From the heart to the world and back again: Co -constructing school literacy practices with children from immigrant, migrant, and refugee backgrounds

My dissertation is the product of my work as a fifth grade teacher researcher at a multi-ethnic neighborhood elementary school in California between the years 1998–2001. It examines how school literacy may be deeply inflected with the students\u27 own culturally based values and commitments. I take a critical look at deficit models of instruction that homogenize classroom practice and devalue the rich experiential diversity of our school population. I also explore alternatives: for example, the role that memory and storytelling play in creating solidarity within the class; the way children use autobiography to work through the traumas bequeathed to them by history; the potential for school writing to enhance a child\u27s understanding of her own membership in a diaspora community; and how the performance arts can become a vehicle for students to critically engage as well as understand their worlds. All my research is informed by a conception of literacy as embedded in history and culture and grounded in realist theories of experience and identity. I simultaneously theorize classroom relationships and my own stance as a teacher researcher. I both argue for and illuminate an organic and dialectical methodology that braids the inquiries of the teacher with those of the students. In conclusion, I conceptualize the urban teacher researcher as an emergent social identity

From the heart to the world and back again: Co -constructing school literacy practices with children from immigrant, migrant, and refugee backgrounds

My dissertation is the product of my work as a fifth grade teacher researcher at a multi-ethnic neighborhood elementary school in California between the years 1998–2001. It examines how school literacy may be deeply inflected with the students\u27 own culturally based values and commitments. I take a critical look at deficit models of instruction that homogenize classroom practice and devalue the rich experiential diversity of our school population. I also explore alternatives: for example, the role that memory and storytelling play in creating solidarity within the class; the way children use autobiography to work through the traumas bequeathed to them by history; the potential for school writing to enhance a child\u27s understanding of her own membership in a diaspora community; and how the performance arts can become a vehicle for students to critically engage as well as understand their worlds. All my research is informed by a conception of literacy as embedded in history and culture and grounded in realist theories of experience and identity. I simultaneously theorize classroom relationships and my own stance as a teacher researcher. I both argue for and illuminate an organic and dialectical methodology that braids the inquiries of the teacher with those of the students. In conclusion, I conceptualize the urban teacher researcher as an emergent social identity

Daugiamodalinių tekstų panaudojimas Lotynų Amerikos kilmės dvikalbių amerikiečių kritinio požiūrio į neišsprendžiamas dilemas ugdymui

This two-year predominantly qualitative study engaged 103 bilingual first graders in a literacy curriculum that sought to blend in- and out-of-school experiences, with particular emphasis on using photography and other multimodal texts as semiotic resources. Drawing on critical pedagogy and cultural historical activity theory, we supported students in interrogating epistemologies resulting from dominant hegemonic perspectives. As part of the curricular invitations, children photographed their everyday family and community experiences, and employed these images for oral storytelling and multimodal composing. Data sources analyzed for this article include children’s audio-recorded dialogic small group discussions and their multimodal texts. We analyzed the data thematically and discursively, identifying patterns across children’s engagements with their photos in the literacy curriculum. We found that young emergent bilinguals enacted agency by bringing often-silenced social issues and community knowledge to the forefront of school-based learning. We examine turning points in the dialogic discussions that helped create openings to voice topics often excluded from classroom contexts, and argue that such pedagogical spaces can support children in de-stabilizing historically rooted double binds that reinforce cultures of silence. Through illustrative examples of students’ talk and texts, we explore how a specific focus on blending oral storytelling-stimulated dialogue with technology can become a platform for critical inquiry that engages, rather than suppresses, the double binds children experience by virtue of their immigration histories and cultural and linguistic identities.Šiame dvejus metus trukusiame kokybiniame tyrime dalyvavo 103 dvikalbiai pirmos klasės mokiniai, besimokantys pagal pradinės mokyklos raštingumo ugdymo programą, kurioje daug dėmesio skirta mokykloje ir už mokyklos ribų įgytai patirčiai, fotografijai bei kitiems daugiamodaliniams tekstams kaip semiotiniams šaltiniams. Remdamiesi kritinės pedagogikos ir kultūros istorijos veiklų teorija, padėjome moksleiviams kritiškai analizuoti dominuojančios hegemoninės perspektyvos epistemologines pasekmes. Vykdydami vieną iš mokymosi programos užduočių moksleiviai turėjo fotografuoti savo kasdienes šeimos ir bendruomenės veiklas ir panaudoti šiuos vaizdus žodžiu pasakojant istorijas bei raštu kuriant daugiamodalinius produktus. Šiame straipsnyje analizuojame duomenų šaltinius – vaikų diskusijų mažose grupėse garso įrašus ir jų daugiamodalinius tekstus. Atlikta teminė ir diskursinė duomenų analizė, nustatyti vaikų įsitraukimo į veiklą naudojant nuotraukas mokymosi procese modeliai. Tyrimas atskleidė, kad mokiniai užduotį atliko labai pilietiškai, atskleidė dažnai nutylimas socialines problemas ir bendruomenės skaudulius. Straipsnyje nagrinėjame moksleivių dialogų-diskusijų kulminacinius momentus, atveriančius galimybes aptarti temas, kurių neretai išvengiama klasės kontekste; teigiame, kad iš tikrųjų toks pedagoginės erdvės panaudojimas gali padėti vaikams destabilizuoti istoriškai susiklosčiusias neišsprendžiamas dilemas, skatinančias tylos kultūrą. Pateikdami iliustruojančių moksleivių pokalbių ir tekstų pavyzdžių, nagrinėjame, kaip specifinis dėmesys mišriam žodiniam istorijų pasakojimo paskatintam dialogui, panaudojant technologijas, gali tapti kritinio tyrinėjimo platforma, kuri įtraukia, bet ne nuslopina ar užgniaužia, su neišsprendžiamomis dilemomis susiduriantiems vaikams, atkreipiant dėmesį į jų imigracijos istoriją, kultūrinį bei kalbinį identitetą

National mandates and statewide enactments: Inquiry in/to large-scale reform

Since the inauguration of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in the United States, with a billion-dollar budget to induce educational reform, American schools have been under the microscope for meeting accountability standards for students. The performance pressures have intensified as the consequences for not achieving academic benchmarks have escalated. Schools have been mandated to report on student performance as measured by standardized tests and other instruments using scientifically based research. Across the nation, state departments of education, supported by federal funding, work diligently with schools to implement instruction and assessment practices required by NCLB. In this article we will examine one state???s response to NCLB. Specifically, we will analyze the impact of an action research project on the teaching and learning of reading teachers at sixty schools involved in the Indiana Reading First program. Reading First, the reading education component of NCLB, provides funding for professional development in schools that have not successfully achieved their designated benchmarks in reading. We present a brief synopsis of the controversies surrounding Reading First, debates necessary for understanding the politics of large-scale reform initiatives as they materialize on local and national playing fields. Next, we describe the rationale, goals, and phases of the action research project. We then look across the teachers??? action research projects to consider their impact. Next, we examine one teacher???s project in more depth. In the last section of the paper, we reflect more critically on the successes and shortcomings of the action research projects as well as the struggles of working with/in a large-scale systemic reform initiative.close

What is Home? A Collaborative Multimodal Inquiry Project by Transnational Youth in South Philadelphia

This piece reflects the work of a group of middle- and high-school students who are exploring issues of social justice, educational equity, and access in the context of a community- based partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the St. Thomas Aquinas community in South Philadelphia. The youth, who represent a range of racial, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, each explored what “home” meant to them through multiple rounds of writing and revision. Then, after reflecting further through art projects and group conversations, they collaboratively assembled these final compositions with their peers

What is Home? A Collaborative Multimodal Inquiry Project by Transnational Youth in South Philadelphia

This piece reflects the work of a group of middle- and high-school students who are exploring issues of social justice, educational equity, and access in the context of a community- based partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the St. Thomas Aquinas community in South Philadelphia. The youth, who represent a range of racial, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, each explored what “home” meant to them through multiple rounds of writing and revision. Then, after reflecting further through art projects and group conversations, they collaboratively assembled these final compositions with their peers