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Second language literacy through literature.

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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....

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