Second language literacy through literature.

Abstract

This article describes how different instructional scaffolds supported English language learners of varying English proficiency levels in successfully completing a story-telling and story-writing activity. Participation in literature circles and student-student collaborations were key elements of the Second Language Literacy Through Literature instructional approach.

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The approach to literacy and literature instruction for second language learners described below is taken from a nested case study, described in detail in Differential Instructional Scaffolding in the Teaching of Second Language Literacy (Pompetti-Szul, 1997). The approach is based on ideas of instructional scaffolding (Bruner, 1986), and literary response (Rosenblatt, 1978; Langer, 1995). An instructional scaffold is a support that enables a student to do something that he or she could not do before. Literary response involves a person's lived experience of literature. Each person's response to literature may differ. Qualitative research methods were used in this study, which was part of a larger nested case study. Data sources were field notes, audiotapes of student-student and student-teacher collaborations, student and teacher interviews, project meeting notes, and student artifacts. A constant comparison method was used, in that new directions were forged based on examination and discussion of class and student progress. A university researcher, whose role was that of a participant observer, worked with the classroom teachers from October through May. The purpose of the study was to explore the role of literature in the literacy learning of linguistically diverse students.

In this study, the principal instructional scaffold was that of collaborative conversations between the teacher and individual students or between students and other students as they worked together to respond to and write stories. However, the nature of the collaborative conversations differed. In some instances, the collaborative conversations took place in the first language. In others, art was used as an expressive medium to draw out language and to serve as a starting point for conversations. All of the students in the study were English language learners in grades four through nine. We began by showing them a model of what they could create. We showed them a book of short stories written by middle school Dominican students in New York City. Each story was published in English and the student's native language. In this way we modeled a goal for the students--to write a bilingual story worthy of publication.

In order to build both literacy and familiarity with literature, we used a literature circle. In the literature circle, students listened to and discussed stories read aloud. One of the goals was to help students understand that they had questions about the stories. The teachers modeled ways to ask questions about stories. Once students' questions were identified, students decided which questions they wanted to discuss. In this manner, questions about individual characters, plot or setting were identified and discussed. Teachers also modeled ways in which to discuss literature. We began by reading stories from the Dominican book. Then we asked students to go home have someone tell them a story, and bring the story back to tell the class. When students brought in stories from home, we asked them to tell the stories to the class in the literature circle. The same discussion process was used with the students' own stories, with one student writing down all of the students' questions in order to help the authors when they began to write their stories. The authors were free to adopt or discard the suggestions of other students.

What follows are descriptions of three case studies that depict how we worked with students who were at differing levels of English proficiency to ensure that they all successfully completed the literacy activity. The three students are Marielena, Mietek, and Hamida. Fifth grader, Mietek and eighth grader, Hamida were both newcomers to the United States, whereas, fourth grader Marielena was born in the United States and had been in ESL for five years. Mietek had been schooled in Poland and also had studied English there. In contrast, Hamida's education had been interrupted by the war in Afghanistan. We began this project in October and worked two days per week in two ESL classrooms. One classroom was in an elementary school and included fourth and fifth graders. The other classroom was in a middle school. In that class, we worked with 7th, 8th and 9th graders. We worked on this project for approximately ninety minutes per week for eight months. I had the role of researcher, and I had the good fortune to work with two dedicated ESL teachers, one in each school.

Our first problem was that Mietek and Hamida arrived in late December/early January. We had already worked on the story-reading and story-writing activity for several months. How were we supposed to communicate the assignment to two beginning level ESL students, neither of whom spoke much English? In the elementary school classroom, the teacher wondered aloud about this dilemma. One of the fourth grade girls suggested that the teacher send a note home with Mietek asking that he bring a story to class. The next day, Mietek brought in a long handwritten fairy tale in Polish.

This event brought up a further dilemma. No one in the class knew any Polish. Fortunately, my multilingual husband translated the story, and we were able to read the story to the class in the literature circle. This experience helped integrate Mietek into the class, and helped the class see him as a valuable contributor to class activities. Prior to this, Mietek had said almost nothing in class. He was in the silent period of second language acquisition. Mietek's transition to English took a different route from that of Hamida, especially because there were no other Polish speaking students in the class. Instead of telling his story to other students, Mietek told his story in his own words to the tape recorder several times. Following that practice, he began to write the story in his own words in Polish. Finally, he sat down with the teacher and began to tell her the story in English. This was possible because Mietek had studied some English in Poland before arriving in the fifth grade in the United States. Mietek's English version began like this:

   The Legend of the Three Sons
   Long time live king. King have three sons.
   King is very sick. Three sons go the garden and
   see old man. Old man tell him where is a water
   of life. First go biggest son. In way look a little
   men. Little men says, "Where you going?"
   Son says, "Go on in my way," and going.
   Oldest son go between two rocks. Second go
   middle son. In way look a little men too.

His story continued on in this manner. It showcases Mietek's state of English language knowledge at the time. In addition to this version, we also published a "correct" English version along with the Polish version.

A second example of story-writing is that of Marielena, a fourth grader who had been born in the United States and who had been in ESL classes for five years (including kindergarten). Marielena was considered an "advanced" ESL student, whereas both Mietek and Hamida were "beginning" level ESL students. Marielena began writing a story about her glasses. This was a topic of great importance to her since she had just received a pair of glasses for the first time. However, when Marielena's story was read aloud in the literature circle, the story fell flat. She sensed in the reactions of the students that her story did not have audience appeal. This discouraged her from working on her story. One day the ESL teacher sat down to work with Marielena and Ana on Marielena's story. The teacher was concerned that Marielena was "stuck." Instead of working on her story, Marielena had been working on her autobiography, because every story in the book was to be preceded by a short autobiography. Marielena had written page after page of her autobiography. When the teacher saw it, she said,

Teacher: Marielena, you can't write such a long autobiography. You only need a few lines.

Marielena: I like to write my fantasies.

Several days later, Marielena was still stuck. The collaborative conversation below illustrates how the teacher "revoiced" (Michaels, 1993) Marielena's previously expressed idea concerning her "fantasies" in a way that helped Marielena move forward in the literacy activity. Following this conversation, Marielena completed her story.

Teacher: What are we going to do about your story? Why don't you make it a fantasy?

Ana: The glasses could sing and dance!

Marielena: And maybe they could fly!

Both the collaboration and the revoicing served to scaffold Marielena's ability to complete her story.

The third example is that of Hamida. In her case, one of the other Afghani girls in her class at the middle school was aware that Hamida didn't understand the assignment. Her comment, "Hamida doesn't understand," prompted the teacher to say that Hamida could tell her story to other students in her native language. Nooria, an eighth grade advanced level student, used her native language, Pushtu, to explain the assignment to Hamida, and to tell her that she could tell the story in her own language. Immediately, Hamida unleashed a torrent of words, telling two other students a story about a scorpion. The bilingual students interpreted the story as follows:

   This is about a scorpion in a house. The house was full if it.
   It takes place in Afghanistan, in Kandahar.

In the two subsequent class periods, Hamida continued to tell her story to students who understood Pushtu. By the third telling, the story was translated to the teacher as follows:

   My cousin Marjana was 8 years old and was playing with us
   in Afghanistan. We were all sitting outside of the house.
   There is all holes around the house from scorpion and their eggs.

The following day, Hamida continued her storytelling. Farida, another eighth grade girl from Afghanistan, interpreted the story as it appears below. Notice that by this, the fourth telling, the story had become more elaborated.

   My cousin Marjana was eight years old and was playing with
   us in Afghanistan. It was night time. We were sitting outside
   the house. There were all holes around the house from scorpions
   and their eggs. And one of the scorpions came out of the holes
   and bit my cousin Marjana on her toe. And she started to scream
   and said something bit her. And my uncle run from the house
   and said what happened. We told him what happened
   and my uncle killed the scorpion
   and took Marjana to the hospital
   and she was better.

At the researcher's suggestion, a picture of a scorpion was located, and Hamida immediately began to draw pictures of scorpions. Following that, Hamida began to draw more elaborated depictions of the story. From the elaborated illustrations, we were able to see the flat roofs of the Afghani houses. Hamida drew pictures of the moon and stars and of people sitting on the roofs at night.

Exactly two weeks from the day that Hamida first told her story in Pushtu, she referred to one of her drawings and had the following conversation in English with the researcher:

Researcher: What's scorpion in Pushtu?

Hamida: Lalam

Researcher: Lalam (Hamida smiled).

Hamida: (referring to drawing)

This my uncle wife room, this my uncle wife room. Other people is over there. The scorpion is coming, coming. She looks like this. Other people is over there.

This was Hamida's first attempt to tell her story in English. All of the previous classroom activities together scaffolded Hamida's ability to tell the story in English. The use of the first language served as a scaffold, as did her drawings. Another scaffolding factor was the collaboration. Several students collaborated with Hamida initially in Pushtu. Further collaborations in English followed between Hamida and the teacher and between Hamida and the researcher. Hamida's drawings were later used as a vehicle for her to become literate in English. With assistance, Hamida wrote a caption for each drawing, and learned to read each caption. Hamida's scorpion story, in its most elaborated form, was published in the student book of stories as it appears below.

   Scorpion

   Everyone was outside sitting and Marjana was inside playing with
   the kids. Later the whole family wanted to go up on the roof, sit
   and talk under the black sky. There were millions of stars moving
   around the sky like Diamonds. Then the kids went by the pool so
   Marjana was left alone. Her aunt told all the kids to come and eat,
   but Marjana didn't come. Marjana told me, "Come and play with me."

   I went there and I told her I am going to go to the Bathroom and be
   right back. When I was coming back from the bathroom, I heard
   Marjana scream. I was really scared. But I knew there were a lot of
   snakes, scorpions, and bugs outside. After I came from the
   bathroom, my whole family and my uncle were running toward Marjana
   too. They thought she was faking it at first. My other uncle said
   that he was going to check her and there was a scorpion running
   away from her foot with its tail flipping side to side. They caught
   the scorpion and took the stinger from the tail. Then they let it
   go and the scorpion was trying to bite other people. My uncle said
   to the scorpion, "You bit my niece so now I'm going to kill you."
   And he stepped on it and it got smushed.

   Meanwhile Marjana fainted. When she woke up, she said, "My foot
   hurts." When the others were busy chasing the scorpion, her
   grandmother held her foot tightly so the poison wouldn't spread in
   her body. Then she squeezed her toe and blood and poison came out.
   The she got up and was limping. Her uncle told her to walk straight
   so her foot would get better. Then everyone went to the mosque to
   pray and Marjana prayed for her uncles because they had saved her
   life. She said, "If I didn't have uncles like you, I would be
   dead."

The importance of the literature circle for the language and classroom social development of the students cannot be overemphasized. For example, once students began to bring in their own stories, they read them to the class in the literature circle. Hamida never became fluent enough to read her story to the class. However, her participation in the literature circle took other forms. After approximately three months of silently participating in the literature circle once a week, Hamida listened to Maria's story about a young couple in Puerto Rico. On their wedding night, the bride craved a Puerto Rican food called Mondongo. After hearing the story, Hamida blurted out four questions in English in rapid fire succession. She asked:

   Mondongo mean food?
   Who gave it to her, Mondongo?
   Then, where is the Mondongo?
   Then, how much is the Mondongo?

By her questions, we can see the developmental nature of Hamida's ability to form questions in English. At the same time, we see that she has internalized the social practice of literature discussion, specifically the question-generation part of discussing literature

These three examples, that of Mietek, Hamida, and Marielena, illustrate what the process of literature instruction and literacy development could look like for English language learners of various backgrounds and English proficiencies. Attention to character development, setting, literary devices, and author's craft, among other things, can become part of the discussion as students gain proficiency in English. The literacy through literature approach is extremely useful for students because it allows them ownership of the instructional activity in a variety of ways. First, they have ownership of the literature circle because their ideas are welcomed and explored in the literature discussions. Secondly, they have ownership of the stories that they bring to class.

Also, with this approach, each student's expertise comes into play when they are collaboratively working on their stories. For example, Mietek's expertise as a speller became obvious while he was working with another student on the editing phase of the story-writing activity. After he pointed to a word that was misspelled in her story, she corrected it as he recited the correct letters. In another instance, Ana helped Marielena understand that her story didn't end like a story is supposed to end. Ana's knowledge of story structure helped Marielena learn about how stories should end, as they worked together to craft an ending. We facilitated these discussions with a one page list of questions about the content, organization, and presentation of the stories. We used questions about content when students were working initially on the content. Later we used questions about the story organization or genre. Finally, we asked them to look at questions about the presentation of the story. The questions provided a structure for the story-writing activity.

The instructional context, then, stressed student ownership and gave rise to joint productive activity (CREDE, 2002). This context allowed the instructional scaffolds evidenced in the various collaborative conversations, to flourish and support students on their way to becoming story writers. The use of the first language and the use of art also contributed in rich ways to ensure student success. For each student, the type of scaffold differed somewhat, such that the teachers were constantly asking themselves, "What is needed here? How do I move this student forward?" This type of questioning led to success for all students through slightly different paths. Thus the use of different instructional scaffolds in the literacy through literature approach enriched the literary and literacy experiences of the students in highly personal and engaging ways. The response to literature activities deepened students' understandings of literature while simultaneously helping students to become more literate.

References

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

CREDE (2002). Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence,University of California at Berkeley.

Langer, J. (1995). Envisioning Literature: literary understanding and literature instruction. New York: NY. Teacher's College press.

Michaels, S. (1993). Revoicing" An analysis of a conversational move as an index of a classroom discourse space. Paper presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Ethnographic and Qualitative Research in Education, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, June 4-5, 1993.

Pompotti-Szul, I. (1997). Differential instructional scaffolding in the teaching of second language literacy. Unpublished dissertation, University at Albany/SUNY,

Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Irene C. Pompetti-Szul, New York University 

Irene C. Pompetti-Szul, Ph.D., is a Resource Specialist with the Spanish Bilingual Education Technical Assistance Center at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Urban Education.