Literacy & Learning
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11274/9561
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Item Look, think, act: Using critical action research to sustain reform in complex teaching/learning ecologies.(Buffalo State, 2010) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Patterson, Leslie; Baldwin, Sheila; Araujo, Juan; Shearer, RaginaThis paper argues that educators interested in sustainability should look to complexity science for guiding principles. When we view our classrooms and campuses as living, dynamic ecologies, we can, as insiders, make sense of what might otherwise seem chaotic or meaningless. This perspective enables us not only to describe and explain what is happening around us, but also to use our findings to influence emerging patterns across our classrooms, campuses, or our larger communities. We suggest that educators use a Look, Think, Act cycle recommended by Ernie Stringer to encourage and support sustainable school reform.Item Walking in my students' shoes: An ESL teacher brings theory to life in order to transform her classroom(New Prairie Press, 2010) Stewart, Mary AmandaThroughout my career as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, it has been obvious that in each setting there is a popular phrase that accurately describes the classroom: “one of these things is not like the other” – and it’s the teacher! Yes! It is I who stands alone as the native English speaker in almost every class I have ever taught. I was a teacher assistant in an elementary school, an ESL and math teacher at the middle school level, and an adult education teacher at a community college for a total of 9 years. In each and every context I have been completely different from my students in regards to native language and culture. Of course, that is the case in many ESL contexts, but it began to strike me as odd when I started teaching undergraduate pre-service teachers at a university about how to teach English Language Learners (ELL students). I suddenly had 30 faces peering up at me, the ESL “guru,” waiting for me to enlighten them regarding theory, methodology, and best practices for teaching ELL students. I was the presumed expert on teaching a population of which I am not a member and who have experiences that I do not share. It occurred to me that in order to better my understanding of teaching ELL students, I had to recreate their experience in my own life as closely as possible. I decided to purposely engage in my own second language learning experience and take a walk in my students’ shoes.Item Juxtaposing the immigrant and adolescent girl experiences: Literature for all readers(National Council of Teachers of English, 2012) Stewart, Mary AmandaThe author encourages teachers to explore themes in literature that connect to experiences of young female immigrants and that eschew stereotypical representations. She discusses a list of recommended texts.Item Giving voice to Valeria's story: Support, value, and agency for immigrant adolescents(International Reading Association, 2013) Stewart, Mary AmandaThe article presents the circumstances of a recent Salvadoran immigrant high school student who puts forth great effort to learn despite difficult circumstances caused by her immigration status, economic realities, and the educational system itself. The author issues a call to action for literacy educators to revolutionize their relationships with students, curriculum, and pedagogy. She discusses the need for teachers to give their immigrant students support through caring relationships, value of their lived experiences through relevant literature, and the agency they have lost through writing about their immigration stories.Item "I don't want to write for them" : An at-risk Latino youth's out-of-school literacy practices(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Stewart, Mary AmandaThis single-case study demonstrates one bilingual Latino youth's out-of-school literacy practices and how he has learned to disconnect them from his academic work. Qualitative data taken from interviews, the participant's social networking sites, poetry journal, and observations of him in community organizations demonstrate the frequency and purposes of his out-of-school literacy practices of writing poetry, language brokering, reading, technology use, and activism. The findings suggest that the participant has many sophisticated and bilingual literacy practices that were never viewed as funds of knowledge in his subtractive schooling environment, leading to his educational failure.Item Emergent bilinguals’ emerging identities in a dual language school(Texas Association for Bilingual Education, 2015) Babino, Alexandra; Stewart, Mary AmandaThe purpose of this study was to explore how emergent bilinguals’ emerging identities interact with their language attitudes and choices in various contexts to create their investment in English, Spanish, and bilingualism. Using a mixed method design, the researchers analyzed surveys and social networking maps of 63 Mexican-American, bilingual fifth-graders in a one-way dual language (DL) school and then the interviews of 10 of these students. Findings indicate that students’ identities and investments show a strong correlation to their language use and language of instruction. Specifically, students’ investment in their languages suggest that we might reconsider strict language separation in DL programs while overtly attending to students’ investment in the minority language, Spanish. Most significantly, the language we use formally and informally affects students’ attitudes toward that language. Thus, greater emphasis on developing bilingual investment is an indispensable goal of DL programs.Item Nurturing caring relationships with newcomers through five simple rules(National Council of Teachers of English, 2016) Stewart, Mary AmandaIn my office I have a picture that reminds me the priority is the peo-ple we teach— not content, assess-ments, or compliance. The picture is of high school multilingual refugee students holding our published anthology of writing. One of these students is Camille. Surrounded by stu-dents from Southeast Asia, she is the only one from Africa. What most people notice is her clothing, a traditional African dress and head covering of bright blues and greens. However, what I notice every time I look at the picture is her eyes— they are not looking down, but are looking right at me, the picture- taker, with pride as she holds the book she coauthored.Item Generation gap between students' needs and teachers' use of technology in classrooms(Journal of Literacy and Technology, 2016) Lisenbee, PeggyIn the 21st century, technology is a pervasive presence in the classroom. Unintended consequences of a technologically rich classroom learning environment emerge due to the dichotomy between 21st-century learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of the need to use technology. Several factors affecting the generation gap between teachers and students in classrooms are shared such as characteristics of 21st-century learners, teacher's perceptions of technology, student's ability to use technology independently, teacher training and the need to reshape pedagogy based on national education standards focused on technology use. The EMSCI Model provides teachers with a process to teach students how to use technology independently and suggests a pedagogical paradigm shift towards constructivist teaching to offset the generation gap.Item Sanctioning a space for translanguaging in the secondary English class: A case of a transnational youth(National Council of Teachers of English, 2016) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Hansen-Thomas, HollyA growing number o f adolescents in the United States are transnationals who regularly engage in translanguaging practices by drawing on their full linguistic repertoires in their everyday lives. Many of these students are also emergent bilinguals, learning language and content simultaneously. Yet, as the number o f these diverse students significantly rises, so does curricular standardization in the secondary English language arts classroom. Even so, some research documents promising translanguaging pedagogies, but these studies focus primarily on the elementary level or provide general overviews o f these practices in secondary classrooms. Consequently, this qualitative study was divided into two phases: Phase 1 deeply investigated the nature o f one high school emergent bilingual’s transnationalism through a case study approach. The findings indicated that the participant’s transnational lived experiences and literacies were closely tied to translanguaging practices. Then, grounded in that data, for Phase 2 o f the study, the researchers used a formative design to create a literacy unit in the participant’s high school English classroom that purposefully engaged her transnational literacies through translanguaging. Her reaction to the unit, specifically her writing in English and Spanish, was analyzed to understand her response to the curriculum and instruction. A systematic use o f translanguaging— through reading, through oral language, and primarily through writing poetry— provided the participant with the means to express creativity and criticality as she took ownership o f her literacy learning. The study suggests the possibilities o f student learning when a space for translanguaging is sanctioned in the secondary English language arts classroom.Item Striving toward equitable biliteracy assessments in hegemonic school contexts(The Association of Mexican American Educators, 2017) Babino, Alexandra; González-Carriedo, RicardoAmerican schools today display unprecedented levels of diversity in regard to the linguistic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds of their student population. Increasingly, more American students are also emergent bilingual learners. Despite this fact, most of the standardized assessments used by schools have been designed and normed for English monolingual students. The lack of specific assessments created for emergent bilinguals provides teachers and other stakeholders with only a partial and often inaccurate view of the students’ literacy growth as they develop proficiency in two languages. In this theoretical article, the authors explore how three complex characteristics of emergent biliteracy development interact: bilingual language proficiency, domains of language use, and language dominance. Then, they describe how teachers and school district leaders can begin to create more equitable assessment practices that are more closely aligned with the unique characteristics of biliteracy development amidst largely hegemonic, monolingual school systems.Item A pedagogy of care for adolescent English learners: A formative experiment(Tapestry, 2017) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Babino, Alexandra; Walker, KatieIn the case of educators of adolescents in the dynamic process of English acquisition, it is our goal to increase the fulfillment and success of the students we are privileged to serve through nurturing their academic, emotional, personal, social, and civic development. It is, therefore, essential that educators understand the implementation and impact of teaching through a framework of care.Item Humanizing (multi)literacy teaching: a starter kit to renewed hope(National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, 2018) Babino, AlexandraAmidst standardized testing pressures, zero-tolerance discipline policies, and increasingly distressing news headlines, this article seeks to encourage teachers that want to be and feel more human in their work with students with practical, classroom tools. It’s a starter kit of sorts that has allowed the author to move beyond the inevitable institutional status quo and toward a renewed hope through “armed love” (Freire, 1998, p. 41). It begins with a brief exploration of humanizing literacy practices and continues with two deceptively simple but potentially transformative tools: naming students and expanding definitions of literacy.Item Hurdling over language barriers: Building relationships with adolescent newcomers through literacy advancement(Wiley Open Access, 2018) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Flint, Patricia; Dollar, TamraAdolescents who are newcomers in a country and beginning to acquire English as an additional language are often in secondary classrooms with teachers who do not speak their languages. Due to these communication obstacles, there is a great need for teachers to build relationships with their students while setting optimal conditions for literacy development across languages (e.g., English and Spanish) and domains (e.g., oral, written, and digital communication). Guided by tenets of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, the authors describe how two self‐identifying monolingual English‐speaking teachers formed relationships with high school newcomers during a summer literacy institute. The authors highlight three specific literacy activities that facilitated students’ oral, written, and digital literacy skills in both English and Spanish while also creating a space for caring relationships to form between students and teachers.Item As easy as ABC? Teaching and learning about letters in early literacy(International Literacy Association, 2018) Kaye, ElizabethLetter learning is nuanced, complex, and essential to the development of an effective literacy processing system. Forming and naming letters, rapidly differentiating between visually similar letters, and recognizing their sound correspondences are foundational to becoming a reader and writer. Indeed, control over letters affects monitoring, searching, and self‐correcting in reading and writing. The authors argue for (a) assessment that monitors evolving letter knowledge, (b) instruction that is focused and brief and capitalizes on students’ unique strengths and ways of knowing, and (c) isolated letter work that is balanced with the use of authentic texts. Transcripts of teacher–student interactions during reading and writing, personal alphabet books, magnetic letter sorts, and links to teacher resources illustrate how letter learning can be fostered in a variety of activity settings while ensuring student engagement and supporting overall literacy development.Item “My life, my stories”: Reading, writing, and belonging in the ESL classroom(National Council of Teachers of English, 2019) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Genova, HollyAs I looked around the room, I noticed my students had their heads down, nearly falling asleep. “Class, what’s wrong?” From across the room, José responded, “Miss, we don’t like the topic of pyramids. And who cares about nomads?” (Student names are pseudonyms.) In that moment, I questioned if this was a teacher win or fail. We had recently learned the vocabulary word topic, and José used it correctly. On the other hand, my students were unengaged and uninterested. This was not due to the language demands of our reading, but it was because they simply did not connect to the content we were learning. Suddenly, I saw the irony: my students are not nomadic people and they’ve never been to the Egyptian pyramids. The beginning ESL curriculum was just not working!Item Teacher educators engage preservice teachers with The 57 Bus(Worlds of Words: Center for Global Literacies and Literatures (University of Arizona), 2019) Morton, Tami; Babino, AlexandraThe 57 Bus is an intriguing nonfiction story in which Dashka Slater uses her journalistic style to chronicle the explosive encounter of two high-school teenagers on the 57 bus. One teenager, Sasha, is White and from a middle-class neighborhood. Sasha, wearing a skirt, identifies as agender, rather than as either male or female. Richard is an African-American teen from a low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhood. The book details the harrowing accounts of each student’s life prior to and after an eight-second timeframe that changed their lives forever—when Richard lights Sasha’s skirt on fire.Item Critical, compelling, and linguistically scaffolded literature: Implementing text sets multilingually for social justice(Texas Association for Literacy Education (TALE), 2019) Babino, Alexandra; Araujo, Juan J.; Maxwell, Marie L.In most cases, the curriculum chosen for wide-use does not mirror or address the pressing needs of bi/multilingual learners, especially for those who are in middle and high school settings. In light of this and the increasingly negative national discourse surrounding minoritized students, our focusin this article is to offer in-service teachers a heuristic for compiling a multi-genre, multilingual text set to support bi/multilingual students’ positive identities and literacies practices. This text set is designed with the themes of identity and social justice in order to reflect the students’ struggle to fully participate in the American Dream. It also describes how teachers can purposely plan for linguistic support in students’ additional languages, language varieties, and English. Taken together, we believe that deeply exploring these compelling books from a critical perspective with linguistic scaffolds will allow teachers to foster robust multilingual literacy skills to address social justice in the classroom and beyond.Item Mentoring novice teachers to advance inclusive mathematics practices(Whole Schooling Consortium, 2019) Lisenbee, Peggy; Tan, PauloWe facilitate a year-long teacher induction program in the United States involving earlycareer teachers in urban elementary schools as a means to advance their inclusive mathematics practices. The participants in this program joined in professional learning experiences and discussions focused on advancing inclusive mathematics education with peers and university faculty and agreed to classroom observations. We report on the features of, challenges, and highlights that emerged during this year-long induction program by juxtaposing our experiences with two early-career, alternatively certified teachers within the larger context of teacher shortage. These snapshots alongside the issues discussed during this induction program provide a vivid account of the learning spaces and community created by, and for, early-career teachers. There is a need for the culture in schools to include more active mentoring for early-career teachers to develop their pedagogy, in general, and more specifically, to advance inclusive mathematics education.Item Universal design for learning: Examining access afforded by children’s search engines(Journal of Literacy and Technology, 2019) Pilgrim, Jodi; Vasinda, Sheri; Lisenbee, PeggyYoung children benefit from authentic opportunities to conduct online searches. Decisions related to the use of children’s search engines versus universal search engines should include considerations for the affordances of technology that accommodate learner variability. Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework for providing access to learning materials, this study includes an analysis of the affordances of search engines for both children and the general population. UDL, an inclusive framework for learning, leads contemporary efforts to create comprehensive access to educational curricula for all students, especially those with learning variabilities. The focus of our study is on one of UDL’s principle, multiple means of representation for content access, and ways children’s search engines address its guidelines of perception, language and symbols, and comprehension.Item Co-learning in the high school English class through translanguaging: Emergent bilingual newcomers and monolingual teachers(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Hansen-Thomas, Holly; Stewart, Mary Amanda; Flint, Patricia; Dollar, TamraThere is a growing chasm between the instruction of secondary emergent bilinguals (EBs) and research illustrating the benefits of adolescent EBs using translanguaging practices for academic engagement and gains. Specifically, this qualitative study purposes to understand how monolingual teachers enact a translanguaging pedagogy in a high school classroom where English language acquisition is the focus. Findings indicate the primary resource the teachers used in their translanguaging pedagogy were the students themselves, and suggest that teachers’ willingness to participate as co-learners with adolescent EBs is crucial. Co-learning has been found to be an appropriate pedagogical tool with teachers of multilinguals due to the rich experiences it can foster and this study supports such literature. Additional study findings revealed tensions students and teachers felt through these practices, specifically in regards to translating, technology use, and students’ desire to learn the L2.