3. Reading and Understanding for ELL and Struggling Students

In “Helping English Language Learners Understand Content Area Texts,” issued by the Indiana Department of Education, the authors provide a vast array of strategies, procedures, and teaching tactics to aid English Language Learner (ELL) students in the complex process of reading disciplinary texts or understanding discipline-specific concepts. Though there are too many strategies to list for the scope of this blog post, there are major themes which appear throughout the guide: In order for ELL students to succeed in the process of understanding content, teachers must prepare lessons in a manner to specifically cater to ELL students and relate material to students' identities, lives, experiences, and knowledge (1-3). Regarding the reading itself, teachers must aid students by placing emphasis on teaching discipline-specific vocabulary, teaching and modeling reading strategies, using supplemental materials to make text more comprehensible (visuals, graphic organizers, charts, etc.), and issuing a variety of means and methods for students to read in class (3-7). For students to express their learning, teachers must facilitate their ELL students in the process of practicing their academic English verbally and help students demonstrate their understanding through academic writing (7-8).

Throughout the video “English Language Learner Instruction in Middle and High School,” produced by Colorín Colorado, Dr. Deborah Short also emphasizes some of these same points and she provides statistical, social, and academic evidence as to why education must be adjusted to better cater to ELL students. An important portion of the video, however, is video footage of teachers putting these strategies for ELL students into practice. As an example, one social studies teacher connects the content to students lives, experiences, and knowledge by having students critically think about why people would migrate to the United States, using their own families, friends, or selves as an example for evidence. In addition, this particular teacher uses clear and coherent verbal speech, graphic organizers (even simple ones like lists), group discussions, and visual aids (stickers, maps, etc.) (17:55-21:00).

I find all of these strategies and teaching adjustments useful in my class, even though I actually do not have any ELL students. I believe that these different strategies for ELL students can also be applied for all students who have diverse learning preferences or for struggling students who have trouble studying social sciences. Though I do not have any ELL students in my history classes, I do have Reclassified Fluent English-Proficient (RFEP) students in my class. These are students who were once classified as ELL students, but upon going through the long process necessary, have tested out of being an ELL student. Though these students are categorized as “fluent” or “proficient” in English, I still find that they may struggle with complex academic language or subject matter in my class.

19th-Century English is hard!

I recently carried out my lessons for EDTPA, and in order to better cater to the students who are struggling to read complex primary sources (in this case written in 19th-century American English), I implemented a number of strategies which can be found in the Indiana Department of Education guide. Prior to this particular lesson, I generally have assigned students to do reading or research on their own for their own personal projects, and in other cases, group projects only require one student to do the reading or research. For this particular lesson, I hoped to alter that trend, and rather, I had students read in groups. Each group was assigned one of four sources, and using their graphic organizers (which each student had individually), students had to determine if the source was a primary or secondary source, describe who wrote the source, explain why the source was written (the “argument” of the source, also assigned as a vocabulary word), and identify what they could conclude after reading the source (what they understand after reading it). As additional strategies for understanding, I engineered the groups so that struggling students would be with fluent readers, students had graphic organizers to map out their thoughts, key vocabulary was covered in advance, students were encouraged to look up confusing words with their computers, and the lesson concluded with an in-class discussion where each group shared their results and understanding.

Throughout the course of this lesson, I paid particular attention to one of my students who is currently struggling with reading in my class (among a couple others, but this is the focus student for this blog post). This particular student is an RFEP student and reads and writes very slowly. Noticeably, he tended to stay quiet and aloof from his peers throughout the course of the reading exercise. It became clear that rather than reading the text himself and sharing, he simply heard what the source was about from the other students and took that as his form of understanding. In turn, I stepped in and asked leading questions to this particular student to get him to investigate the source himself (without the help of his peers). For example, one of the questions I asked was “Why does Andrew Jackson want the Native Americans to leave?” Though the initial answer was “I don't know,” upon using leading questions to give the student an investigative goal, the student eventually analyzed the source and was able to come to a conclusion. In all, I think the experiment with group reading was of mixed success with this student; his understanding was indeed improved via his peers and especially with the class-wide discussion at the end of the lesson, but I also think he found his group a bit intimidating in that he could not read through the source as quickly or proficiently as his peers. I believe that the lesson learned here is that one or two strategies (e.g. a graphic organizer and group work) are not enough. Rather, the vast number of strategies as provided in the above sources need to be fully utilized in order to aid struggling students in their success. For this student, the lesson had to be modified part way through to include more strategies, this case being a shift toward scaffolded understanding through expressing verbal evidence by answering leading questions provided by the teacher.

In the future I would better utilize more strategies all at once while doing a reading exercise. Though I managed to cover quite a few in the design of this lesson, I believe that the Indiana Department of Education and the experts in the video both have a similar three-step theme that I did not entirely cover: connection to identity, reading strategies, and expression for learning. When I originally designed this particular lesson, I believe I largely left out the first step, which in actuality is one that I find most important: the connection to identity. Without this connection, my focus student did not actually have the motivation to read the source in the first place, and perhaps he simply felt that he was only reading it because he had to. As for my following lesson on the “Trail of Tears,” which I covered the following day, I ensured that students did a bit of writing on their own experiences, and in turn I felt that the engagement for the rest of the lesson was considerably better than the first lesson.

Here are some questions I would ask readers to consider:

1. What strategies do you use for your ELL students and/or struggling readers?

2. What do you think of my approach to group reading? What would you do differently?

3. Have you had to modify a lesson before in the middle of it in order to better serve a struggling student? Why?

Some additional resources:

1. An example of a culturally responsive lesson plan for ELL students (by me!): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RwqujjtDcmeqxSmbFgBhIsUjLwZ_Lgot/view?usp=sharing

2. California English Language Development Standards: https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/eldstndspublication14.pdf

2. Bridging the Gap

    In Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Doug Buehl outlines the potential reasons for academic gaps in disciplinary knowledge which can greatly affect disciplinary reading or understanding of those readings. As Buehl explains, students' identities as readers can potentially make reading in certain disciplines easy or difficult and prior knowledge or experiences can contribute to whether or not a student understands an academic reading (77-82). Buehl argues that in the field of History, in particular, students can have many difficulties with the academic reading because there are even more layers of obstacles including: generational experience or memories which altar understanding of historical events, misled knowledge due to non-academic sources (media, movies, video games, social media, novels, etc.), or vast amounts of vocabulary or assumed knowledge embedded in texts of which students may not have any understanding (82-84, 95-97). In order to help support students in this complicated process of understanding disciplinary reading in History/Social Sciences, Buehl suggests that teachers should find ways to make the material relevant to students by connecting it to their identity (92-93). More specifically, Buehl argues that teachers should frame learning in history and selection of material in any way possible to make it relevant to their students (be it culture, experiences, existing knowledge, ideas, interests, philosophies, or future plans)(92-98). It is with this approach, Buehl says, students are able to “merge everyday knowledge resources with disciplinary learning” and in turn, student identities become more “compatible with reading, writing, and thinking through different disciplinary lenses” (92-93).
    In my teaching, I have attempted with a number of struggling students to bridge the gap between academic/disciplinary knowledge and their own experiences or existing knowledge. With one student, in particular, he/she (I am using he/she for the sake of confidentiality) would be considered “low” on the scale of academic knowledge and becomes discouraged in class, especially in regards to reading. With this student, I have attempted to find ways to allow the student to manifest his/her identity into projects and assignments, with the intent that self-expression can help aid the student toward success. For example, one particular assignment revolved around the Bill of Rights, and students were assigned a graphic organizer wherein they had to write the Amendments, copy and paste them in their original written forms, re-write the Amendments in their own words, include a supplemental picture for each, create a mnemonic device to remember each, and finally, include a meme relevant to each Amendment so as to better remember them. As for my focus student, I know that this particular student very much enjoys video games and internet “meme” culture, which was the reason for the meme addition. I thought that the student's vast knowledge of internet culture and memes would fuel a process where he/she would read the Amendments more carefully in order to find a more relevant meme for the project. In other words, I believed the student would have to know each Amendment prior to adding a meme appropriate for that entry on the Bill of Rights, which could help bridge between his/her enjoyment, knowledge, and experience of internet culture and the material at hand.

An example of the project (this is not the focus student's project, to protect confidentiality)

    My experiment was met with mixed success. The student (and other students) were excited with the idea that they were enabled to add a meme to their Bill of Rights graphic organizer, and the student did finish the project all the way through (which has been a struggle from time to time if the reading is too heavy). The student was able to rephrase many of the rights into his/her own words, and did indeed become more engaged and immersed in the project. However, the detrimental side effect was that the purpose of the assignment for the student became the memes and not the content. On numerous occasions, I put a stop to the student's long quests and wasted time spent on finding memes for the project. In other words, the search for the memes became a distraction and the thrill of looking for the them overshadowed the academic content.
    In future projects, instead of choosing a novel aspect of students' identities to tie to a project or academic content, I would devise more ways to have students critically think about the ways in which the content ties to their identities. For example, in my unit about Native American Indian removal, students would have to recall in writing their own experiences regarding their emotions regarding migration (i.e. a time when they had to move, or a friend/family member had to move, or how they would feel if they were forced to move, etc.). After completing a writing or other tangible product which revolves around their own experiences, then they could read or research accounts of the “Trail of Tears.” Because they will have tapped into their own emotions, thoughts, experiences, and ideas regarding migration prior to going into information on the “Trail of Tears,” students would be able to establish an emotional and experiential connection upon delving into the content. In actuality, this fits more in line with Buehl's suggestions to merge student knowledge with content, instead of being a mere supplemental novelty.

Some questions I would ask readers to consider:
    •    Do you agree with Buehl's approaches? Why or why not?
    •    In what ways would you merge student identity and academic content?
    •    Is there another strategy you would use to help students with lack of disciplinary knowledge?

An additional resource: Don Bender, "Funds of Knowledge Theoretical Model"

1. Disciplinary Literacy

Upon reading “What is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does it Matter?” by Timothy Shanahan and Cynthia Shanahan, I have come to the realization that the term “literacy” does not just entail the ability to read. Rather, and more specifically, “literacy” describes the process in which people engage with, understand, and utilize a text or material provided for learning. In the article, the authors go further to describe the differences between “content area literacy” and “disciplinary literacy.” As the authors explain, content area literacy is a set of strategies used as study skills for comprehending learning materials which are universal throughout all disciplines (8). Disciplinary literacy, in contrast, are the skills, strategies, communication means, “knowledge, and abilities,” which are utilized in a certain discipline to make sense and understand learning materials (8). As a historian teaching social sciences at the middle school level, this brings forth a question: what does disciplinary literacy consist of in the social sciences, and how can disciplinary literacy for social sciences be understood by middle school students?

Disciplinary literacy in the field of history or the social sciences is very complex and is essential for understanding historical processes, effects, or arguments within learning materials for the discipline. Though there are many aspects of disciplinary literacy in history/social sciences, I propose three primary ones which provide a good starting point for disciplinary study: first is the process of determining whether a source is a primary or secondary source (be it text, video, graphics, etc.). Prior to using any source in the field of history/social sciences, the scholar must determine whether or not the source is primary or secondary, which allows the scholar to decide how the sources will be used in analysis. Second, scholars in the discipline must be able to discern the primary argument of a source (whether it is primary or secondary). Once scholars are enabled to understand the central idea or primary purpose of a learning material, they can then begin the process of analysis. The practice of analysis is the third step, wherein scholars identify the information embedded within the material that supports the author's arguments or points (whether that consists of opinions, citations, methods of persuasion, biases, judgements, supplementary information/facts, etc.). To summarize, I believe disciplinary literacy in the field of history/social sciences consists of familiarization with a basic three-step sequential process for recognizing the type of source (primary or secondary), identifying the author's/maker's primary argument, and carrying out supplementary analysis.

I believe these three steps in disciplinary literacy are most important to understanding history/social sciences because they are the starting point to being an expert in the field, the steps are relatively unique to the field itself, and they also consist of valuable skills that may guide students in understanding information for the rest of their lives. In other words, these three steps are the basic skills that anyone can learn as a gateway to both becoming an expert in the field or to use on a day-to-day basis while learning to understand and explore information. Regarding success specifically in the discipline of history/social sciences, these three steps are essential to undertake prior to engaging in historical discussion or presentation as they are necessary in order for students to build evidence for their reasoning and justify their position or understanding of learning materials.

Some questions that I would ask readers to consider:

• Do you agree or disagree with my stance? Why?
• Would you choose different aspects?
• What am I missing from these thoughts?

Some additional resources:

• Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, "Disciplinary Literacy in the Social Studies"
• Keys to Literacy, "What is Disciplinary Literacy?"
• Recollection Wisconsin, "Disciplinary Literacy in the Social Studies"