter was able to craft a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, as well as a clear conflict and resolution.

Peter’s story of the “Bad Music Note” (presented in Figure 8.3) again highlighted being good in school. By this time, Peter had learned to use written language to craft a fully formed story. Even though the paper I provided did not

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FIGURE 8.3

Grade 5 The Bad Music Note

provide space for a title, Peter inserted a title into the top margin. His writing demonstrated control over several structural elements associated with the academic literacy. Peter used a conventional story opening, “One day . . . ” to begin his paper and the ideas in his story were linked through connecting clauses (e.g., “when we were practicing,” “on the way back,” “on the next day”). Attention to vocabulary and word choice was evident in his revising the word “chorus” to “choir” and in the variety of words he used to convey a similar idea (e.g., “laugh,” “giggle,” “laughter”). Metaphoric language is evident in his use of the phrase “I slipped a note out of my mouth.” Finally, the story climaxed and ended dramatically when the principal entered the room. Peter had crafted a thoughtful and literary ending to his story.

This display of academic literacy is echoed in interview data. Peter’s mother continued to describe Peter as a successful student. In fifth grade, she reported, “He’s been doing great. He really has. Peter, his lowest grade is a B+.” These accounts resonate with those voiced earlier. Peter was consistently recognized as a good student across time as the past aligned with emerging accounts in the present. It is across these timescales that Peter’s identity as a good student and ultimately a skilled writer were constructed, refined, and eventually sedimented.

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Peter spoke enthusiastically about the writing activities he did at school. He particularly enjoyed working with classmates on writing projects. “Well sometimes we have to do like a book report or something, gather up together and we do a report on a book that we all agree on.” Peter reported that the best thing he had ever done in school was to help his friends; “They are really important to me.” Friendships related to reading and writing were reported at both home and school. In particular, affinity spaces related to literacy were reported as Peter shared books with peers who shared his reading interests. Peter enjoyed reading horror and mystery books and named R. L. Stein as his favorite author. He regularly exchanged Goosebumps books (Stine, 1992–1997) with his friends and reported that he had read at least four books from the series. Peter excitedly recounted to me the plot of a book he had recently finished. As I prepared to leave that evening, Peter asked me to wait while he ran upstairs and returned with his book; he offered it to me, saying that I really should read it; Peter invited me to join his fellowship of Goosebumps fans.

In fifth grade, Ms. Horner reported that Peter and his younger brother had gone “Pokémon crazy”; they read the magazines that accompanied the collectable cards and video games. Ms. Horner noted that Peter “loves to read” and reported that he often read to his younger brother and baby sister. She added “He’s into writing stories also. He has a pretty good imagination his stories are quite interesting.”

Despite his developing interests in reading and writing, when he was in fifth grade, Peter was not planning to be a writer. He aspired to be a scientist, saying, “that’s why I want to go to college.” His younger brother, who was sitting nearby, interjected that unlike Peter, he wanted to write books when he grew up.

Grade 8: Complicating Factors In eighth grade, I nearly lost Peter from the longitudinal sample. When I attempted to contact the family, I discovered that Peter had transferred out of the school district and there was no record of his destination. It was late in the school year that I located the family thanks to a lucky “run-in” with Ms. Horner.

Ms. Horner and her family had moved to New York City to join her new husband but had returned when the marriage did not work out. Peter had hated New York and surprised me by reporting that “when I was down in [New York] I wasn’t doing too good [in school].”

It was not until my second interview with Peter during the summer after eighth grade that he spoke about his experiences in New York City. Peter explained: I stayed home from school and things cause it was like a little bit too dangerous out there for me. I got into a lot of fights down there . . . like, they would just come across the street and just start with you. At [Cityville], I never fought.

The school Peter was attending in New York was a magnet school that specialized in math, science, and the performing arts but it was located in a difficult

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neighborhood. Peter stopped attending school rather than trying to make his way to school. It was a devastating year for Peter. When he returned to his own school in Cityville, Peter’s promotion to ninth grade was uncertain. His mother was relieved that he was again attending school but struggled to make sense of Peter’s experiences while he was in New York, “Here he was always doing wonderfully in school. You know, A’s and B’s. Occasionally he received a C. But just always on the honor roll.” She commented that over the years Peter’s teachers have consistently been pleased, “then he comes to New York and (slight pause) unfortunately everything went just downhill.” Peter’s identity as a good student was disrupted, leaving both Peter and his mother struggling to make sense of this change.

Significantly, Peter actively worked to reclaim the affinity spaces that supported him as a student and with academic literacy. In fact, he purposely moved in with his biological father and later his grandmother in order to reside within the attendance boundaries of his former school. Both times I asked Peter to write, he wrote about returning to his school in Cityville.

Figure 8.4 shows what Peter wrote. In this sample, as in the other one, Peter describes his excitement in returning to his former school, his strong alliances with friends, and the affiliation he had with his school. While a powerful emotional account of Peter’s feelings and generally correct in terms of mechanics, this writing sample features relatively simple sentence patterns and common, everyday vocabulary. In terms of academic literacy, these samples are not rich. If this had been a oneyear study and these writing samples were the only ones I had collected, I would have described Peter as a struggling eighth-grade writer. However when viewed within the trajectory of his writing over time, especially in relation to the writing

FIGURE 8.4

Grade 8 Coming Back

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Peter would produce in high school, it is clear that my assessment of Peter would have been flawed if I had relied on only these two samples.

While these samples do not illustrate Peter’s accomplishments with academic literacy, they do highlight how Peter positioned himself as a writer. Peter used writing for a particular purpose—telling his story and articulating his close relationships with his school and his peers. Once again, literacy—in this case writing—is linked to the social relationships he shared with his friends and his identity as a person who used writing for personally significant purposes.

Interestingly, while Peter’s actual writing samples did not convey his writing abilities, during this time Peter displayed an increasing commitment to becoming and being a writer. At his magnet school in New York City, Peter was required to write every day. He proudly explained that writing essays no longer intimidated him. In addition, Peter spoke enthusiastically about his English language arts teacher.

This teacher I especially liked was Miss. Dillie. She was like, she let you be free to express your feelings and things like that . . . Before I left, she said I was her best student in class. She told me I could be a writer with all the stuff I would be coming up with.

This was the first time Peter claimed an identity as a writer. As becomes apparent in high school, Peter eventually planned for a future that included becoming a professional writer.

Grade 11: Becoming a Writer Peter’s writing in high school was impressive. First, I present a writing sample that Peter produced when I asked him to write about school. Then I share a poem that he wrote outside of school.

In the sample in Figure 8.5, we clearly observe Peter adopting academic literacy Discourses. He uses words and phrases characteristic of academic texts (e.g., “graphic novel,” “main character,” “loneliness,” “intrigues,” and “compel[l]s”).

In addition, the syntactical structures he uses are clearly literary (e.g., “Currently in English class . . . ” “which compel[l]s me to keep reading”). Peter has made word choices that reflected an academic context as he wrote about characters fulfilling “sexual needs” and people who “fell ill”—using the language of literature rather than vernacular language typical of his high school peers. Finally, Peter positioned himself as a reader who had the expertise required to analyze this text. He noted that he was “comfortable with everything” in the novel and situated himself as a reader who had the expertise necessary for assessing the novel as intriguing and compelling.

At this time, Peter was also writing significant amounts of poetry. While he shared several examples with me during the high school interviews, I present only one, in Figure 8.6:

FIGURE 8.5

Grade 11 The Color Purple

FIGURE 8.6

Grade 11 Not a Poet

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Ironically, in this account of not being a poet, Peter situated himself as a writer of “sad paragraphs to remember”—using poetic language to describe himself. In this example, Peter used academic Discourses specific to poetry (e.g., “Artist of Words,” “the romantic soul that I am,” “sad paragraphs to remember”). He repeated lines (“I’m not a poet,” “sad paragraphs to remember”) to structure his writing. Once again, he claimed expertise as a writer—this time as a poet using the words “I know what to use, when to use it, and where, why” while claiming to be an “Artist of Words.”

This identity as a poet and as a literary person is also evident in the conversations I had with Peter when he was in high school. On one occasion, Peter’s grandmother was not present during our interview. One of Peter’s classmates was visiting and observed our conversation about reading and writing. Reading and writing were presented as central to their friendship as Peter described writing as a common practice among his friends: Peter: CCL: Peter: CCL: Peter:

[At my school], you’d be surprised how many people you find writing stories or writing poetry.

Yeah? And what kind of stories? Do you know anything about the stories and poetry your friends write?

Mmm, some mystery or ghost stories, I mean they write all kinds of things.

So about how many of your friends do you think do things like that? Do a lot of writing?

Let’s see, one in this room (Peter looks directly at his friend) and me on this side of the table and [we] just catch up on our stories and things . . .

And all the kids they got a lot of stories but they interested in art and stuff.

They read all the time.

Peter indicated that he and his friend often wrote and shared their stories during their lunch period at school. Peter’s friend then described the book he was writing. I asked him if he planned to publish the book and the three of us entered into an extended conversation about publishers and the review process. Similar to trading Goosebumps books with friends in Grade 5, reading and writing were valued practices within the affinity spaces Peter shared with his friends (see Pacheco, this volume). The development of academic literacy was a longitudinal construction that entailed multiple timescales as reports of the past resonated with those in the present.

As in New York, some of his teachers in Cityville recognized Peter’s writing abilities. In tenth grade, Peter had participated in a school-sponsored poetry contest. While Peter did not win the contest, he received encouraging feedback from his teacher My English teacher, she said that she was one of the judges and she said that I would have won . . . it has to do with something and the judges and the students. She said something stupid [happened] but all three of mine [my poems] would have won.

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At the end of the year, Peter was presented with a writing award from this English teacher. His grandmother interjected saying that only two writing awards were presented—one went to Peter and the other to Peter’s girlfriend—again a marker of literate affinity. During his senior year, Peter spoke on multiple occasions about pursuing a degree in journalism at Columbia University. Timescales of the past and the present and Peter’s ensuing identity as a writer are propelled into possibilities for the future.

Conclusions My hope is that telling Peter’s story has three effects on scholarly conversations about academic literacy. First, I believe that Peter’s story demonstrates that the acquisition of academic literacy is not merely about mastering vocabulary or a set of academic conventions related to syntax and genre. Acquiring academic literacy requires that children engage with and accept academic Discourses related to literacy; in order for this to happen, their voices must be heard, and their strengths recognized (see also Escamilla, this volume). As Gee (1990/2012) and others (Hyland, 2002; Ivanič, 1998) argue, acquiring particular ways of talking and writing are always caught up with identity, representations of self, and affiliations with other people. Peter began with a commitment to being a good student and discovered reading and writing as a means to enact that identity. He eventually claimed the identity of a writer and set his goals for college accordingly. While the examples presented in this chapter feature reading and writing, Peter also spoke of literate practices associated with film, drawing, and video games. My exploration of Peter’s practices does not dismiss the power and potential of these other literate forms and I believe that exploration of students’ uses and learning through and with other modalities is the basis for important future research (see also Hull, Lizárraga, Roche, & Scott, this volume).

Next, we must remember that being literate and developing academic literacy is intricately intertwined with long histories of schooling and expectations for school success. Academic literacy involves reading and writing in particular ways that relate to mechanics, accuracy, voice, appropriate inferences, and the development of viable arguments. These expectations have developed over long periods of time and are historically embedded with conceptions of both school success and the trapping of a literate person. Thus historical timescales intersect in powerful ways with students’ pasts and their ongoing experiences as their literacy practices and performances are judged in relation to accepted criteria related to academic literacy.

Finally, I argue for longitudinal qualitative research that tracks children over time documenting the changes that occur as children become successful and less successful students, readers, and writers. While we can easily set goals for what kids should and could be able to do and the literacy skills they should be able to demonstrate, we know little about how these skills and practices develop over time. How does the academic literacy used by students change and develop as

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they move through school? What changes and how is identity involved? How does being bilingual affect the development of academic literacies? When and why do some children falter or excel? How might teachers build on out-ofschool interests and the affinity spaces of students? Clearly there is a need for longitudinal research that attends to academic literacy across time (see also Escamilla, this volume). Without a clear sense of what changes and how things change, we are left to conjecture and too often make assumptions about literacy development. Documenting long-term processes is difficult, time consuming, and challenging work, but it has the potential to make a difference for children, particularly children who bring linguistic diversity to classrooms.

As illustrated in chapters throughout his volume, academic literacies are not stand-alone skills that can be developed through drill and practice. They are fluid, messy, and lived ways of being that are intricately connected to identities that have been constructed over long periods of time. Peter’s story highlights connections between literacy practices, social affiliations, and identity and reminds educators of the need to recognize the ways academic literacy is grounded in the past while evolving in the present and developing in institutions that carry historically constructed assumptions and expectations.

Note 1 Pseudonyms are used for all people and places presented in this chapter.

References Gee, J. P. (1992). The social mind: Language, ideology and social practice. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

Gee, J. P. (1990/2012). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideologies in discourses (4th ed.).

London: Falmer Press.

Hyland, K. (2002). Authority and invisibility: Authorial identity in academic writing.

Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1091–1112.

Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Lemke, J. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(4), 273–290.

Lemke, J. (1995). Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics. New York: Taylor & Francis.

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures.

Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.

Saldaña, J. (2003). Longitudinal qualitive research: Analyzing change through time. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Stine, R. L. (1992–1997). The Goosebumps series. New York: Scholastic Press.

Street, B. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography, and education. New York: Longman.

9 INQUIRE TO ACQUIRE A Discourse Analysis of Bilingual Students’ Development of Science Literacy Laura Wright

Drawing upon data from a video ethnographic project in a diverse middle school science classroom, this analysis examines the academic literacy practices of two emergent bilingual Latina students in Grade 8. Previous research on students’ achievement from this video ethnographic project indicated that the science curriculum helped all students perform better, except students designated as current or former ESOL (see Lynch, Kuipers, Pyke, & Szesze, 2005). However, it is not completely clear how or why this subgroup of students did not do as well.

I take a multimodal view of academic literacy development, tracing the actions and interactions in which these two students engaged to develop science literacy in particular. I suggest that these two students may have struggled with some transformative multimodal processes, leading them to have difficulty representing their knowledge in valued ways on their end-of-unit tests. This may provide insight into the performance of other bilingual/emergent bilingual students who used this science curriculum with less success than others. Viewing academic literacy development as a multimodal social practice gives prominence to the kinds of sign systems with which students are expected to work and master, and, in turn, may provide insight into how bilingual and emergent bilingual students may be better supported in science settings.

Background Literacy has long been viewed as a gateway to academic success. However, within the field of language and education, definitions of literacy are often divergent and competing (see Scribner, 1988, for a discussion of groups that have attempted to define literacy within recent history). Perhaps the most widespread perspective has been what Street (1984) calls the autonomous orientation (see also Wiley, 2005). The autonomous orientation has been typified by research focusing on

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mental aspects of decoding and encoding text, or an individual’s ability to read and write. It is typically viewed as an individualistic model, focused on what happens inside a person’s mind. A second perspective is the social practices1 orientation (Wiley, 2005). This orientation is typified by research focusing on how reading and writing are used within social contexts of use (e.g., Heath, 1983; Scollon & Scollon, 1981; Scribner & Cole, 1981). That is to say, individuals do not become literate on their own; literacy is a social practice that is culturally transmitted (Scribner, 1988). Because of this assertion, the social practices orientation also accounts for the role of oral language. Cook-Gumperz (2006) writes, “oral and written language are different but supporting facets of language use. Literate and oral practice cannot be considered opposites” (p. 3). A third perspective is called the ideological orientation (Street, 1984; Wiley, 2005). This orientation is typified by research focusing on how reading and writing are used within social contexts as well as power relations that are associated with their usage (e.g., Gee, 1996; Street, 1995). To these three orientations, new approaches to literacy that go beyond a focus on reading, writing, and language use have emerged in recent years. The New London Group/ Multiliteracies Perspective (New London Group, 1996), and Multimodal Literacy Perspective (Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2001; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001) extend the notion of literacy to other semiotic systems, including language(s), action, gesture, sound, and visuals.

From this perspective, different sign systems or modalities can be used to convey meaning. Over time, these modalities are used in patterned ways, similar to the ways that language is used in patterned ways to make meaning. Accounting for the range of modalities is important because different forms of communication are becoming increasingly prevalent in classrooms. Jewitt (2008) writes, “to better understand learning and teaching in the multimodal environment of the contemporary classroom, it is essential to explore the ways in which representations in all modes feature in the classroom” (p. 241, 2).

Different Types of Literacy As these theoretical understandings of literacy have come forward, the term literacy itself has been used in new ways to denote different kinds of literacy development. For example, one’s ability to use a computer is called computer literacy and a student’s mastery of science is called science literacy. Thus, the singular term literacy has taken on a broader meaning than just reading and writing;2 it is a superordinate term that refers to one’s mastery over a set of practices that have particular social value, similar to Gee’s (1996) notion of Discourse (with a capital D). The specific practices that make up a type of literacy (e.g., science literacy) are different depending on the social context and are similar to Gee’s notion of discourse (with a small d). Based on this understanding, the term academic literacy refers to the literacy practices needed for academic success. Yet, academic literacy practices in an English language arts class are different from that of a science class,

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even though they may overlap in important ways. For example, reading and writing practices are important in both English and science classrooms, but the types of texts and the ways they are used in accomplishing the work of the discipline differ. In addition, the values and expectations surrounding these practices are dependent upon the context. Using poetic language in a science report may be deemed just as inappropriate as using technical language in a sonnet.

Rather than reifying academic literacy as if it is a singular notion, then, it may be more appropriate to talk about literacy development in academic contexts, to show how literacy development is contingent upon the social context. I propose that the theoretical approaches outlined above form a foundation for understanding the development of literacy in academic contexts: (a) that it is multimodal, involving multiple sign systems of which language and languages are important, (b) that it is practice oriented—it develops within social contexts and, as such, it is important to consider what social actors are doing with sign systems to make meaning, and (c) that literacy practices are always associated with values, expectations, and power relations. These three ideas are central to the analysis presented here. In order to examine the development of a type of academic literacy, I use the context of a science classroom to examine two emergent bilingual students’ development of science literacy. Through the analysis I show how the students are apprenticed to valued ways of representing scientific knowledge in the classroom.

Further, I demonstrate how difficult it is to assess emergent bilingual students’ science content knowledge because of the implicit value placed on alphabetic literacy vs. science literacy more generally. That is to say, because alphabetic literacy plays such an important role in assessment practices, it may place emergent bilingual and bilingual students who struggle with reading, writing, and language use at a disadvantage. In order to provide a basis for understanding the development of scientific literacy, I now examine how science education has treated the notion of science literacy.

Science Literacy Over the last 40 years, science literacy has been a term used to describe ongoing goals of the science education reform movement (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1989, 1993; National Research Council, 1996; Lee & Fradd, 1998). One influential reform movement, Project 2061, defined a scientifically literate person as someone who understands key concepts and principles of science, is familiar with the natural world, recognizing both its diversity and unity, and uses scientific knowledge and scientific ways of thinking for individual and social purposes. The ultimate goal of science literacy has been to create informed citizens who are compassionate human beings. The new college and career readiness standards in science also emphasize the need for literacy in science and mathematics (Achieve, 2013). They cite the inability of college graduates to interpret data from a table about blood pressure and physical activity

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as a sign that the U.S. has not been successful in promoting basic science literacy.

The new standards pay particular attention to the alphabetic literacy skills that students need to engage in scientific practices, asserting that they are central to scientific knowledge construction. For example, students must learn the conventions of language (in oral and written forms) to make arguments, synthesize information, and outline procedures. Furthermore, the new standards also emphasize the multimodality of scientific information, stating that students must be able to gain knowledge from sources such as diagrams, models, and illustrations. Thus, alphabetic and multimodal literacy practices are seen as types of scientific practices that ultimately lead to the goal of science literacy.

While science literacy has long been a goal of science education reform, the new college and career readiness standards place student engagement in scientific practices as a central focus. One popular approach to promoting the students’ engagement in scientific practices is science inquiry. Inquiry activities are intended to engage students in meaning making, similar to the ways that practicing scientists engage in meaning making.

A number of researchers propose that inquiry activities are particularly beneficial for students who are learning English. For example, Rosebery, Warren, and Conant’s (1992) work with Haitian students in Boston provides powerful evidence that engaging students in science inquiry activities supports their development of scientific practices; not only do students have the opportunity to learn ideas, but they also learn how to do science. Fathman and Crowther (2006) stated that students simultaneously learning English and science benefit from instruction that is hands-on, active, done in cooperative participation with other students, and connected to the experiential world. Lee and Luykx (2006) also proposed that inquiry activities are beneficial because they lessen English learners’ (EL) dependence on understanding the language of instruction, put students in an active role within classroom discourse, provide opportunities to engage in authentic communication about science knowledge and build science language.

They also allow students opportunities to draw upon and use their home language (i.e., translanguage) if needed. In spite of these benefits to inquiry-based science teaching, research also suggests that inquiry activities in and of themselves may not be enough for students who are also learning English. Some scholars have argued that English learner students need focused support in developing language and (alphabetic) literacy as well as scientific concepts (August, Artzi, & Mazrum, 2010; Lee, 2008; Santau, Maerten-Rivera, & Huggins, 2010).

Mediated Discourse Analysis The analysis presented here is anchored around students’ participation in inquiry activities, with a special emphasis on language use. To perform this analysis, I use a theoretical framework called Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) (Scollon, 2001).

MDA was developed as an alternative to approaches to discourse analysis that treat

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social action as secondary, and an alternative to approaches to social analysis that treat discourse as secondary. By not privileging discourse or social action, MDA strives to preserve the complexity of situated interaction. In this sense, discourse is just one of many available tools, or mediational means with which an individual can take action, and, as such MDA provides a way to map how the trajectories of multiple histories and storylines produce and reproduce identities and social groups (Norris & Jones, 2005, p. 4). The primary unit of analysis of MDA is action, but more specifically, mediated action “because this is the moment when Discourses are instantiated in the social world as social action” (Scollon, 2001, p. 3). The term mediated action reflects the work of Wertsch (1991) and refers to the real time moment when mediational means (cultural tools), social actors, and the site of engagement intersect. Mediated action, over time, is considered a practice.

A practice is an historical accumulation within the habitus/ historical body of the social actor of mediated actions taken over his or her life (experience) and which are recognizable to other social actors as `the same’ social action.

Scollon goes on to say that individuals learn most of their practices from society; they are rarely created ex nihilo. MDA provides a way of looking at social actors’ actions over time and how they use resources such as language, action, gesture, etc., to develop practices. In analyzing science literacy from this perspective, becoming scientifically literate means mastering a range of practices involving multiple signs (including scientific language). In a science classroom, students participate in hands-on activities involving scientific materials and equipment; they talk science, write science, and draw science.

Methodology and Dataset This analysis focuses on examples of two emergent bilingual Latina students in Grade 8 during a 4-month enactment of a science curriculum unit called Chemistry that Applies (CTA) (State of Michigan, 1993). Pedagogically, CTA’s primary goals are to (a) promote scientific literacy and understanding over content coverage, (b) apply learning to situations outside school, and (c) promote interdisciplinary teaching.

Chemistry that Applies Curriculum The curriculum consists of 24 lessons organized in four “clusters,” or groups of lessons. Each cluster has similar laboratory activities that, over time, are intended to take students to a deeper understanding of the conservation of matter. Sequentially, the clusters are designed according to a constructivist model of learning; students are to build understandings through first-hand experience

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over the course of the entire unit rather than memorize discrete facts. Students begin the curriculum unit by describing chemical reactions in cluster one, then compare weight changes in chemical reactions in cluster two, and examine the relationship between molecules and atoms in cluster three using wooden molecule models.

The curriculum structures a multimodal series of actions and interactions for students to engage in science content. Students use haptic (tactile) and visual modalities during their laboratory activities, but they also talk about laboratory experiences with their classmates, write about them, and draw representations of them. The curriculum relies on four foundational lab activities that are repeated in each cluster of the unit: rusting iron, decomposing water, burning butane, and combining baking soda and vinegar. Students use steel wool to rust iron, small batteries and alligator clips to decompose water, actual butane lighters to examine burning, and baking soda and vinegar to observe the formation of carbon dioxide gas. In clusters one and two, when using the lab materials, students wear goggles to protect their eyes and are instructed to handle the materials with great care, even though materials such as vinegar and water are common to everyday life. Students also use a variety of other equipment including scales, beakers, flasks, hot plates, and model kits. While the materials and equipment used in the implementation of this unit may seem prosaic, the curriculum’s description, the teacher’s framing, and students’ subsequent actions transform them into scientific objects, heightening students’ awareness that they are, in fact, doing science.

The print component of the curriculum consists of a photocopied text which the teacher calls the lab manual. The manuals provide step-by-step lab procedures, interpretive explanations, drawings and diagrams, and questions that students answer after their laboratory activities. The lab manual is not intended to be a workbook (i.e. it does not provide space for students to write answers).

The developers suggest that students keep independent journals so that they can reflect on their progress throughout the unit. The students in this classroom did not use the journal format, but instead used a lab packet based on the manual that the teacher assembled. The teacher distributed packets for every lesson and students often turned them in before they left class.

Video Data This study used video data that was recorded as part of a project called SCALE-uP conducted at The George Washington University (GW) in cooperation with a local school district. During the year of the study in which this data was collected, ten schools participated; five of these schools used CTA, the treatment curriculum, and five used materials they normally would, that is, the variety of curricular resources provided by the school district in the form of textbooks, other stand-alone units, and materials developed by the county (this is called the comparison curriculum). When choosing the schools to participate in the study,

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SCALE-uP worked with the local school district to select those that demographically represented the county’s diverse population. Ethnicity, socioeconomic status, linguistic diversity, and gender were considered important demographic factors to determine a school’s profile. Each school from the treatment group was then matched to a demographically similar school in the comparison group to measure the effectiveness of the treatment curriculum against demographically similar students using different curricular materials. Outcome scores showed that all students who participated in the treatment condition outperformed the comparison condition except for students designated as current or former ELs (Lynch, Kuipers, Pyke & Szesze, 2005). Thus, this enactment is particularly interesting to analyze because it could provide insight into why some ELs may not have performed as well as other students.

Prior to implementation, all teachers using the treatment curriculum took part in professional development with the GW research team. They were introduced to the curriculum and provided opportunities to conduct the activities themselves. Thus, all teachers were provided with important background information on the curriculum unit. Teachers were asked to implement the curriculum with fidelity, but were allowed flexibility to develop their own worksheets and materials based on the curriculum’s lessons. They also had opportunities to network with other teachers using the treatment curriculum and share resources.

The specific class in which the video ethnography took place was Ms. Melanie’s fourth period science class which met for 50 minutes every day.

This class had 32 students; demographically, 16 of the students were White, six were African American, eight were Hispanic,3 and two were Asian. One student was currently enrolled in ESL classes, though at least three other students were bilingual Spanish-English speakers; 15 students were female and 17 were male.

During the video recording, the camera was focused primarily on the students of this classroom, not on Ms. Melanie. One camera was trained on a focus table, a group of four students that was taped every day, while another camera rotated to different contrast table each day. This allowed for the analysis of patterns and habits among a specific diverse group of students over time (the focus table), as well as the opportunity to compare this group with other groups (the contrast tables).

This also captured how diverse students interacted with, and responded to the curriculum materials and classroom.

Two ELs, Natalie and Ana One series of examples presented here focuses on one of the girls at the focus table, Natalie. The other examples focus on a girl at a contrast table, Ana. Natalie is a bilingual Latina student who is proficient in English. Natalie frequently translates for Ana and, from her participation in discussions, appears to understand the CTA content. However, Natalie appears to struggle with transforming spoken

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language into more formal written forms. Ana is a newcomer emergent bilingual Latina student who predominantly relies on Spanish oral language to engage in science content. She is able to express understanding of science content in Spanish and seeks assistance from other bilingual students to help translate information into English for her writing activities. These two students were selected because they are representative of the current and former ESOL students who did not perform well on the end-of-unit exam. Both of these students scored below the class and student average. However, from viewing the classroom video data, it is clear that these students demonstrated greater conceptual understanding than their test scores reflected.

The series of examples focus on Ana and Natalie’s trajectory of actions typical in this science classroom; students conducted hands-on activities, then talked about them with peers and the teacher, wrote about them, and drew models of atoms and molecules. Understanding academic literacy development from a multimodal perspective within the social context of the science classroom places value on the ways in which students are able to construct and express their knowledge, regardless of modality or language background.

Analysis In this section, I present examples of Natalie’s group and their interactions (the focus table), as well as Ana’s group and their interactions (the contrast table). The first two examples show students’ engagement in the same laboratory activity about the decomposition of water and how they engaged in learning through discussing it orally and then began to write about it.

In science inquiry settings, students are not supposed to know ahead of time what the activity is about. They engage in hands-on activities and must construct understandings collaboratively. This example involves Natalie and Gloria, both bilingual Latina students, and Philip, an African American student.

Oral Language Use This group has just completed the “Decomposition of Water.” They take two pencils hooked to a battery and put them into a cup of water; they notice that there are bubbles in the cup—visible evidence that the water is decomposing.

At this point, they do not fully understand that the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are decomposing, or splitting apart, even though they have talked about the term decomposing with their teacher. The phenomenon should prompt them to begin to think about what is happening and get them to talk about what they think is occurring. Figure 9.1 shows the discussion that these three students had as they tried to make sense of the phenomenon. A transcript and description of the interaction is provided below the figure (see the Appendix to this chapter for transcription conventions).

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FIGURE 9.1

Illustration from Decomposition of Water

Transcript Natalie: So what do we put?

Gloria: I am going to put white stuff covering the end X. Cause there’s some white things.

Natalie: Bubbles covering the lead.

The bubbles that are covering it.

Gloria: <WH XXX. WH> Philip: Hm. Oh that’s neat.

What?

It’s fine.

Natalie: I don’t [understand anything].

Gloria: [No duh we’re looking at it].

Philip: Ok.

Classroom Activity Gloria is standing up and writing on her chart.

Natalie looks over at her and asks Q. Gloria continues writing and talks quietly. She does not look up at Natalie.

Gloria moves to look into the cup. Natalie poises to write.

Natalie uses her pencil to point to the cup. Gloria moves back and forth between the cup and her chart, writing intermittently.

Natalie picks up the pencil and holds it over the cup. Both Philip and Gloria are standing and looking in the cup.

Natalie moves the pencil up and down.

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Transcript Classroom Activity Our water will probably go away.

Natalie continues to hold the pencil, moving it in Eventually. and out of the cup. Philip peers in the side of Gloria: Once the battery dies. the cup.

Natalie: It’s It’s leav-.

Natalie points to the bottom of the cup with The bubbles are leaving at the end her pencil, where she sees bubbles. Gloria and of, Philip gaze intently at the cup. at the tip of the [XXX] Philip: [No, that’s where] the bubbles are coming Gloria sits back in her chair. Natalie smirks. coming from.

Natalie: Yeah, that’s what I am Philip pulls the pencil out of the water. saying.

Philip: Yeah, so it’s probably the electricity.

Gloria: your breath stinks (whispered) Philip puts pencil back in the water and stands up.

Philip: Because if you you cut Gloria opens her lab manual. cut the current then it stops.

Gloria: No duh.

Philip leans over the cup and looks at it.

Philip: No. Philip points in the cup as he tries to make a Hmm, description. oh, Natalie points at the cup well it looks like, it looks like it sort of stuck like, there is like a Philip points in general a weird X Natalie: It isn’t stuck right here.

Philip: A yeah the bo— at the bot, Philip moves hand to specifically point to a part of bot— the pencil. Natalie is writing on her chart. near the— Philip points in the cup again. at the top of the pencil.

At the top of the water is, uh, it just looks, looks like it sort of made a I don’t know how to describe it but it is like a little hole around the pencil is.

In this example, it is clear that the students do not know the technical scientific terminology to describe the phenomenon. They go back and forth between using common, every day ways of talking such as bubbles, and whatever. Their language and scientific understanding are tied to each other. They use language as a tool to try to capture what they have produced through their actions. Using language to talk about the phenomenon is a very important part of the process of science inquiry. It

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is common for students to engage in lengthy, muddled discussions, trying to come to consensus about referring terms or names of processes for what they are observing (Roth, 2005; Wright, 2008a). In this case, Natalie, Gloria, and Philip engage in a discussion about whether the phenomenon they are observing should be labeled as bubbles. It is the writing activity that prompts them to come to a consensus with a particular term. In fact, it is Natalie who prompts the entire discussion by saying, what should we put? Thus, Natalie initiates the move for the group to begin to objectify the phenomenon (Wright, 2008a; Kuipers & Viechnicki, 2008). This is a key move for students to make within peer group discussion and shows that Natalie understands a key step in scientific meaning making in an inquiry setting.

The second example illustrates the same lab activity about the decomposition of water, but with Ana’s group. This example shows four students: Ben and Christine are native English speakers, Frank is a bilingual Spanish-English speaker, and Ana is an emergent bilingual Spanish-English speaker. As previously mentioned, one benefit of inquiry-based instruction is that it provides opportunities for students to use their native language. The ability to use Spanish is crucial for Ana who is not yet able to fully engage in discussion in English. In this example, she relies on Spanish to interact with the group and express her understanding of the phenomenon.

Transcript

Classroom Activity Ben and Frank are standing up and getting ready to put the pencils in the cup.

Christine is sitting and reading the lab manual. Ana is attentive to what Ben and Frank are doing; he is sitting in her chair and watching.

Frank: Ready?

Christine: No, read the directions stupid!

Frank. It said put in the two tips.

The leads should not touch each other.

Ana: Esa cosa como el agua X bien . . .

Ben and Frank put the pencils in the cup.

This thing is like the water X good Ana and Christine lean in to observe the phenomenon.

Christine: Okay. Go. Frank and Ben lean down to observe the cup more closely.

Frank. Ah look at the salt.

Teacher touches Ana’s shoulder.

Christine: Bubbles Ben: No, it’s separating the salt from the water.

Teacher: Ana you’ve got to get closer.

Ana gets up and moves closer to the cup.

You’re going to miss it. Guys bring it She is standing and looking at it from over here so Ana can see it better. above.

Christine: It’s making bubbles.

Ben: You disconnected the battery.

Frank: I did?

Ben: Look at it.

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Transcript Frank: That was not my fault.

Ben: Yeah it was.

Christine: And now it’s wet!

Frank: Shut up!

Ana: Poquito draga It dragged a little Ben: Don’t get shocked!

Christine: Bzzz.

Frank: Stop playing like that.

Ana: X ponerlo X . . .

Put it Christine: Bzzz Ben: Why don’t you just break it?

Christine: Get that away from my face.

Frank: Nothing’s happened.

Ana: Un poquito X . . . a little X . . .

Ben: Yeah, look at mine!

Look at that Christine: Put it back in. You’ll break the circuit.

Touch the two together.

Ben: Listen Wham, you can hear it. It’s sizzling.

Christine: I heard it. It’s bubbling.

Bubbling death!

Ben: Touch the pencil.

Christine: No, don’t. Oh my god, if you do the battery will explode.

Ana: Se esta saliendo del agua.

It’s coming out of the water.

Ben: It will?

Christine: It will just shard itself.

Frank: Get it away from me first of all.

Ben: Aahhh!

Christine: There might be a spark or two.

Frank: F*****, stop playing.

Christine: There might be a spark or two, but I mean . . . that’s about all that will happen.

Frank: I don’t want to hold this no more.

Nice . . . they didn’t touch.

Christine: Here, let me hold it.

Frank: Hold it.

Christine: Joy. Ben: Ah! Move your pencil, I’m letting this one go.

Frank: All right, it’s fizzing and what else?

Ben: It’s fizzing, bubbling and cheesing.

Classroom Activity

Christine makes a noise like an electric shock

Frank puts the pencil back in the cup

Ana stands up straight.

Frank is referring to the end of the pencil which he is holding in the water.

He sits down and moves to a writing position. He picks up his pencil and starts writing on his paper.

Frank is focused on the worksheet Ben moves back to his chair to sit.

Christine and Ana are still looking at the cup intently.

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Similar to the first example, the four students engage in a process of trying to label what they are seeing, and they use a comparable expression—bubbles. In addition, like the other students in both groups, Ana issues directives about what to do, and narrates her experience with the phenomenon, but in Spanish.

She states se esta saliendo del agua, or “it is coming out of the water.” The interpretation of the phenomenon was not dependent on technical scientific terminology and so, suggesting an interpretation in Spanish was a way that Ana could be involved meaningfully. Engagement in the inquiry activity afforded Ana the opportunity to use her native language to support her conceptual understanding.

Both of the above examples show the process of transforming a hands-on activity into a verbal form and the roles that oral and written language play in the development of science literacy. While Natalie and Ana engaged in the activity using different codes, they both engaged similarly, suggesting possible interpretations of the phenomenon. These examples show the value of allowing students to engage with content material in ways that value the resources they bring to school, such as their native language. In addition, these examples also show the typical moves that these students were expected to make. During the activity, they were expected to appear attentive to the phenomenon by adjusting their posture. Students were to stand or sit and observe the phenomenon closely so they could attend to the details of it. In addition, they were to engage in oral discussion of the phenomenon with their peer group to try to make sense of it. Both groups noticed similar aspects of the visual phenomenon, the bubbles. Finally, once the students had made enough observations of the visual phenomenon, they were to begin writing about it on their worksheet.

This, too, was a collaborative process in which students discussed the particular ways of referring to the phenomenon with their peer group. The actions and interactions surrounding the phenomenon in both groups were very similar and stable.

Written Language Use In addition to oral language, written language plays a very important role in the development of students’ science literacy. Ms. Melanie often required students to write about their laboratory experiences on worksheets and turn them in to her. The following example shows how Ana engaged with writing. In this example, Ana approached Natalie to help her complete a worksheet about the first four laboratory activities of the unit (including the decomposition of water).

The worksheet in Figure 9.2 shows the information that students needed to complete as well as Natalie’s answers.4 For each experiment, students needed to state whether or not they thought a new substance had been formed, why, and where the new substance had come from.

196 Laura Wright Review the description of the beginning and ending substances in the fint reaction. Is there any evidence for a change? There aren't any hard and fast rules for finding new substances, but some things to look for might be a color change, a new smell, the

formation of a gas, a new solid, or heat. Often you must use several or all of these to.help you decide.

Conclusion Questions

1 Clrcle evrdence on your data table that supports a change in a substance Use the bold above to help you faced ~nformat~on

/v

2. Complete the table below using what you know about a new substance

2. Complete the table below using what you know about a new substance Reaction substance substance come did or did Reaction

Rusting Iron

#1

Rusting

Baking Soda T)rd Cwrn and V~negar ,c, W*N

Butane Ltghter

#3

/

~~d i mw

I

0

y n I

r

~rnccc

D e c o m p o s l t , o n v - - - -W- -h-penc\\s of Water J I E C t~ ~ \W{+PT ~ C iM o. r e w bubb\~s (iQ/ ~ ~ ~ hcui In w m r , l r t

# 4 ummc"-@ 0m-M \eaCI .

FIGURE 9.2

b b b W nnd mo.&

3c\s.

Natalie’s worksheet, Lesson 2

Natalie helped Ana fill out her chart and as she did so, asked Ana a series of questions in Spanish. The questions Natalie asked are not on the worksheet, but they show how she has learned several key questions to determine whether something is a new substance. In spite of needing Natalie’s help to understand the chart, Ana, too, showed that she had a basic understanding of the science content.

She was able to understand what the questions were about and answered them in Spanish.

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FIGURE 9.3

Illustration of Rusting Iron and the Deflating Balloon

Transcript Natalie: Okay, cuando-cuando el heat y el-y el light join creo enegia okay.

Okay when-when the heat and the-and the light join I create energy okay.

Decomposition in water. Entonces. Y porque crees que-que habia o-un substance nuevo? Porque X lo crees X? Decomposition in water. Well. And why do you believe that=-that there was a-a new substance? Why X do you believe that X? Ana: Un substance nuevo? Agua?

A new substance? Water?

Natalie: Aha. Porque cre-porque crees que hizo una cosa nueva?

Aha. Why do you be-why do you believe that it made a new thing?

E=l ah=-la decomposicion de agua The= ah=-the decomposition of water Ana: A veces salian-cambiava==Sometimes there came out-changed== Natalie: Pero que hizo para tu creer si hizo algo nuevo?

But what did it do for you to believe if it made something new?

[Gloria jokes that the researcher will need a Spanish interpreter]

Classroom Activity Natalie is sitting down in her seat and Ana walks over to her table. Ana stands while talking to Natalie.

Natalie points to the paper with her pencil.

Natalie points to the paper again with her pencil.

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Transcript Natalie: Habia-habia un color diferente?

Was there- was there a different color?

Ana: Si. Yes Natalie: Que era el color?

What was the color?

Ana: Entre gris y negro Between gray and black Natalie: Habia un gas? Y formo un gas?

Was there a gas? And did it form a gas?

Ana: Si. Yes Natalie: Hizo algo duro?

Did it make something hard?

Ana: M== no.

Natalie: Y habia heat.

And there was heat.

Ana: Heat?

Natalie: Como calor.

Like heat Ana: No. Natalie: Okay. Y de donde vino-y-y lo Nuevo de donde vino lo nuevo?

And where did it come-where did the new thing come from?

Ana: Lo @ nuevo de donde @The @ new where did @ Natalie: De-y como-cuando-como empezo lo nuevo-lo que paso de nuevo?

Of-and how-when-how did the new start-the new thing that happened?

Cuando la sal-cuando-cuando lo lapiz entraron al agua verdad?

When the salt-when-when the pencils entered the water right?

Ana: Mhmm. Y se unieron.

And they united Natalie: Aha.

Classroom Activity

Natalie writes on Ana’s paper.

Natalie writes on Ana’s paper.

Natalie makes an upward gesture with her hands to replicate flames.

Natalie makes an upward gesture with her hands as she is trying to explain.

Natalie points to the paper. Ana kneels down next to Natalie.

Natalie writes on paper.

In this example, Natalie helped Ana fill out the worksheet, using both Spanish and English. While Natalie could have just let Ana copy her answers—or told Ana the answers, Natalie played the role of the tutor, asking basic information questions. Importantly, she emphasized key questions that they have been taught by their teacher—questions that help one know if a new substance has been created. This example illustrates Natalie’s mastery over the science content. She was able to explain much of the content information to Ana in Spanish. By acting as

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the tutor, Natalie acted as a more knowledgeable other, scaffolding Ana’s learning. Ana, too, is able to answer nearly every one of Natalie’s questions with clarity—in Spanish. Without assistance from a bilingual peer, acknowledgement of what Ana had learned through her participation in laboratory activities would have been lost. Through this example, it is clear that Ana had gained important content information regardless of the dominant language of the classroom because of the hands-on activities. However, she was not able to present her knowledge in a way that was valued in the academic context without Natalie’s assistance.

While it is clear from the examples already presented that Natalie was a promising student who expressed herself well orally and understood much of the content, the next two examples show how Natalie struggled with other multimodal configurations. The following example shows how Natalie struggled to express herself in valued academic English in extended written prose. The example focuses particularly on how Natalie was supposed to write about the scientific phenomenon of rust, or iron oxide. The first part of this example is the teachers’ instruction to the class on iron oxide. She is at the board, reviewing the laboratory activity they had completed the day before (students had rusted steel wool in a flask and then put a balloon on top of the flask; by the next day, the steel wool had rusted and the balloon had been sucked into the flask). As the teacher finished her explanation, she wrote the term iron oxide on the board. Thus, this multimodal ensemble (talk + writing on the board) is an implicit message that the term iron oxide is important for the students.

Verbal interaction

Teacher: Yesterday we put thethis chemical equation on the top of the page.

I want to double check that you have it written down.

Oxygen plus iron gives you Fe two O three which is rust.

I want you to write down one other name for it is also known as=

Non-verbal interaction Students are sitting in rows of four facing the front of the classroom. They all have papers in front of them. Gloria and Natalie have their heads turned toward one another and are talking about being grounded.

Philip looks through his lab packet. Sean is looking toward front of classroom and packet intermittently.

Natalie says something quietly in Spanish to Gloria about jewelry. Philip turns page in packet.

Philip writes in lab packet and looks toward front of classroom intermittently.

He appears to be copying down what the teacher is writing.

and it’s a very good name because the two things are mixing together Natalie gestures toward her ear. iron Sean begins to write on his paper. oxide.

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After Ms. Melanie’s explanation, the students were asked to individually write an answer to the following question: Look at your steel wool experiment. Explain why the balloon was sucked into the flask when the steel wool rusted. Think about it!! Did the air in the flask just disappear? Did it leak out? Could it have been used some way when the steel wool rusted?

As the students wrote, the teacher circulated about the room to check their answers. The following interaction is Ms. Melanie reading Natalie’s initial answer and her reaction to it: Verbal interaction

Non-verbal interaction The teacher is standing in front of Natalie and is reading her paper. She has read her answer aloud twice. Sean is sitting back with his arms crossed.

Philip is trying to talk to him, but Sean does not respond. Gloria is sitting with her head in her hands.

Teacher: (reading) The balloon was sucked into the flask because it needed oxygen.

It got all the oxygen it could.

Where was the oxygen coming from?

Natalie: The balloon kind of takes the oxygen Teacher: The balloon kind of takes the oxygen?

I think that the air in the flask was used in some way Teacher bends over Natalie’s paper and um, the air in the balloon seems to write on it. and the air in the flask is the same air. all of it has a little bit of oxygen in it So after the steel wool used up ^this oxygen then where did it look?

Teacher stands up and moves away from Natalie: It looked to the balloon.

Natalie. Natalie slides paper toward Teacher: Yeah. herself and looks at it.

So then the balloon’s oxygen was pulled in.

You need to bebe a little bit more specific about that.

Okay?

When reviewing Natalie’s answer, Ms. Melanie did not find it to be sufficient, and so she prompted Natalie to revise her answer through a series of questions.

Importantly Natalie missed the multimodal contextualization cues that could have helped her give a key part of the preferred answer—the use of the term iron oxide. After interacting with Ms. Melanie, Natalie revised her answer, shown in Figure 9.4.

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FIGURE 9.4

Natalie’s answer

While Natalie did not use the preferred term iron oxide, in her revised answer she did use the term rust which was a synonym for this class. Her revised answer also contained many linguistic markers that moved her initial answer to a more elaborated form—preferred in academic writing (e.g., specific noun phrases, discourse markers, etc.). Looking at Natalie’s written text provides insight into some aspects of literacy development with which she might be struggling. First, she missed the multimodal cue the teacher gave the students at the beginning of the class because she was talking to another student. The teacher could have pointed this out to her and emphasized the new term, iron oxide, for her. Second, Natalie seemed to struggle initially with forms of alphabetic literacy when producing elaborated written prose; her first answer bears many resemblances to her spoken discourse in her laboratory group or the charts she had completed, but some of the linguistic forms she uses are dispreferred in academic writing (i.e., she does not specify nouns and does not use enough logical connectors). Pointing out differences between written and spoken language can be metalinguistically helpful for students beginning to understand how different modalities can have different conventions. Additionally, this analysis shows how students are socialized to sophisticated written forms through social practice—that is, the teacher is a central voice in the students’ written answers. The interactional perspective illustrates the very social nature of writing, as well as the importance of social interaction in helping students come to identify and appropriate forms of scientific language endowed with power in the academic setting.

The final example comes from Natalie and Gloria’s interaction with the teacher as they worked on a chart including a diagram for lesson 14, Atoms in Equals Atoms Out—Rusting. In this lesson, students completed a chart that represents the molecular change that occurs when iron rusts. By the time they get to cluster three, rusting is a chemical reaction with which they are very familiar.

This class began the hour with a discussion of what was needed in order to produce rust. During this discussion, the teacher engaged in question and answer sequences to remind the students that oxygen and iron create rust, and that the chemical formula is FE203. Then the teacher distributed the charts, telling them to first balance the equation, and afterwards draw a model of the rust molecule.

The teacher walked around the classroom, monitoring students’ progress. At one point, she sang out I see the right answer showing that she is evaluating students’ work as she walks around the room. Her evaluative comment indicated that this

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Rusting Model

2

Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below

Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below

Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below Directions: Using the procedures on pages 64-67, complete the table below

FIGURE 9.5

Natalie and Gloria’s worksheet, lesson 14

writing task had a specific answer and accuracy would be assessed. Thus, it seems that students’ discourse would be motivated, in part, by their need to arrive at a particular answer.

Figure 9.5 shows the chart that Natalie and Gloria were working on together.

As the students worked on the first rows and columns of the chart, they engaged in very little verbal interaction and the chart appeared to be unproblematic.

However, when Natalie and Gloria begin to draw the number of oxygen and iron atoms needed to make rust, they encountered some difficulty. When Ms. Melanie arrived at their desk, she looked at Gloria and Natalie’s answer and tried talk through the equation with them.

Transcript

Classroom Activity

Teacher: So, why do you have three O two’s?

Natalie: There’s threeTeacher: Okay, butnow you have six.

Natalie: There’s three pairs.

Teacher: Okay, so how many rust are you going to end up with?

Natalie: How many rust?

Teacher: Uh huh.

Natalie: Three.

Hold on.

Looking at Natalie and Gloria’s paper Natalie points to paper Teacher points to paper Natalie points to paper Teacher points to paper Natalie points to paper

Brings hand back to head

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What do you mean like rust?

Teacher: How many irons do you need?

Let me ask that question first.

If I have six oxygen, [now-] Natalie: [You] need two pairs.

Gloria: Four.

Teacher: I need four rust, okay.

[Excuse me, four iron.]

Natalie: [Four XX pairs].

Teacher: So how many, if I have four iron and six oxygen, how many rust molecules am I going to make?

Natalie: Two. Teacher: Okay. Draw it.

Gloria: So XX. Natalie: Oh. Gloria: Oh, okay I see.

You have to draw that twice.

Teacher points to paper Teacher points to paper

Gloria writes on paper Teacher holds out four fingers Teacher points as she says rust and molecules Teacher leaves table.

Natalie grabs her pencil and moves toward worksheet.

Gloria writes on worksheet.

The chart allowed students to draw an answer without explaining it in written language. Thus, the drawing is supposed to be treated as a form of knowledge representation. In order to check their understanding, however, Ms. Melanie chose to ask questions verbally. Gloria and Natalie did not know whether they had drawn the model correctly so when Ms. Melanie did not start the interaction with a positive evaluation, the girls appeared to think that she was using questions to guide them to a correct answer. Thus, there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the reason behind Ms. Melanie’s questions. Whereas Natalie and Gloria appeared to interpret them as guiding questions, Ms. Melanie appeared to treat them as display questions, prompting the girls to verbally state what they know based on their picture. In this sense, she is not questioning the accuracy of their work, but checking to make certain that the girls can verbally explain what they have drawn. The multimodal representation causes some interactional difficulties because students must transform pictorial representations into verbal representations. The interactional difficulties seem to be exacerbated because of the mismatch between Ms. Melanie and the girls’ understanding of the purpose of the questions.

It is when Ms. Melanie asks Natalie about rust, in particular, that the interaction began to break down and there are several instances of repair and clarification (Ochs, 1984; Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977). This seems to be because Natalie did not understand why the teacher was asking about rust, the product (or end of the reaction), rather than iron, the reactant (or start of the reaction). If she is asking guiding questions, it is assumed that she will start at the beginning of the reaction. Natalie tried to repair the sequence by saying hold on, effectively

204 Laura Wright

stopping the flow of information. When Ms. Melanie began with the reactant, the conversation began to flow smoothly. Thus, it seems the pictorial representation must be “read” in a way similar to a text—from left to right, or beginning to end.

This example shows the importance of language in the science classroom in relationship to other semiotic forms. The pictorial representation was treated as given information that simply required a verbal explanation of the answer in order to be valued as true knowledge. The picture could not stand on its own.

Thus, even though science employs multiple modalities, in this classroom, talking was given priority over the graphic representation. Furthermore, as illustrated through this example, Natalie and Gloria had difficulty juggling the use of multiple modalities at one time, resulting in interactional breakdowns. It is important to consider how different modalities are employed, their configurations, and the power with which they are imbued. Interactions around the multimodal configurations may need to be heavily scaffolded so that students understand the transformative processes. That is, how to describe pictures and models with oral language and vice versa, how oral language transforms to written language and vice versa. While these transformations may seem to be transparent, these examples show how novices may need support at these moments in interaction.

Discussion The examples presented here illustrate academic literacy development in a particular context, an eighth-grade middle school science classroom. They show how students engage in action and interaction, developing practices that lead to science literacy. Action around the various sign systems used within the classroom, such as oral and written language, scientific materials and equipment, and scientific models and symbols, is fundamental to students’ academic literacy development in this context. Whereas other classrooms may privilege reading and writing (alphabetic literacy), meaning making in a science context clearly requires practices around other modalities as well. The science context affords an opportunity to look at academic literacy more broadly, acknowledging the central role that a variety of sign systems may play in academic contexts. Furthermore, viewing academic literacy development from a multimodal perspective allows us to see the ways in which students are able to express their knowledge versus the ways students are implicitly and explicitly expected to express their knowledge, and thus the power relationships associated with expression of knowledge.

The analysis highlights the difficulty of assessing all students’ conceptual understanding via language. This is particularly clear in the case of Ana. Ana engages in many of the same practices that other English-speaking students do and gains valuable knowledge through first-hand experience. However, what she learned was not captured by the final unit assessment, as evidenced by her below average score. Moving away from orientations toward academic literacy that focus

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on language as text, shifts us away from deficit-oriented perspectives of emergent bilingual students. That is, by treating academic literacy as broader than reading, writing and language use, it is possible to account for the multiple ways meaning is made and can be made with different semiotic modalities. It is a move toward seeing the multiple ways emergent bilingual students can make meaning in a setting, even if they are still developing English proficiency. Academic English is just one part of the overall construct of academic literacy, albeit an important one (see Molle, Chapter 2, this volume). Ana’s examples also show the power of using her native language as an asset to her learning. This perspective values both Natalie and Ana’s expression of science knowledge in their native language and treats it as something exemplary. While supporting English language and literacy development is important, of course, valuing students and their knowledge in whatever language it is expressed is equally important. These examples of Natalie and Ana’s engagement in scientific practices further underscore that current assessment practices still have a long way to go to account for all students’ conceptual understanding regardless of their mastery academic English (though see Kopriva, 2008).

The analysis also illustrates how each modality is endowed with certain power in the academic context. Talking, writing, and drawing models were all valued forms of meaning making used within the classroom, yet their values were not necessarily equal (see Low, this volume). The teacher used all of the sign systems to formatively assess students’ development of science literacy. In spite of this, students were only formally tested in writing at the end of the unit. For Natalie, this may have been her downfall. She, too, scored below average on the endof-unit assessment. Natalie’s examples show that she understood much of the content, but writing extended prose proved to be difficult for her. When writing extended responses, she did not take up expected conventions of academic English to express her understanding. Thus, she did not harness the power of written language to meet her teacher’s expectations of written scientific explanations. Viewing academic literacy development across modalities can show which sign systems students are strong in using, and where they can be better supported to meet the expectations of the curriculum. Natalie had strong oral English and Spanish skills, but her writing could have been strengthened. Bootstrapping off her strengths could prove to be useful in helping her move forward academically to meet the implicit demands of the curriculum.

Finally, these examples illustrate the role that apprenticeship plays academic language and literacy development. While there may be idealistic notions of what “Academic Literacy” and “Academic English” look like, instantiations of it are messy (see Moschkovich, this volume). The examples provided here show real learning in academic settings—from students’ initial muddled5 English and Spanish use in a laboratory context, to more sophisticated discussions with their teacher; from written to re-written texts, and further to scientific models that require a good deal of verbal unpacking. It is important to have

206 Laura Wright

realistic expectations of how students make meaning with a range of signs in academic contexts to accomplish the real work of learning, and that the “big D” discourses (Gee, 1996) align with them. Teachers are central to apprenticing students by supporting development of “little d” discourses (i.e., scientific language in use) so that students can ultimately master the “big D” discourses (i.e., the scientific register).

Conclusion The analysis presented here demonstrates that literacy develops in particular academic contexts through action, interaction, and practice. In the classroom I analyzed, students developed science literacy as they interacted with natural phenomena, talked about it with their peers and teachers, wrote about it, and drew models of their understanding. The teacher was a pivotal more knowledgeable other, introducing important terminology, ways of talking and writing, and new ways of representation at key moments. None of the students in this classroom began the unit on the conservation of matter by talking about oxygen gas or iron oxide, nor did they know how to draw models of molecules and the creation of new substances, but by the end of the unit, they were expected to use key scientific terminology, grammatical forms, and other types of scientific signs to express their understanding of scientific phenomenon. This was key to their success.

Thus, science literacy is one type of literacy that develops in an academic context through meaningful social interaction, and the valued forms of knowledge take on power from the social context.

The way academic literacy develops in another classroom context or content area likely has similarities and differences from the one presented here. The sign systems, actions, and practices central to academic literacy development look different in different academic content areas and social contexts of use. Furthermore, the power relations surrounding those sign systems are dependent upon the social context. Defining academic literacy is so difficult because it is varied and multiple. Singular notions of academic literacy are still too objectified and reified to be productive to inform practice, policy, and research (see Heritage, this volume).

Using the broad construct of literacy (writ large) as a tool to begin thinking about how meaning is made and construed in academic contexts, such as different content areas, may be a more fruitful approach.

Notes 1 Street (1984) does not distinguish between the social practices and ideological orientations, however,Wiley does because many early studies did not address the issue of power relationships surrounding literacy development.

2 Reading and writing may be referred to as alphabetic literacy to denote specific mastery over the alphabetic system.

3 Hispanic is the district designation for Latino/a students.

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4 Ana’s worksheet is not provided here because during this year of the study, only the focus table students’ work was collected. Therefore Ana’s worksheet is not part of the project data.

5 Muddled is used in the sense that Wolff-Michael Roth (2002) uses it, having a positive connotation.

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Gee, J. P. (2008). What is academic literacy? In A. Rosebery & B. Warren (Eds.)Teaching science to English language learners (pp. 57–70). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

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Appendix Transcription Conventions Speaker identity/ turn start Intonation unit Truncation of word or phrase Speaker overlap Laughter Undecipherable speech Unclear speech Long pause Falling intonation (end of intonation unit) Continuing intonation Rising intonation (question) Animated tone (exclamation) Emphasis or word stress Parenthetical information Translation of utterances Expletive

: (carriage return) — [] @ X < X X> ... . , ? ! ^ () italics ***

10 SCHOOLING BEGINS BEFORE ADOLESCENCE The Case of Manuel and Limited Opportunities to Learn Kathy Escamilla

There are many definitions of academic language and literacy for second language learners. For example, Collier (1987, p. 618) says: ELLs who must acquire a second language in the context of schooling need to develop a full proficiency in all domains (including the structures and semantics of phonetics, phonology, inflectional morphology, syntax, vocabulary, discourse, pragmatics and paralinguistics), and all language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing, and metalinguistic knowledge of the language), for use in all content areas (language arts, mathematics, science and social studies).

Other applied linguists define academic language as: The grammatical structures used in formal academic reading and writing as contrasted to those structures from informal written and spoken language.

There are additionally particular text structures associated with this style of formal classroom language and each discipline has its own particular norms of organizing texts. Students must learn the particular linguistic conventions for writing an essay in the humanities, a lab report in the sciences and a proof in mathematics.

(Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010, p. 1).

Bailey and Huang (2011) define it as: “The vocabulary, sentence structures, and discourse associated with language used to teach academic content as well as the language used to navigate the school setting more generally” (p. 343).

Contexts for the acquisition of academic literacy include classrooms, textbooks,

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schoolwork and content areas that are spaces that are almost entirely within the purview of school and rarely exist beyond school contexts (see also ComptonLily, this volume).

The purpose of this chapter is not to argue for or against any one definition of academic language and literacy, as each definition has its strengths and limitations.

Rather, the purpose of this chapter is to utilize these definitions and compare and contrast them to the contexts and content of schooling for students who are labeled English language learners and to examine what opportunities English learners have to acquire academic literacy in current school contexts.

In this chapter, I draw from data collected for a larger study. The larger study took place from 2006 to 2011 in an urban school district in Colorado and examined opportunities to learn as well as student outcomes in reading and writing (Escamilla et al., 2012). Our study included classroom observations, interviews with teachers and administrators, and an examination of school curricula, resources, and teachers. I will use the profile and schooling experiences of one student (Manuel) over the course of five school years to document the limited opportunities that English language learners have to learn academic literacy in U.S. public schools. I will then demonstrate how Manuel is representative of similar students in his school, the school district, and the nation and use this information to criticize school practices that limit student opportunities to learn academic literacy in English. Finally, I will provide recommendations for change in order to improve opportunities to learn.

Manuel: An Introduction The chapter begins with a description of one student, Manuel. He is a student who is labeled as an English language learner, who has been in the U.S. school system since kindergarten, and who has spent his entire academic career labeled not only as limited in his proficiency in English, but also low in his knowledge of academic language and literacy as it relates to English and Spanish. Manuel attended an elementary school that was annually rated as “low” by the state and “orange” by the school district, placing the school perpetually on a list of schools that are underperforming and/or failing. As will be demonstrated, it is important to understand Manuel’s academic record not solely from the point of view of his academic language and literacy skills, but more importantly from his opportunities to learn academic literacy (whatever the definition) in the context of his schooling experiences in elementary and middle school. In 2008, Manuel was labeled an English language learner who is also a LEP (limited English proficient student). By 2012, he is still considered to be an English language learner who is now labeled a long-term adolescent ELL. Olsen (2010) defines LongTerm English Learners as students who have been in U.S. schools for more than six years without reaching sufficient English proficiency to be reclassified. In California, 59% of secondary students are considered to be Long-Term English

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Learners. I use the term Long-Term English Learners in this chapter because it is commonly used in the field, and orients the readers of this chapter to my case study student. However, I use the term with reluctance as it has the potential to be pejorative and to assume that the problem of being a Long-Term English Learner is a problem that resides within a child, rather than a result of educational institutions that are ill equipped to develop academic language and literacy in English language learners (see also Pacheco, this volume).

In this study I argue that Manuel is really not a simple case study but is representative of millions of English language learners who are expected to learn academic language and literacy (as defined above), but who, in fact, have limited opportunities to learn this academic literacy in their current school settings.

I propose that definitions of academic language and literacy must be coupled with a better understanding of the contexts of schooling and the opportunities to learn this academic language and literacy. I will also propose that students, such as the student in this study, can engage in academic work using forms that are often not considered “academic” and that it is a mistake for schools to assume that students must acquire basic literacy skills before they can engage in tasks that develop academic literacy however we define it. Finally, I will suggest that, as currently configured, school programs reduce opportunities to learn academic literacy for many English language learners for a number of reasons, including a limited definition of what “academic” entails. Researchers such as Warren, Ballenger Ogonowski, Rosebery, and Hudicourt-Barnes (2001) and Shatz and Wilkinson (2010) argue that when educators hold up narrow definitions of academic discourse, they can fail to appreciate students’ intellectual work and linguistic resources and as a result constrain their curricular opportunities and their opportunities to develop academic language and literacy.

Manuel: Grade 4 In April of 2009 Manuel was in the fourth grade and was a student involved in a longitudinal study that I helped to conduct (Escamilla, 2009). Manuel entered school in fall 2005 and was labeled an English language learner; Spanish was his home language, and he had learned Spanish and English since birth. In 2005, his composite score on the Colorado English Language Assessment (CELA) was a 2.

He was labeled as a beginning level English language learner. The CELA composite score consisted of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and it is important to note that his sub-scores for listening and speaking were at level 3, but for reading and writing they were at level 1. He attended all five years of elementary school at Vernon Elementary School. Manuel’s academic profile at the end of the fourth grade was typical of students in his school and district. Manuel’s score on the CELA had increased to a composite of 3, meaning that he was labeled as limited in his English proficiency but nearing proficiency (a 4 is considered proficient). Typical of students in his district, his listening and speaking scores had

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grown from 3 to 4 but his reading score grew only from 1 to 2 and his writing score did not grow at all. Students in this school district are frequently labeled as “stuck at LEP,” which is typically a composite 3 score (Keenan & Davis, 2012).

Manuel’s reading scores on informal reading and writing measures were also very low. On the Developmental Reading Assessment Test (DRA2), in English, his score was a 12 (middle of first grade), and on the Evaluación de Lecto-escritura (EDL2), in Spanish, his score was 4 (beginning of first grade). His writing on an informal writing assessment was deemed as “unreadable.” The writing sample (Figure 10.1) was collected in January of 2009. Manuel was writing to a writing prompt that asked, “If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you be and why?” Like the majority of students in his school and many Latinos in his school district, his writing was scored by teachers at his school and rated as unsatisfactory.

In fact, some teachers concluded that his writing was unreadable and refused to score it. This particular writing sample was collected as part of a larger research study, and teachers in this project have a daylong training one time per year to learn to score students’ writing and to discuss how to use student writing samples to improve writing instruction. Writing samples such as this one are used both in formative and summative assessments in this research project and in schools across Colorado and the United States (Escamilla et al., in press).

When discussing Manuel’s strengths and needs as a student, his teachers made the following observations: • • • • •

Manuel’s writing issues are typical of English language learners and are caused

by Spanish interfering with English; Manuel lacks phonemic awareness and likely needs an intervention; Manuel lacks knowledge about the conventions of writing; Manuel’s writing consists of random strings of letters and he needs instruction in spelling and spelling rules; Manuel’s writing is unreadable.

Manuel’s sample (written in standard English with conventional spelling) I would be Juan Carlos. I would like to be him because he is proficient in math. I was mostly the dumbest kid, but as the year went by I got smarter.

Now I’m back where I was all over again. I really hate that because I’m really stupid, plus I am partially proficient in math and Juan is proficient in math. And, I am unsatisfactory in writing and reading, him too but he’s a lot smarter than me. I’m the stupidest in the whole entire school. That’s the truth. That’s why I want to be him. This is the truth. I’ve never told anybody this. I haven’t told a soul.

In short, the analysis of Manuel’s writing sample was characterized by a deficit orientation (what Manuel could not do, rather than what he could do). None of

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FIGURE 10.1

Manuel’s writing sample: fourth grade

the teachers in the study, for example, commented on the content of Manuel’s writing or that he has a powerful voice and a sad, but powerful, story to tell about life in an urban, underperforming school in the era of No Child Left Behind.

Further, not one teacher commented on the fact that Manuel knew very well how to read the charts on the walls that lined the halls of the school where the scores on reading and writing assessments of ALL students were posted for public consumption. Manuel knew exactly where he stood in terms of his academic achievement vis-à-vis his peers. The teachers assessing his writing, as recounted in his essay, noted none of Manuel’s knowledge. Further, teachers were quick to conclude that his first language was a problem and likely getting in the way of his acquiring academic writing skills. The working definition of academic literacy in writing at this school was limited to being proficient in spelling, the correct use of conventions, and the use of standard English when writing. Further, the teachers in his school and district limited their definitions of academic literacy to reading and writing; they did not consider oral language as being part of an academic register.

In a paper that I wrote about Manuel (Escamilla, 2009), I argued that this limited definition of academic writing represented a reductionist definition of academic literacy that prevented teachers from understanding that Manuel’s writing had very strong content, that he was quite capable of expressing himself in complete thoughts, and that the content of his writing expressed in a personal way the emotional scars inflicted on many children by high-stakes testing environments in low-performing schools. His use of the sentence, “I haven’t told anybody this—I haven’t told a soul,” is illustrative of his nascent knowledge of literary language, yet the educators at his school did not acknowledge these strengths in

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any way. Further, I noted that many of his spelling errors could not have come from Spanish and that the observation that Spanish was interfering with English was simply incorrect. For example, the letter combination “hw” which he used to spell Juan Carlos (hwankarlos) does not exist in Spanish and could not have been negatively transferred in his writing from Spanish to English.

The school’s prescription for improving Manuel’s writing, as proposed by his teachers and school, surprisingly did not include more attention to writing. Rather, the school suggested that Manuel needed a more intensive phonemic awareness intervention, a stronger phonics program, intensive instruction in English sight words, and a stronger focus on weekly improvement in English spelling tests. A critical aspect of the school’s prescription for the improvement of Manuel’s writing was the idea that the teaching of the basic skills listed above was a prerequisite to learning academic literacy in English and a prerequisite to getting “credit” in writing for having good ideas. In short, from the vantage point of his teachers, ideas or content do not matter until it can be expressed using the standard forms. One of the major findings in this study was that children at this school had very limited opportunities to learn about academic writing because their writing instruction consisted in large part of learning to write short complete sentences where all the words were spelled correctly and the appropriate punctuation was used. Further, children, such as Manuel, who were perceived as being “low in reading and writing” got an extra dose of this limited literacy instruction during ELD (English language development) time. ELD took the place of science and social studies for low-achieving students such as Manuel. In short, Manuel had little opportunity for exposure to a robust literacy program or to the content areas of science and social studies.

Manuel’s School and School District For the remainder of this chapter, it is important to understand that Manuel is not simply a case study of one child, but representative of students in his school, his school district, and the national context. Manuel was born in Colorado and has been in Vernon Elementary School in Colorado since kindergarten. In Colorado and in the United States, 77% of elementary students who are labeled as English language learners are U.S. born, as are 56% of secondary English language learners (Capp et al., 2005). Vernon Elementary School is located in a very poor urban neighborhood in the Downtown School District. Spanish is the language of the community surrounding the school, and the school implements a form of early-exit bilingual education. In 2008–2009 there were 420 children in Manuel’s school of whom 75% were Latino, 70% were designated English language learners, and 87% were eligible for free or and reduced lunch. The majority of children at this school had been in the school district since kindergarten.

The school’s rating in 2008–2009 was “low” and the development of academic literacy in English in order to close the achievement gap in children like Manuel was the major concern of teachers and administrators at the school.

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Similarly, the Downtown School District in 2008–2009 had 70,000 students of whom 58% were Latino, 40% were English language learners, and 75% eligible for free or reduced lunch. One third of all of the “low” and “unsatisfactory” schools in the state are located in this school district and consist of schools where the majority of children are Latino, English language learners, and on free or reduced lunch. Developing academic English in order to close the achievement gap was the major concern of teachers and administrators in the district as well.

Because of the concern and sense of urgency about the development of academic literacy in English language learners, the district adopted and mandated several literacy programs designed to help remediate the perceived deficits in the academic language of students in the district. Said literacy programs were heavily focused on reading (specifically learning to decode) with less emphasis on writing and little attention to either oral language or metalinguistic development.

Further, schools in this district with large numbers of English language learners place very little emphasis on content area instruction in science and social studies. Unfortunately, the district-imposed curriculum to improve and develop academic literacy has had little impact on student English literacy outcomes as measured by the Colorado State Assessment Program (CSAP) over the past few years. Table 10.1 presents the overall reading and writing results on the CSAP for fourth graders at Vernon Elementary School (Manuel’s school) for the past four years, overall scores for fourth graders in the entire Downtown School District, and disaggregated data for White and Latino students.

To reiterate the above, Vernon Elementary School and the Downtown School District have adopted literacy programs over the past four years designed to accelerate academic English literacy in English language learners and by doing so to close the achievement gap between ELLs and others in the district. With regard to Vernon, Table 10.1 presents a fairly discouraging picture in that over the past four years while reading achievement has gone up and down, in 2012 it was at a four-year low despite implementation of numerous literacy interventions. A similar trend is seen in writing where the scores went up slightly from 2009–2011 and then dropped in 2012. In a school where 70% of the children are classified as ELLs, and the majority have been in the same school since kindergarten, it is troubling that less than 20% of the children at the end of the fourth grade are proficient in either reading or writing. When comparing Vernon with the district as a whole, it is also important to note that the reading and writing outcomes for the district were fairly flat across the four-year span between 2009 and 2012. District-wide scores were much higher than Vernon scores. The greatest concern in the data presented in this table is perhaps the large gaps in achievement between Latino and White students in the district. Over a four-year period White achievement increases every year while Latino achievement is rather flat, and there are stark differences between the percentage of White and Latino students who are proficient in reading and writing as measured by the CSAP. From these data it is easy to understand the concern about the achievement gap and

Literacy and Opportunities to Learn 217 TABLE 10.1 Vernon Elementary School and Downtown School District Reading and

Writing Outcomes, 2009–2012 Grade 4 – Percent of Students Proficient and Advanced on the CSAP/TCAP* Year

2009 2010 2011 2012

Vernon

Vernon

District- District- DistrictALL ALL Latino

District- District- DistrictLatino White White

Reading Writing

Reading Writing

Reading Writing

Reading Writing

17% 27% 26% 12%

49% 44% 45% 49%

40% 34% 32% 37%

78% 70% 80% 85%

11% 18% 26% 16%

30% 30% 38% 36%

20% 22% 25% 25%

59% 60% 74% 70%

*Note: In 2012 the state of Colorado changed assessment programs from the CSAP to the TCAP.

the need for more intense interventions to help students at Vernon and all Latino students “catch up.”

Manuel: Grade 8 Manuel and thousands of children who were fourth graders in 2008–2009 completed the eighth grade in 2012 and are now entering high school. How are they doing with regard to their acquisition of academic language and literacy in English? Did the elementary literacy program and concomitant interventions prepare them for the challenges of middle school?

Manuel’s academic profile looks very similar in the eighth grade to what it looked like in the fourth grade. With regard to his language proficiency he is still labeled a 3 on the CELA, meaning he is still considered to be an English language learner (limited English proficient). His listening and speaking scores on the CELA are now at level 4 but his reading is at level 3 and his writing is at level 1. He has been identified since fifth grade as a student with learning disabilities and he receives additional literacy support that replaces electives in his middle school. I would argue, however, that Manuel is likely not a student with learning disabilities but has been identified as such based on his very limited opportunities to learn in elementary school in either of his languages. In eighth grade, he scored “Unsatisfactory” in reading and writing, and he was well below grade level in every subject. Predictably, Manuel dislikes school and is frequently absent.

Manuel’s profile is similar to many others in his school district. A longitudinal study released in the summer of 2012 found that the majority of students in the district were able to attain a level 3 on the CELA language proficiency assessment rather quickly; however they then spend years at level 3 never being redesignated from limited English proficient to fully English proficient (Keenan & Davis, 2012).

Further, it is likely that Manuel’s outcomes on the CSAP (now TCAP) mirror other Latino and ELL students at the eighth grade in this district. Table 10.2

218 Kathy Escamilla TABLE 10.2 Downtown School District Reading and Writing Outcomes 2009–2012

Grade 8 – Percent of Students Proficient or Advanced on the CSAP/TCAP Year

2009 2010 2011 2012

District- District- DistrictALL ALL Latino

District- DistrictLatino ELLs

DistrictELLs

District- DistrictWhite White

Reading Writing Reading Writing Reading

Writing

Reading Writing

47% 51% 51% 47%

6.5% LEP 73% 7% LEP 74% 3% LEP 85% 9% LEP 82%

34% 37% 36% 34%

31% 42% 42% 36%

24% 26% 26% 32%

.09% LEP 13% LEP 11% LEP 9.4% LEP

63% 62% 76% 75%

Note: In 2012 the state of Colorado changed assessment programs from the CSAP to the TCAP. *Scores are reported for both limited English proficient students (LEP) and for fully English proficient students (FEP), as the majority of English learners in fourthgrade are either LEP or FEP.

presents data related to eighth grade achievement on the CSAP reading and writing assessment. Data are presented related to the aggregate achievement of all eighth grade students in the district over a four-year period and are disaggregated with regard to English language learner, Latino, and White students.

Again, the discrepancies between the achievement of White students and Latinos and ELLs are stark. With regard to Latinos it is noteworthy that only about 40% are rated as proficient in reading in the eighth grade and only about 30% are rated as proficient in writing. The reverse is true for White children where 80% are rated as proficient in reading and 75% in writing. The outcomes for English learners who carry the label of LEP indicate an even greater gap with only about 10% of these learners being rated as proficient in reading and writing in the eighth grade. These data, on face value, suggest that Manuel and students who fit his profile are purportedly not acquiring academic literacy. Schools and teachers are right to be concerned about whether or not these students will be able to do well in high school and to meet the rigors of the new Common Core Standards. However, I propose that in the case of Manuel and thousands of others like him, the issue is not that he did not acquire academic literacy, but that the context of school did not provide him with an opportunity to develop academic literacy in English.

Opportunities to Learn Academic English In a seminal study of the Standards Based Educational Movement, McLaughlin and Shepard (1995) discussed the potential of standards based educational movements by describing the movement as having three components. These include (1) the content of the standards, (2) the assessment systems to determine whether or not the standards have been met (performance standards), and (3) the opportunities to

Literacy and Opportunities to Learn 219

learn the standards for students and teachers. At the end of this study McLaughlin and Shepard concluded that content and assessment standards were in fact being developed and implemented, but few states, districts, or schools had created or implemented Opportunity-to-Learn Standards.

Opportunity to learn is defined as teacher quality, access to curriculum, utilization of “best practice” teaching methods, up-to-date school facilities, and material resources. These authors concluded that without opportunities to learn, standards-based education would be unlikely to positively impact schools where there are large numbers of poor, diverse, and/or ELL students. To date, few, if any, states, school districts, or schools have developed or implemented Opportunityto-Learn Standards. While it is possible that the low achievement among Manuel and others like him is influenced by poverty, his language, culture, and/or his family, it is critical that we also examine the opportunities that he had, in school, to learn academic literacy in English.

The call for the need to develop Opportunity-to-Learn Standards dates back to 1995 and is reinforced by research (Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Amrein & Berliner, 2002) that documents that schools that perform poorly on high-stakes tests have been reduced to test preparation factories where teachers are mandated to do little more than teach reading and math all day long. For English language learners this means reading and math in English only. The reductionist learning opportunities are likely to include less recess, less PE, less art and music, and for bilingual learners less Spanish and no attention to or appreciation of the development of bilingualism and biliteracy. Further, in the case of Manuel, the reduced opportunities to learn included no access to science and social studies. In sum, Manuel’s school program and curriculum over the years illustrate both limited opportunities to learn and reductionist views of curricula for students like Manuel.

Beginning in kindergarten, had limited opportunities to develop literacy in either English or Spanish. Manuel’s path at Vernon school began in an English classroom even though he entered school as a simultaneous bilingual who was labeled as limited English proficient. In second grade he was placed in a bilingual classroom in the hopes that Spanish literacy instruction could help him catch up in English. When he was placed in a bilingual second grade classroom he had had no previous instruction in Spanish literacy and therefore was behind the other children in the class who had learned to read in Spanish since kindergarten. By second grade he was behind in both Spanish and English. With regard to learning English as a second language, the school and school district’s program model called for content-based ESL instruction that was combined with science and social studies and scheduled during the last period of the school day (2:00–2:45).

In this case ESL was not taught as content in and of itself, but was taught in the context of science and social studies. Teachers at the school openly admitted that they had little time to teach any of this content and had no training on how to use the prescribed curriculum (Avenues, 2003). Through teacher interviews and observations we found that science, social studies, and ESL were infrequently

220 Kathy Escamilla

taught, and teachers generally used this time for students to “catch up” on other work. Moreover, assemblies, testing, and other school activities frequently interrupted the time slot. In short, beginning in kindergarten Manuel had reduced opportunities to learn ESL, science, or social studies, and he had no opportunity to learn literacy in Spanish until second grade.

The curricula to which Manuel was exposed in school were not designed for emergent bilingual students. The school’s English literacy program revolved around a district-mandated curriculum that was based on a balanced approach to literacy instruction that was created for monolingual English students. Teachers teaching Spanish literacy were told to adapt the curriculum into Spanish but little guidance was provided for them in how to do this, and there were very few Spanish books suggested as a part of the curriculum. Manuel’s literacy program in kindergarten and first grade was designed for monolingual English children and was applied to Manuel without modification. The Spanish literacy program in second grade was similarly limited. By the end of fourth grade it was concluded that Manuel was not benefiting from Spanish literacy instruction since his informal reading and writing scores were low in both languages, and so by the fifth grade he received English-only instruction.

Manuel’s reading and writing instruction was exclusively focused on basic skills. In fifth grade, he began receiving an additional intervention that took the form of a daily reading intervention. It was unclear if the reading intervention was aligned in any way to his classroom literacy program or if the intervention included oral language development, writing, or metalanguage. The teaching of basic skills took the form of phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, and learning to read fluently. Learning these skills took the place of reading chapter and other engaging books at his grade level. Reading comprehension was a low priority as it was assumed that decoding and fluency had to be mastered before students could engage in conversations about what they were reading. Because of the concern for teaching Manuel to read, little emphasis was placed on writing other than spelling and writing short sentences. Manuel’s intervention occurred at 2:00 in the afternoon, thereby replacing his aforementioned ESL time as well as science or social studies instruction. By the fifth grade, contrary to having a robust curriculum and rich opportunities to learn that were designed to give him access to learning the types of academic language and literacy defined above, his school day was reduced to literacy (emphasis on phonics and decoding), literacy intervention (more emphasis on phonics and decoding), and math. Given this daily routine, it is not surprising that Manuel and others at his school arrive at middle school as adolescents with low levels of academic language, low levels of literacy, and low engagement.

Added to this limited opportunity to learn academic language is the inordinate amount of time that Manuel’s school had to devote to testing and assessment.

Because of the sense of urgency to raise test scores, students like Manuel get tested more often on both formal and informal measures, which also reduced

Literacy and Opportunities to Learn 221

the amount of time he spent in instruction. For example, during August and September Manuel and his peers were given informal individually administered reading, writing, and math assessments that were used to form instructional groups. These informal tests were administered three times per year to assess progress. In addition, because Manuel was labeled as an ELL, he was assessed on the CELA assessment every January. While the test took only a few hours of Manuel’s time, because there were so many ELLs in Manuel’s school the test took the better part of the month of January to administer. Teachers and others at Manuel’s school had to interrupt instruction to administer the CELA test.

Beginning in third grade Manuel and others had to take the state CSAP/TCAP test, and the administration of this assessment occupied the better part of the month of March during which time instruction was also interrupted. In short, beginning in kindergarten a rough estimate is that between 2 and 3 months of instructional time, per year, was devoted to various kinds of assessments, and I argue that this also represents a reduced opportunity to learn for Manuel and his peers. I am not accounting here for other assessments that are done in classrooms by individual teachers.

Finally, rarely were ELLs or any children at Manuel’s school defined by their strengths or their academic potential. As evidenced in Manuel’s writing sample (see Figure 10.1), our research team observed that student strengths often go unnoticed, and teachers often cannot separate students’ intellectual thinking from the forms they use to express themselves (Alvarez, 2013). This view prevents teachers from engaging students in intellectually challenging tasks that foster language and literacy development.

In sum, Manuel had little or no opportunity to learn academic English either in literacy or in the content areas. He had infrequent, poorly defined opportunities to learn English as a second language; he had limited and interrupted opportunities to learn science and social studies; and his literacy instruction was reduced to learning how to decode words, syllabicate, and read quickly (not necessarily fluently), and in writing, to learning about conventions and spelling. Beginning in fifth grade, Manuel’s reading intervention meant that he received a double dose of the limited English reading program at his school and likely even less of an opportunity to acquire or practice academic English. Given this, it is not surprising that Manuel and others like him enter middle school with a limited ability in academic language and literacy.

Manuel, the National Context, and Reduced Opportunities to Learn A large-scale study published by Californians Together (Olsen, 2010) examined data gathered on English language learners and opportunities to learn in 40 school districts and 175,734 students in secondary schools in California. Findings from this study mirror those of our work with Manuel and his school. In this study,

222 Kathy Escamilla

56% of the total ELL population in secondary schools, and in some districts as many as 75% of the ELL students, are still labeled as ELL in middle and high school even though they have been in the United States since birth and have attended only U.S. schools. The majority of students have been in schools where English is the sole medium of instruction and in many cases they have not had formal ELD/ESL. The majority of these students have had limited or no opportunity to learn literacy or content in their native language and many are in various stages of language loss. With regard to the acquisition of academic English, the majority of these students have fossilized at intermediate levels of English, prompting Olsen and others to label them “long-term ELLs.” Like Manuel, the majority of these students have gaps in their academic learning (e.g., most did not have science or social studies in the elementary schools). Olsen goes on to state that these long-term ELLs likely do not understand academic genres and are weak in basic syntax, grammar, and vocabulary. Also like Manuel, many have had remedial literacy instruction that was designed for monolingual English struggling readers and not for second language learners. In short, these students have had little opportunity to acquire academic language and literacy however we define it.

Olsen’s report, aptly titled Reparable Harm, clearly situates the issues with academic language and literacy development in the context of schools and not in the students themselves. She states, What is striking is that these students have remained unnoticed and unaddressed in a time of intense scrutiny about English Learner achievement and major initiatives that purportedly were designed to meet their needs. In the past decade, California has set in motion major reforms intended to address the underachievement of students and close the achievement gap. It was assumed that these reform initiatives would meet the needs of English Learners along with other students. They were a misguided generic response applied to “all children” that failed to target the specific needs of English Learners. The results were disappointing. The achievement gap between English learners and proficient English speakers actually widened in the past decade. (pp. 7–8) A striking aspect of Olsen’s report is that there appears to be a parallel lack of opportunities to learn for English learners in secondary schools in California, as seen in elementary and middle schools in Colorado. For example, her results indicate that long-term ELLs are inappropriately placed in one of two programs.

They are either placed in a mainstream program, which means they receive no language support, or they are placed in newcomers’ programs where all of the English language learners are beginners. There is no targeted program for intermediate ELLs. The majority of teachers assigned to teach them are unprepared and do not possess state endorsements for teaching English language learners. Like Manuel, these students are overassigned and inadequately served in intervention

Literacy and Opportunities to Learn 223

and reading-support classes that reduce rather than enrich literacy instruction, and because of these interventions they have no electives and limited access to the full curriculum.

What to Do? Changing School Contexts to Support Academic Literacy Development in Child and Adolescent ELLs To reiterate and summarize, it appears that we have varied and abundant definitions of what constitutes academic literacy or literacies, and as the present volume demonstrates, there is still a need to refine and study these definitions.

These definitions are extremely valuable in that they provide a set of expectations for what all students need to know and do with language in order to successfully navigate formal schooling contexts, especially in secondary schools.

However, it is important that moving forward we couple these definitions with studies that examine school practices, especially school practices that have the potential to accelerate student academic literacy development. As Bailey and Orellana (this volume) suggest, we must situate the adolescent ELL in a definition of academic literacy. We need research that closely examines opportunities to learn in current elementary and secondary school contexts.

For the remainder of this chapter, I would like to offer some suggestions for changing school practices at both the elementary and secondary level that might serve to overcome the limited opportunities to learn that currently begin in kindergarten and accumulate over time. English language learners have distinct linguistic and cultural issues, and we can no longer afford to ignore these issues and pretend that generic language arts and literacy programs will meet their needs and accelerate their progress toward the acquisition of academic language and literacy. Indeed, as Olsen said, school programs and contexts for ELLs need to situate ELLs at the center of the school program and must have urgency, acceleration, and focus (Olsen, 2010).

Given the above, it is absolutely critical that elementary language and literacy programs be revised to be more robust, to be specifically targeted to ELLs, and to include more and better opportunities to learn. We have all but forgotten the research on bilingual education (August & Shanahan, 2006; Goldenberg, 2008; Slavin & Cheung, 2005) that has concluded that bilingual literacy approaches are the most effective means for teaching initial literacy instruction to Spanishspeaking English language learners. Opportunities to learn in quality bilingual/ biliterate schooling contexts that pay careful attention to both the language of instruction and the quality of instruction provide a research-based and researchtested opportunity to learn that fewer and fewer urban school districts are taking advantage of.

Current literacy programs are too narrowly focused on reading (Bernhardt, 2003) and almost always use methods and materials created for monolingual English children.

224 Kathy Escamilla

The National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006) concluded that instruction in the key components of reading is necessary but not sufficient (emphasis mine) for teaching ELLs to read and write proficiently in English. I suggest that a robust literacy program for ELLs should include oral language (oracy), reading, writing, and metalanguage, and that equal emphasis be placed on all four of these components (Dickinson & Neuman, 2006; Dickinson, McCabe, & Essex, 2011; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Escamilla et al., in press). A greater emphasis needs to be placed on direct and explicit instruction in literacy and in English language development that invites and encourages dialogue and places meaning making and text interaction at the center of the literacy curriculum. The narrow focus on reading in many elementary programs that currently de-emphasize oracy and definitions of academic literacy (included above) clearly devalue the role of “talking to learn.” Discounting oracy likely has negative effects on literacy acquisition even for native English speakers. Oracy instruction should include the teaching and learning of various oral and written registers. A robust literacy curriculum in elementary school also needs to include explicit attention to the teaching of metalanguage. The development of metalanguage includes the ability to identify, analyze, and manipulate language forms and involves analyses of sounds, symbols, grammar, vocabulary, and language structures between and across languages; it has been identified as one of the fundamental skills required for a person to become literate (Bialystok, 2007; Koda & Zehler, 2008). Finally, robust literacy programs in elementary school include a writing curriculum that recognizes and develops student voice and ideas as well as conventions and mechanics.

Current intervention programs that focus on decoding as a prerequisite to comprehension are also likely counterproductive to developing academic literacy in ELLs (Goldenberg, 2008). Recent research has concluded that daily, explicit English language development opportunities are critical for ELLs and that this ELD should not compete with or be offered in lieu of content area instruction in science or social studies, as these content areas offer additional opportunities to develop academic English (Saunders & Goldenberg, 2010). In short, a more robust and effective language and literacy program in elementary school may help to eliminate some of the current concerns about academic literacy (or lack of it) for future secondary students.

With regard to middle school students who have long-term ELLs and are receiving students like Manuel, there are also some recommendations. It should be noted that secondary long-term ELLs have distinct needs, and given that they have only a few short years left in the school system, whatever courses they receive must be particularly targeted to most “efficiently, effectively, directly, and powerfully address the needs of these students” (Olson, 2010, p. 38). I would add that our research in this area needs to involve and include how to create these powerful and effective learning contexts.

Olsen (2010) suggests that language development is different from literacy development and that secondary ELLs need both. This includes opportunities

Literacy and Opportunities to Learn 225

for students to access the curriculum and practice language through speaking, listening, reading, and writing for multiple functions and in multiple contexts.

Secondary ELLs need rigor, and their language and literacy programs cannot and should not be dumbed down or oversimplified. She calls for the creation of academic language development classes that include: powerful oral language (oracy); explicit literacy development; high quality writing; complex vocabulary development; extensive reading of relevant texts; and explicit language and literacy in content areas. Secondary ELLs likely have both language development and academic gaps in content areas such as science and social studies that must also be addressed across the curriculum.

Secondary ELLs, especially those with academic histories like Manuel, need invitation, support, and insistence that they become active participants in their own education (see also Wright, this volume). Without being made to feel like they are the “dumbest students in the entire school,” they need information about their own progress and how it relates to their life goals, and they need to develop the organization and study skills needed for them to pursue those goals. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Olsen recommends that secondary ELLs need to know that relationships matter. As one student in her study commented, “I need to know that someone cares – not just about my homework being turned in, not just about my scores, but about ME and my education” (2010, p. 39). Olsen states, “As a group of students who have been largely overlooked throughout their schooling, it makes a difference when adults reach out, listen and mentor” (p. 39). I would argue that our case study student Manuel was making the same plea in the fourth grade.

To conclude, this chapter is not arguing for or against any particular definition of academic language or academic literacy. Rather, the chapter argues for school contexts and learning opportunities that begin by knowing who the students are, that value the languages that students bring to school with them, and that provide students with opportunities to expand on what they know by having access to a robust language, literacy, and content curriculum. This needs to begin in elementary school. To understand where the adolescent ELL fits into a definition of academic literacy, it is necessary to study the characteristics of ELLs in elementary school along with their particular opportunities to learn. There is currently a contradiction between what we know and what actually happens on the ground in schools which has significant consequences on the availability, accessibility, and advance of opportunities to learn and develop academic language and literacy.

We must provide enhanced opportunities to learn for the sake of Manuel and the millions of students like him who have enormous potential that is often not recognized, valued, or developed in schools (see also Low, this volume). The sobering reality is that definitions, conceptual frameworks, and good intentions matter very little if we cannot impact teaching and learning in schooling contexts where millions of students like Manuel are depending on us to prepare them for high school, postsecondary education, and life.

226 Kathy Escamilla

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August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on language-minority children and youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bailey, A. L., & Huang, B. H. (2011). Do current English language development/ proficiency standards reflect the English needed for success in school? Language Testing, 28(3), 343–365.

Berliner, D., & Biddle, B. (1995). The manufactured crisis: Myths, fraud, and the attack on America’s public schools. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

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Capp, R., Fix, M., Murray, J., Ost, J., Passel, J. S., & Herwantoro, S. (2005). The new demography of America’s schools: Immigration and the No Child Left Behind Act. Washington DC: Urban Institute.

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Dickinson, D., & Neuman, S. B. (2006). Handbook of early literacy research: Volume II. New York: Guilford Press.

Dickinson, D., & Tabors, P. (2001). Beginning literacy with language. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Escamilla, K. (2009). The misunderestimation of Manuel: Issues in reductionist paradigms and parallel monolingual frameworks in the quest to improve policy and practice for bilingual learners.

Paper presented at the annual American Education Research Association (AERA) Conference, San Diego, CA. Escamilla, K., Butvilofsky, S., Hopewell, S., Sparrow, W., Soltero-González, L., Escamilla, M., & Ruiz-Figueroa, O. (2012). Literacy Squared®: Colorado case study technical report year two, 2011-2012. Boulder, CO: BUENO Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.

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Escamilla, K., Hopewell, S., Butvilofky, S., Sparrow, W., Soltero-González, L., Ruiz-Figueroa, O., & Escamilla, M. (in press). Biliteracy from the start: Literacy Squared in action. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon.

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Saunders, W., & Goldenberg, C. (2010). Research to guide English language development instruction. In D. Dolson & L. Burnham-Massey (Eds.), Improving education for English Learners: Research-based approaches (pp. 21–81). Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

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Valdés, G. (2004). Between support and marginalization: The development of academic language in linguistic minority children. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2 & 3), 102–132.

Warren, B., Ballenger, C., Ogonowski, M., Rosebery, A., Hudicourt-Barnes, J. (2001) Rethinking diversity in science: The logic of everyday sense-making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(5), 529–552.

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PART III

Implications of an Academic Literacies Approach to Learning

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11 THE USE OF ASSESSMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENTS’ ACADEMIC LITERACIES Margaret Heritage

The new global knowledge economy has increased the need to graduate highly literate students from our nation’s schools so that they will be equipped for higher education, employment, and citizenship (Carnegie Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, 2010; Center on Education Policy, 2007a, 2007b).

Yet for many U.S. students, and in particular emerging bilingual students, graduating high school as a highly literate individual is a goal that remains at some distance (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011; Pew Hispanic Center, 2007). This situation has the potential to be exacerbated as a result of a majority of states adopting the new Standards (College and Career Ready Standard Common Core State Standards [CCSS] Initiative, 2010), which have the goal of graduating college and career-ready students. Given the increased demand of the College and Career Ready Standard, and the fact that significant numbers of emerging bilinguals had for example challenges meeting prior standards, achieving the new requirements constitutes an enormous challenge (Goldenberg, 2013).

This chapter considers what it means to be highly literate, and, in particular, how evidence of adolescent students’ academic literacies can be effectively collected. First, I explore the construct of academic literacies. This is followed by a consideration of developing academic literacies for emerging bilingual students, those students who are in the process of acquiring an additional language. Next, I consider the purpose of evidence gathering, and include a section on the limitations for current assessment practices, with a discussion on the issues that are specific to emerging bilingual students. Then I discuss how summative evidence of academic literacies can be collected. The chapter concludes with an examination of formative assessment practice and how formative evidence can support the acquisition of academic literacies.

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Exploring the Construct of Academic Literacies Highly literate individuals can do more than read and write. They are able to use language, content, and reasoning in ways that are appropriate for a variety of contexts and disciplines (Langer, 2002); they can extract meaning from print, visual, and electronic media, often simultaneously; and they have the capacity to develop new ways of using language in advanced literacy contexts (Colombi & Schleppegrell, 2002). To illustrate, consider the literacy demands of each of these tasks (see the Appendix for the tasks): 1.

2.

3.

4.

Analyzing dialogue in The Merchant of Venice to examine how it contributes to an understanding of Shylock’s character; Understanding the proof for the theorem that the diagonals of a rhombus are perpendicular and bisect each other; Following instructions to fold paper into the form of a cat; and Using the “Help” function as part of creating a variable in a statistical program.

Each of these activities involves an entirely distinct form of literacy in its most basic sense: making meaning from text. Each involves a totally different type of engagement between the text and the real world (imagining an interaction and the disclosure of character and motive within it; grasping a proof of real-world circumstance that is true under all contingencies; actually following instructions with paper in hand to produce a model; following instructions to create an entity within a statistical program).Very different cognitive resources are similarly engaged in the reading and in the following of the reading. The technical specificities of the language(s) involved are dramatically distinct. And talking about these tasks requires a grasp of the specific conventions of their use.

In school students are involved in developing the language, cognitive, and pragmatic resources that enable them to extract and communicate meaning to high levels within a range of disciplines and contexts. In other words, students are engaging in multiple forms of academic literacy, the ability “to make use of diverse resources to negotiate meaning in ways that accomplish students’ purpose in academic settings and are valued within a 21st century community” (WIDA & WestEd, 2012). Thus, the construct academic literacy is best considered not as a single entity but rather as a multiplicity—academic literacies (cf. Blommaert, Street, & Turner, 2007; Lee & Spratley, 2006; The New London Group, 1996; Moje, 2008a, 2008b); Street, 2003).

Academic literacies require the successful integration of language for academic purposes, cognitive resources, and pragmatic competence. Figure 11.1 illustrates the integration of these dimensions.

Academic Language Resources Academic literacies require a variety of academic language resources to be employed. In the example of the rhombus proof referred to earlier, to make sense of the proof a reader must see how the expressions are connected together

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Academic Language Resources

Cognitive Resources

Pragmatic Competence

FIGURE 11.1 Dimensions of academic literacies

to form a logical chain of argument. Quite a different form of connectivity is involved in reading The Merchant of Venice where the sentences are connected to reveal an underlying pattern of motivation, which is itself disclosed in dialogue.

In the example of creating a cat from a series of instructions, the reader has to translate each sentence in a manual operation with paper in hand to find out what the instructions mean in practice, while keeping in mind the total gestalt of the model and how the instructions fit with that (see Livingston, 2008, for an illuminating discussion of this process). In the statistical program instructions, the representation of the variables requires very substantial knowledge of the nature and type of variables, and how typed instructions issue in variables of different kinds.

Each of these activities involves different conventions for reading, writing, and talking about text; different word-to-world relationships; different understandings of the purpose for which the text is being presented; and different conventions for its analysis and use. All of these are underwritten by countless and distinct forms of cognitive resources and pragmatic competencies.

Cognitive Resources Academic literacies require the development and deployment of a wide range of cognitive resources that are anchored in language, visuals, diagrams, and manipulations. Such cognitive resources will vary by domain. For example, the resources that will be used to engage with the texts in each of the tasks discussed earlier are (1) inferring meaning from dialogue that conveys action and motives (e.g., Shylock’s motives); (2) understanding the meaning and relationships of lines, angles, intersections, and the nature of a proof itself (e.g., theorem proof); (3) following a set of instructions in relationship to the manual construction of a model and inferring, based on the developing model, when the instructions are sufficiently precise and when they are not and what to do about it (e.g., paper folding to

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form a cat); and (4) understanding what the actions are, what the text represents in terms of these actions, the types of variables, how the subordinate instructions relate to other pages of the help manual, and so on (e.g., using the “Help” function in a statistical program).

Pragmatic Competence To consider the idea of pragmatic competence, think about the way a child might represent her home address for fun, beginning with the street and number and ending in the universe. Her address would be 245 Crescent Ave., Los Angeles, California, the United States of America, the World, the Universe. When asked where she lives, since all of the parts of the address are true, what is the appropriate answer? Knowing the appropriate answer is pragmatic competence.

In other words, knowing which part of one’s address to provide includes knowing who is asking the question and the questioner’s likely purpose. California may be an appropriate answer to a casual acquaintance, while the Westside might be appropriate for a fellow Los Angelino, while 245 Crescent Ave. would be necessary for an intending visitor (Schegloff, 1972). Similarly, knowing to spell out the words “I see you” in an academic essay rather than using the message texting format “ICU” is pragmatic competence, as is knowing that in a court of law one refers to law enforcement personnel as “police officers” and not as “cops” (Jefferson, 1974).

In a further elaboration of the dimensions of academic literacies, below I discuss how students are asked to talk and write in the context of a high-school science lesson and in a newcomers’ English as a Second Language (ESL) class.

Academic Literacy in a Science Lesson In this high-school class the students are learning about how a mutation (a change in the DNA base sequence) may or may not alter the function of a protein (Heritage, 2013). In the course of their learning, the teacher wants the students to write a paragraph explaining how changing the base sequence of DNA may or may not cause a functional change. To support their writing the teacher plans to ask students these questions to prompt discussion among them: 1.

2.

3.

How might a change of one base in the DNA sequence change the amino acid sequence in a polypeptide?

How could this affect cell structure or activity?

Can you explain why a change in the DNA base sequence might NOT alter a cell’s structure or activity?

These questions require students to employ academic language, cognitive resources, and pragmatic competencies. In terms of pragmatic competencies, the

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students must understand how to talk and write about the subject in a way that makes sense to the teacher and to other students. This means that students need to know what to include and exclude in the explanation in terms of content and language in both oral and written forms. The cognitive resources students will draw from involve cause-and-effect reasoning and justification based on evidence. The language resources the students need include using language to express the knowledge they have, the structures and technical vocabulary to convey their knowledge, and the ability to write reasoned connected discourse.

Together, these specific academic language and cognitive resources and pragmatic competencies comprise one form of academic literacy in the context of a science class.

Academic Literacies in an ESL Class This secondary ESL class example is provided by van Lier & Walqui (2012). The class comprises newcomers whose experience in the United States ranges from three months to two years. The students are part-way through a five-week unit on language that requires them to engage in research on the topic and to develop oral and written language. At this point in the unit, students have formulated questions they would like to explore about language and have researched the topic from a variety of sources. The teacher now asks them to write a letter to someone they know telling them what they have learned so far about language. Before the lesson is over, five students volunteer to write the beginning of their letter on large sheets of paper to enable a discussion on what they have done and where they may go next. An animated conversation develops about whether animals have language or not. Julio, not one of the initial volunteers, vocally disagrees with one of the students who has claimed that animal communication is not language. He asks to read his letter aloud to the class. As he reads, he uses his body and arms to underscore his ideas and interjects oral markers of communication in his reading.

Julio: . . . First of all, I think that language is a way to inform others around you, your feelings or just a simple thing that you want to let know people what is the deal. And it can be expressed by saying it, watching a picture, or hearing it, you know what I’m saying? I don’t know if you have heard about the kangaroo rat that stamps its feet to communicate with other rats. It’s really funny cause we humans have more characteristics to communicate to each other, but we still have problems to understand other people. Characteristics like sound, grammar, pitch, and body language are some of them, while the rat only uses the foot (he stamps the ground). (van Lier & Walqui, 2012, pp. 4–5) While Julio’s letter is not completely grammatically correct, and his reading includes several mispronunciations, in terms of academic literacies development

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he is analyzing and synthesizing information about language from a variety of print and electronic media, and he is developing a concept of communication and comparing channels of communication (cognitive resources). He is also using linguistic terms, such as grammar and pitch and other academic language— characteristics, expressed, communicate, and inform (academic language resources). He is developing an understanding of genre and audience to determine the appropriate form and style to communicate his findings in writing and is engaging in the discourse practices of the classroom that organize the discussion about their topic (pragmatic competencies).

The affordances of the communicative situation that the teacher has established support Julio to both enact and adapt language usage to new circumstances and new needs (Larsen-Freeman, 2013). He is acquiring the necessary language resources to make meaning from the information sources and to communicate his findings to others within the context of a specific genre, using the appropriate discourse and vocabulary to convey these findings. In this instance, pragmatic competence intersects with cognitive resources because Julio needs to know what to include about his findings in a letter to an acquaintance, as well as what not to include. He also needs to know how to ask his peers for feedback and how to respond to the feedback that is provided.

Emerging bilingual students need to acquire the same competencies in academic literacies as their native-speaking peers. However, as Short and Fitzsimmons (2007) observe, emerging bilinguals have double the work—they have to acquire content knowledge in English at the same time as they are learning English as an additional language. Adolescent emerging bilinguals already know one language, and while they are in the process of acquiring an additional language they can be regarded as emerging bilinguals. In this context, it is useful to consider what might be leveraged by teachers from their emerging bilingualism to support the development of academic literacies.

Considerations for Developing Academic Literacies for Adolescent Emerging Bilinguals Adolescent emerging bilinguals already know one language, and as they learn another language they are not in the process of becoming two monolinguals in one individual (Valdés & Figueroa, 1994). Rather, bilinguals develop a language system that integrates both the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) (Cummins, 2000, as cited in Solano-Flores & Li, 2013). For example, bilingual students tend to know translation equivalents for some vocabulary items but not for others; thus their vocabulary is “partially distributed across the languages, presumably because their experience with words is distributed across different circumstances of usage of the two languages” (Oller, Pearson, & Cobo-Lewis, 2007, p. 192).

Research has found that L1 literacy can contribute to and support L2 literacy development. In an extensive review of the literature, Riches and

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Genesee (2006) considered the cross-linguistic and cross-modal influences on L2 development. While they reported that these influences present a complex yet coherent picture, they also stressed that the picture is at best preliminary, and more research in most domains is required to be able to draw definitive conclusions. Underscoring this point, the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth noted, “research on most aspects of cross-linguistic influences in the literacy development of middleand high-school students is needed” (Genesee, Geva, Dressler, and Kamil, 2006, p. 170).

Nonetheless, in the context of developing academic literacies, it is helpful to note some of the findings from Riches and Genesee’s (2006) review: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Emerging bilinguals with successful L1 literacy experience progress more quickly and successfully in their L2 literacy development than emerging bilinguals with no prior L1 literacy; Successful emerging bilingual readers and writers use similar strategies in both languages that draw on knowledge of the relationships between the languages, whereas less successful emerging bilinguals do not; Emerging bilinguals use L1 oral language to draw on prior knowledge and experience in the absence of, or in addition to, similar levels of oral proficiency in L2; and L2 literacy development can proceed to some extent even when students have limited L2 oral proficiency.

The instructional implications that may be suggested from these findings with respect to the development of academic literacies include assisting students to use their L1 knowledge to translate and elaborate when reading English text (Jimenez, Garcia, & Pearson, 1996), helping students transfer cognate knowledge from L1 to L2, engaging in reading and oral language activities that make use of the students’ prior experiential knowledge acquired through the medium of their L1, and assisting students to transfer comprehension monitoring skills from L1 to L2 (August & Shanahan, 2006).

Riches and Genesee (2006) argued that emerging bilinguals have a reservoir of knowledge, skills, and abilities that serve second-language learning and use, which includes the cognitive abilities and pragmatic skills developed in L1. For the purpose of developing academic literacies, it will be important to draw on these resources and assist students to transfer them to learning in the L2 context. For example, students may already have cognitive resources to support their understanding of Shylock’s motivation or knowledge of the relationships of lines, angles, and intersections to assist their understanding of the proof.

With this background on the construct of academic literacies and considerations of acquiring academic literacies among emergent bilinguals, we now turn to the collection and use of evidence about academic literacies.

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Evidence of Academic Literacies Development Assessment is a process of reasoning from evidence (Mislevy, 1994, 1996). In essence, assessment is conditioned by the kind of evidence that is available to help reason about the students’ capabilities (NRC, 2001). The available evidence has two fundamental purposes: (1) to provide information on students’ current levels of achievement, and (2) to inform the future steps that both teachers and students need to take in classrooms to ensure that students make progress toward desired outcomes. In broad terms, assessment that provides information on students’ current levels of achievement represent a past-to-present perspective of learning in the sense that the resulting information indicates what has been learned to date and the level of achievement attained by students. This perspective is consistent with assessment for summative purposes. Many goals of assessment require a pastto-present view of learning: for example, accountability and program placement of emerging bilingual students. This form of assessment evaluates learning and is generally external to the classroom; for example, it is required by the state or district and is standardized—all students are administered the same assessment at the same time.

By contrast, assessment intended to support learning, rather than evaluate it, requires a present-to-future perspective, in which the concern is not solely with the actual level of performance, but with anticipating future possibilities (Heritage, 2013). Within this perspective, teachers decide how evidence of learning will be obtained, when it will be obtained, and from whom. The purpose of obtaining the evidence is formative—to help them and students decide where students are in their learning and what steps students can take with assistance to make progress. This particular use of evidence has been shown to increase student achievement, particularly when it is combined with effective feedback to students and student involvement in the assessment process (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998; Shepard, 2000).

Before addressing how evidence of academic literacies can be effectively collected, below I briefly sketch some of the limitations of current assessment practices as sources of evidence.

Current Assessment Practice In general, there are two major shortcomings inherent in many current assessment practices, particularly in assessment used for summative high-stakes purposes in accountability systems. First, for the most part, the assessments represent a conception of learning that differs from current theories of learning and cognition (Linn et al., 1991; Shepard, 1991, 2000). They are derived from a viewpoint of learning as an accumulation of knowledge that is a product of teaching, organized to impart knowledge in atomized sequences. In this context, the purpose of assessment becomes one of observing whether individuals can reproduce this

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knowledge when they are stimulated to do so (Delandshere, 2002). Since research has shown that high-stakes assessment influences what is taught and learned (for example, Madaus & Clarke, 1999), this purpose has two main results: 1.

2.

Students’ attention is focused on discrete elements within a domain rather than on deep, connected learning (Resnick & Resnick, 1992), which is the goal of current reform agendas in the United States (for example, The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts, Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010).

Teachers are driven to engage in outmoded pedagogy that is unlikely to prepare students for success in the contemporary world (Haertel, 1999; Herman, 1997).

Second, the assessments fall short of measuring performance in content domains, in important ways. The nature of the assessments, combined with the practicalities of the duration and cost of administration, limit the content of the assessment, the types of questions asked, and the content of the domain sampled (Linn, 2000; NRC, 2011). In high-accountability contexts, educators are tempted to focus on what is being assessed at the expense of a broad coverage of important learning in the domain and important learning characteristics. In these situations both inadequate sampling of the content and inadequate representations of learning in the domain lead to restrictions in students’ opportunities to acquire important understandings and skills needed for future success (Harlen & Crick, 2003; Herman & Haertel, 2005). In this regard, traditionally low-performing students, such as emerging bilingual students, are more likely to be negatively affected because of the pressure for them to reach proficiency through an intense focus on the content of assessment (Darling-Hammond & Rustique-Forrester, 2005; McNeil & Valenzuela, 1998; Nichols et al., 2012).

These shortcomings are further exacerbated because of pervasive overreliance on a single, annual measure to determine students’ achievement status and to make high-stakes decisions. Black (2013) refers to the “restricted validity” of such assessment, noting that “Systems of summative assessment based solely on external testing are unfit for a single purpose, given their inevitably restricted validity, the manner in which they exert pressures that undermine good practices in teaching and defeat their own stated aim of improving learning . . . ” (p. 176). As Baker and Linn (2002) remind us, since no test can provide a perfectly accurate or valid assessment of a student’s mastery of a content domain, multiple sources of information should be considered to enhance the validity of decisions. Consequently, one measure of academic literacy for summative purposes—especially for high-stakes decisions— will not suffice.

The limitations of assessment for summative purposes have potential negative transfer into the classroom context. The impact of summative assessment on teacher practice and behavior has been well documented (for example, Center on Education Policy, 2007a, 2007b; Hamilton et al., 2007; Rouse et al., 2007;

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Stecher, 2002; White & Rosenbaum, 2008). In line with the maxim “what gets tested gets taught,” the temptation of teachers is often to focus on the content of assessment at the expense of a comprehensive coverage of important learning in the domain and important learning characteristics. Additionally, teachers may adopt pedagogies that are inconsistent with approaches designed to promote deep learning and transferable skills. Thus the problems associated with external assessment are translated into instruction and assessment practices in the classroom.

While these limitations pertain to the assessment of all students, including emerging bilinguals, there are further limitations inherent in current assessment practices specifically for emerging bilinguals.

Limitations of Current Assessments for Emerging Bilinguals In a wide-ranging review, Solano-Flores (2008) argues that current testing practices for emerging bilinguals are based on deterministic views of language and linguistic groups and erroneous assumptions about the capacity of assessment systems to serve emerging bilinguals. Citing Aguirre-Muñoz and Baker (1997) as well as Mackey (1962), he discusses the difficulties of identifying and classifying emerging bilingual students because of the multiple patterns of language dominance resulting from different kinds of language development in L1 and in L2.

As a consequence, each ELL has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses in each of four language modes: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Solano-Flores (2008) notes, “rarely are assessments of language development for emerging bilinguals comprehensive enough to provide an accurate picture of proficiency in both L1 and L2 in the four language modes” (p. 190). Because of the multiple patterns of language dominance among emerging bilinguals, the same testing accommodations may not serve all emerging bilinguals in the same way. For example, the accommodation of reading aloud the test directions in students’ L1 may only be effective for some students (Solano-Flores & Li, 2013).

There are two additional considerations for English Language Learner (ELL) assessment that are well summarized by Solano-Flores (2008). First, certain characteristics of tests and the way they are administered privilege communication styles that may not be universal. For example, rubrics that overvalue long written responses may affect the dependability of scores for students from cultural groups that regard giving long responses as impolite. Second, some linguistic demands derive from the register, which at the lexical level can pose the challenge of negotiating meanings of words with dual meanings, terms that differ in meaning and use within a discipline and in everyday language, and cross-cutting terms that are critical to reasoning and building arguments.

To avoid the pitfalls of current assessments for summative purposes, assessing academic literacies will require assessment tasks to: (1) be developed from a conception of learning that is consistent with current theories of language learning

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and use in the content areas; (2) adequately sample and adequately represent what acquiring academic literacies entail; (3) provide multiple sources of evidence to enhance the validity of inferences; and (4) promote effective pedagogy. In addition to these requirements, assessment of emerging bilinguals specifically will also need to provide appropriate accommodations and take account of the multiple contextual factors that contribute to emerging bilinguals’ performance.

In the next section, I consider how the issues raised in the foregoing discussion can be addressed in the context of collecting summative evidence of academic literacies.

Collecting Summative Evidence Three main considerations for the collection of summative evidence include: (1) the representation of the construct, (2) the nature of assessment tasks, and (3) the contextual factors for emerging bilinguals, in particular.

Construct Representation A clear representation of the construct of academic literacies will be necessary for all assessment. As elaborated in the first part of this chapter, the construct of academic literacies embraces the deployment of language, cognitive and pragmatic competencies within a range of disciplines and contexts. Both external and internal (classroom) assessments need to reflect a comprehensive view of the construct, with external assessments developed from a broader version than a finegrained one that is more useful for classroom level assessment (Mislevy, 1996).

When there is coherence among external and classroom assessment, teaching and learning are pushed in a common direction (Herman, 2010).

Assessment Tasks Assessment tasks should afford students opportunities to show their levels of competence with respect to the full construct. To this end, students need to engage in rich tasks that are deeply grounded in the literacy requirements of the domain, and through which language, cognition, and pragmatic competence are revealed.

For example, assessment tasks should require students to use language, content, and reasoning in ways that correspond to the demands of disciplines and varieties of contexts, including the use of language as both a process and a goal of learning. In this regard, a way forward could be to devise tasks that mirror effective instructional practice in which students are integrating language for specific purposes within the content domain, as, for example, in the learning tasks described earlier in the chapter. Given the documented impact of summative assessment on teacher practice, assessments that reflect desirable practice have the potential to positively influence teachers’ pedagogy.

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Another consideration with respect to adequate sampling of the domain is that assessment tasks which involve students only in private settings, in which students respond on their own to whatever assessment is administered, will not capture oral discourse or the interactional practices of the classroom through which meaning is made and understood, nor will it capture the ability of students to make use of what they read and write in dialogue with others. While rich, well-constructed tasks can yield worthwhile evidence with respect to reading, writing, and reasoning, the absence of oral evidence from authentic settings limits the validity of any inferences about academic literacies. And if oral language is not assessed, particularly in high-stakes assessment, the message to teachers is that it is not valued.

It is desirable that oral evidence be collected and evaluated by teachers from authentic classroom contexts. Here, I echo the observations of Stanley and colleagues who point to the more active role that teachers should play in summative assessments, including high-stakes tests, and who canvass a broadening of assessment processes based on a view that there are aspects of learning that are important but cannot be adequately assessed by formal external tests. These aspects require human judgment to integrate the many elements of performance behaviors that are required in dealing with authentic assessment tasks (Stanley, McCann, Gardner, Reynolds, and Wild, 2009, p. 31). If teacher judgment were included in a summative assessment system for students’ oral language use in the content areas, then the “restricted validity” of an assessment that only concerns listening, reading, and writing performances would be addressed. There is also the possibility of beneficial effects on teacher knowledge and practice, as experience from other countries have found (e.g., Wyatt-Smith, Klenowski, & Gunn, 2010).

ELL Accommodations As noted earlier, emerging bilinguals are expected to meet the same standards as native speakers, so it will be important that the content demands being afforded native speakers are not watered down to be commensurate with the ELL students’ English language abilities (Solano-Flores & Gustafson, 2013). Stressing that accommodations are intended to make an assessment more accessible and the results more valid, Abedi and Ewers (2013, p. 4) have proposed five major conditions to consider in selecting accommodations for emerging bilinguals and students with disabilities. These are: 1.

2.

Effectiveness: an accommodation must be effective in making an assessment more accessible to the recipients; Validity: an accommodation should not alter the focal construct, i.e., the outcomes of accommodated and non-accommodated assessments should be comparable;

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3.

4.

5.

Differential Impact: an accommodation should be sensitive to students’ background characteristics, and their academic standing (i.e., one size may not fit all); Relevance: an accommodation should be appropriate for the recipients; and Feasibility: an accommodation must be logistically feasible to implement in the assessment setting.

As a further accommodation for emerging bilinguals only, Solano-Flores (2013, p. 65) proposes assessment translation accommodations. Recognizing that translating assessments are fraught with difficulty, he makes clear that the “individuals in charge of developing translation accommodations have both the responsibility to ensure that the process of test translation is sensitive to the complexity of language, translation, and linguistic groups and the responsibility to properly address the systemic components that influence test translation”.

ELL Contextual Factors From his argument discussed earlier, Solano-Flores (2008) concludes that valid testing of emerging bilinguals cannot be achieved if the focus is only on the proficiency of emerging bilinguals in English and does not take account of the linguistic factors involved in the development, adaptation, administration, and scoring of assessments. He recommends enhanced statistical approaches, such as generalizability theory, to address the randomness in ELL testing by accounting for measurement error that is due to both language factors and the contextual factors of an assessment system.

With the kind of improvements in how summative evidence of academic literacies is collected that is suggested here, educational decision makers at all levels of the system will have higher quality data from which to make a range of decisions from policy to classroom practice about the learning of all students, and emerging bilinguals in particular.

In the next section, I move to the classroom context specifically to consider how evidence in teachers’ formative assessment practices can be gathered and used to assist students’ development of academic literacies.

Classroom Formative Evidence The term “formative assessment” does not apply to a specific assessment tool per se, but rather to a set of practices that involve shared learning goals; continuous monitoring of how learning is evolving through teacher, self-, and peer assessment; and pedagogical action to close the “gap” (Sadler, 1989) between the learners’ current learning state and desired goals. A central practice in formative assessment is teachers’ generation and collection of information about how learning is developing (Black & William, 1998). Torrance and Pryor (2001) refer to

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this practice as routine classroom assessment “integrated with pedagogy to maximize its formative potential in promoting learning” (p. 616).

The quality of evidence teachers generate in formative assessment is an important factor in how effectively the practice supports student learning. In this vein, Erickson (2007) has coined the term threats to formativity, and proposes that evidence collected should meet five fundamental criteria. These are: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Alignment: there is alignment between the success criteria: the indicators the teachers have established for successful performance—and the evidence collection methods they employ; Tractability: the evidence revealed that makes it possible for teachers to shape subsequent pedagogical action; Universalism: methods to collect evidence capture a range of possible levels of understanding and language within the class (the language aspect here will be crucial in classrooms where emerging bilinguals and non-emerging bilinguals are learning together); Timing: if evidence is to have maximal value in informing next steps it needs to be proximate to learning so that teachers can take immediate or nearimmediate action; and Sufficiency: teachers have to answer the question,“Do I have enough information here to make a reasonable decision about this student with regard to understanding of content and language use?”

When the evidence meets all five criteria, then threats to the formativity of evidence are minimized (Erickson, 2007).

In the context of formative assessment of academic literacies, teachers will need to gather evidence about language, cognition, and pragmatic competence as learning unfolds. Returning to the earlier examples of academic literacy tasks (see the Appendix to this chapter for the complete tasks), the English teacher who engages students in reading, discussing, and writing about Shylock’s character and motivation revealed in dialogue will want to pay attention to students’ meaning making in relation to the dialogue, their ability to infer motive, and their capacity to talk and write about their understanding. The math teacher who asks students to read and discuss the rhombus proof will want evidence of the students’ knowledge of lines, angles, and intersections, their ability to make sense of the text, and to express their ideas orally. Each teacher will also want evidence of students’ literacy in the social interactional practices of learning—ways in which they participate in discourse and develop language as both a process and a goal of learning.

As discussed earlier, formative assessment requires a present-to-future perspective rather than the past-to-present inherent in assessment for summative purposes.

Consequently, whatever the source of formative evidence, it should yield substantive insights (Shepard, 2013). The teachers’ job is to use their insights to

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anticipate future possibilities for learning, and decide on what to do in order to realize those possibilities.

Next, we turn to considering how teachers can collect formative evidence of academic literacies.

Collecting Evidence When teachers are clear about what academic literacies entail (i.e., have an understanding of the construct) and what the indicators of successful performance are, they can plan various ways to collect evidence during episodes of teaching and learning. Griffin (2007) argues that humans can only provide evidence of cognitive and affective learning through four observable actions: what they say, write, make, or do. These behaviors act as indicators of an underlying learning construct, and are the ways in which learning can be inferred by the observer. In the same vein, students can only provide evidence of academic literacies by what they say, write, make, or do. It is the teacher’s role to construct or devise ways to elicit responses from students that are revealing of their current academic literacy status in a range of content areas. For example, in the ESL classroom described earlier, the students were providing evidence of their academic literacies through their written work, the discussion of each other’s ideas, and the feedback they provided to their peers.

To the degree that classroom learning opportunities such as the ESL classroom promote the development of academic language, cognitive abilities, and pragmatic competence, the evidence gathered will be grounded in the core learning of academic literacies, and has the advantage of being contextualized in the students’ everyday learning tasks. All the pedagogic activities in the classroom— asking questions; engaging in dialogue; listening to students together reading, talking, and writing about text; discussing investigations; model building; analyzing students’graphic representations—are sources of evidence a teacher can reason from to gain insights into students’ academic literacies development and take action to advance learning (see also Moschkovich, this volume; Wright, this volume).

Two assessment methods related to academic literacies of emerging bilinguals specifically represent important possibilities for future directions in formative assessment. First, with respect to gathering and interpreting evidence of elementary emerging bilinguals’ writing performances, Soltero-González, Escamilla, & Hopewell (2012) have advocated a holistic bilingual perspective. They found that examining students’ writing in L1 and L2 assisted teachers to understand crosslinguistic transfer as an important aspect of biliteracy development and to act on that knowledge pedagogically. Second, Kopriva and Rasmussen (2010) utilized a number of computer-based ONPAR mathematics and science assessment examples across all levels of schooling to demonstrate several techniques that could be easily adapted for use in academic classrooms to assess the content learning

246 Margaret Heritage

of students whose English is not yet well developed. These assessments illustrate how multicomponent representations, including the building of well-established contexts using inquiry-based performance methods, employing dynamic visuals as well as static ones to simulate action sequences, supporting target irrelevant text with auditory support, and dividing contextual components into meaningful sections to draw attention to relevant information, can be integrated with English text and home language support to assess challenging content knowledge, providing teachers with actionable information.

Evidence of students’ linguistic resources is collected in the public settings of the classroom. For example, socially oriented contexts, such as collaborative groups, make both the language resources, pragmatic competence, and the thinking of the learner apparent to the teacher and the other students so that it can be examined, questioned, and shaped as part of constructive learning (NRC, 2012).

Such classroom contexts can also provide teachers with evidence of another dimension of the academic literacies construct: how students are developing linguistic resources to engage collaboratively in the processes of learning. For example, with regard to academic literacies, the science teacher discussed earlier will want to know how students are using language for group work to learn from each other, to build on each others’ ideas, or to test their own theories; and how are they using language to explain their thinking and to respond to the thinking of others. These linguistic resources are essential for college and career readiness, and their development can best be supported and assessed in the classroom setting.

When students reveal their academic literacy competences to their teacher and peers in the public activity of the classroom, they must feel secure that mistakes, incomplete ideas, confusions, or “flawed” language will not be treated as occasions for ridicule or sanctions, but rather as sources of new learning for the individual and the class as a whole (see also Compton-Lilly, this volume; Escamilla, this volume). The extent to which the classroom functions as a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) will influence students’ feelings of safety.

Mutually understood routines, practices, and participant structures provide the means for students to reveal their learning. However, above all, students’ willingness to take risks and display their learning publicly will be determined by how their teachers respond to them. As Ted Sizer and Nancy Sizer noted: “They watch us all the time. The students, that is. They listen to us, sometimes. They learn from all that watching and listening” (1999, p. xvii). Students watch how teachers relate to them as individuals and to their peers, and they listen to what teachers say and how they say it. Teachers can create participant structures, but the tenor of the participation will be strongly influenced by the models the teacher provides. How teachers respond to students provides the cues for how they respond to each other.

When evidence gathering is an intrinsic part of instruction, teachers convey the important message to their students that evidence is necessary fuel for

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continued learning. From the students’ point of view, this sets up two expectations. First, they must play a significant role in generating the evidence through the variety of opportunities that they will be given. And second, they have the expectation that something will happen to progress learning as a result of the evidence gathered. When teachers and students have a shared understanding of what gathering evidence entails, a shared expectation that evidence will be used to further learning, and a shared understanding of their respective roles in the process, a common purpose for formative assessment is forged (Heritage, 2013).

Conclusion The advent of the College and Career Ready Standards has placed heightened demands on all students, and in particular on emerging bilinguals who are held to the same graduation requirements and accountability standards as their English-proficient peers while they are learning an additional language. This chapter began with observations about the current performance of U.S. adolescents’ literacy levels and the imperative for them to be highly literate upon their exit from high school. Effective assessment has the potential to support students to reach the high standards that have been set for them by the CCRS so that they can graduate as highly literate individuals. In this chapter, I have discussed what academic literacies entail, the limitations of some current assessment practices, and ways in which evidence can be collected to support the learning of academic literacies by all students, including emerging bilinguals.

At the time of this writing, two assessment consortia, funded under the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top Program, are developing summative assessments for the CCRS. It is hoped that these consortia go a long way toward addressing the full construct of academic literacies with tasks that enable students to show how well they are able to integrate the three competencies I have associated with academic literacies: language, cognition, and pragmatics.

Appropriate accommodations for adolescent emerging bilinguals will need to be addressed so that students can indicate their understanding of the challenging material contained in the CCRS with the various levels of language proficiency they have reached.

Current and possibly future summative assessment practices still beg the question of assessing the dimension of students’ oral language in academic literacies.

While assessing oral language assessment is important for all students, it is essential for emerging bilinguals.

As noted earlier, teachers can collect evidence of academic literacies in the authentic setting of the classroom, and unlike current summative assessment, make provision for assessing students’ ongoing language development and their pragmatic resources as they engage in participant-oriented learning practices.

With an understanding of what academic literacies entail and the development of skills in collecting and interpreting learning as evidence of this, teachers can

248 Margaret Heritage

support their students to develop the necessary language, cognitive, and pragmatic resources to successfully acquire academic literacies. To do this, they will need professional development and ongoing support. If we care about all students acquiring academic literacies, it is an investment that we should surely make.

Note 1 I have “borrowed” this term from Guadalupe Valdés.

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Appendix Reading Task 1: Excerpt from The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare SHYLOCK: Antonio is a good man.

BASSANIO: Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?

SHYLOCK: Oh, no, no, no, no: my meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and landthieves, I mean pirates, and then there is the peril of waters, winds and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. Three thousand ducats; I think I may take his bond.

BASSANIO: Be assured you may.

SHYLOCK: I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assur’d, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?

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Reading Task 2: Rhombus A

B

E Theorem.The diagonals of a rhombus are perpendicular and bisect each other.

D

C

Proof. In the proof-figure, let ABCD be an arbitrary rhombus with diagonals ^ C a n d BD. Since A is equidistant from Band D.and C is also equidistant from Band P, both A and C lie on the perpendicular bisector of line segment B D . Similarly, BD is the perpendicular bisector of the line segment AC.

FIGURE 11.A1 Reading task 2

Reading Task 3: Cat C AT his is another design by Mrs Toshie Takahama (see also her Yacht on page 36). The cat is regarded by many creative folders to be a very difficult subject to capture in paper, because its shape is very simple and curved. In the opinion of the author, Mrs Takahama's Cat is the most successful version yet achieved, being well propor­ tioned, full of character, instantly recognizeable and pleasing to fold.

The design benefits from being made from a textured paper such as Ingres (Strathmore), or another appropriate paper. Begin with Step 3 of the Bird (see page 16), using a 6—8in (15-20cm) square of paper

T

/ Squash the point, dot to dot.

Reverse the tail.

as in that design.

4 Reverse the blunt corner along j AB, then. ..

1 Fold the short edges to the ^centre.

8

Tuck the point inside the face, folding dot to dot. Reverse the tail.

5 .. . reverse it back up level with open edge. Reverse the sharp corner to the position shown in Step 6.

2 Narrow the corner at the right.

Keep the corner as neat as possible.

3

Fold in half. Note A and B.

FIGURE 11.A2 Reading task 3

9 Fold the ears forward. Reverse the hind legs. Outside reverse the tail.

8 Valley the front layer at the left • across to the right, so that the point stands upright. Turn the sharp point * inside out.

\

254 Margaret Heritage

Reading Task 4: Text If a type is specified, the result returned by =exp must be string or numeric according to whether type is string or numeric. If str is specified, a str# variable is created, where # is the smallest string that will hold the result. See [D] egen for extensions to generate. Replace changes the contents of an existing variable.

Because replace alters data, the command cannot be abbreviated. Set type specifies the default storage type assigned to new variables (such as those created by generate) when the storage type is not explicitly specified. Options: Nopromote prevents replace from promoting the variable type to accommodate the change.

For instance, consider a variable stored as an integer type (byte, int, or long), and assume that you replace some values with nonintegers. By default, replace changes the variable type to a floating point (float or double) and thus correctly stores the changed values. Similarly, replace promotes byte and int variables to longer integers (int and long) if the replacement value is an integer but is too large in absolute value for the current storage type. Replace promotes strings to longer strings. Nopromote prevents replace from doing this; instead, the replacement values are truncated to fit the current storage type.

From www.stata.com/manuals13/dgenerate.pdf.

Used with permission.

12 BUILDING TEACHER KNOWLEDGE OF ACADEMIC LITERACY AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION A Framework for Teachers’ Cross-Disciplinary Professional Learning1 Mary A. Avalos, Margarita Zisselsberger, Jennifer Langer-Osuna, and Walter Secada The fact that there are growing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in schools demands the attention of education professionals at all levels. In 2011, 20% of schoolchildren in the United States spoke a language other than English at home, and racial/ethnic diversity in the U.S. is expected to increase through 2050 and beyond (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013). While there is a growing ethnic diversity among teachers, the publicschool teaching population remains 84% White, non-Hispanic (Feistritzer, 2011).

Investigations of teacher interactions with ELLs have found teachers are generally not culturally responsive to the populations they serve (Elliot & Argulewicz, 1983; McIntyre, 1997; Peña, 1997; Schofield, 1986; Sleeter, 1992). This lack of cultural responsiveness is thought to cause, at least in part, minority students’ oft-noted and persistent lower achievement in reading and mathematics (e.g., KewalRamani, Gilbertson, Fox, & Provasnik, 2007) relative to White students, as well as their elevated high school dropout rates (Chapman, Laird, & KewalRamani, 2010).

Teachers need more in-depth knowledge and preparation in order to effectively teach ELLs (Bunch, 2013; Faltis, Arias, & Ramírez-Marín, 2010; Gándara, Maxwell-Jolly, & Driscoll, 2005; Lucas, 2011). Bunch (2013) reviewed effective programs for pre- and in-service teachers working with ELLs; he notes that in light of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and similar “new standards” movements across the country, all teachers must be viewed as responsible for teaching academic language (AL)2 to ELLs across disciplines. Although standards-based instruction has been found to increase access to important mathematical learning opportunities for students who traditionally do not succeed in mathematics (Boaler & Staples, 2008), other research has found

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that standards-based instruction can recreate, if not exacerbate, the very inequities that it is intended to avoid (Langer-Osuna, 2011; Lubienski, 2002). These issues are compounded when considering the linguistic needs of many students, particularly ELLs, who may struggle significantly with comprehending mathematics word problems and with expressing their mathematical ideas in student-led or classroom-wide discussions. Thus there is an urgent need in mathematics education for language-focused interventions to support the participation of ELLs in otherwise promising standards-based instruction.

Building on Shulman’s (1987) concept of pedagogical content knowledge which blends content and teaching knowledge, Galguera (2011) advocates for the development of pedagogical language knowledge, blending language and teaching knowledge among content-area teachers who must meet the languagelearning needs of all learners in their classrooms, including ELLs. Hence, teacher educators and professional learning (or development) (PL) programs should include objectives to teach pedagogical language knowledge, in order to assist teachers in successfully meeting the language and content learning needs of their students.

ELLs need language support in learning mathematics. Avalos, Doorn, Saunders, and Secada (2012) interviewed fourth-graders with differing levels of mathematics achievement (average or low) and language proficiency (intermediate ELLs and fluent English speakers) to explore how they approached reading their mathematics textbooks. Lower-achieving ELLs reported that math problems with high reading demands (i.e., > one sentence of written words) were not helpful for them to “do math” (further mathematical understandings) or enable independent problem solving. Across groups, the interviewed students reported that pictures and other graphic representations were not always helpful either. These reports indicate that explicit teacher support for and instruction of prominent language features found in math word problems, as well as how to read texts that are used in mathematics class could help ELLs gain better access to mathematics content.

Attention to these issues is particularly important because mathematics achievement is vital to success in secondary schooling and beyond; indeed, some have argued that access to quality mathematics instruction is a civil rights issue given the centrality of mathematics in our increasingly technical world (Moses & Cobb, 2001). Yet National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show that just 40% of fourth-graders and 35% of eighth-graders achieved the standard level of “proficient” in mathematics for their respective grades (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2011). Further, according to NAEP results, an achievement gap persists when comparing the NAEP scores of Asian and White students with those of Hispanic and Black students in fourth and eighth grades (NCES, 2011).

Despite the need to improve mathematical literacy3 for ELLs, little has been done to address the situation beyond documenting the problem. While there has been a surge of research on developing general vocabulary (e.g., August, Carlo, Lively, McLaughlin, & Snow, 2006; Rolla San Francisco, Carlo, August,

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& Snow, 2006), less attention has been devoted to understanding how ELLs learn the linguistic complexity of mathematics AL. We argue that, in particular, developing mathematical vocabulary is not enough; students also need to learn the language patterns of mathematical discourse and how mathematical concepts are constructed with the use of language (Moschkovich, 1999; Schleppegrell, 2007) in order to successfully build mathematical knowledge.

To address this need, we designed and implemented a cross-disciplinary PL program for an instructional intervention with teachers in urban schools serving high numbers of ELLs. Two of us are considered to be “language people” and the other two are “math people,” with all four of us knowledgeable about ELL populations and responsive instruction. As does Molle (Chapter 2, this volume), we draw on the academic literacies model (Lea & Street, 2006). As Molle explains, the academic literacies model emphasizes disciplinary or subject-area discourses and genres that are nuanced and situated within disciplinary practices, advocating that students acquire the language of the discipline in order to become proficient in reproducing it and to fully participate in academic discourse communities of the subject area. For the Language in Mathematics (LiM) project, we pulled together multiple definitions of AL and literacy, including that of “multiliteracies” provided by Cope and Kalantzis (2009), to credit the disciplinary practices of mathematics as the overarching guide for reform-oriented instructional practices (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1989, 1991, 2000) in a multimodal discipline. We also embed Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2009; Schleppegrell, 2007) within NCTMstandards-based instruction4 to implement explicit language teaching and support for ELLs; thus, our definition of AL and literacy builds on and synthesizes others’ definitions.

Goals for the LiM project included developing teachers’ knowledge of the language structures used within the discipline of mathematics and subsequently developing an intervention that infused language and literacy within standardsbased (i.e., NCTM, 1989, 1991, 2000) instruction for mathematics classrooms to increase ELLs’ mathematics achievement. We collaborated across disciplinary lines to accomplish our goals, as proposed and advocated by others working to develop literacy in content areas (Bunch, 2013; Draper, Nokes, & Siebert, 2010; Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013; Schleppegrell & O’Hallaron, 2011).

This chapter describes our efforts to design and implement the PL component of the project using a cross-disciplinary lens to improve mathematics instruction for ELLs. We first provide a rationale for the need to deeply infuse language within content-area PL for teachers of ELLs, and describe the development of a cross-disciplinary framework for PL design, based on multiple perspectives, including mathematics, linguistics, and multiliteracies. We then move on to describe what we learned during this endeavor, for the benefit of those interested in cross-disciplinary collaboration projects with similar goals. While the context of instruction for this chapter is mathematics AL and literacy development,

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other subject areas also purport a constructivist and/or sociocultural approach; therefore, our work fits within the larger program of research on language and content-area teaching.

Teaching Language Across Content Areas Infusing reading and writing within content areas has been an important instructional focus over the past several years, particularly at the secondary level, with research demonstrating the positive effects of integrated reading instruction on comprehension of content-area material, particularly for diverse populations (Bos, Anders, Filip, & Jaffe, 1989; Lederer, 2000). As Hall (2005) points out, however, the integration of reading and writing instruction in content areas has been “limiting” and needs to move beyond creating positive attitudes about teaching reading (p. 403). Others have similarly argued that research and development should move beyond generic applications of content-area reading strategies, to content-area instruction, in order to provide discipline-specific knowledge of literacy which will support content learning and language growth (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Moje, 2008; Moschkovich, 2010; Schleppegrell, 2010; Wilson, 2011) and disciplinary engagement (Draper, Broomhead, et al., 2010; Langer, 2011; Moschkovich, this volume). Shanahan and Shanahan (2012) differentiate between content-area reading and disciplinary literacy by defining the former as “prescrib[ing] study techniques and reading approaches that can help someone to comprehend or to remember text better (with little regard to text type)” and disciplinary literacy as “the description of unique uses and implications of literacy use within the various disciplines” (p. 8). They go on to state that content-area reading strategies can be used in any subject area and with any text type, whereas disciplinary literacy is subject-matter-specific, drawing on the distinct differences of the discipline, such as “fundamental purposes, specialized genres, symbolic artifacts, traditions of communication, evaluation standards of quality and precision, and use of language” used by the experts in that field to communicate knowledge (p. 8).

Draper, Nokes, and Siebert (2010) identify three themes pertaining to tensions or obstacles arising from cross-disciplinary collaboration in schools. First, in general, teachers have been working with narrow definitions of “text” and “literacy,” using English/language arts definitions of these terms rather than incorporating the different text types and literacies valued across disciplines. Second, and integrally related to the first theme, there are a large number of text types which vary from discipline to discipline; students must learn to read and write these different text types with proficiency in order to learn and/or to demonstrate their knowledge of the content. Finally, reformers are advocating for students to participate in the discipline, rather than to merely learn about the discipline. In other words, students should be encouraged to be doers of the content, which includes learning to think, question, speak, read, write, view, and listen as an expert of

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the discipline. Teachers should apprentice or scaffold their students to be doers of the content by using instructional methods that reflect the thought processes and literacies valued by mathematics or other disciplines. In order to support points of entry into such disciplinary engagement, the argument for explicit instruction5 of AL is exceptionally important when serving culturally and linguistically diverse populations, specifically ELLs.

ELLs’ Academic Language and Literacy Development As ELLs progress into the upper grades, they often struggle with reading and understanding content-area texts because the content is novel and technical and because they are expected to implicitly learn AL from exposure to texts that they cannot comprehend (Avalos et al., 2012). Zwiers (2008, 2009) has argued that teachers should explicitly teach AL in order to prepare ELLs for academic success.

However, few teachers take the time to provide the needed explicit instruction; in fact, many content-area teachers are not aware of the discipline-specific discourse or text features in their field (Kersaint, Thompson, & Petkova, 2009). For example, Bailey, Chang, Heritage, and Huang (2011) asked sixth-grade mathematics teachers (n = 106) to reflect on and describe how they explained algebraic principles such as the distributive property. Teachers in the study reported that they used few formal definitions of precise mathematical terms; instead, teachers relied on elaborated examples to explain concepts. Visuals are acceptable supports for making content more comprehensible (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004), but teachers who fail to explicitly attend to the multimodality and language of their disciplines are shortchanging their students and are not meeting their students’ language-learning instructional needs for the discipline. Teachers often cannot describe the multimodal and language-specific constructs related to their disciplines because those constructs were learned implicitly; therefore, PL opportunities to teach these explicit understandings are important for facilitating explicit teaching for students who need this kind of support in mathematics and other content areas.

Additionally, ELLs have few opportunities to engage in extended, meaningful talk in schools (Staarman, Krol, & van der Meijden, 2005; Zwiers & Crawford, 2009), thereby inhibiting their development and acquisition of AL. ELLs need to produce meaningful language output in order to develop oral proficiency (Swain, 1985) across disciplines. Opportunities to create, discuss, share, revise, and edit a variety of texts will help ELLs develop content-area understanding as well as familiarity with AL used in different content areas. Meltzer and Hamann (2005) found that teachers who model language, provide explicit strategy instruction in context, spend more time giving reading and writing assignments, provide more time for students to spend with reading and writing assignments, provide time for ELLs to talk explicitly about texts as they are processing/creating them, help ELLs to develop critical thinking skills, and are responsive to individual learners’

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needs demonstrated the greatest impact on ELLs’ developing AL and literacy.

Proficiency in AL is reached through explicit use and practice; therefore, it is important but insufficient that teachers model via their production of AL or provide elaborated examples to increase AL comprehension; in order for ELLs to become proficient producers of AL, teachers must also scaffold ELLs’ use of AL in authentic, meaningful contexts.

Toward Establishing a Cross-Disciplinary Framework for PL in Mathematics Integrating language and mathematics is certainly not a new endeavor (Halliday, 1978; Moschkovich, 2010; Schleppegrell, 2007, 2010; Spanos et al., 1988).

Our work toward establishing a cross-disciplinary framework builds upon the existing literature in order to extend work in this area to teachers’ PL (Shulman & Shulman, 2004; Walker & Stone, 2011; Walqui, 2011) in mathematics classrooms. The cross-disciplinary framework that we developed will support mathematics AL growth while also supporting the development of mathematical thinking within ELL populations. Boix Mansilla, Miller, and Gardner (2000) call for honoring the integrity of each discipline when doing interdisciplinary work. In other words, they argue that the foundation of interdisciplinary work rests on respecting the purposes and goals of each discipline and finding the right balance of interaction between or among them. Our work with teachers for the LiM project demonstrates the salience behind Boix Mansilla et al.’s point, as the secondary school setting generally provides instruction within disciplines rather than across disciplines. This section documents our efforts in developing such a framework, and notes the theoretical lenses that have informed and guided our thinking. This section expands upon the literature by (1) grounding our work in extant theoretical and empirical literature, (2) examining areas of possibility and their challenges for similar work in the future, and (3) providing suggestions based on lessons we learned for teachers and teacher educators who want to embark upon cross-disciplinary work. Our framework seeks to highlight the intersection between understandings of integrating AL and literacy development with mathematics content knowledge, which is also known as pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) and pedagogical language knowledge (Galguera, 2011). Foreshadowing our later discussion on implications for future cross-disciplinary collaboration, we learned that teachers must have a solid understanding of pedagogical content knowledge in mathematics, and that their practices should reflect that understanding, so as to provide foundations for the development, integration, and practice of pedagogical language knowledge. When teachers do not consistently practice discussion- and inquirybased instruction, explicit language teaching is difficult to implement within rich, meaningful contexts to support students’ knowledge and understanding of both content and AL (see also Moschkovich, this volume).

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We built on Walqui’s (2011) adaptation of Shulman and Shulman’s (2004) model of teacher learning communities to help us make sense of all of the different components related to designing PL. Our work confirms Walqui’s assertion that PL “depends very much on characteristics of the teachers and professional developers and interactions with other educators and their contexts” (2011, p. 165). Shulman and Shulman originally designed the professional learning community model to analyze teacher learning, in order to explain teachers’ attempts at teaching in ways that were “theory-rich, open-ended, and content-intensive” (2004, p. 259). Walqui’s adaptation situates Shulman and Shulman’s model within a sociolinguistic frame of language use in social context. Our addition builds on the recommendations of Boix Mansilla et al. (2000) that balance be found in the interaction across disciplines.

Our adaptation of teacher development and professional work within a disciplinary literacy context, shown in Figure 12.1, includes five domains: 1.

2.

3.

Beliefs/vision includes teachers’ perceptions and understandings of ELLs, and what all students should know and be able to do to demonstrate their knowledge of the discipline. This domain includes the extent of teachers’ interactions with ELLs and families, their personal experiences with ELLs, and their intentions to provide equal access to mathematical learning opportunities for all students. This domain is central in our model because it is crucial to motivating changes in practice, for which core beliefs and vision are directly related to the classroom environment established, teacher/student rapport, and how teachers’ instruction responds or ignores student backgrounds and experiences, thus driving (or possibly inhibiting) shifts in the other domains to change teaching practice.

Motivation describes teachers’ necessary willingness to change. As Shulman and Shulman (2004) note, a teacher can have a vision for changing teaching practices, yet lack the will or support to enact that change. In the context of our model, the PL is predicted to help to re-shape or reconstruct teachers’ beliefs and vision by leading them to experience and view students, content, and pedagogy differently, thus serving as the catalyst or motivation for change. More importantly, coaching that returns to a teacher’s stated vision or core beliefs (Killion, 2008), by repeatedly examining what students should know and be able to do for the discipline, and how the teacher can scaffold his/her students to get there, provides a powerful motivation for change-in-practice.

Knowledge incorporates teachers’ knowledge of their content area, standards, reform documents, and pedagogical content, as well as their students’ backgrounds. This domain also includes an understanding of students’ language, culture, and identity (as needed to effectively teach ELLs) and how to integrate such understanding into the adaptation of mathematical content (Clayton, Barnhardt, & Brisk, 2008; deJong & Harper, 2008) that is found

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4.

5.

within mathematics curricula. Teachers’ knowledge of content, their pedagogical content knowledge, and their pedagogical language knowledge play important roles in constructing teachers’ visions of what is possible for their students as those possibilities emerge.

Practice involves teachers’ enactment of disciplinary practices and standardsbased pedagogical content knowledge, which puts the students’ experiences and mathematical understandings at the center of instruction. Teachers’ increased understandings of ELL populations enable their core beliefs to be aligned with their teaching practices. Ascertaining students’ understandings of a concept is just one example of how teachers’ practice may change to value and to build upon what students already know about the concept or topic being discussed. Teachers do not generally teach in culturally responsive ways (Elliot & Argulewicz, 1983; McIntyre, 1997; Peña, 1997; Schofield, 1986; Sleeter, 1992) or according to suggested reform documents (Romberg & Shafer, 2008); thus, job-embedded classroom support for changing multiple dimensions of practice to align with teachers’ beliefs and visions is instrumental in sustaining and continuing change.

Reflection is a critical component for PL as it offers teachers the opportunity to make sense of their classroom experiences and to continue to work toward the integration of language and mathematical goals (disciplinary texts). Keeping the teachers’ stated vision of teaching and learning (first domain) is at the heart of reflection that leads to changes in practice (Killion, 2008).

These five domains iteratively interact with the combined language and mathematics theoretical frameworks described in this chapter. Moreover, the domains are mediated by the many social contexts that impact schooling. Teacher content knowledge, language knowledge, and pedagogical content and language knowledge are all embedded within contexts that reflect classroom, school, community, state, and national curricula and mandates; cross-disciplinary PL needs to include support in helping teachers implement practices that mediate across disciplinary areas and that meet the demands of all stakeholders. Thus, in Figure 12.1 we included state and national mandates and standards within the context to acknowledge the pressure that teachers are feeling due to high-stakes testing.

High-stakes testing has become a legislative priority, and now, due to teacher accountability policies, also a personal priority for teachers, which has impacted day-to-day classroom teaching agendas. Anyone engaged in exploring and/or changing teachers’ practices will have to address teacher accountability and highstakes testing, which are often-competing forces when planning, designing, and assessing PL that is meant to translate into classroom implementation.

Our PL framework emphasizes the importance of teachers’ effectively incorporating disciplinary practices in responsive ways to meet the needs of the students they serve. Further, the planning of a PL curriculum must acknowledge

Language as semiotics Semiosis Cognition facilitated through language and interaction

Reflection on practice and scaffolding of disciplinary texts

State and Nationally Mandated Policies

Academic literacy for the discipline Mathematics learned through creation of shared meaning, student inquiry,and active engagement to solve problems with teacher support, and explicit teaching of the mathematics register

Overlap of theoretical frames for language and mathematics learning and culturally responsive teaching

Teacher beliefs/ vision

Teacher Evaluation System

School Culture and Administrator Support

Mathematics discipline Constructivist and/or sociocultural Cognition actively constructed via interaction with environment with language

Practice or enactment of the discipline in the classroom

Teachers’ knowledge of the discipline, pedagogical content knowledge, academic discourse, and students

FIGURE 12.1 Cross-disciplinary PD framework: Merging language and mathematics theoretical frames for classroom instruction

State Learning Standards

Motivation for teacher to change

Discipline: Mathematics

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that teachers are at different places in their understandings of these complexly intertwined disciplinary practices along with student needs, and the PL must enable discussions that build on what teachers already know while causing them to challenge their own beliefs. We learned from our experience with the LiM project that, while the knowledge and practice domains are important, if teachers are to make substantive changes in their teaching practices, time must be spent (and is well spent) on investigating and critically examining their beliefs and vision. Also important is how teachers are supported as they move through different phases of PL to incorporate classroom-based support in implementing new practices that are aligned with their evolving beliefs and vision about the role that language plays in accessing disciplinary content.

The Language in Mathematics Intervention This section highlights the different ways in which teachers and students who were involved with the LiM instructional intervention were asked to think about mathematics teaching and learning. These components of the LiM intervention are examples of the multimodality and multiliteracies advocated in the PL activities tied to mathematics instruction and the framework in order to provide an understanding of what we were asking the participating teachers to learn and to be able to do across the two years that we worked with them in their classrooms.

Communication in Mathematics Classrooms Supporting ELLs’ opportunities to engage in meaningful talk has become particularly important in mathematics classrooms as teachers implement standards focusing on reasoning and communication. Standards-based reform in mathematics education has called for a shift in classrooms “towards: (1) classrooms as mathematical communities; (2) logic and mathematical evidence as verification; (3) mathematical reasoning; (4) conjecturing, inventing, and problem solving; and (5) connecting mathematics, its ideas, and its applications” (NCTM, 1991, p. 3). NCTM documents assert that children should be actively engaged in the learning and doing of mathematics. Additionally, the CCSS (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School, 2010) and mathematics reform documents emphasize deeper conceptual knowledge rather than rote memorization of procedures and algorithms (Hiebert, 1999). In light of this, mathematics instruction calls for creating mathematical discourse communities that support children’s logic and reasoning in mathematics. These discourse communities are social in nature and involve diverse ways of doing and reasoning about mathematical problems (Adler, 1998; Gee, 1996; Gutiérrez, SenguptaIrving, & Dieckmann, 2010; Lampert, 1998). Rittenhouse (1998) further argues that students “need to understand how to talk, think, and act mathematically in different contexts” (p. 165). She asserts that student talk about mathematics

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is essential as it is the primary method for achieving what NCTM refers to as “mathematical power” (p. 167).

Mathematical power, as identified by NCTM, involves the ability to think through various methods for solving problems, compare the methods, and evaluate their reasonableness (NCTM, 1989, 1991, 2000; Parker, 1993). Thus, establishing mathematical talk in classrooms involves apprenticing students toward understanding the norms and rules of mathematical discourse, while also negotiating how this discourse is similar to and different from the students’ own discourse(s), including, but not limited to, out-of-school discourses and diverse cultural means of problem solving and repertoires of practice (Gutiérrez et al., 2010; Rittenhouse, 1998; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003) when solving nonroutine problems (Rittenhouse, 1998).

To facilitate student talk and discussion of problem solutions, we utilized Accountable Talk™ or “productive talk moves” (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008) to guide teacher questions and talk moves. Accountable Talk™ is a series of open-ended talk moves that foster reasoning and communication during discussions (e.g., “Can anyone add on to what Lydia said?” or “Where is your evidence for that statement?” or “Tell us more about that.”) Some LiMparticipating teachers started to require their own students to use talk moves, thereby fostering thoughtful questioning and student-led discussions.

Defining Mathematical Texts According to Siebert and Hendrickson (2010), mathematical texts include, but are not limited to, equations, graphs, diagrams, proofs, justifications, manipulative displays, calculator readouts, verbal mathematical discussions, and written descriptions of problems (p. 41). For the purpose of the LiM intervention, we sought to assist teachers in helping their students make sense of word problems as a genre (how word problems are generally structured), to have students discuss their solution pathways, write explanations for their mathematics solutions, and read multimodal or graphic representations for meaning. Thus our definition of “text” was expanded beyond reading and writing to reflect the aforementioned texts of the discipline.

Embedded Language Instruction Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1978; Schleppegrell, 2007) was used to help us identify the language features encountered in school mathematics texts by teachers and students (Zisselsberger, Avalos, & Secada, 2012). Additionally, the genre of word problems, stemming from work in SFL within the discipline of mathematics (Huang & Normandia, 2008; Schleppegrell, 2007) was used to explicitly teach the structure of mathematical problems. Students were taught to identify the “main idea” of the word problem, typically (but not always) the

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first declarative sentence of the problem. Access to a mathematics word problem begins with the student understanding the problem’s context, out of which arise opportunities to do and to learn mathematics (Jackson, Garrison, Wilson, Gibbons, & Shahan, 2013). For example, if a problem is situated within the context of a dance-marathon fundraiser, and if students are unfamiliar with “dance marathons” or have a different understanding of them than the problem calls for, there may be misunderstandings or confusion from the start, based on the different experiences students have or have not had with the concept (Jackson et al., 2013). By drawing on students’ experiences to establish a common understanding of a problem’s context, teachers can help to level the playing field for problem solving and to provide a way to construct shared meaning that is common for all students in order to access the context of the problem. The creation of shared understandings is done via discussion that is driven in part by the teacher posing open-ended questions concerning the problem’s context and use of “productive talk moves” so as to elicit students’ understandings.

The problem’s “request” is also emphasized, so that students can understand the problem(s) to be solved, or what the problem is asking the students to find.

The request is generally the last question(s) of the problem, but it could also be an imperative statement. Multiple requests typically identify multiple answers that should be found for the problem. The declarative statements between the “main idea” (typically first sentence of the word problem) and the request are then analyzed and modeled by the teacher using SFL during whole-class teaching to draw out the specific circumstances (e.g., time, place, manner), referents, nouns (participants), verbs (processes), vocabulary, or other language features, in order to help students make connections across sentences and create meaning from the text. The use of SFL for the intervention provides explicit language teaching concerning the functions of the targeted language features for the specific problem(s) to be solved in class. This explicit language teaching is scaffolded to gradually release responsibility to the students for identifying SFL language features with a focus on comprehension and solving of the word problem.

Mathematical Explanations and Reading Visual Graphic Representations We used Knapp and Watkins’ (2005) work on explanation genre to provide a frame for students’ writing of mathematical explanations, including three distinct components for explanation writing: (1) Description (providing the reader with problem information concerning what needs to be solved); (2) Explanatory Sequence (detailing how the student solved the problem and why those steps were taken to solve the problem); and (3) Justification (requiring the student to defend his/her solution and its reasonableness).

During the project’s second year, we realized that students were not always able to create appropriate mathematical meaning from the pictorial and graphic

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representations found in their textbooks; ironically, these representations are designed to assist students to process mathematics concepts visually. We started to incorporate visual graphic representations whenever possible as part of our “task setup” (genre and SFL language feature explicit instruction) discussions when introducing a word problem, and we eventually required the students to model their solutions, to assist them in visualizing math and to facilitate their use of tables, charts, and other graphics when explaining their solutions.

The multimodality of mathematics (and that of other disciplines, see Wright, this volume) required us to broaden our definition of texts to meet students’ needs and to enable them to read all text types for understanding (Siebert & Hendrickson, 2010). As students become more proficient at reading and writing mathematical texts, teacher scaffolds should be removed so that eventually students are leading discussions, justifying and defending their solutions verbally and in writing, creating their own graphic representations, and becoming engaged doers of mathematics.

Implications for Future Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Along with the expected benefits of cross-disciplinary collaboration with colleagues came a few unexpected challenges when designing and implementing our PL. These challenges are described in this section, with suggestions for addressing them during implementation of collaborative planning. We begin by emphasizing the importance of understanding theoretical paradigms held among colleagues involved in the collaboration, then move on to school- and teacher-based factors to consider when designing and implementing PL for teachers of ELL populations.

Implications Concerning Theoretical Paradigms Approaches to research, instruction, learning, and worldview in general are typically influenced by one’s allegiance to one or more theoretical perspectives.

These perceptions are usually aligned with the outlook of the discipline that one is most knowledgeable of and familiar with, and they stem from the desired characteristics of that discipline. There will often be overlap of these characteristics across theoretical perspectives; however, there will also often be salient qualities that make each paradigm distinct, creating dissonance. While planning and implementing the LiM project, we experienced theoretical differences in pedagogical and methodological approaches across respective fields (i.e., mathematics vs. literacy/language as semiotics).

Theoretically, mathematics education research generally reflects either constructivist or socioculturalist perspectives on learning (Schleppegrell, 2010). To briefly summarize both perspectives, constructivists view knowledge development as a process of active construction by students interacting with the environment,

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while socioculturalists focus on language and the social engagement of students to inform their perspective on knowledge development. For the LiM intervention, however, we drew upon an approach to learning and development called semiotics, which synthesizes and extends these two well-known perspectives to view language as a tool for thinking and constructing knowledge. Within social semiotics, cognition is viewed as “situated” and “socially constructed,” facilitated through language and interaction (Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 84). A semiotic perspective differs from constructivist and socioculturalist perspectives in that the latter view language as a tool for representing and communicating.

LiM’s approach to semiotics incorporates SFL as a means to use “‘a language to talk about language,’ furthering understandings of the ways language is used by teachers, students, or texts” (Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 84). A semiotic lens allows researchers to determine students’ levels of access to mathematics content via analyses of teacher and/or student discourse and texts (both generated and consumed), which indicate variations in the way language is used to construct meaning for the discipline, teachers, and students. This approach is especially powerful when working with teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse populations, as teachers experience an implicit tension between acknowledging and validating the home languages that ELLs and other diverse students bring with them to school and the language needed to “talk mathematics.” By focusing on language within the contexts of individual classrooms, semiotics provides a means to determine students’ levels of access to content and, thus, ascertain the need for modifying instruction to explicitly teach language structures that are meaning-based and discipline-specific, for greater access to that content.

Pedagogically, standards-based reform documents call for teachers to act as facilitators of students’ learning, reducing the nature of explicit instruction.

Teachers whose primary objective is to advance mathematical problem solving are supposed to enact a style of teaching and learning that advocates call “doing of mathematics” (Davis & Hersh, 1980; Ernest, 1991; Lakatos, 1976; Siebert & Hendrickson, 2010; Tymoczko, 1986). In this view, “learning is primarily a process of concept construction and active interpretation—as opposed to the absorption and accumulation of received items of information” (Schifter & Fosnot, 1993, p. 8). Pedagogy inspired by this view engages students in posing and solving problems, making and proving conjectures, exploring puzzles, sharing and debating ideas, and contemplating the beauty of ideas in an academic discipline.

Students engaged in such active mathematical learning develop “mathematical power” (NCTM, 1989, 1991, 2000; Parker, 1993).

As collaborators, researchers must muddle through conflicting theoretical paradigms together until they find commonalities and areas of overlap that are necessary to create a balanced and focused approach to meet the team’s interdisciplinary goals often based on differing theoretical perspectives. For the LiM project, we found areas of overlap by emphasizing active student construction and interpretation of mathematics concepts (NCTM, 1989, 1991, 2000), supporting

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students with developing metacognition via instruction centering on a balance of conceptual/procedural understanding of mathematics, scaffolding students’ independent self-questioning and explicit instruction of the discipline’s language features to enable a common and technical discourse, or metalanguage (Schleppegrell, 2010), and facilitating acquisition of the mathematics register (Moschkovich, 2010) across the classroom. Awareness of each area’s (i.e., mathematics and language/literacy) theoretical approach to the role of language in learning and pedagogy was essential in order to ascertain how teachers in classrooms might achieve the desired outcomes.

School- and Learner-Based Implications The LiM project worked with teachers in urban schools with high ELL populations.

We observed math instruction a few weeks before the first PL session and found that most of the observed teachers taught math the same way to all students, with little to no sheltered or differentiated instruction provided to ELLs. Furthermore, we observed that instruction was from a traditional, teacher-centered perspective, with students answering in monosyllables for the most part, or, at best, providing procedural recounts of how problems were solved, using algorithms rather than explaining their conceptual understandings behind the procedures. Subsequently, we abandoned our original PL curriculum plan, which began with examining the mathematical register, and started the PL by incorporating readings and activities that were intended to help the teachers understand mathematical literacy and the need for creating discourse communities in math classrooms, as well as develop cultural competence for working with ELLs. Foundational understandings of standards-based math pedagogical content knowledge and culturally responsive teaching for ELLs had to be in place before our goal of implementing explicit AL instruction based on students’ perceptions of math concepts, and our larger project goals, could be met. For example, a teacher-centered instructional approach typically does not lend itself to a math discourse community in which the problem-solving process is considered important. Moreover, when teachers do not value the language and cultural understandings of their students, diverse student backgrounds (i.e., the students) are considered to be “the problem” when teaching ELLs, rather than integral to the instruction that is provided to these populations (Valdés, Bunch, Snow, Lee, & Matos, 2005). As the PL progressed and evolved, this deficit perspective of ELLs that some project teachers held emerged during discussions of their perspectives and philosophies; thus, the first domain of the framework, though often not central to PL opportunities for teachers, is crucial to drive teachers’ beliefs and vision for classroom learning and should be revisited often, even after the PL experience has ended.

Johnson (2002) found that teachers who are responsive and open to understanding their students’ worldviews and ways of learning benefit both personally

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and professionally from interactions with ELLs. Therefore, PL providers must gauge the cultural competence and pedagogical content knowledge of participating teachers, and then plan the PL to respond to that competence and knowledge and to include content that will address and expand the teachers’ understandings of math pedagogical content knowledge and ELLs as needed (Brisk & Zisselsberger, 2011). Brisk and Zisselsberger (2011) point out that providers working with teachers to implement PL that focuses on language and content need to demonstrate flexibility in adapting to teachers’ needs and interests.

Research in the area of teacher preparation for working with ELLs highlights the importance of engaging with state and school curriculum mandates when undertaking PL that infuses instructional approaches and operationalizes them in classrooms (Gebhard, Willett, Jiménez Caicedo, & Piedra, 2011). Gebhard et al.

(2011) recommend “coupling standards-based instruction with an SFL perspective of academic literacy development and a multicultural perspective of education” (p. 108). While our PL used the district’s newly adopted mathematics textbook series as the materials from which to develop LiM lessons, as we planned to work with the teachers in developing the intervention we had not addressed an evenlarger elephant in the room: high-stakes testing. High-stakes testing adds another layer of complexity to designing and implementing standards-based mathematics, which may foster or hinder AL and literacy development. Testing permeates school cultures and is often a focus of staff and content-department meetings.

Acknowledging the reality that testing is a priority in most schools should also be addressed by the PL, in order to support teachers’ efforts to find ways to balance critical engagement with the content and types of problems found on high-stakes tests while also providing engaging mathematical discourse communities that focus attention on mathematical language and literacy development.

Additionally, divergent perspectives among project participants (i.e., teachers at different schools, coaches, principals) create dissonance and resistance, which impact teachers’ decisions regarding whether and how to implement the strategies discussed. Infusing cross-disciplinary areas within a PL designed to address effectively teaching ELLs and/or diverse populations creates another layer of complexity. As Hall and Hord (2001) have suggested, one group member’s resistance can impact the entire group’s learning. Negotiating how to proceed when participants’ perspectives are different speaks to the importance of seeking multiple entry points to lead everyone toward the final objectives of the PL. This negotiation involves an iterative process of examining teachers’ orientations and those of the research team, all the while tying enacted PL activities or curricula back to practice. This process is both challenging and time-consuming, and it requires a fluid or flexible conceptualization of PL. Conceptually more efficient, linear models of PL that end in the appropriation of desired outcomes for all participants at the same time are not always possible. Indeed, our work confirms the work of other researchers who have acknowledged that PL that seeks to address teacher expertise for working with ELLs “requires ambitious goals, a

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well-designed plan, sustained provision of complex and varied levels of support for educators, and theoretical and practical coherence” (Walqui, 2011, p. 176).

Conclusion In summation, there are numerous variables to consider when designing crossdisciplinary PL for teachers of ELLs. These variables include the theoretical lens of the discipline (in the case of the LiM intervention, mathematics) and teachers’ desired pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical language knowledge, as well as individual teachers’ beliefs/vision, motivation, reflection, knowledge, and practice with regard to ELLs. Content objectives must be taken into account while planning the PL within the complex contexts of today’s classrooms; pressures resulting from high-stakes testing, challenges in meeting varying learning needs in inclusive settings, and mandates that are consistently changing are just a few ways in which classrooms have changed during recent years. The PL curriculum should be responsive to teachers’ needs, and teachers’ understandings (and misunderstandings) of ELLs should be addressed throughout the PL and beyond.

If teachers’ foundational understandings of ELLs’ diverse language and culture, as well as prominent language features of their discipline, pedagogical content knowledge, and pedagogical language knowledge are limited, it will be difficult for new instructional approaches to be implemented successfully in content-area classrooms.

We conclude this chapter by calling for more research to address collaboration between language experts and content-area experts. Our emerging framework for PL and our collaboration to operationalize and implement new practices provide a starting point for that research. Empirical evidence across disciplines is needed to further inform educators in the field. The integration of pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical language knowledge across disciplines holds great promise to ultimately provide greater access to language and content for ELLs and for many others who need support to learn AL in classrooms.

Notes 1 This work was made possible due to a grant by The Institute of Educational Sciences,Award Number R305A100862.The content of this chapter does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IES or the U.S. Department of Education nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Additionally one of the authors received funding from a University of Miami Provost Research Award during 2011–12.We would like to acknowledge the collaborative effort that made this work possible, including the teachers, students, and district administrators who contributed invaluably to this project, as well as Edwing Medina, Naomi Iuhasz, Kristen Doorn, and Alain Bengochea.

2 “Academic language” is defined as “the set of words, grammar, and organizational strategies used to describe complex ideas, higher order thinking processes, and abstract concepts” (Zwiers, 2008, p. 20).

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3 We agree with Draper and colleagues (2010), as well as others, who state that literacy in the disciplines involves more than reading and writing texts from/for that discipline; it also includes inquiring and instilling the “habits of mind” (Birr-Moje, 2007) that experts in the field use to make sense of and understand their work in that field.This parallels to everyday use of mathematics in that the need to solve problems occurs in nearly every career/job opportunity, as well as in daily living. Mathematical literacy is defined in this chapter as “making sense of and becoming fluent with the texts used in math,” including symbols, visual graphic representations, different ways to organize data (e.g., tables, charts), etc. (Siebert & Hendrickson, 2010, p. 42).

4 When we started this project, the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics were still under development. Thus, our work is tied to NCTM’s standards.

5 We use explicit in the sense that instruction includes a certain topic within the meaningful context of materials or problems discussed by students during a lesson, rather than teacher-led, decontextualized skill instruction.

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13 ESTABLISHING A FOUNDATION FOR ACADEMIC LITERACY The Role of Standards1 Edynn Sato

Literacy as a concept is complex and dynamic. Currently, there is no agreement on the operational definition of literacy; that is, the following question remains: what are the particular knowledge and skills of which literacy is comprised, especially with regard to preparing our students for success in college, their careers, and our global society? Within the context of our schools, as our nation implements new, rigorous academic standards, and as educators consider what students need to meet the higher expectations associated with these standards, definitions of the domain and related constructs of academic literacies continue to emerge.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the more typically used definition of literacy, the ability to read and write, is too narrow to fully prepare our students for success in our schools and participation in our global society. Instead, addressing academic literacies will greatly benefit our students, particularly given our significant number of diverse learners and the multicultural and multinational nature of our schools and workplaces. This chapter presents a framework and critical considerations for an approach to the development of content standards that can serve as a foundation for supporting the learning of academic literacies, as well as be relevant to supporting students’ learning of the rigorous next generation standards we are implementing in our schools to prepare them for college and careers.

As addressed in this chapter, academic literacies refers generally to knowledge and skills needed to read and write, as well as competencies and understandings of language, its contexts, and its uses (Heritage, this volume; Langer, 2002; Molle, this volume). The intent of this chapter is to provide a means for organizing existing and emerging research and theory relevant to academic literacies, analyzing the relationships between/among the information available to us, and systematically articulating and validating academic literacies in terms of the domain, its related constructs, knowledge, and skills, and its manifestation in content standards that

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can have profound implications for curriculum and instruction, assessment, and student learning outcomes relevant to our multicultural and multinational learning and work environments. As we prepare our new generation of learners for college and careers, and ultimately for success in our global society, the issue is not the degree to which we are addressing literacy as a means for facilitating achievement; rather, the issue is how we as educators understand, define, and implement practices related to the academic literacies needed in our 21st century.

As we prepare our new generation of learners and continue to implement more rigorous academic standards in our schools, it is imperative that we document what we understand of the knowledge and skills of academic literacies in a manner that will (a) provide our field with a consistent way of talking about and addressing academic literacies so that we can effectively facilitate our students’ development of academic literacies in support of achievement that prepares our student for college and careers, and (b) help guide and coordinate instructional practices such as instruction and assessment. Without a consistent definition, students in one school or state could develop academic literacies that are different from those developed by students in another school or state. As shown in Table 13.1, some current academic content standards include knowledge and skills that fall within the domain of academic literacies.

However, the full extent needed to support academic achievement—that knowledge and those skills addressing the more complex, dynamic, nuanced, and situated processes involved in the appropriate and effective uses of literacy, and involvement of social identity—remains tacit and ill-defined (Blickem & Shackelford, 2007). Clearly and explicitly articulating such knowledge and skills within and across academic disciplines can facilitate better teaching and learning (Blickem & Shackelford, 2007; Jacobs, 2005; Lea & Street, 2006). Given the nature of current accountability associated with the effective implementation of rigorous academic standards in our country, such documentation must TABLE 13.1 Examples of current content standards that reflect academic literacies,

knowledge, and skills Standard

Source

L.6.3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions Council of Chief State School when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Officers (2012). Framework for English language W.6.10: Write routinely over extended time frames proficiency development (time for research, reflection, revision) and shorter standards corresponding time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for to the Common Core a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and State Standards and the audiences.

Next Generation Science SL.6.6: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, Standards. Washington, D.C.: demonstrating command of formal English when CCSSO. indicated or appropriate.

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be systematic and data-based (qualitative, quantitative), as well as purposeful and meaningful with regard to our educational context and the aspirations we have for the success of our students. Such documentation of what students should know and be able to do in terms of academic literacies can be effectively actualized in standards. As mentioned previously, for the purpose of this chapter academic literacies refers to the knowledge and skills needed to read and write as well as competencies and understanding of language, its contexts, and its uses (Heritage, this volume; Langer, 2002; Molle, this volume). As such, those knowledge and skills typically associated with English Language Arts (ELA) and English Language Development (ELD) (e.g., as manifested in ELA and ELD content standards) are subsumed under academic literacies.

Standards is the broadest of a family of terms referring to “statements of expectations for student learning” (National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, 2013). This chapter focuses in particular on content standards that define what students should know and be able to do (e.g., in ELA, mathematics, or for ELD). The first section of this chapter describes the general role and key characteristics of content standards in providing guidance for related instruction, assessment, and communication with stakeholder groups. The second section discusses how content standards that address knowledge and skills relevant to academic literacies differ from and necessarily should be coordinated with academic content standards. The final section of this chapter presents critical considerations for establishing a valid and viable approach to the development of content standards that can serve as a firm foundation for supporting the learning of academic literacies.

Standards: General Role and Key Characteristics As mentioned previously, standards is a broad term referring to statements of expectations for student learning. As such, standards can mean different things to different individuals (Rabinowitz, Roeber, Schroeder & Sheinker, 2006). It is therefore critical that standards are written in a manner that ensures they can be interpreted and enacted (e.g., in instruction and assessment) consistently and as intended vis-à-vis targeted student learning outcomes.

Figure 13.1 presents an overview of the role and key characteristics of content standards.

As shown in Figure 13.1, critical to the development of content standards (i.e., statements of what students should know and be able to do) are:2 (1) a clear statement of the purpose of the standards; (2) a definition of the domain (e.g., ELA, mathematics, or consistent with the focus of this chapter, academic literacies) and the identification of the essential or core knowledge and skills of the targeted content so that the standards are meaningful and lead to student learning of important competencies in the domain; (3) an understanding of what proficiency “looks like” for that content, so that relevant knowledge and skills, as well

5. Standards (What students should know and be able to do.)

Robust (e.g., in terms of cognitive complexity, linguistic complexity, level of application)

•

Meaningful Coherent Rigorous Viable

8. Assessments

10. Examinations of validity

9. Intended student learning outcomes

Note: The numbers in the figure above have been included for discussion purposes and are not intended to reflect a linear or chronological relationship among the elements in the figure

FIGURE 13.1 Overview of the role and key characteristics of standards

• • • •

5b. The set of standards should be:

Clear Assessable/observable

6. Communication with/input from stakeholders (e.g.,discussion with and professional development for teachers; communication with caregivers, students; content experts)

• •

5a. Individual standards should be:

4. Understanding of skill and concept development

3. Proficiency definition(s)

2. Domain definition and essential/core knowledge and skills

1. Purpose

7. Curricula and instruction

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as their degree of complexity (cognitive, linguistic) and level of application can be clearly reflected in the standards; and (4) an understanding of how the content is learned, so that skill and concept development also can be reflected in/across the standards (Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center [AACC], 2009; Herman, 2009; Mitchell, 1996; Rabinowitz et al., 2006). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to describe in detail the processes involved in content standards development (e.g., focus groups, preliminary research and data analyses, advisory committee meetings, public review and comment); however, it is important to underscore that (6) purposeful communication with and input from stakeholders (e.g., teachers, administrators, parents/caregivers, content experts, other key members of the community) is essential, both up front and throughout the content standards development process. (For information and examples related to processes for developing content standards, particularly those with a focus on language and literacy in U.S. schools, see: AACC, 2009; Arizona State Board of Education, 2010; California State Board of Education, 2012; Council of Chief State School Officers, 2012.)

The content standards themselves (5) should be clear, describe expectations (skills, knowledge) that are assessable/observable, and be robust (5a) (AACC, 2009; Herman, 2009; Rabinowitz et al., 2006). That is, content standards should: •

•

•

Be clear and understandable to teachers, students, and other stakeholders (e.g., parents/caregivers), and include sufficient detail to shape curriculum, guide instruction, and guide the assessment design, as well as provide a means for evaluating the degree to which the essential knowledge and skills in the domain have been addressed (Herman, 2009); Describe essential knowledge and skills in a manner that can be assessed/ observed so that student progress toward and attainment of targeted knowledge and skills can be determined; and Be robust, as appropriate, in terms of degree of complexity (cognitive, linguistic—see, for example, Bailey, Butler, & Sato, 2007; Forehand, 2005; Webb, 2007) and level of application of the knowledge and skills included in the content standards (e.g., application to familiar contexts, transfer to new contexts, making connections within and among multiple contexts).

As a whole, the set of content standards (5b) should:

•

•

Be meaningful in terms of articulating major concepts, and essential knowledge and skills and their application/use, as well as lending themselves to instructional practices that will promote student academic success; Cohere; that is, they should effectively define the domain and reflect appropriate sequencing, as well as horizontal and vertical content alignment of knowledge and skills as appropriate to the content;

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•

•

Be rigorous in that they accurately reflect the most current scholarship relevant to the domain and include knowledge and skills that will help prepare students for success in college and their careers; and Be viable in presenting an array of critical knowledge and skills that can be reasonably organized, taught, and learned within the available school time for teachers and students (AACC, 2009; Herman, 2009; Mitchell, 1996; Rabinowitz et al., 2006).

With standards as a foundation, those individuals or organizations developing the standards can communicate with stakeholders (6), develop curriculum and instruction (7), as well as assessment (8) that are aligned with the standards, and accurately and effectively reflect the meaning of the standards, as they are intended, with respect to the targeted student learning outcomes. Generally, a key difference between the standards document itself, and other documents related to the standards (e.g., communications to stakeholders, curriculum guides, assessment frameworks) is that standards documents primarily describe the “what”— the learning targets—while the other documents focus on describing the “how” or “what ‘it’ looks like”—how the learning targets can be achieved and how to facilitate student achievement of the learning targets articulated in the content standards (see Figure 13.2). That is, communication with stakeholders, curricula and instructional materials, and assessment materials should focus on understanding and implementing the content standards.

Communication with stakeholders includes professional development and training materials to support implementation of the standards in the classroom.

Curricula and instructional materials include specific instructional tools, strategies, and methods for facilitating student learning of the standards. Assessment materials include guidelines and actual tasks that operationalize the knowledge and skills reflected in the standards. It is important that the standards document is not burdened with implementation information (the “how”—e.g., specific instructional methods and teaching strategies and tools) and that the specific learning targets (the “what”—knowledge, skills, degree of complexity, level of application) remain clear.

Standards can be a powerful lever for affecting practice (such as instruction and assessment) and for improving student learning outcomes (Blickem & Shackelford, 2007; Rabinowitz, Roeber, Schroeder, & Sheinker, 2006; Herman, 2009).

An essential characteristic of effective standards is that they are valid (10). Generally, more attention has been paid to the developing standards and justifying decisions made during the development process, and not as much attention has been paid to their validation; that is, the development of an evidence base (both in terms of content evidence and empirical evidence) to substantiate the interpretive argument and claims or outcomes (9) related to the intended purpose of the standards (Herman, 2009). Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to describe validation processes and specific study designs in detail, it is important

Academic Literacies and Standards 283

WHAT

Primary focus:

HOW

Standards: Learning targets • Knowledge • Skills

(alignment)

• Degree of complexity • Level of application

Communication with stakeholders: e.g., Professional development and training materials; Frequently Asked Curricula and instruction: e.g., Instructional tools (e.g., learning logs, graphic organizers); strategies (e.g., scaffolding, modeling); methods (e.g., studentcentered instruction, culturally-mediated Assessments: e.g., Test blueprint; item specifications; formative assessment tasks; summative assessment tasks

FIGURE 13.2 Relationship of standards to communication with stakeholders, curricula

and instruction, and assessments

to note that the examination of the construct and the efficacy of the content standards for producing their intended outcomes—including measurement of the defined domain, viability in practice, and impact on intended student learning outcomes—is critical. (For information relevant to the validation of standards see: AACC, 2009; AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999; Herman, 2009; Kane, 1992; Messick, 1989; Mislevy, Almond, & Lukas, 2003.)

The information presented in this section describes content standards in terms of the critical elements involved in their development, in a manner that ensures the content standards can be interpreted and enacted (e.g., in instruction and assessment) consistently and as intended. The following section presents a discussion of how content standards that address knowledge and skills relevant to academic literacies differ from and necessarily should be coordinated with academic content standards implementation in order to support student achievement and successful preparation for college and careers.

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Standards: Academic Literacies and Academic Content Academic literacies is a complex construct. It is multimodal (e.g., it encompasses words, symbols, and graphics); it has multiple representations (e.g., it can be oral, written, receptive, expressive), it includes a range of text types (e.g., text books, word problems, reports), and the term is applied to different contexts (e.g., different academic disciplines, different audiences) (Heritage, this volume; Molle, this volume; Moschkovitch, this volume). Increasingly, academic literacies in our schools necessarily warrants a definition that extends beyond the ability to read and write, given the nature of our academic content standards and our expectations for students’ college and career readiness and the need to prepare our learners for success in our global community. This need to expand our definition of academic literacies beyond reading and writing is reflected in the following statement by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2003): Literacy is about more than reading and writing—it is about how we communicate in society. It is about social practices and relationships, about knowledge, language, and culture . . . literacy itself takes many forms: on paper, on the computer screen, on TV, on posters and signs.

Academic literacies is comprised not only of knowledge and skills needed to read and to write, but also competencies and understandings of language, its contexts, and its uses (Heritage, this volume; Langer, 2002; Molle, this volume); this definition highlights the critical differences between academic literacies and academic content standards. Table 13.2 presents possible academic literacies knowledge and skills that extend beyond more typical literacy skills that focus on reading and writing.

Although research on academic literacies is still emerging, the research suggests that allowing for explicit, purposeful, and systematic instruction of academic literacies, integrated in or coordinated with content instruction, is necessary in the effective facilitation of students’ learning of academic content (e.g., Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Compton-Lilly, this volume; Low, this volume; Pacheco, this volume; Wright, this volume). Such practice is consistent with findings from similar research that support the explicit instruction of academic language in facilitating student academic success (e.g., Cummins, 2005; Heritage, Silva, & Pierce, 2007; National Research Council, 2001; Schleppegrell, 2001; Gersten, Baker, Shanahan, Linan-Thompson, Chiappe, & Scarcella, 2007; Snow, Cancini, Conzalez, & Shriberg, 1989).

The integration or coordination of academic literacies knowledge and skills with those of the academic content areas (e.g., ELA, mathematics, science) begins with the identification of the academic literacies knowledge and skills required for content area competency; that is, the academic literacies knowledge and skills

Academic Literacies and Standards 285 TABLE 13.2 Examples of current content standards that reflect academic literacies,

knowledge, and skills Standard

Source

Selecting and using appropriate technology and media to share insights, findings, concepts, and proposals with diverse audiences via appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviors, languages, and strategies Assessing options and planning actions based on a range of sources of information, taking into account varied perspectives and potential consequences Processing and expressing information according to various culturally-based learning orientations (e.g., visual, verbal, global, sequential, linear, cyclical, inductive, deductive, structured, open-ended) Using culturally sensitive strategies and supports to communicate information (e.g., egalitarian, authoritarian, nurturing, challenging) Communicating information (verbally, behaviorally), taking into account that information can have different meaning across cultural groups

Mansilla & Jackson (2011)

Mansilla & Jackson (2011) Henderson (1996) Ngeow and Kong (2002) Henderson (1996) Ngeow and Kong (2002) Nisbett (2003) deKlerk (2013)

reflected in the academic content standards. Although at present there is no consensus on the specific knowledge and skills that make up academic literacies vis-àvis academic content achievement, there are models available that can be used to help guide the analysis, organization, and definition of critical academic literacies knowledge and skills that can support academic content achievement. Specifically, Molle (Chapter 2, this volume) and Heritage (this volume) each present a model for academic literacies.

The level of granularity and scope of the specific knowledge and skills associated with each dimension included in these models of academic literacies, as well as the degree of relevance of each dimension and its knowledge and skills to academic content achievement are currently empirical questions. Nonetheless, such models hold promise in helping to guide the further explication of the domain of academic literacies and the critical knowledge and skills associated with supporting student academic achievement. (See section below, “Standards Supporting Academic Literacies: A Proposed Approach”, for additional related discussion.)

The integration or coordination of academic literacies knowledge and skills with those of the academic content areas also necessitates a definition of “proficiency”—a definition of the nature and level of mastery or expertise—so that student learning outcomes can be made explicit and clear. The definition of proficiency in academic literacies should correspond with proficiency definitions in the academic content areas so that student demonstration of proficiency in academic literacies positively correlates with proficiency demonstrations in the

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Language Competencies in Multiple Languages

Critical Understanding

Social Norms, Roles, Identities, Relationships

Academic Literacy Practices

Interplay of Multiple Modalities

From Molle (this volume)

Academic Language Resources

Disciplinary Concepts, Problems Cognitive Resources

Pragmatic Competence

Intellectual Challenge

From Heritage (this volume)

FIGURE 13.3 Models relevant to the examination of academic literacies

academic content areas. To help ensure appropriate correspondence, not only should the knowledge and skills in the standards (i.e., content area standards) be examined, but also the performance level descriptors of the content areas, as well as those content knowledge and skills associated with being “proficient” in the content, should be examined. The degree of integration or coordination of academic literacies knowledge and skills with those of the content areas can then be designed according to the degree of overlap of the specific knowledge and skills associated with the constructs that constitute “proficiency” and support student academic achievement (see Figure 13.4).

In some cases, the knowledge and skills of academic literacies and academic content will be distinct from those associated with proficiency. In other cases, there may be some or complete overlap.

Figures 13.3 and 13.4 offer heuristics for analyzing and defining academic literacies as they relate to academic content and student achievement of the content. These heuristics should be considered in light of the complexity of academic literacies and the current state of theory and research examining academic literacies and student achievement in our schools. They can help to ensure that critical academic literacies knowledge and skills are effectively reflected in standards and coordinated with those of the content areas.

Standards Supporting Academic Literacies: A Proposed Approach A growing body of research suggests that academic literacies are necessary in the facilitation of the academic achievement of our students (Bailey & Orellana, this volume; Compton-Lilly, this volume; Escamilla, this volume; Moschkovich, this

Academic Literacies Knowledge & Skills

Academic Literacies Knowledge & Skills

Proficiency

Student academic achievement

achievement

FIGURE 13.4 A depiction of the integration and coordination of academic literacies and academic content and how they relate to student academic

Academic Content & Academic Literacies Knowledge & Skills

Academic Content Knowledge & Skills

Academic Content Knowledge & Skills

Integrated/co ordinated knowledge and skills

Targeted constructs

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volume; Pacheco, this volume). And, as mentioned through this volume, academic literacies are of particular import to our diverse learners, but can help all our students, given the more rigorous and higher expectations we have of them.

The impetus for this chapter is to help address the need for a consistent, systematic, and purposeful approach to defining and addressing academic literacies in our schools. Standards can serve as a means for defining the domain and related constructs of academic literacies, in a manner that is necessarily relevant to and coherent with other academic content standards. Although there is a paucity of research on the specific knowledge and skills that make up academic literacies, there are foundations on which rigorous, coherent, and practicable content standards that can support students’ learning of academic literacies, and subsequently student academic achievement, can be developed. As educators, we have an opportunity to make explicit and implement a systematic approach to addressing the academic literacies needed by our students for success in our multicultural and multinational learning and work environments.

More specifically, Figure 13.1 offers a general theory of action for developing and implementing content standards. Academic literacies knowledge and skills (1) that exist in current research can be examined along with (2) those knowledge and skills reflected in academic content standards (i.e., those academic literacies knowledge and skills needed by students to achieve the content standards), and with (3) the knowledge and skills associated with “proficiency.” With these in mind, consideration of how the identified knowledge and skills fall across dimensions such as academic language resources, cognitive resources, and pragmatic competence (Heritage, this volume) and/or disciplinary concepts/problems, critical understanding, and social norms/roles/identities/relationships (Molle, this volume), for example, can help to ensure that the definitions of the domain and related constructs of academic literacies are appropriately robust and rigorous, in order to support student academic achievement, an ultimately learners’ success in our global society.

As mentioned previously, the specific knowledge and skills that contribute to academic literacies and subsequent student academic achievement is in need of empirical study and validation. Nonetheless, there are steps that can be taken now and information on which we can build to examine and address academic literacies in our schools—the proposed theory of action and initial heuristics presented in this chapter are intended to serve as an initial “roadmap” to designing a coherent and coordinated approach for examining, discussing, and addressing academic literacies in our schools moving forward. Doing so will put us on a path to better supporting the learning and achievement of our diverse learners and preparing them for our 21st century. The significant number of diverse learners in our schools requires the attention of our educational community so that they can meet the rigorous academic expectations we have of them, and so they can be prepared for college and careers, and be effective contributors to our rapidly changing international community and marketplace. As schools implement more

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rigorous academic standards (e.g., Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards), we are presented with an opportunity to revisit and refine our currently narrow definition of “literacy” and work toward integrating and coordinating, in a strategic and meaningful way, a necessarily broader form of literacy—academic literacies—across the curriculum so that all our students can achieve and truly be successful in college, their careers, and our global society.

Notes 1 © NCS Pearson, Inc. Used with permission.

2 The numbered and bulleted text in this section corresponds with the numbered text and boxes in Figure 13.1. Additionally, Figure 13.1 reflects relationships between/among ideas; however, the numbered text is not intended to reflect a strict sequential ordering of ideas.

References American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education (1999). Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Arizona State Board of Education (2010). English language proficiency standards. Phoenix, AZ: Arizona State Board of Education.

Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (2009). Framework for high-quality English language proficiency standards and assessments. San Francisco, CA: WestEd. Bailey, A., Butler, F., & Sato, E. (2007). Standards-to-standards linkage under Title III: Exploring common language demands in ELD and science standards. Applied Measurement in Education, 20(1).

Blickem, C., and Shackleford, N. (2007). Academic literacies: Defining terms, exploring models.

Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the NZ Association of Bridging Educators.

California State Board of Education (2012). California English language standards. Sacramento, CA: State Board of Education.

Council of Chief State School Officers (2012). Framework for English language proficiency development standards corresponding to the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. Washington, DC: CCSSO. Cummins, J. (2005). Language proficiency, bilingualism, and academic achievement. In P. A. Richard-Amato & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Academic success for English language learners (pp. 76–86). White Plains, NY: Longman. deKlerk, G. (2013). Cross-cultural testing. In M. Born, C. D. Foxcroft & R. Butter (Eds.), Online Readings in Testing and Assessment, International Test Commission, Retrieved from www.intestcom.org/Publications/ORTA.php.

Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom’s taxonomy: Original and revised. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/.

Gersten, R., Baker, S. K., Linan-Thompson, S., Collings, P., & Scarcella, R. (2007). Effective literacy and language instruction for English learners in elementary grade: A practice guide (NCEE 2007-4011). Washington, DC: Department of Education.

Henderson, L. (1996). Instructional design of interactive multimedia: A cultural critique.

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Heritage, M., Silva, N., & Pierce, M. (2007). Academic English: A view from the classroom. In A. L. Bailey (Ed.), The language demands of school: Putting academic English to the test. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Herman, J. L. (2009). Moving to the next generation of standards for Science: Building on recent practices. Retrieved from http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/BOSE/ DBASSE_071087.

Jacobs, C. (2005) On being an insider on the outside: new spaces for integrating academic literacies. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(4), 475–487.

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Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

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Mislevy, R. J., Almond, R. G., & Lukas, J. F. (2003). A brief introduction to Evidence-centered Design. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

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14 LITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN ACADEMIC CONTEXTS FOR ADOLESCENT ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS Policy Considerations and Future Research Timothy Boals, Kenji Hakuta, and Alissa Blair The chapters in this volume have helped to redefine language and literacy development for adolescent English language learners (ELLs)1 within the challenging and dynamic contexts of a new century. This redefinition calls for reconceptualizing research, instructional practices, and policies for supporting the linguistic and academic success of students learning English as an additional language in classrooms and schools across the country. While the approaches to inquiry advanced by each chapter are varied, this research focus on literacy development in adolescent ELLs is unified by: (a) a shift from strict emphasis on forms and features to ways of doing and being with oral and written language and other modes of expression, (b) the view that academic discourse is one of many repertoires common in school settings but not superior to other patterns of language use, and (c) while the decision to focus on academic discourse reflects its utility in schoolbased settings, the ultimate goal is fostering metalinguistic awareness that enables youth to make informed language choices across a range contexts.

The purpose of this chapter is to relate the research focus described in this volume to the larger educational policy context. First, we provide a historical overview of federal and state mandates and present-day legislative decisions that affect language and content teaching for ELLs in particular. In the next section we address policy and program implementation, calling out myths and erroneous practices in the field of ELL education. Then, while linking to findings from the previous chapters, we make the case that the research focus on literacy development in academic contexts helps to re-envision learning environments and policies for ELLs, especially in view of a forthcoming authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Finally, we outline implications for practice, policy, and future research.

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Policy Context: The New Wave of Standards and Evolving State and Federal Roles Access to both the English language and core academic content for ELLs has been a long-standing intent of federal laws and policies, dating back to the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968) and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lau v. Nichols in 1974, based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In addition, from a Civil Rights perspective in affirming equal educational opportunity for the protected class of students of “Limited English Proficient” (or currently, ELLs), the implementation of the Lau protection is tested through what are known as the “Castañeda Standards” (based on Castañeda v. Pickard, a 5th Circuit ruling in 1981). These standards require programming that are based on sound educational theory, implemented with adequate resources, and tested for efficacy after a period of time (Hakuta, 2011).

There has been debate about how to meet the dual expectations for English and for content development (e.g., use of the native language as a medium of instruction—see Crawford, 1999) and about expectations for the rate of English language acquisition we should expect (see Hakuta, Butler and Witt, 2000), but there has always been recognition among educators and among advocates about meeting the comprehensive needs of ELLs in a way that includes academic content. Thus, both Congress, as well as the Civil Rights enforcement communities have, in their own way, tried to address the duality of language and content (albeit not in an integrated fashion)—Congress through its regulation of programs (e.g., separate titles within ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) or the courts through examination of theoretically sound programs that address English language development as well as access to academic content.

The current wave of standards in English language arts, literacy, mathematics, and science (the Common Core State Standards—CCSS, and the Next Generation Science Standards) as well as the related set of English language proficiency/ development2 standards that states are required to adopt can be viewed in the context of these precursors. The idea of standards as the basis for systemic reform of the U.S. educational system is rooted in the 1980s, following the “wake-up call” for educators and the public with the release of “A Nation at Risk.” That was when the American economy was faltering, “Japan, Inc.” was on the rise, Ford Pintos were exploding, and poor performance on international comparisons of educational achievement received media attention. The call for high standards led to legislation—Goals 2000 Act and the Improving America’s Schools Act as the ESEA, both passed by Congress in 1994 and signed into law by President Clinton and state action. During this period, the question of appropriate inclusion of ELLs into the standards system came about, particularly around the issue of the appropriate language of assessment (Stanford Working Group, 1993).

The subsequent reauthorization of ESEA as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 added teeth through its well-known accountability provisions that included

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the performance of ELLs, but in addition required states to adopt “standards and objectives for raising the level of English proficiency that are derived from the four recognized domains of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and that are aligned with achievement of challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards” [Sec 3113(b)(2)]. However, because content standards differed from state to state, any “alignment” of language and content would be conducted on an ad hoc basis among states.

An early “win” for efforts to bring states together in addressing language and content through common standards was the development of the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) consortium of states. WIDA’s 35 member states currently share common English Language Development (ELD) standards that correspond to the CCSS and are aligned in a system with English language proficiency assessments and educator resources. WIDA provides a model for newer consortia now forming around academic and alternate assessments as the consortium has successfully engaged states through shared governance and state and local involvement in development and ongoing maintenance of the system.

One distinguishing feature of the current phase of standards-based reform is the critical mass of state participation in adopting the common standards. As of this writing, 45 states have adopted the Common Core, and it is expected that the recently finalized Next Generation Science Standards will also gather mass.

Two assessment consortia have been created to develop assessments for English language arts, literacy, and mathematics. They are PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, and SBAC, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. These groups are well-funded by the Department of Education’s allocation of stimulus funds from the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). No one who witnessed the immediate destruction of President Clinton’s 1997 proposal for a proposed “Voluntary National Test” could have imagined such a perfect convergence of circumstances leading, essentially, to national standards in the content areas today.

Another key development can be seen in the implementation of the policy that connects the new content standards to the English language proficiency/development standards of the states. Through a series of waivers that the Obama administration granted to states from key provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (August, Estrada & Boyle, 2012), a requirement was included for states to adopt new English language proficiency standards and assessments that “correspond” to the state content standards (read: Common Core). What is notable is that the waiver still kept intact the Title III accountability requirements that mandate a separate English language proficiency assessment, and that they introduced a new perspective on how those standards need to be related to academic content through correspondence.3 Because of the unforgiving nature of the accountability provisions of NCLB with respect to the progress toward 100% proficiency, states were eager to agree to these provisions. Hence the examination

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of the connection between language and content through the connection of the standards has become a key issue for policy implementation at the state level.

In order to support this work, the Council of Chief State Schools Officers produced a document, known as the English Language Proficiency Development (ELPD) Framework that addressed the question of what correspondence should look like between the two sets of standards (Council of Chief State Schools Officers, 2012). The ELPD Framework, written by a committee of experts4 that included considerable expertise in applied linguistics and the content areas, addressed English language arts, mathematics and science, and created tables of the language demands in the content areas and a protocol for how English language proficiency standards could be analyzed to demonstrate correspondence.

This policy tool is an important contribution that explicitly articulates the relationship between the new content standards and expectations about ELD. A final and critical point about the new standards is the extent to which they amplify the language and communicative demands for all students. This reality is amply noted in the analyses contained in the ELPD Framework, and has been emphasized most explicitly by the Understanding Language Initiative5 through a widely circulated Venn diagram that analyzes the student practice standards for the content areas, which was published in Science (Stage, Asturias, Cheuk, Daro & Hampton, 2013). In this diagram, it is made clear, for example, that constructing viable arguments, critiquing the reasoning of others, and engaging in argument from evidence, including text-based evidence, are all language demands that overlap across content areas. At the same time, there are discipline-specific language demands, such as constructing explanations and designing solutions in science and engineering. What such analyses make amply clear is that the language demands of the new standards will challenge all students, and especially ELLs. Thus, the current policy context in which to consider the development of “academic language and literacy” can be characterized as a gaining of critical mass by virtue of the commonality across a large number of states, the ramping up of the pressure to articulate the relationship between the content standards with the English language proficiency standards, and the particular ways in which the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards characterize the role of language in student practices. When you add these considerations to the steady increase in numbers of ELLs, as well to their increasing geographic distribution, we can understand why this has become one of the most important education policy issues of the moment.

To seasoned observers of the debate on bilingual education, this issue is notably absent in the current policy context. Following the debates over the efficacy of native language instruction that erupted starting with California in 1998 over Proposition 227, the issue has since evolved. In the current policy context, debate over language of instruction or particular methods of instruction have been sidelined by the broader discussion of academic language within standards-based reform.

The challenges of offering students instruction using rigorous, construct-relevant

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language come regardless of whether the language of instruction is English or the student’s native language (Brisk & Proctor, 2012). While at the national level policy energy is currently focused on the quality of academic language in all languages of instruction, individual states, districts, and schools continue to grapple with the place for bilingual education in local contexts.

Within these parameters, we examine some of the issues in implementing policies and programs aimed at supporting ELLs, as well as related myths and erroneous practices in the field of ELL education.

Policy and Program Implementation: The Current State of ELL Education Programs and services at the middle and high school levels for students designated as ELLs are best known for assisting students in learning English as they attempt to keep up with the other knowledge and skills students learn at school. English as a second language (ESL) programs often organize instruction around the four language domains of listening, speaking, reading and writing and to varying degrees reinforce content learning. Instruction may be oriented to real-world or school-based language scenarios and may also include basic rules of language use or particular constructions (e.g., verb phrases in the past tense). Newcomers, especially children with interrupted formal schooling, benefit from this instruction in preparing to navigate more sophisticated content, language, and literacy demands (Short, 2002). Yet, the majority of ELLs today are born in the U.S. and speak a language in addition to English at home (Capps et al., 2005). For students profiled as “long-term English learners” that is, students who struggle to gain proficiency in English despite attending a U.S. school for more than 7 years, a socially and academically segregated ESL program can undermine achievement (Valenzuela, 1999; Valdés 2001; Olsen, 2010).

Across the diversity of adolescent ELLs and approaches intended to support them, the realities of schooling today show us that students have little time to lose before they must connect in earnest with more demanding curricula (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). The logic behind bilingual programs in part grew out of this recognition: in addition to the cognitive, psychological, and social benefits of bilingualism (García, 2009; Trueba, 1991; Dolson, 1985) giving students access to rigorous content in a language they more fully understand helps them master grade-level content while the English skills are taught. Even in English-medium classrooms, use of the L1 can play a crucial role in content and language learning.

A thorough review by the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2007) shows that building on literacy skills in students’ native languages has benefits for reaching higher literacy levels in English. Others have argued that drawing on students’ linguistic funds of knowledge promotes metalinguistic awareness and deeper conceptual understanding (Gutiérrez, 2008; Moschkovich, 2008).

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In practice, however, both ESL and bilingual programs have often, rather paradoxically, been too heavily focused on basic language acquisition at the expense of content and literacy development needed to thrive at school and beyond. Either the content and skills taught in the support programs were too basic or remedial (García & Godina, 2004), or content teaching was cut on the belief that English language skills must first reach a certain threshold (Goldenberg, 2008). One critique of programs that attempt to teach academic content to ELLs using techniques known as sheltered instruction is that such programs lower content expectations. Sheltering, while attempting to engage challenging content in accessible language, can have the unfortunate effect of distancing students from the very language and literacy-rich contexts we are hoping they will become proficient in at school (Becijos, 1997; Crawford, 2000; Settlage, Madsen & Rustad, 2005). Even populist ballot initiatives like California’s Proposition 227 “English in Schools” initiative are reacting, at least to the perception, that ELLs are not acquiring the English needed to “catch up” in school. The common myth that languages can and should be acquired quickly contributes to the perception that the support programs are not “fixing the problem” of learning English rapidly enough. In the worst cases a “back to basics” language and content curriculum becomes a ghetto, a separate and unequal place where ELLs fall further behind rather than catch up (Valdés, 1998).

The first dilemma in revising learning environments for ELLs is finding a balance of access and support. We, like other scholars, advocate rigorous academic content in any language (Olsen, 2010). We hasten to equate, however, meaningful access with being able to sit in a grade-level content classroom with mainstream students. Real access means comprehending and participating in rigorous classes, not simply being placed in environments that are still linguistically inaccessible. Support, then, is not simplification of the lesson, but contextualization that enhances learning while not altering the conceptual richness. This means providing a point of entry, building background knowledge, and illuminating the richness of the content in ways that set up the students for success. Such contextualization often happens orally with academic conversations that precede and support content literacy development.

Especially at the middle and high school levels when students tend to be separated into tracks, the dilemma of access vs. support is crucial for adolescent ELLs. When applied to program design and services (see Figure 14.1), access without enough support and vice versa can lead to missed opportunities for learning.

Without any support at all (e.g. sink or swim approach) as in the Lau case, ELLs have access to the same content as all students, but not necessarily the English proficiency to benefit from that access. In highly isolated learning environments (e.g. pull-out instruction and others), ELLs gain from personalized support but are too removed from the authentic, challenging curriculum and multimodal literacy building experiences advocated in this volume.

Although supported in sheltered instruction, ELLs often receive instruction not well aligned with grade-level content and literacy demands. Then, when

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high

Sink or swim approach

Access to authentic curriculum

Sheltered instruction

Remedial classes low

Pull-out

Support

high

FIGURE 14.1 Access-support relationship of learning environments for ELLs

adolescent ELLs step out of their ESL or ELD and remedial classes for more time in regular classes, as they typically do when they have reached intermediate levels of English proficiency, they go to environments where expectations and access to grade-level content may be higher, but instruction is not modified (Harklau, 1999). In the long term, continued ESL classroom placement beyond beginning years of ELD are negatively associated with academic achievement and college preparation (Callahan, Wilkinson, & Muller, 2010).

The second dilemma in revising learning environments for ELLs is the artificial separation of language and content. In the delivery of programs and services, implementation of the current research and policy focus on language and content is incomplete. The view that ELLs have to “learn English” before being able to engage with content material, or the view that language is irrelevant to content instruction, are unfounded (Goldenberg, 2008). We know from research across theoretical camps that language is not learned or used devoid of context. At school, facets of the very disciplines (Schleppegrell, 2004; Gee, 2005; Lemke, 1990) serve as the context of language learning and the pretense of other social and instructional interactions. Making explicit the features of oral and written text types and patterns of reasoning and making knowledge claims that are common to a disciplinary topic enable ELLs to critique and make sense of content and language (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994; Valdés, 2001). Teacher–student talk is known to mediate content learning (Gibbons, 2003), although many classroom teachers are unfamiliar with the practice and systemic collaboration between ESL and content teachers is not commonplace (Peercy & Martin-Beltran, 2012).

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In the section that follows, we recap the volume’s research focus on literacy development in academic contexts for adolescent ELLs which redefines the dilemmas of access and support and the language-content dichotomy.

Literacy Development in Academic Contexts: A Starting Point for Re-envisioning ELL Education In school buildings and districts, too often the debate about how to move forward has fallen to the purview of the bilingual/ESL support program, rather than thinking about how the entire school can achieve the goal of creating classrooms that combine access and support with the necessary richness to ensure that ELLs reach high levels of proficiency and literacy in multiple academic contexts and multiple languages. Within the orientation to literacy embodied by the contributors of this volume, we may rethink, for example, not only what happens within the designated “ESL/ELD class,” but how to ensure meaningful and consistent opportunities for learning and integration of ELLs into the academic and social life of the school at large. High exposure to literacy and academic demands (Figure 14.2), which could be taught in ESL classes or by mainstream classroom teachers trained in analyzing and scaffolding the language demands of their lessons, could accomplish both: access to challenging content and support through attention to language and literacy development.

high

Sink or swim approach

Access to authentic curriculum

High literacy exposure and demands with scaffolding

Sheltered instruction

Remedial classes low

Pull-out

Support

high

FIGURE 14.2 Access-support relationship of learning environments for ELLs—modified

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Components of Literacy Development in Academic Contexts Across chapters, a number of overarching themes are joined to help define what literacy development looks like for ELLs. Literacy in academic contexts is: (a) disciplinary and interdisciplinary, (b) multimodal and multilingual, (c) cognitively challenging, and (d) mediated by social relations, interactions and roles.

Consistent with extant research, Avalos, Zisselsberger, Langer-Osuna and Secada (this volume) found that students must learn discipline-specific genres to demonstrate content knowledge. The focus of instruction may attend to a particular content knowledge or skill, or promote broader understandings to make connections between topics (Molle, Chapter 2, this volume). While spoken and written English is most visible in schools, multiple forms of representation are a “what” to understand (e.g. x–y coordinate plane) and a “how” for understanding (e.g., pointing and drawing to explain slope). As signs, texts, objects, and tools are commonplace in school, Wright (this volume), Moschkovich (this volume), and Low (this volume) observed that disciplinary language and language use in classrooms are inherently multimodal. The multiple languages and language repertoires ELLs come to school with play a similarly important role in classroom interactions. Everyday languages are resources for meaning-making (Moschkovich, this volume), contribute to literacy learning (Bailey & Faulstich Orellana, this volume), and ultimately add to the linguistic options from which to choose in various contexts (Pacheco, this volume; Low, this volume). Making meaning from text requires the employment of cognitive resources (Heritage, this volume) in additional to linguistic skills. Molle (Chapter 2, this volume) explains that the cognitive challenge of learning tasks is important because it better prepares adolescents for work and study beyond high school, and because the relationship between students’ use of higher-order thinking skills and achieving greater conceptual understanding is iterative. Key in this view of literacy development are social relations, which position the actors and interactions through which learning evolves. The research studies by Wright (this volume) and ComptonLilly (this volume) illuminate how the identities and roles youth have access to and take up in the various learning environments they participate in, shape their classroom experiences and learning potential.

Conditions that Support Literacy Development in Academic Contexts Through examples from content area classrooms (Low, this volume; Wright, this volume) and student case studies over time (Compton-Lilly, this volume; Escamilla, this volume), it is clear that attempting to “give” students a certain kind of language or literacy will not assure achievement. Where to begin is the view of the learner and his/her linguistic and cultural assets. Adolescents develop

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language and literacy skills in and outside of school (Pacheco, this volume; Bailey & Faulstich Orellana, this volume), that when valued and leveraged in the classroom, are valuable meaning-making resources in their own right and facilitate conceptual understanding (Moschknovich, this volume; Wright, this volume).

Consistent with other research, Avalos et al. (this volume) found that teachers’ attitudes toward linguistically and culturally diverse youth as well as their views of the disciplines they teach influenced how they treated these students and their willingness to infuse a focus on language in their content teaching. Research at the school and district levels indicates that structuring opportunities for learning must be intentional and strategic for the long term (Horwitz et al., 2009).

Haphazardly switching ELLs between program types without a plan for ensuring progressive exposure to content and language demands is detrimental for student outcomes (Escamilla, this volume).

The dilemmas of balancing access and support and the unhelpful languagecontent dichotomy are entirely reframed by this research focus. The authors explore literacy development in several contexts: American Sāmoan students and teachers (Low, this volume), Spanish-English dual language learners (Bailey & Faulstich Orellana, this volume), long-term English learners (Escamilla, this volume), science students (Wright, this volume), mathematics students (Moschkovich, this volume), and professional development participants (Avalos et al., this volume). Nonetheless, the recommendations for re-envisioning education for ELLs converge on the principles that literacy development in academic contexts is rigorous (issue of access) and must be facilitated (issue of support). The view of literacy as mastering requisite skills before gaining access to a certain learning community is rejected and inverted, rather, it is through scaffolded participation as active members in a community that ELLs develop the targeted skills. High exposure to literacy and academic demands for ELLs is achieved when meaning is enhanced through multiple entry points and contextualization of the lesson. By this account, the teacher does a better job of front-loading instruction (Avalos et al., this volume) and creating group interactions and communities (Wright, this volume; Moschkovich, this volume) with language as the medium through which knowledge and roles are rehearsed, interrogated and constructed.

In the following section we address the theoretical orientation of this research focus and its implications for practice, policy and future research.

Implications for Practice, Policy and Research The research focus on literacy development in adolescent ELLs illuminated by the chapters in this book does not necessarily comprise a single, unified understanding, but rather, an attempt to take inventory of extant research and elaborate interconnecting and overlapping lenses (see the Introduction to this volume; Molle, Chapter 2, this volume) from which literacy development in academic contexts can be examined. The previous focus on academic language

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development in the field of ELL education, both in research and in practice, was often too narrow (Compton-Lilly, this volume; Escamilla, this volume, Molle, Chapter 2, this volume). As one leading literacy scholar notes, what is needed is to “refresh” and “re-calibrate” the field.6 An updated perspective was important for addressing several persistent and interrelated issues: the overlooked role of literacy in previous discussions of academic language development, the undervalued role of everyday speech and home languages in schools, and how literacy development unfolds for adolescent ELLs. While more than a decade ago definitional disagreement was hailed in critique of the “academic language” construct (Valdés, 2004; Gutiérrez, 1995), this volume intentionally refrains from advancing a definitive term in favor of acknowledging multiple lenses of inquiry. While the definitions of literacy development vary by author, the overarching themes in this volume are nonetheless palpable.

Turning now to the implications of this research focus, the following subsections outline three areas of consideration that are closely tied to research findings from the previous chapters: Literacy development in academic contexts involves (a) shifting views and assumptions about ELLs, (b) redesigning learning environments, and (c) professional development and instructional finesse. We offer implications for practice, policy, and future research, as reconceptualizing language and literacy development for ELLs involves not only classroom-level change, but revision to practices and procedures at schools, districts, and state and national policy as well.

Shifting Views and Assumptions About ELLs Across chapters, the research focus on literacy development in academic contexts is grounded in an assets-based view of ELLs. While this stance is pervasive in sociocultural approaches to language and literacy, deficit perspectives persist among educators and are often embedded in the very structures and policies that serve culturally and linguistically diverse learners (Flores, 2012). Central to this view is recognizing and valuing the role of students’ experiences in and out of school in language and literacy development (Low, this volume; Compton-Lilly, this volume; Pacheco, this volume). Everyday meanings and home languages are not barriers to learning, but sense-making resources both in the moment (Moschkovich, this volume) and contribute to literacy learning over time (ComptonLilly, this volume). The view of meaning-making and knowledge production is also revised from strictly in-the-head, cognitive and individualistic learning environments to collaborative engagements, language-in-use, opportunities for meaningful practice in context. Quoting Halliday (1993, p. 94), Low (this volume) reminds us that “language is the process by which experiences becomes knowledge.” Examining our assumptions about the nature of learning is crucial.

Avalos et al. (this volume) found that change cannot happen without this perspective shift; language-focused instruction and practices by content teachers are

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determined not only by deficit views of students but also limited notions of their content area as it relates to language and literacy development.

Examining views and assumptions has implications for larger policy issues.

Genuinely valuing and recognizing the knowledges and skills ELLs bring to school, as well as the forms of meaning-making and knowledge production that leverage these strengths raise several core questions: What does it mean to be proficient? How do we capture what students are able to do, know, and say? It is beyond the scope of this chapter to address each of these queries. Research that examines the role of time in language acquisition (see Hakuta et al., 2000; Cook, Boals & Lundberg, 2011) conveys the need for policy makers to confront assumptions about realistic language learning goals. In similar fashion, several scholars call for improvements to the identification and assessment of ELLs and school accountability measures (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007; Working Group on ELL Policy, 2010; Linquanti & Hakuta, 2012).

There are implications for future research as well. Like the works in this volume, continued investigation in and out of school is called for to help to define literacy development as well as how to connect and build on what students are able to do across settings (Bailey & Faulstich Orellana, this volume; Pacheco, this volume). Low’s (this volume) contribution in particular embodies and confronts shifting views and assumptions of just what is “academic” in literacy development. To further understandings of literacy development in academic contexts, Heritage (this volume) calls for more research on gathering and using evidence of this learning to inform instruction. Taking the application a step further, Sato (this volume) proposes systematic research to inform the development of standards that can be used to support students in developing academic literacy. These are certainly projects that contribute to the direction and application of research on literacy development in academic contexts.

Redesigning Learning Environments There are implications for practice, policy, and research in relation to the implementation of program design and service provision discussed earlier. Escamilla (this volume) observed several schooling practices that limited students’ opportunities for learning: “double doses” of ELD classes at the expense of other content area instruction, unstable assignment to program type (switching between bilingual and English-only classrooms), and excessive instructional interruptions for assessments (Escamilla, this volume). Language and literacy activities aligned with content goals become the basis for delivering meaningful content in all classrooms, while giving special attention to scaffolding for linguistically and culturally diverse learners. A language-rich classroom is not limited to print on the walls and books on the shelves, rather it privileges oral language development (Genesee et al., 2005). Structured interactions promote deeper conceptual understanding through peer talk (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011; Gibbons, 2009) which students

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need as content demands increase in the upper grade levels (Zwiers, 2008). For language-focused content instruction to permeate school-practice, teacher beliefs and planning strategies must be confronted and transformed through sustained collaborative effort (Avalos et al., this volume).

Restructuring learning environments intertwines with policy and procedure at multiple levels. From the classroom teacher, to building principal, to district official, many actors must be involved to adapt long-term strategies for supporting linguistic and academic success of ELLs (Horwitz et al., 2009). Strategic school staffing is key to support the envisioned learning environments. To support staff and students, especially in the wake of the new wave of standards, Linquanti and Hakuta (2012) contend that the language focus should be consistent and explicit across standards, assessments, instructional materials, and teacher preparation.

In envisioning a future research agenda, this research focus has the potential to enhance understandings of literacy development in local contexts and issues related to implementation. In addition to tackling definitional issues, Escamilla (this volume) calls for empirical work on school practices that limit opportunities for learning. Wright (this volume), using a fine grained approach, observed that academic literacies are “messy” and contends that analyzing classroom talk requires a good deal of unpacking to capture and represent a phenomena and draw conclusions. Compton-Lilly (this volume) employs a protracted lens, calling for more longitudinal research to aid in formulating adequate accounts of a given student’s learning trajectory, and to trace characteristics and changes among a population. Certainly, literacy development among adolescents can be examined through multiple lenses (Molle, Chapter 2, this volume), and a sustained research effort on literacy development of adolescent ELLs in academic contexts over time is needed to shape the contribution of this research focus moving forward.

Professional Development and Instructional Finesse Recognizing and scaffolding emergent repertoires among a diverse student population requires finesse. The dance between starting where students are (local context, cultural relevance) and where we need to take them ("career and college ready") begins with knowledge and respect of ELLs’ diverse knowledge, languages, cultures, and abilities (Low, this volume). A nuanced view of the curriculum and classroom assessment is necessary too. Moshkovich (this volume) reminds us that standards are not an exhaustive list; approaching what to teach as “common core plus” helps resist a narrowing of the curriculum when responsive instruction ultimately fosters academic success for ELLs. Also relevant in this dance is a present-to-future (formative) view of assessment in addition to a pastto-present (summative assessment) view (Heritage, this volume). Heritage (this volume) contends that formative assessment informs the range of decisions in the

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day-to-day process of supporting literacy development of ELLs. At all stages of instruction, this finesse is learned through practice, reflection, and ongoing support in collaboration with peers (Avalos et al., this volume).

Professional development and teacher training are crucial issues in bringing to practice the described vision for literacy development in academic settings. Language and literacy development must be seen as the responsibility of everyone in the school who works with ELLs. Consequently, all teachers must learn about ELLs and about how language works in their subject area (see Wong, Fillmore, & Snow, 2000). Effective professional development must address misconceptions about how second languages are learned (Reeves, 2006) while training teachers to write language and literacy development goals as part of their content lessons. This promotes thinking about how language works within the discipline and what specific skills are likely to be required for the lesson (Walqui, 2011).

Effectuating this call for more professional development is accomplished in concert with related district and state-wide policies and procedures, not solely through the good will of teachers and professional development specialists. Longterm support and resources must be designated to carry out sustained professional development (Horwitz et al., 2009). Supporting capacity-building at schools and districts, improving credential and certification requirements of content teachers working with ELLs (Working Group on ELL Policy, 2010), and setting a national standard for preparing pre-service teachers (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007) are but a few of the policy changes proposed to transform the system of training teachers to work with ELLs.

Moving Forward Putting into practice the research focus on literacy development in adolescent ELLs envisioned by this volume is a tall order. The efforts to understand literacy development in academic contexts and investigate the conditions that support ELLs is a step in this direction. The policy context discussed in this chapter traces the evolving policy focus on language development and content learning. Even at this moment without presidential or congressional plans for reauthorization of ESEA on the horizon, the push for standards-based instruction and assessment is moving ahead at full speed. Content-based language and literacy skills raise the bar for all students, with the implications for teaching ELLs particularly great.

In anticipating the reauthorization of ESEA, there are roles for states in setting policy and roles for districts and schools in improving practice. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the pros, cons, and consequences of NCLB for ELLs (see Menken, 2010; 2008) we believe that the research focus exemplified in this volume can serve as an important departure for thinking locally and nationally about the changes to anticipate and advocate. As a mere starting point for this dialogue, we raise the following issues.

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•

•

•

•

The role of children’s and youth’s home languages (L1) and cultures (C1). Testing in the L1 may in some cases better capture students’ content knowledge, but also creates a publicly sanctioned space for L1 and C1, and validates bilingual policy and bilingual education at the state and local levels (see Working Group on ELL Policy, 2010; García, 2009).

The ongoing nature of language development. The pathways to language proficiency are multiple, varied and influenced by a number of factors including age of arrival and the cumulative effects of educational programming over time; thus accountability measures are in need of revision to reflect the amount of time it takes to become fully proficient rather than penalize schools and students via lock-step language growth estimates (See Cook, Boals & Lundberg, 2011; Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000).

The tight relationship between language and content in instruction and testing.

Teasing out teaching and measuring the language most relevant to academic content constructs is needed to improve language and content assessments; the development of multimodal assessments and multiple measures of ELLs’ educational progress may be particularly promising for classroom, school, and district use (see Linquanti & Hakuta, 2012; Kopriva, 2008).

Teacher preparation and professional development. As a bridge from policy to practice, provisions must be included to support teacher training and improve credential and certification requirements to ensure all teachers are prepared to work with ELLs in a building-wide effort to facilitate support and access for ELLs in challenging curriculum (Walqui, 2012; Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007).

Finally, to the field of ELL education and within this policy milieu, this research focus on the literacy development in adolescent ELLs contributes to understandings of the complex relationship between language development and content learning. It also contributes to the sociocultural context of schooling, as well as the multiple language repertoires, modes of representation, and dynamic roles and relationships that mediate learning. This theoretical undertaking is both rich and messy. In this volume, language and literacy are not researched as “things” students “need,” but as the contextualized and value-laden media of doing, being, and interacting. Given its multilingual and multiliteracies orientation, this research focus in particular sets a tone for future investigation of the what, why, and how of academic discourse. Given the diverse abilities, strengths, and needs of ELLs, particularly during adolescence, continued systematic research from a wide variety of methodological approaches is key. The implications of this research involve a reexamination of personal and systemic views and assumptions, redesign of learning environments, and major changes to teacher training and preparation. In anticipating and shaping the next phase of educational policy, now is an important time to raise concerns about educating ELLs in particular, and to further research on linguistic and academic success in school and beyond.

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Notes 1 Because of the policy orientation of this chapter we primarily employ the term “English language learner” (ELL).

2 The term English Language Proficiency/Development is used to connote the ongoing nature of language development with English language proficiency as the end goal.

3 Correspondence refers to the relationship between differing standards or assessments, for example, as is the case between content and language standards. Alignment refers to the relationship between a set of standards and a test that is developed to assess those same standards.

4 The committee was coordinated by Sue Pimentel, who was also the lead writer of the Common Core in ELA/Literacy. It included Mariana Castro of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison; H. Gary Cook of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison; Amanda Kibler of the University of Virginia; Okhee Lee of New York University; David Pook, an educational consultant; Lydia Stack, former president of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL); Guadalupe Valdés of Stanford University; and Aída Walqui of WestEd. 5 http://ell.stanford.edu.

6 Mary Kalantzis made this observation during the WIDA- and WestEd-hosted Conference in October 2012 that proceeded the execution of this volume.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Mary A. Avalos, University of Miami, USA Alison Bailey, University of California—Los Angeles, USA Alissa Blair, Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, USA Timothy Boals, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, USA Cathy Compton-Lilly, University of Wisconsin—Madison, USA Kathy Escamilla, University of Colorado—Boulder, USA Kenji Hakuta, Stanford University, USA Carol Hedgspeth, WestED, USA Margaret Heritage, University of California—Los Angeles, USA Glynda Hull, University of California—Berkeley, USA Jennifer Langer-Osuna, University of Miami, USA José Ramón Lizárraga, University of California—Berkeley, USA Marylin Low, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, USA Daniella Molle, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, USA Judit Moschkovich, University of California—Santa Cruz, USA Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, University of California—Los Angeles, USA Mariana Pacheco, University of Wisconsin—Madison, USA Edynn Sato, Pearson, USA John Scott, University of California—Berkeley, USA Walter Secada, University of Miami, USA Laura Wright, Center for Applied Linguistics, USA Margarita Zisselsberger, Loyola University Maryland, USA

INDEX

Abedi, J. 242 Abrams, D. 44 abstract thinking 59, 60 academic language (AL) 7, 13–14, 15, 29, 106; academic literacies relationship 17–22; cognitive-academic language proficiency 56; definitions of 210– 211, 257, 271n2, 301; English 117; mathematics 26–27, 76–77, 83, 257, 260, 269; narrow focus on 300–301; opportunities to learn 212, 218–221; policy issues 295; repositioning 21–22; resources 4, 232–233, 236, 288; Samoa 45; scaffolding 28; shift to academic literacies 15, 22–26; teacher’s role 255, 259–260 academic literacies 3–5, 13, 15–16, 29, 106; academic language relationship 17–22; academic literacies model 14–15, 257; bilingualism-as-participation 157; context 185; definitions of 4, 5, 56–57, 206, 210–211, 214, 223, 278, 284; ESL class 235–236; everyday practices 68; evidence 238–247; fluid nature of 182; language brokering 65; literacy development 172–181, 216, 299–300, 301, 302, 303; as living texts 50–51; opportunities to learn 211, 212, 218–225; oversimplified construction

of 135; participation 135–137; policy implications 8–9; in practice 26–28; progressive discourses of 35; research implications 7; resources 232–234; science 47–49, 183, 184–185, 204, 234–235; secondary discourses 166; shift from academic language to 15, 22–26; social practices 167; sociocultural view 137–138; standards 277–279, 284–289; storytelling 44–45; translingual practices 125, 126–127 academic literacy in mathematics (ALM) 75–104; assumptions 77–78; hybrid resources 88–92; implications for future research 96–98; integration of components 93–94; lesson design 97; summary of components 79–85; word problem example 85–87; see also mathematics academic socialization 14 access issues 296–297, 298, 300 accountability 8, 135, 138, 157; high-stakes testing 262; No Child Left Behind Act 292–293; policy issues 302, 305 Accountable Talk 265 achievement: academic literacies and content 287; achievement gap 215–217, 218, 222; formative assessment 238; language brokering 66

Index 311

Acoach, C. L. 66 active listening 44 adaptive reasoning 79 adolescent development 3, 55, 58–62, 67, 68 AERA see American Educational Research Association affinity spaces 168, 176, 177, 180 African Americans 140, 166–182, 189, 256 agency 50, 56, 119, 126 Aguirre-Muñoz, Z. 240 AL see academic language ALM see academic literacy in mathematics alphabetic literacy 185, 186, 201, 206n2 Amanti, C. 62 American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2, 78 American hegemony 118–119 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, 2009) 293 Anstrom, K. 210 Aoki, T. T. 37 Appadurai, A. 105, 126 apprenticeship 205–206 Armenian Americans 61 artifacts 108, 112, 118–119, 123, 124, 126, 127 Asian Americans 61, 189, 256 assessment 8–9, 214, 220–221, 238–247; Colorado English Language Assessment 212–213, 217, 221; Colorado State Assessment Program 216, 217–218; formative 238, 243–245, 247, 303–304; multimodal 305; NAEP scores 53–54, 256; performance standards 218; science literacy 205; standards 280, 281, 282, 283; summative 238, 239–240, 241–243, 247, 303 assets-based view 301 assumptions 301–302 autonomous orientation 183–184 autonomy 61 Avalos, Mary 255–276, 299, 300, 301–302 Bailey, Alison 53–74, 210, 223, 259 Baker, E. L. 239, 240 Ballenger, C. 212 basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) 56

basic skills 220 beliefs 18, 21, 22, 135, 261, 262, 263, 264, 303 Bennington, Geoffrey 37, 38 BICS see basic interpersonal communication skills biculturality 66 Bilingual Education Act (1968) 292 Bilingual Verbal Abilities Tests (BVAT) 53, 68n1 bilingualism 34, 50, 54; benefits of 60, 295; emerging bilinguals 106, 110, 135, 205, 231, 236–237, 240, 242–243, 247; everyday practices 66; holistic bilingual perspective 245; opportunities to learn 219, 220, 223; as participation 135–165; policy issues 305; Samoa 45–46; science literacy development 183–209; see also multilingualism biliteracy 140–141, 142 Black, P. 239 Blackledge, A. 67 Blair, Alissa 291–308 Blanchot, Maurice 37 Block, D. 127n2 Blommaert, J. 54, 106–107 Boals, Timothy 291–308 Boix Mansilla,V. 260, 261 Bomer, R. 15 books 171–172, 176 Brisk, M. E. 66, 270 Bunch, G. 255 Butler, F. 210 BVAT see Bilingual Verbal Abilities Tests Californians Together 221–222 CALP see cognitive-academic language proficiency Canagarajah, S. 69n2, 107, 112, 125–126 CCSS see Common Core State Standards CELA see Colorado English Language Assessment Chang, S. 259 Chemistry that Applies (CTA) 187–188 Christenbury, L. 15 Christie, F. 60

312 Index

churches 142–144, 150, 155, 156, 157 Chuukese 38–39 Civil Rights Act (1964) 292 classroom practices 5–6 Clifford, P. 43 Clinton, Bill 292, 293 Cobb, P. 98n4 Cobo-Lewis, A. B. 236 code switching: bilingualism-asparticipation 141–142; critical understanding 21; definition of 158n3; everyday language practices 55, 62, 63–64, 66, 67, 68, 69n3; online communication 114, 117, 148–150, 155, 157 cognitive-academic language proficiency (CALP) 56 cognitive approaches 1 cognitive development 55–56, 59, 60 cognitive resources 4, 232, 233–234, 235, 236, 237, 288, 299 Cole, M. 15–16, 29n3 collaboration 18, 29, 138, 301; assessment 246; collaborative inquiry 28; cross-disciplinary 257, 260, 267–271 Collier,V. 210 Colombi, M. C. 14 Colorado English Language Assessment (CELA) 212–213, 217, 221 Colorado State Assessment Program (CSAP) 216, 217–218 Common Core State Standards (CCSS) 218, 231, 278, 289, 292, 294; assessment 247; conceptual knowledge 264; everyday language practices 66–67; Mathematical Practice 81–82, 84, 85–86, 90, 94; oral language 57; teachers’ responsibility for teaching academic language 255; WIDA 293 communication: ESL class 235–236; mathematics 78, 88, 91, 93, 94, 98n2, 264–265; online 106, 108–109, 110–127, 147–150, 155, 157; standards 280, 281, 282, 283 communities of practice 14, 77, 246 community-based teen newspaper 144–147, 155, 157 comprehension strategies 151–153 Compton-Lilly, Cathy 166–182, 299, 303

Conant, F. 186 conceptual understanding 78, 79–80, 90, 94–95, 97, 295, 299, 300, 302 construct representation 241 constructivism 263, 267–268 “contact zones” 106, 124 content: assessment 241, 245–246; language/content dichotomy 2–3, 5, 9, 25, 292, 293–294, 297, 305; novel 259; standards 279–283, 284–286, 288 content-area reading 258 context 5, 15, 26, 34, 185, 297; academic language 14; assessment 8, 243, 246; bilingualism-as-participation 142; ideological orientation 184; learning across contexts 138–139, 157; out-ofschool settings 135, 136; science literacy 190, 206; sociocultural view 137, 138 contextualization 296, 300 Cook-Gumperz, J. 184 Cope, B. 257 Council of Chief State School Officers 278 Creese, A. 67 critical thinking 24 critical understanding 20–21, 288 cross-disciplinary collaboration 257, 260, 267–271 Crowther, D. T. 186 CSAP see Colorado State Assessment Program cultural modeling 62 cultural practices 6, 7 cultural responsiveness 255, 262, 263, 269 Cumming, A. 1–2 Cummins, J. 56 curriculum: bilingualism-as-participation 156; mandated 135; opportunities to learn 219, 220; science 187–188, 189, 205; standards 280, 281, 282, 283 decoding 224 deficit perspectives 22, 68, 109, 158, 205, 213, 269, 301–302 deKlerk, G. 285 Derrida, Jacques 37, 38 Developmental Reading Assessment Test (DRA2) 213 DiCerbo, P. 210

Index 313

disciplinary concepts 19, 27, 288 disciplinary discourses 23–24 disciplinary literacy 56, 258 disciplinary practices 7, 8, 262–264 discourse 14, 184, 206; academic Discourses 167–168, 178, 180, 181; mathematical 76–77, 82–84, 87, 88–92, 93–98, 265; multimodality 20; online identity 147–148; primary and secondary discourses 167–168; religious 143, 155 Discourse (Gee’s concept of) 167, 184, 206 discourse analysis 186–187 discourse communities 264, 269, 270 diversity 106–107, 126 “doing of mathematics” 268 Doorn, K. 256 Dorner, L. 64, 65 doubled meaning 37 DRA2 see Developmental Reading Assessment Test Draper, R. J. 258, 272n3 drawings 25, 27, 47 Dressler, C. 237 EDL2 see Evaluación de Lecto-escritura EDLA see Escuela de Las Americas Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 292, 304 elementary schools 3, 212, 215, 216, 224, 225 ELPD see English Language Proficiency Development Framework emergent translinguals 106, 110, 124, 126 emerging bilinguals 106, 110, 135, 205, 231, 236–237, 240, 242–243, 247 empathy 66 engagement 19, 186, 220 English as second language (ESL) programs 189, 295–297, 298; academic literacies 235–236, 245; limited opportunities to learn 219–220, 222 English language: online communication 109, 113, 117–120, 124, 126, 149; Pacific youth 39, 40–43; science literacy 205 English Language Proficiency Development (ELPD) Framework 294 envoicing 113–114, 115, 117, 125–126 Erickson, F. 244

Escamilla, Kathy 210–227, 245, 302, 303 Escuela de Las Americas (EDLA) 111 ESL see English as second language programs ethnicity of teachers 255 ethnography 141 Evaluación de Lecto-escritura (EDL2) 213 everyday practices 6, 14, 47, 54, 56–57, 62–68, 301; adolescent development 55–56; mathematics 83, 91; new academic content standards 66–67 evidence 238–247; see also assessment Ewers, N. 242 expectations 9, 24–25, 181, 182, 185, 205–206, 247, 281 Facebook 147, 148, 149, 150, 155, 157 Fathman, A. K. 186 feedback 238 Fitzsimmons, S. 157, 236 flexibility 54, 61, 62 formative assessment 238, 243–245, 247, 303–304 Fosnot, C. T. 268 friendships 61, 116, 124, 171–172, 176, 178, 180 Friesen, S. 43 Fuligni, A. J. 61 funds of knowledge 44, 62, 295 Fusco, Coco 40, 50 Galguera, T. 256 García, O. 106 Gardner, H. 260 Gebhard, M. 270 Gee, J. P. 16, 75, 78, 88, 166, 167–168, 181, 184 gender 127n1, 128n7 Genesee, F. 236–237 George Washington University (GW) 188–189 Geva, E. 1–2, 237 global flows 105, 126 Gonzalez, N. 62 Gottlieb, Margo 51 graphic organizers 40–41 graphs 25, 89–92 Gravemeijer, K. 98n4 Greenfield, P. M. 60

314 Index

Griffin, P. 245 Guan, S. S. A. 60, 61 Gutiérrez, K. 22, 136 Hakuta, Kenji 291–308 Hall, G. E. 270 Hall, L. A. 258 Hall, Stuart 33 Halliday, M. A. K. 33, 301 Hamann, E. T. 259 Henderson, L. 285 Hendrickson, S. 265, 272n3 Heritage, Margaret 4, 231–254, 259, 285, 286, 288, 302, 303 high-cognitive demand 78, 80, 88, 94 high-order thinking skills 19–20, 299 high-stakes testing 214, 219, 238–239, 242, 262, 270, 271 Hispanophobia 110 history 151–152 Hmong 140 holistic bilingual perspective 245 home, bilingualism at 150–151, 155 homework 135, 151–153, 155 Hopewell, S. 245 Hord, S. M. 270 Hornberger, N. 47 Howes, C. 63 Huang, B. H. 210 Huang,Y. 259 Hudicourt-Barnes, J. 212 Hull, Glynda 105–131 hybrid language usage 63–64, 156 hybridization 126–127 identity 19, 56, 182; code-switching 63, 64; construction of 168; critical understanding 21; identity development 23–24; online 109, 119, 120, 123, 125, 147–148, 155; primary and secondary discourses 167–168; social identity formation 61; as a writer 174, 175–176, 178, 181 ideology 6, 18–19, 50, 107, 184 Imbens-Bailey, A. L. 61 indigenous youth 34, 50 informal language 55, 57 inquiry 21, 28, 186, 192–193 intellectual challenge 19–20

interaction 114, 116, 117, 125–126 internet see online communication interpretivism 141, 157 interventions 9, 224 Jackson, A. 285 Jardine, D. 43, 47 Jensen, Alejandra 37 Jetnil-Kijiner, Kathy 35–37 Jewitt, C. 184 Jiménez, R. 64 Johnson, L. 269–270 journalism 144–145, 150, 155 Kalantzis, Mary 257, 306n6 Kamil, M. 237 Katz, A. 210 Katz, M.-L. 128n2 Keller, H. 61 Knapp, P. 266 knowledge: assessment 8–9, 214; content 19, 54, 152, 156, 246; critical understanding 20; experience becoming 33, 38, 40; funds of 44, 62, 295; language resources 235; literacy practices 16; mathematical 77, 94; multimodality 7; pedagogical content 256, 260, 261–262, 263, 269, 270, 271; pedagogical language 256, 260, 262, 263, 271; science literacy 204, 205, 206; standards 278, 279, 281–282, 285–286, 288; students’ prior knowledge 22, 23, 237; teachers 257, 261–262, 263; transfer of 19, 24, 27 Kong, K.Y. S. 285 Kopriva, R. J. 245 lab manuals 188 Lam, W. S. E. 108–109 Langer-Osuna, Jennifer 255–276, 299 language: academic literacies in an ESL class 235–236; adolescent development 58–60; alphabetic literacy 186; at the center of learning 29; functional view of 33–34; hybridization of 108–109; language/content dichotomy 2–3, 5, 9, 25, 292, 293–294, 297, 305; mathematics 77, 78, 82–83, 91–92, 93, 95; multimodal view of 5–6; online communication 113–120, 123–124; opportunities

Index 315

to learn 224–225; Pacific youth 50; participatory learning 139; pedagogical language knowledge 256, 260, 262, 263, 271; science literacy 189–190, 192–193, 195, 204; semiotics 268; separation of languages 8; storytelling 45–47; “superdiversity” 106–107; teaching across content areas 258–260; translingual practices 106, 107–108, 110, 112–120, 123–127; see also academic language; bilingualism; discourse; multilingualism language brokering 55, 56, 60, 62, 64–66, 68, 69n3 Language in Mathematics (LiM) project 257, 260, 264–269 language proficiency 24–25, 29, 53; autonomous notions of 109; cognitiveacademic 56; ELPD Framework 294; informal language 55; online communication 116, 117; standards 292, 293 Lankshear, C. 35 Lather, Patti 37 Latinos/Latinas: achievement gap 216–217, 218; adolescent development 61; bilingualism-as-participation 140, 141; Manuel’s case study 211–221; NAEP scores 256; science literacy 183, 187– 206; translingual practices of Latin@ adolescents 107, 109–124; use of the term Latin@ 127n1 Lave, J. 139 Lea, M. R. 14–15, 22 learning: academic literacy in mathematics 78; across contexts 138–139, 157; assessment of 238–239, 240–241, 243; assumptions about 301–302; contextualized view of 5; legitimate peripheral participation 139; participatory 139–140; past-to-present perspective on 238; present-to-future perspective on 238, 244–245; situated 4; social context 34; targets 282 learning communities 261 learning environments, redesigning 302–303 Learning in a New Land study 53, 54–55 Lee, C. D. 58, 62

Lee, O. 186 legitimate peripheral participation 139 Lemke, J. 166, 168, 170 LiM see Language in Mathematics project Linn, R. L. 239 Linquanti, R. 303 listening: assessment of 212–213, 217, 240; opportunities to learn 225 literacy: broad definition of 289; conceptualizations of 1–2, 3–4, 17, 183–184, 277, 284; different types of 184–185; see also academic literacies; reading; writing literacy basics 35, 40, 41, 43 literacy practices 4–5, 6, 16, 33, 40, 105; bilingualism-as-participation 139–140, 141, 144, 147, 148, 150–151, 155, 156–158; living texts 50; multimodality 49; power relations 138; research implications 7; situated nature of 24; sociocultural context 138; see also practices; social practices; translingual practices lived experience 37–38 Lizárraga, José Ramón 105–131 Long-Term English Learners 211–212, 222, 295 longitudinal study 166–182 Low, Marylin 33–52, 299, 301, 302 Luykx, A. 186 Mackey, W. F. 240 macrosocietal approaches 1–2 MacSwan, J. 63 Mansilla,V. B. 285 Marshall Islands 35–37, 40–43 mathematical discourse 76–77, 82–84, 87, 88–92, 93–98, 265 mathematical literacy 75–76 mathematical power 265, 268 mathematical practices 76–78, 81–82, 83, 86, 88–92, 93–94, 97, 98n4 mathematical proficiency 76–78, 79–81, 82, 85–86, 88–90, 93, 95, 97, 98n3 mathematics 4, 26–28, 75–104, 185, 256, 257; assessment 244; assumptions 77–78; hybrid resources 88–92; implications for future research 96–98; integration of ALM components 93–94; lack of

316 Index

cultural responsiveness by teachers 255; Language in Mathematics project 257, 260, 264–269; lesson design 97; opportunities to learn 219, 220; summary of ALM components 79–85; teacher support 256; teachers’ professional learning 259, 260–264; word problem example 85–87 May, S. 106 McClain, K. 98n4 McLaughlin, M. 218–219 MDA see Mediated Discourse Analysis meaning: academic literacy in mathematics 77, 78, 91, 92, 96; co-construction of 114; cognitive resources 233; construction of 168; doubled 37; translingual communication 125 meaning making 4, 17, 22, 128n2, 167, 232, 299; assessment 244; hybrid language usage 63–64; hybridized 127; language brokering 65; literacy programs 224; multimodality 25, 49, 50, 112; New Literacy Studies 107; science literacy 204, 205; signs 205–206; situated 6, 7; translingual communication 107– 108, 123 Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) 186–187 Meltzer, J. 259 metacognitive skills 19–20, 60, 86 metalinguistic awareness 5, 6, 19–20, 24, 291; adolescent development 58, 59, 67; everyday practices 55–56, 66; funds of knowledge 295; interventions 9; literacy programs 216, 224; mathematics 269; transnational youth cultures 109 metaphors 58, 60, 175 Mexico 110–111, 112, 117, 119–120, 125 middle schools 224 Miller, W. 260 Millet, J. 210 Minh-ha, Trinh 33 Moje, E. B. 56 Moll, L. C. 62 Molle, Daniella 1–10, 13–32, 257, 285, 286, 288, 299 monolingualism 50, 54, 105–106, 220 Morris, K. 56 Moschkovich, Judit 4, 27, 75–104, 299, 303

motivation: adolescent development 61; teachers 261, 263 multiculturalism 4, 270 multilingualism 4, 7, 105, 299; academic literacy in mathematics 78, 81, 84, 87– 88, 93–94, 96–98; everyday practices 54, 55–56, 62–68; metalinguistic awareness 5; “multilingual turn” 106, 126; oral language 57; psychosocial development 62; see also bilingualism multiliteracies 184, 257 multimodality 4, 5–6, 7, 15, 20, 25, 105, 299; assessment 305; conceptual understanding in mathematics 94; digital artifacts 112; hybrid communicative acts 125; mathematics 77, 87, 95, 267; online communication 108, 148, 157; Pacific youth 49, 50; policy implications 9; science literacy 183, 186, 188, 190, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204; sign systems 184, 185; teachers’ professional learning 259; texts 127; translation of meaning 21 multiple languages 18, 23 multiplication 80–81, 84 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 53–54, 256 National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing 279 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 81–82, 257, 264–265 National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth 224, 237, 295 Native Americans 140 NCLB see No Child Left Behind Act NCTM see National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Neff, D. 62 neo-colonialism 118–119 New Literacy Studies 15, 108, 167 New London Group 16, 20, 184 newspaper, community-based teen 144– 147, 150, 155, 157 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) 57, 66, 278, 289, 292, 293, 294 Ngeow, K. 285

Index 317

NGSS see Next Generation Science Standards Nisbett, R. E. 285 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) 292–294, 304 Nokes, J. D. 258 norms: social 18, 21, 27, 28, 288; sociomathematical 77 Norris, S. P. 75–76 numeracy 75 Ogonowski, M. 212 Oh, J. S. 61 Oller, D. K. 236 Olsen, L. 211, 222, 223, 224–225 online communication 106, 108–109, 110–127, 147–150, 155, 157 opportunities to learn 211, 212, 215, 218– 225, 300, 303 oral language 6, 9, 57, 214; adolescent development 60; assessment of 212–213, 240, 242, 245, 247; contextualization 296; emerging bilinguals 237; everyday practices 68; language brokering 65; language-rich classrooms 302; literacy programs 216, 224; longitudinal study 174; new academic content standards 66; opportunities to learn 220, 225; oral traditions 34, 35, 44, 47; resources 233; science literacy 190–195, 199, 203, 204, 205; social practices 184; teacher-student talk 297 Orellana, Marjorie Faulstich 53–74, 223 out-of-school settings 135, 136, 142–155, 156, 157, 168 Overby, M. 56 Pacheco, Mariana 7, 135–165 Pacific youth 34, 35–51 PARCC see Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers participation 135–165, 258–259, 300 Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) 293 Pearson, B. Z. 236 pedagogical content knowledge 256, 260, 261–262, 263, 269, 270, 271 pedagogical language knowledge 256, 260, 262, 263, 271

pedagogical practices 16 pedagogy: “doing of mathematics” 268; everyday practices 67; formative assessment 244; outmoded 239; summative assessment 241 peer interaction 18, 302–303 Phillips, Linda M. 75–76 Phillips, Lori 47 pictorial representation 25, 201–204, 266–267 Pimm, D. 75–76 PL see professional learning poetry 35–37, 178–180 policy 8–9, 291, 304–306; historical overview 292–295; implementation of 295–297; implications for 300–304 Pollock, Della 33, 47 polyphonic practices 6, 7 popular culture 118–119, 127 poverty 171, 219 power relations 16, 22, 56, 137, 185, 206n1; access to linguistic resources 107; expression of knowledge 204; ideological orientation 184; literacy practices 138; online communication 117, 126; sign systems 205, 206 practices 15–16, 26, 29n4, 99n5, 135; bilingualism-as-participation 139, 143, 144; mathematical 76–78, 81–82, 83, 86, 88–92, 93–94, 97, 98n4; mediated action 187; scientific 186, 187; situated 43, 50; teachers 262, 263; see also literacy practices; social practices pragmatic competence 4, 234–235, 236, 246, 288 precision 83–84, 91, 96 problem solving 151–152; bilingualismas-participation 156; mathematical 27–28, 76, 81, 82, 85–87, 93, 268; see also word problems procedural fluency 79, 80, 86, 95, 97 Proctor, P. 66 productive disposition 79 professional learning (PL) 256, 257, 259, 260–264, 267, 269–271, 304, 305 proficiency 285–286, 287, 288; see also language proficiency; mathematical proficiency

318 Index

Pryor, J. 243–244 psychosocial development 55–56, 59, 60–62, 66–67 Rampton, B. 106–107 Rasmussen, M. 245 reading: assessment of 212–213, 214, 217– 218, 240, 242, 244, 245; assignments 259; classroom context 185; contentarea 258; interventions 9; lack of cultural responsiveness by teachers 255; literacy programs 216, 224; lived experience 38; longitudinal study 171–172, 176, 178, 180; mathematical texts 98; narrow focus on 223, 224; opportunities to learn 219, 220, 221, 225; resources 233; storytelling 47 recontextualization 113, 114, 117, 125–126 reflection 262 reflexivity 107 registers: mathematics 77, 78, 83, 88, 93, 99n9, 263, 269; online communication 117; scientific 206 rehearsal 80 relationships 18–19 religion 142–144, 150–151 remedial classes 297, 298 research 6–8, 157–158, 181–182, 302, 305; see also longitudinal study resources: academic literacy in mathematics 77, 78, 84, 88–92, 93, 95; access to 107; assessment 246; bilingualism-asparticipation 156; cognitive 4, 232, 233– 234, 235, 236, 237, 288, 299; everyday language 301; funds of knowledge 44; language 4, 46, 50, 232–233, 235, 236, 246, 288; leveraging 18, 136, 300; online communication 122–123, 124, 148; oral language 68; power relations 137; translingual communication 107–108 Riches, C. 236–237 risk 147 Rittenhouse, P. S. 264–265 Rivard, C. 64 Rivera, C. 210 Rogoff, B. 136, 139–140 Rosebery, A. 186, 212 Roth, Wolf-Michael 207n5

Samoa 44–46, 51 Sato, Edynn 277–290, 302 Saunders, S. 256 SBAC see Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium scaffolding 28, 124, 138, 298, 300, 302; academic language 259, 260; mathematics 266, 267, 269; science literacy 199, 204 SCALE-uP 188–189 Schifter, D. 268 Schleppegrell, Mary 14, 46, 268 science 47–49, 98, 234–235; limited opportunities to learn 219–220; Next Generation Science Standards 57, 278, 289, 292, 293, 294; science literacy development 183–209 Scollon, R. 187 Scott, John 105–131 Scribner, S. 15–16, 29n3, 81, 99n5 Secada, Walter 255–276, 299 secondary discourses 166, 167–168 self-monitoring 152, 157 semiotic “contact zones” 106, 124 semiotic systems 25, 81, 95, 112, 123, 184 semiotics 268 SFL see Systemic Functional Linguistics Shanahan, C. 258 Shanahan, T. 258 Shatz, M. 212 sheltered instruction 296, 297, 298 Shepard, L. 218–219 Short, D. J. 157, 236 Shulman, J. 261 Shulman, L. 256, 261 Siebert, D. 258, 265, 272n3 signifying 58 signs 184, 185, 299; mathematics 77, 87, 88; online practices 148, 149, 150; science literacy 183, 187, 204, 205–206 Sizer, Nancy 246 Sizer, Ted 246 Skilton-Sylvester, E. 157 Smagorinsky, P. 15 small group work 28, 95 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) 293 social interaction 77–78, 201, 206, 299 social networks 106, 108–109, 110–127

Index 319

social norms 18, 21, 27, 28, 288 social practices 15–16, 34, 157, 167, 184, 185, 284; see also literacy practices; practices socialization 14, 34, 50, 61, 201 sociocultural approaches 1, 14, 15, 33–34, 137–138, 263, 267–268; academic literacy in mathematics 75, 77, 79, 81– 83, 92–93, 98n1; New Literacy Studies 107; symbols 56 sociolinguistics 107, 108, 261 Solano-Flores, G. 240, 243 Soltero-González L. 245 Space2Cre8 110, 111–112, 115–116, 117, 118, 119 spamming 120 Spanglish 113–117, 123–124, 156 Spanish: bilingualism-as-participation 140, 141–142; bilingualism at home 150–151, 155; church context 142–144, 155, 156; limited opportunities to learn 219, 220; online communication 113–117, 118, 123–124, 126, 148, 149; opportunities to learn 223; science literacy 189, 190, 193–195, 196–199; teachers’ assessments of students 213, 215 spelling 214, 215 spoken language see oral language standards 57, 66–67, 263, 277–290, 292, 303; assessment 247; correspondence and alignment 293, 306n3; definition of 279; ELPD Framework 294; future research 302; mathematics 81–82, 84, 85–86, 90, 94, 99n7, 264; opportunities to learn 219; role and key characteristics of 279–283; science literacy 185–186; Standards Based Educational Movement 218–219; standards-based instruction 255–256, 270; WIDA 293 Stanley, G. 242 Stephan, M. 98n4 storytelling 43–47, 157, 173–175 strategic competence 79 Street, B.V. 14–15, 22, 138, 183, 206n1 strengths 213–215, 221, 240, 305 study skills model 14 Suárez-Orozco, Carola 53 Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo 53

summative assessment 238, 239–240, 241–243, 247, 303 “superdiversity” 106–107, 126 support 155, 225, 248, 256; access and 296–297, 298, 300; professional development 304 symbols: mathematics 78, 81, 87, 90, 91, 93, 95, 96–97, 98n2; New Literacy Studies 107; in texts 56 Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) 14, 257, 265–266, 268, 270 targets 282; see also standards teachers 255–276; attitudes 300; beliefs 135, 303; curriculum pressures 219– 220; evidence collected by 245, 246, 247–248; expectations 24–25; formative assessment 243–245; language ideologies 18–19; modelling by 246; observation of ELL student 213–215, 221; outmoded pedagogy 239; professional learning 256, 257, 259, 260–264, 267, 269–271, 304, 305; science literacy 189, 199–204; summative assessment 239–240, 241, 242; teacher-student talk 297; teacher training 304, 305 technology 6, 16, 29n3, 35 textbooks 27, 45, 98 texts 25, 26, 33; academic literacies as living texts 50–51; different types of 258; language as text 204–205; language brokering 65; mathematics 87, 96, 98, 265, 267; meaning making 232; multimodal 127 threats to formativity 244 timescales 168, 170–171, 180, 181, 302 TIMSS see Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study Todorova, Irina 53 Tolchinsky, L. 58 Torrance, H. 243–244 trans-presentational practices 106, 120– 121, 122, 123, 125, 126 trans-semiosis 108 transcultural competence 6, 67 transcultural perspective-taking 60, 61, 66 transculturation 35

320 Index

translanguaging 6, 69n2; bilingualism-asparticipation 141–142; definition of 158n3; everyday language practices 55, 56, 62, 67, 68; online communication 157; Pacific youth 34 translation 33, 243 translingual practices 106, 107–108, 110, 112–120, 123–127 transmodal practices 106, 108, 112–113, 119, 125, 126 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 75 Trinh, Minh-ha 33, 37 trolling 120–123, 124, 126, 127, 128n7 Tse, L. 64 Tuan, H. L. 75–76 Tysvaer, N. 56 Understanding Language Initiative 294 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 284 usernames 121–122, 123, 127 utterances 92 values 21, 22, 35, 151, 185 van Lier, L. 235 Vertovec, S. 106 video artifacts 118–119, 126 video data 188–189 vision 261, 262, 263, 264 vocabulary 154, 222, 256; academic language 210; comprehension strategies 151–153; longitudinal study 175; mathematical 83, 84, 93, 95, 257; opportunities to learn 225; Pacific youth 42–43, 47 Vu, J. A. 63 Walqui, A. 235, 261, 270–271 Warren, B. 186, 212

Watkins, M. 266 Webb, L. M. 66 Weisskirch, R. S. 66 Wenger, E. 139 Wertsch, J.V. 187 WIDA see World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment Wilde, J. 53 Wiley, T. G. 206n1 Wilkinson, L. 212 Wisconsin Center for Educational Research 2 Wolfreys, J. 37 word problems 27, 28, 85–87, 256, 265–266 working memory 59, 60, 64 World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) 293 Wright, Laura 183–209, 299, 303 writing: assessment of 9, 212–213, 214, 217–218, 240, 242, 244, 245; assignments 259; classroom context 185; community-based teen newspaper 144–147, 150; interventions 9; literacy programs 216, 224; longitudinal study 169, 170–171, 172–181; opportunities to learn 215, 220, 225; Pacific youth 41–43, 48–49; “performing” 47; resources 233; science 48–49, 195–204, 205, 234–235 Wyman, L. 34 Yore, L. D. 75–76 YouTube 118–119, 148, 149, 150 Zentella, A. C. 110 Zisselsberger, Margarita 255–276, 299 zone of proximal development 138 Zwiers, J. 259, 271n2