English 344: Individual Field-trip/Beginning of Annotated Bibliography

Thanks to my readings and some ideas randomly coming to me, I have decided to change my paper topic to one that specifically deals with identity of the ESL learner as it relates to reading. What role does identity play in learning to read in a second language? How can the teachers in the K-12 context implement texts that are culturally relevant to their students in order to promote comprehension and fluency? Can the act of reading these authentic texts help their language acquisition, as well?

Block, David. “The Rise of Identity in SLA Research, Post Firth and Wagner (1997).” The

                Modern Language Journal. 91. Focus Issue (2007): 863-876.

                Block starts and bases his article on the 1997 article of Firth and Wagner, written ten years before the publication of his own article, and their description of they saw as the narrow view of identity that underlay most second language research at that time: “The fact that NS [native speaker] or NNS [nonnative speaker] is only one identity from a multitude of social identities […] is, it seems fair to conclude, a nonissue in SLA. For the SLA researcher, only one identity really matters, and in equal measures throughout the duration of the encounter being studied” (863). Since that article by Firth and Wagner, there has been an increase in the publications based on the assumption that L2 learning and identity are, in fact, interrelated (a common theme that runs through many of my chosen sources here, which is why I chose this article specifically focused on just identity research in order to get more of a background on this subject).  A few other issues from this article are especially pertinent to my paper topic. First, Block writes that “when individuals migrate from one geographic or sociocultural context to another, their sense of who they are transformed and recreated” (869). One’s identity is never fixed, but fragmented and contested in nature; there may be struggle and destabilization when this change in environment occurs (864). For English Language Learners in K-12 classrooms here, that identity struggle likely takes place every day, as they wonder where they fit in in this new environment. Also, this article mentions other sources of power relations that could affect individuals and their l2 identities in the classroom; from economic and cultural status to social and symbolic capital (such as prestige and fame), these all help cause an internal identity struggle for individuals.

Devitt, Sean. “Interacting with Authentic Texts: Multilayered Processes.” The Modern

                Language Journal. 81. 4 (1997): 457-469.

                In this article, Devitt discusses reading processes as potential catalysts for second language acquisition; most literature on L2 acquisition, the author notes, does not consider the involvement of reading. He links the two fields of L2 input/interaction research and L2 reading “in a way that enables the insights from each to fertilize the other” (459). The article concentrates on interaction studies within second language acquisition studies, noting many interpersonal interactions with SLA “can be made with equal force for reading,” that is, by looking at the interaction between the reader and the text—and interesting way to look at interaction if I might add (457).  Within this interaction between the reader and the text, emphasis is placed on making sure that those said texts are authentic L2 texts. As Krashen noted in his Monitor Theory, reading authentic texts provides the comprehensible input needed for acquisition. These authentic texts can be items such as newspapers—or perhaps text that relate back to the student’s culture and identity.  I feel that this article is relevant to my research because it discusses the concept of identity in relation to the literacy practice of reading, asking the interesting question of whether reading can fuel language acquisition itself.

Leeman, Jennifer, and Lisa Rabin. “Reading Language: Critical Perspectives for the

                Literature Classroom.” Hispania. 90. 2 (2007): 304-315

                This theoretical article looks at what the authors say is a lack of critical perspectives on language. Focused in postsecondary language classrooms, the authors write that there is a movement in the foreign language department to create literacy-based program reform and, in turn, to understand the cultural and historical contexts of the texts themselves. Instead of keeping a split between the “language” courses and the “content” courses, critical language educators stress the role of language in the production of knowledge, culture, and identity; here this language and all that comes with it would be permeating from the literature being read in those “content” classrooms. Thus, a pedagogy involving this critical language awareness (CLA) would be an approach to educational research and practice that emphasized education in disseminating social and political ideologies, working with students to examine various hierarches arising from those structures. Within this CLA approach, pedagogy can be grounded in students’ lived realities, promoting critical engagement in shaping social worlds and helping students consider the effect of language ideologies on subordinated groups. These students can also reflect on their own experiences learning to read and write in their L1 or L2 languages. They can understand that “standard” language varieties are inevitably assigned greater moral and intelligence worth than other linguistic varieties simply because it is that standard, dominant dialect.

While this article focuses on postsecondary foreign language classrooms, I find much that can transfer into teaching reading to ESL students at the secondary level. These ESL students can gain a lot by having a curriculum that is geared toward not only helping them gain literacy but allowing them to consider their own identities within the words. I wonder about reading instruction taught with no context; perhaps, when students are given the chance to connect with literature at a personal level, they would be more successful in reading English.

Mosenthal, Jim, Marjorie Lipson, Susan Torncello, Barbara Russ, and Jane Mekkelson.

“Contexts and Practices of Six Schools Successful in Obtaining Reading Achievement.”

The Elementary School Journal. 104. 5 (June 2010): 343-361.

The researchers, in this study, examined the contexts and practices of nine Vermont schools, six whose students met or exceeded the standards set for performance on statewide readings tests and three whose students did not. These schools were not upper-class, well-to-do schools, but rather urban schools with diverse populations. In these contexts, the researchers wanted to know 1. What practices and school factors promoted increased student performance in reading? and 2. Do factors that influence success and promote excellent performance vary among successful schools? The researchers wrote that “an analysis of fifty years of research suggests that the different kinds of classroom instruction and climate had nearly as much impact on learning as the student aptitude categories” (Mosenthal 345). The reseachers  found factors common to all of the successful schools, including a commitment to literacy that had been in place for eight to ten years, a focus on the school community, knowledgeable teachers able to articulate their work, and ample opportunity for students to read and discuss books.  I find the use of culturally-responsive instruction to be especially intriguing, those course materials that can help connect to a student’s identity, along with one of the conclusions that there is no evidence that low-socioeconomic schools cannot achieve success in reading with the right motivation from the adult support group around the students.

English 495: Monday, March 14, Discussion Handout

I have copied and pasted the discussion handout for tomorrow here. If anyone is interesting in viewing it early, here you go!

Second Language Writing in First-Year Composition: Generation 1.5

Some main points from the readings…

Leki, Chapter 3: Undergraduate Writing

·         The bulk of L2 writing research has been focused on this group

·         What writing courses should these students be in?

·         Where should L2 writing concentrate?

·         Issues concerning “gatekeeping” entrance and exit exams

·         Do the needs of L2 writers match the writing center’s ideology?

·         Issues of plagiarism

·         Some studies now focusing on: Feelings, attitudes, and perceptions in relation to L2 writing, writing courses; personal goals for learning to write in English; specific pedagogical approaches for L2 writing

Leki, “The Legacy of First-Year Composition”

·         The issue: First-year composition as a (nearly) universally sanctioned institution in the United States

·         But, the plus:  L2 writing courses also to exist for credit at universities because of this

·         Usually focus on writing rather than any other language skill

·         L2 students may need oral or reading skills more than writing skill

·         English department genres are privileged in these courses:  “Elitist high handedness” (63)

·         Are students drawn to plagiarize because they must write about topics they know very little about?

·         Because first year comp ends in a year, academic support for L2 writing also ends then in many universities

·         Two types of learning transfer: Specific, near transfer and general, far transfer

·         L1 faculty continually try to think through first-year composition: Do away with? Make it optional? Other substitutions?

Matsuda, “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composision

·         Unidirectional English monolingualism accounts for the relative lack of attention to multilingualism in composition scholarship.

·         The myth of linguistic homogeneity: The image of the typical composition students as native speakers of a privileged variety of English

·         Concomitant policy of linguistic containment: Exclude from entering higher education, ignore language issues if minority is small, use placement procedures

·         Brief history of ESL students in U.S. higher education

o    1784: Yale hosted a student from Latin America

o    Latter half of 19^th century: First sizable influx of international students

o    Early 20^th century: Second influx

o    1911: Michigan creates first English course specifically designed for international students

o    1933: Good Neighbor policy brings students from Latin America

o    1941: ELI at Michigan

o    Conclusion of World War II: Another influx

o    1953: About 150 institutions had established English as a Second Language programs for international students

·         No program can completely contain language differences, so why “fight” it?

·         Placement options should not be abandoned; some students need and want this.

And some discussion questions (partly inspired by a few key quotations)…

1.     “Institutions of higher education doom first-year composition programs to fail by making writing courses compulsory, by making English departments responsible for first-year composition, by providing so little funding for the courses that they have to be staffed by indentured servants (TA and instructors) with the least clout and, for TAs, the least experienced, […], by assuming writing gets learned in a year of first-year composition.” (“Legacy,” 59)

a.     What is your reaction to this quotation?

b.     Does it relate at all to your experiences as teachers here? Where, if at all, do you find commonalities?

c.     If this quotation is even partly true, how do we begin to teach L2 learners in this described environment?

2.     “Yet a semester or two of extra language instruction was often not enough to help students fit the dominant image…” (Matsuda 647)

“Yet, beyond whatever help L2 students can get in writing centers, because first-year composition     ends in a year, so does academic support for L2 writing at many universities.” (“Legacy,” 67)

a.     Why does composition have to take place during the freshman year?

b.     How can writing be given more support throughout academic careers?

c.     What other options could be created for students… other than simply in the freshmen year?

d.     Do you see upsides to this writing taking place during freshmen year for ESL students? What?

3.     “One of the persisting elements of the dominant image of students in English studies is the assumption that students are by default native speakers of a privileged variety of English from the United States.” (Matsuda 639)

a.     How do you see this “myth of linguistic homogeneity” enacting itself in college classrooms?

b.     Once teachers realize that college composition classrooms cannot be a monolingual space, what can they do to update their teachings and give space for all cultures in the room?

4.     “In these we see the focal students […] finding their identities constructed for them by teachers and institutions as first and foremost ESL students” (“Synthesis” 33).

“Isaac Leon Kandel, for example, wrote that international students did not benefit as much from the instruction not because of their lack of ability but because “courses were organized primarily with the American student […] in mind”” (Matsuda 645).

a.     How do we go about not simply labeling students ESL or native speakers, but rather look past that one label often liberally given in order to help the other identities of students come forth?

b.     How can the assignments in the composition classroom contribute to helping Generation 1.5 students find their own identities there?

c.     The United States was founded by immigrants, yet, as Matsuda says, continues a policy of containment. How do we create classrooms that don’t simply have “the American student in mind”?

5.     “We view writing as so important that we must devote a year of first-year composition to studying it and since all students devote a year to studying writing, writing must be very important.” (“Legacy,” 66)

a.     Why do you think writing is so privileged a language skill for ESL students?

b.     How can we implement oral and reading skills into the curriculum, as well?

c.     What if the students need other language skills more than writing skills in order to succeed in their chosen fields?

6.     “Only first-year composition has an impact on virtually all students” (“Legacy,” 63)

a.     If you were given the opportunity to design—or redesign—the first-year composition program in regards to ESL students, what is one thing you would do?

b.     Why would you make that change?

c.     What kind of placement of the students would you use… if you would use any?

d.     What kind of measure would be used to assess the ESL students’ writing ability at the beginning of the semester (or before even enrolling in a course)?

English 344: Tuesday, March 15

In Chapter 3, Wong states that several second language researchers are moving away form "acquisition" for learning a language and to the metaphor of "participation," that learning a new language is not simply internally acquiring it but rather learning through social interactions. This dialogic problem posing calls on teachers to not simply transmit knowledge to the students through various teacher-led lectures and discussions. Instead, the students learn collaboratively by working through problems. Essentially, as I look at these main ideas of this chapter, I find that I can easily make connections to other works I am reading this semester, backing up some points in the teaching of ESL students that I am already  thinking about. I cannot help but write about some of those said connections here in the hopes of fleshing out some ideas even more...

Problem-posing through the dialogic approach sounds very similiar to content-based instruction, of which I am reading about in Snow and Brinton's The Content-Based Classroom. In that CBI approach, ESL students do not simply learn a language; instead, they are exposed to language while also learning the content of their various content-area classes. The ESL classroom is not some place for students to go to be told the main ideas of their Biology homework; rather, it is a place where the students work together and the teacher gives them strategies to help them learn to read those texts themselves. These strategies could easily include problem-posing, giving students a question to work on and consider in groups then come back to the class to discuss their answers.

Vygotsky and his ideas are given much space in this chapter, and the central idea in regards to what I am working on seems to be that language is affected by social contexts, that language and culture are not mutually exclusive things. Whether I am reading about teaching writing or teaching reading, the idea of culture permeates through. Connecting the material to the personal interests or background of one's students is so important, as both CBI and the Dialogic approach espouse. If one want to improve the reading fluency of an ESL student, letting that student read a book that connects to his culture and his interests will probably get the job done much better than having them read passages prepared by a test-prep service. Wong gives some advice to students teachers that goes along with those lines of thinking:  Tap into the prior knowledge of your students. This seems simple enough, but many teachers are forced to put this by the wayside if simply "teaching for the test."

As I consider the dialogic approach and the content-based instruction, I endlessly consider just how to transfer these methods to the content-area, mainstream classroom--because many ESL students can be found their nowadays. These classrooms are often dominated by teacher-led discussions fueled by euphemisms, etc. How can the teacher effectively implement these student-centered approaches in order to better work on reading and writing with his or her students? The core of this question appears to be culture, what the students already know. If you give them content that interests them and content that they know a little bit about already, the chances of success appear to be far greater.

English 495: Tuesday, March 1

“Of all the contexts in which L2 writing occurs, high school is probably the most fraught and the most complex,” writes Leki (17), and I could not agree more. High school is likely a strenuous time for even L1 learners, a time of coming of age and of finding oneself. Having to navigate this world when you don’t know the “school scripts” and don’t know what culture you fit into can be even more of a challenge.

I found the readings in Leki for today incredibly interesting, partly because of the interesting points made like the  above. She notes that the drop out rates are extremely high for English language learners. But huge questions lingers: Where do they belong? When should we mainstream these students into the content-area classrooms? I have seen examples of students who have been mainstreamed too soon and students who have not mainstreamed at all—both to the detriment of the student. A few students were put into a freshman level biology class in which most L1 learners were struggling with the content. They simply could not handle the academic rigor and had to be pulled. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum In the high school in Rockford (where I am from) housing the ESL student, teachers have told me that ESL students continue to do poorly on purpose so that they can stay with their friends when they are fully capable of doing the work there.

I also found it interesting that she mentioned how mainstream teachers often work to find experiential relevance so that their students can connect to their lesson plans. I cannot even imagine how many times I used jokes, sarcasm, etc. in the classroom with ESL student there. I now realize that most of those culturally-specific  and went way over there heads.

In one final note, I want to mention something from Wallace’s article. I found it interesting how the religious identity of the students was mentioned as being so powerful. I do agree that religion is absolutely an identity builder for people. I went to a private, religious school from 6^th to 12^th grades, so religion was freely mentioned in each class regardless of the content. However, in the U.S. public schools, that matter is much more tricky. Thanks to separation of church and state, etc., I would be wary about asking students about their religious preferences or lack there of despite the importance of the subject to their identities.

English 344: Tuesday, March 1

I have virtually no experience working with elementary school children (other than an unfortunate incident when I was in high school regarding an attempt to cut my hair with scissors haha), so I began to read Toohey's article a bit skeptically, wondering if I would be able to relate to it all. Surprising, I have taken a lot from the article, and much of that information gleaned from it can be nicely summarized in the author's own words:  "The individualizing of children starts a process of community stratification that increasingly leads to the exclusion of some students from certain activities, practices, identities, and affiliations" (80). Essentially, I saw basis for a lot of the culturally-constructed practices we have here in America (and, apparently, in Canada, as welll).

I remember when I was in grade school having each of my teachers drill into our heads to "do your own work" and "to not copy." Those commands led to the construction of mini fortresses during tests and other assignments, with students completely surrounding their desk with a blockade of folders. Yes, some saw this as a joke; still, all knew how important it was to do our own work. This thinking, along with the Americanized definition of plagiarism, has continued with me through my educational career. Yet, I am now questioning things. How could grade school teachers build better "dialogic communities" of learning within their classrooms? What is so wrong with ESL student mimicing what other say--if that practice helps them learn? When is it okay to copy, or perhaps borrow, someone else's work--if the concept of plagiarism is socially constructed to begin with?

I am also curious about the arrangement of seats in this classroom, although, as I have written before, I have no experience in how teachers handle the seating arrangements in elementary schools. I do know that when I worked with high school freshmen, I first let them pick their seats; they were ultimately too talkative, so I had to pick the seats for them. Ironically enough, I put the "less-skilled" ESL students right up in front so that I could better talk with them, and they would feel more at ease answering questions. I do now wonder if they felt more excluded from the group because I chose to do this. Still, their work improved with the move, so I suppose that I'm still torn on the issue.

And although this is a blog for English 344, I continually thought about the genre and process approaches to writing as a read this. I would still very much like to see some sort of unit plan showing the genre or a combination of the genre and process approaches, but I do see the dialogic approach as a good starting point when utilizing the genre approach or a combination. Within that community of learners, students would feel free to work together, to share their drafts, and to ultimately learn from each other. I would be curious to explore this topic further.

English 495: Critical Literature Review Book

Hi Professor,

I am planning to read:

Snow, Marguerite Ann and Donna M. Brinton. The Content-Based Classroom: Perspectives on Integrating
        Language and Content. White Plains, New York: Longman, 1997.

The key word there is planning. Currently, I'm on the table of contents haha. But it is on the agenda...

English 495: Genre and Second Language Writing, Continued...

I found the discussion in class today immensely interesting, particularly because I am so unfamiliar with the genre approach. I think that many of my questions regarding the approach were answered, although that is only forming a base to what I believe I still need to learn. In our group, Kristi and I focsued on question 2, although I am pretty sure that we veered off that path almost immediately. I like this question because I really don't understand why the articles seemed to present the approaches as polar opposites. Why not combine the good things of both, right?

We also discussed these theories and what they have to do with the age of the student. I believe that age plays a huge role (or ability level, in the L2 learner's case more than likely). I know that from an L1 context, I can't imagine teaching solely the genre approach in a middle school classroom when the students don't have the skils or base emough to understand just how to write (or perhaps I should say the process of writing).

I also mentioned that I thought that the articles brought up a lot of theoretical talk, like telling your students that they are a community of learners, that their works speak to each other. But I wonder how to get these concepts across. Essentially, I would still love to see pedagogy in action. What would a unit plan look like if you were teaching high school students this? How would the response be? What would be effective, what would not be?