Finding Complex, Engaging, and Powerful Literature for a Quality Bilingual Classroom

Jesús Fraga, Programs in Bilingual Education & TESOLLisa Simon, Program in Transformative Literacy

The City College of New YorkNABE 2015, Las Vegas, NV

Finding Complex, Engaging, and Powerful Literature for a Quality Bilingual Classroom

Today’s Agenda• Introductions / Greetings• Strategies and Resources• Examining and Critiquing Recommended Texts• Negotiating Mandates• The Role(s) of Teacher Education Programs• Q & A

Who we are and what unites us

Why this focus?

• Students/communities need texts where they see themselves reflected

• Finding texts with authentic, complex, and interesting depictions of language users is challenging;

Why This Is Important to Us• Our university setting in Harlem with a strong and diversified

bilingual/ELL community;• Our teachers/students working throughout

multilingual New York;• Our pedagogical beliefs tell us that quality literature is a crucial

component of good teaching;• Our personal backgrounds and families.

Do you or would you use….

Newspapers

Do you or would you use….

Song Lyrics

Do you or would you use….

Wordless Picture Books

Do you or would you use….

Video, TV or Film

Do you or would you use….

Murals

Do you or would you use….

Cookbooks

Think-Pair-Share

• Which of these texts do you use? Why/why not?

• Which of these texts would you like to use? Why/why not?

• What challenges or questions do you foresee using such texts?

• Newspapers/Magazines• Lyrics•Wordless

Picture Books• Videos•Murals• Cookbooks

Enriching your Curriculum

• Gives you access to • Wider range of texts • Engaging texts• Texts with different levels of complexity• Diverse perspectives

باللغة Al Monitor-The Pulse of العربيةإقرأThe Middle East

Initial Criteria/Why Use These Texts

•What is your focus or what are your goals for your lesson or unit? • Character analysis? • Confidence in writing? • Understanding setting? • Cause and effect? • Point of view

Initial Criteria/Why Use These Texts

•What are issues/concept/ideas that you want your students to develop or explore? • Immigration? • First and second generation within families?• Self-expression?• Human rights?• Religious freedom?

Initial Criteria/Why Use These Texts?

• A text that is so powerful or significant that you want your students to have access to it.• Fell in love with

this text • Opportunity to

share this passion with your students.

The texts we choose can enrich, challenge, augment mandated texts and curricula

The

Motorcycle

DiariesDiar

y of

Anne

Fran

k

The power of diary writing

Finding texts that can help you with your teaching goals

Goal 1: Oral language development (e.g., NYS Standard 2)

Recommended: Texts with images that tell stories (wordless picture books, murals, paintings)

“What happened before?”

“And what do you think will happen next”

Finding texts that can help you with your teaching goals

Goal 2: Opportunities to develop and demonstrate cross-cultural knowledge and understanding (e.g., NYS Standard 5)

Recommended: Authentic texts that come out of the global language communities (e.g., local and international newspapers, international blogs, websites, videos, television shows, movies, murals)

Example: Have students read about the same event from two different perspectives

Finding texts that can help you with your teaching goals

Goal 3: Using language for social interaction (e.g. NYS Standard 4)

Recommended texts: cookbooks, songs, Local and international newspapers, international blogs, websites, videos, television shows, movies, murals

Example: invite a parent to come in and the help the class make the recipe

Think of a unit or topic that you need to teach….

Talk with a partner about…..

•What kinds of texts could you bring in to enrich your school’s mandated curriculum

3. In Sum

• Be Proactive• Energize your curriculum with powerful texts• Use texts as bridges between state mandates

and your school’s and students’ community.

The Contribution of Teacher Education Programs Towards this Work

• Seeking texts• Creating texts• Enriching curricula• Celebrating texts that support complex representations of

language communities

Challenges to this work

• The Testing Era (K-18)• Schools with Limited Resources• The Fear Factor

Q & A