GSU Framework to Re Envision Instructional Scaffolding Question

You will provide a one paragraph summary or reaction for each selection. Then you will respond to the following question, “What are my beliefs surrounding planning for diverse learners and assessment?” This reflection should be at least two paragraphs in length.

A Framework to Reenvision
Instructional Scaffolding for
Linguistically Diverse Learners
Luciana C. de Oliveira, Steven Z. Athanases
Scaffolding as metaphor needs to be reenvisioned as more than uniform supportive
routines that often reduce disciplinary challenge and interest, particularly in the
teaching and learning of linguistically diverse learners.
O
guage practices do not readily align with school-based
norms (Delpit, 1988; Heath, 1983). Over 10% of U.S. K–12
students (over 5 million) are designated as ELs (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2015). Large numbers
live in California and Texas, whereas states in the
Midwest, South, and Atlantic Seaboard recently experienced more than 200% growth in the numbers of ELs
in schools.
Supporting language development of this new mainstream (Enright, 2011), while advancing subject matter learning, creates challenges and opportunities.
We need to rethink the scaffolding metaphor to serve
such a linguistically diverse population. For example,
in classrooms with many bilingual students, teachers
often provide too much support (Valencia & Wixson,
2013), oversimplifying and overscaffolding writing
tasks (Kibler, 2013).
Scaffolding originates in Vygotsky’s (1962) zone
of proximal development, targeting the gap between
current performance and levels that learners may
reach without assistance (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976).
Starting with caregivers’ attention to children’s learn-
lga (all names are pseudonyms), an eighth-grade
language arts teacher, teaches writing to emergent bilingual learners (hereafter, also ELs,
aligned with common usage). Olga considers ways to
support students of varying levels of English proficiency. In another school, Consuelo teaches 12th-grade government to students currently or recently developing
English proficiency. Olga and Consuelo are new teachers
in California, considering ways to scaffold instruction
for their culturally and linguistically diverse students.
Drawing on our research, teaching, and collaborations with teachers like Olga and Consuelo, we present
a framework that reenvisions instructional scaffolding
for diverse learners. Scaffolding provides entry points
to challenging work and approximates larger tasks,
parsing them into manageable pieces. Such supports
can be routines, including note-taking structures,
graphic organizers, simple vocabulary work, and text
recall questions. Routine supports are limited, however, and sometimes problematic. They assume the same
needs among learners and can become so routinized
that they lose potential to foster learning that teachers
envision. Such supports also may underestimate students’ learning potential, instead of targeting higher
level disciplinary literacy goals. Routine supports can
become a crutch for teachers and students (what some
call hand-holding) rather than fading and transferring
responsibility from teacher to student.
These issues are particularly salient for linguistically diverse learners. We refer especially to those
developing English-language proficiency (ELP) while
engaged in content learning and students whose lan-
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
pp. 123–129
LUCIANA C. DE OLIVEIRA is the chair and a professor
in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the
University of Miami, FL, USA; e-mail ludeoliveira@
miami.edu.
STEVEN Z. ATHANASES is a professor of literacy and
teacher education in the School of Education at the
University of California, Davis, USA; e-mail szathanases
@ucdavis.edu.
123
doi: 10.1002/jaal.663
© 2017 International Literacy Association
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
scaffolding goal is developing their metacognition
(Walqui, 2006).
ing and dyadic tutoring, scaffolding moved into classroom research and practice, generating possibility and
many questions (Langer & Applebee, 1986; Pea, 2004;
Stone, 1998). Aligned with its origins, scaffolding needs
a contingent and faded process containing both planned
and interactional elements (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005;
van de Pol, Volman, & Beishuizen, 2010).
Reenvisioning scaffolding for diverse learners includes adaptive and contingent teaching, involving
decisions that teachers make moment by moment to
redirect literacy activity, add tailored supports, and assess kinds and levels of assistance needed at different
points of difficulty (Athanases, Bennett, & Wahleithner,
2015; Parsons, 2012). Supports need to be adjusted beyond mechanical use. Worksheets can aid learning but
prove problematic if they dominate instruction or are
disconnected from larger goals. Direct instruction can
be used purposefully as scaffolding when followed by
engaging inquiry activities, for instance (Schwartz &
Bransford, 1998). For bilingual learners, an ultimate
A Framework to Scaffold Learning
of Linguistically Diverse Students
We have worked to understand how, why, and when
supports work, for whom, and in what ways, as well as
tensions that teachers encounter as they support an increasingly diverse student population. Three questions
frame the work of thoughtful scaffolding for linguistically
diverse learners (see Table 1): For whom is particular scaffolding appropriate, for what purpose(s), and how? These
domains interact, pulled apart here to highlight features.
Adapted from an earlier framework to guide attention to
ELs in teacher education (Athanases & de Oliveira, 2011),
domains include guiding questions (shaped by literacy
research) that raise issues and aid planning and relevant
actions that teachers can take to address the questions.
Table 1
Framework to Reenvision Instructional Scaffolding for Linguistically Diverse Learners
Scaffolding for linguistically diverse learners by domain
Design issue
For whom?
For what purpose(s)?
How?
Focus
Scaffolding is continually
contingent on students’
histories, experience,
resources, and evolving needs.
Scaffolding for basic,
intermediate, and disciplinary
literacy goals
Scaffolding is planned,
interactional, and responsive,
with an eye toward fading and
transfer of responsibility.
Guiding questions
■ How does knowledge
of learners’ language
backgrounds and
proficiency levels inform
my teaching?
■ How do I continually
learn students’ linguistic
resources and needs?
■ How do I build on
students’ cultural and
linguistic backgrounds?
■ How do I scaffold
individual learning within
community?
■ How do activities and
supports serve long-term
literacy goals?
■ How do I keep disciplinary
literacy goals center stage
(beyond generic literacy
actions)?
■ How am I engaging all
learners across language
levels in deep disciplinary
challenges?
■ How does scaffolding go
beyond routine literacy
support?
■ How do planned supports
serve learners of diverse
language levels?
■ How am I balancing
support for knowledge
discovery and display?
■ How do I gauge the need
to redirect and adapt in the
moments of instruction?
■ How do I redirect, adapt,
request, probe, and apply?
■ How do I keep an eye
on long-term transfer of
responsibility?
Relevant actions
(planning and
data-gathering
points)
■ Document language
proficiency levels of all
students.
■ Document achievement
that is there.
■ Ask and listen beneath the
surface.
■ Diversify purposes, aimed
toward disciplinary literacies.
■ Align supports with longterm literacy goals.
■ Keep disciplinary challenges
high, with engagement and
language supports.
■ Use planned scaffolding to
design instruction.
■ Adapt scaffolds
purposefully.
■ Use interactional
scaffolding to support
language production.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
124
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
Ask and Listen Beneath the Surface. Students can fall
through the cracks, especially ELs and students whose
language practices do not align with norms of academic
English. Teachers may wonder, What is going on here?
Why are particular students struggling? Several processes help teachers learn of students’ interests, perceptions of content, and challenges regarding literacy and
academic work. Tools include reflective quick-writes,
brief surveys, focal student interviews, and observation
field notes on group work. Through such tools and processes, teachers ask and listen beneath the surface of
classroom activity (Athanases et al., 2013). Many teachers find these processes invaluable in learning what
achievements some students have made and where individuals and groups need additional supports.
Scaffolding for Whom?
As learners gain capacity, teachers need to fade scaffolding, with fewer deliberate supports in place. This
gradual withdrawal enables transfer of responsibility
for increased student control of a task (van de Pol et al.,
2010). Diagnostic strategies, including formal and informal assessments, guide appropriateness of supports for
students’ current understandings (van de Pol, Volman,
& Beishuizen, 2009). Scaffolding needs to be person and
context specific, sensitive to learner intentions and cultural and literacy resources (Dyson, 1999).
Others (e.g., Delpit, 1988) have described how some
educators, particularly white monolingual teachers, often see youths of color and emergent bilinguals in ways
that assume deficiencies and underestimate potential.
How shall teachers move past such deficit thinking?
One way is to engage studies in self-reflexive inquiry
into race, language, and other forms of diversity to challenge oneself about multiple identity factors. Three other actions (see Table 1) prove useful.
Actions in Practice. During preservice, Olga, a white
monolingual teacher, illustrated all three actions in the
domain of scaffolding for whom. In her eighth-grade
class of all ELs Olga investigated ELP levels of her students to gauge scaffolding needs. She mapped plans to
teach persuasive letter writing, attending to argument,
counterargument, rebuttal, and audience. For a teacher
inquiry project, Olga documented learners’ existing
strengths as their compositions evolved over multiple
drafts. She saw that her supports for selecting topics
and developing arguments paid off. However, she could
not understand why growth across drafts was minimal on counterargument and rebuttal and why attention to audience remained weak. She crafted interview
questions for four focal students of various Englishproficiency levels, a mix of Spanish and Hmong speakers, several of whom were fairly recent immigrants. She
sought to ask and listen beneath the surface, exploring
students’ understanding of persuasive writing and their
reflections on support needed.
Regarding audience, students revealed that they
did not understand some job functions and societal
roles that Olga had supplied for hypothetical readers/
audiences for persuasive letter writing. These included
manufacturers and their job functions and senators
and their relationship to making laws. For counterargument, students reported difficulty with imagining perspectives opposite what they attempted to argue. Olga
also learned a need for greater attention to “academic
language on multiple levels.” Interviews helped Olga
grasp some students’ challenges and reflect on how to
revisit and diversify scaffolding for this genre in future
teaching.
These actions remind us of the question, What
logic, understanding, and success do students demonstrate? How can we build on existing strengths? Table 1
Document Language- Proficiency Levels of All
Students. Documenting ELP levels of ELs enables tailoring of supports. To be classified as ELs, students take
an ELP test placing them typically within five levels,
which capture expected language performances for
ELs. Performance definitions provide ideas about what
teachers can do, but they are just the beginning. To fully
understand ELs’ skills and abilities, teachers need to
go beyond what a proficiency test shows. We describe
those next.
Document Learners’ Existing Strengths. Analyzing
student performance informs scaffolding needs. When
exploring evidence in argumentation, it helps to locate growth in that area, teasing it apart from, say,
subject–verb agreement or present versus past tense.
In a study of teaching and assessing writing with ELs,
preservice teachers worked to document existing
strengths (Athanases, Wahleithner, & Bennett, 2013).
Initial readings of student work often yielded dismay
in guiding ELs toward benchmarks and standards.
Such readings often judged writings as far below basic
competency and lacking evidence of achieving learning
goals. A shift in stance was needed to see what seemed
elusive: what a student was expressing and which literacy elements were present, despite a student’s need
for linguistic resources to fully actualize a genre. For
many teachers, this represents a significant shift from
claims of what groups of students cannot do to specific
claims of what students can do as a foundation to support learning.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
125
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
goals. Without this alignment, subject matter learning
is drained of its rich potential.
(scaffolding for whom) identifies additional questions
to help one learn more about students and needed supports. Asking such questions helps generate scaffolding,
in an ongoing way, that is contingent upon particular
learners, their current strengths and accomplishments,
their interests, and their literacy needs.
Keep Disciplinary Challenges High, With Engagement and Language Supports . High- challenge,
high-support classrooms attend to diverse students’
learning. This includes both language and content, systematic talking about the academic language that constructs content, and bridging everyday and academic
registers (Hammond, 2006). Maintaining disciplinary
challenges and supports enables learning opportunities
for students to access regular curricula, without simplifications, so they can fully participate in the classroom
(de Oliveira, 2011).
Scaffolding for What Purpose(s)?
Varied kinds and degrees of scaffolding, for different
times and purposes, are necessary. Scaffolding may
target basic literacy practices (e.g., reading f luency,
note-taking structures); intermediate, generic academic literacy work (e.g., comprehension strategies); and
disciplinary goals (e.g., learning to think like a historian, mathematician, or literary critic; Shanahan &
Shanahan, 2008). Teachers can design activity so students access rich potential of larger goals within focused present action.
Making content comprehensible is important and
supported by methods including Sheltered Instruction
Observation Protocol, which shelters instruction for
ELs, aligned with ELP levels (Echevarría & Short, 2011).
A risk in this process, however, is assuming that sheltering is enough. ELs need access to grade-level texts that
are not simplified and teachers who have ways to explore
language-in-use, beyond sheltering (de Oliveira, 2016).
Actions in Practice. Peter, a white monolingual 11thgrade history teacher, understands the role of literacy
in historical understanding. He implemented all three
actions in the domain of scaffolding for what purpose(s).
In his diverse history class with 30% ELs, he targeted
content knowledge while supporting historical thinking, by diversifying learning purposes and keeping disciplinary literacy goals center stage. “Learning to think
like historians” was a major goal. Activities linked students’ knowledge and literacies to long-term “literacy in
history” goals. Students drew inferences from historical evidence, built interpretive structures by stepping
back from their own initial interpretation and searching for deeper understanding, and considered historical
documents as a corpus of evidence, while using diverse
historical interpretive strategies.
Peter’s ELs struggled with the language of history,
but he kept disciplinary challenges and language supports high so his ELs could access the curriculum,
without simplifications. Timelines visually organized
events, and Peter identified time and causality markers in historical discourse to help ELs access grade-level
texts. He knew that history “does affect students daily….
You need to know the issues behind things, or why is one
candidate pushing one thing or not pushing another
type of deal?” History for Peter is an issue of citizenship,
important in students’ lives and enabling informed decision making. To make supports align with long-term
goals, he helped students make connections across time
periods, identifying “concepts that kind of run through
American history.”
Guiding questions for purposeful scaffolding include
these: How can you keep both challenge and language
supports high so all students engage curricula? Why explore this content? If ELs struggle with language, what
supports can build content understanding? Other questions (see Table 1) help balance scaffolding purposes.
Diversify Purposes, Aimed Toward Disciplinary
Literacies. Assistance with language production, reading comprehension, and writing is helpful for current
and former ELs, but generic supports are best linked
to larger content goals, and multimodal strategies can
help. In working with ELs, teachers frequently use a sequential approach, assuming that basic vocabulary and
skill-level work is prerequisite to comprehension, interpretation, and meaning making. A key problem with
this approach is that emergent bilinguals frequently get
inundated with basic literacy routines without opportunities to take on disciplinary literacy challenges that
make learning purposeful. Such routines may lead to
intellectually impoverished curricula, instead of casting work with ELs and others as high challenge and high
support (Hammond, 2006).
Align Supports With Long-Term Literacy Goals .
When disciplinary literacy goals hold center stage, beyond generic literacy actions, activities help students
access rich potential of larger goals within focused
present action. Prolepsis (Cole, 1996), linking future actions with the present or placing the end in the beginning, enables alignment of supports with long-term
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
126
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
Actions in Practice. Consuelo, a Latina Spanish–English
bilingual 12th-grade government teacher, used planned
and interactional scaffolds consistently (see Athanases
& de Oliveira, 2014). Planned scaffolds supported diverse
literacy goals and included participant structures for collaboration and opportunities for students at all ELP levels to produce language in meaningful ways in groups and
teacher-led talk. One academically challenging activity
asked students to state opinions on the questions, “Is it
government’s role/responsibility to provide aid to citizens
in need, and why?” Students reviewed primary sources
and analyzed why they were or were not beneficial and
whether it is government’s responsibility to provide this
type of aid. Group work provided a scaffold for disciplinary learning, structured with clearly defined roles, which
transferred responsibility to students for engaging in interactive inquiry. Consuelo adjusted scaffolds as needed,
using diagnostic strategies as routine teaching practice.
Consuelo used interactional scaffolds to move discourse and learning forward. She continually probed
students to elaborate on their answers. In one instance,
she asked students to peruse a document, discern the
author’s political ideologies, and predict article content.
She called on a male whose response was “interviews
with people.” Consuelo probed: “About what?” The
student added, “Their point of view.” Consuelo probed
again: “Do you think it’s for or against?” He responded,
“Against.” Consuelo persisted: “Against who or what?”
Despite such brief responses, she used four probes to
get him to eventually offer an ideological stance, the
target of her original question.
Illustrated in this example and many others, the how
of scaffolding (see Table 1) may follow a trajectory. Actions
move from planning and designing lessons and activities;
to listening closely in conferences, whole-class discussions, and group work to students’ ongoing questions and
needs; and then on to modes of adapting and redirecting instruction and supports. Here is where a teacher
might tap a repertoire of interactional scaffolds to probe,
extend, and highlight students’ attempts at meaning making and their emerging understandings. Relevant actions
to support these diverse goals and purposes again follow
this sequence of planning, listening, adapting, and highlighting the contingent nature of scaffolding (see Table 1).
Scaffolding How?
Scaffolding moves beyond planned scaffolds and routines (see Table 1) to include interactional scaffolds and
supports responsive to individual and group needs assessed and identified in the instructional flow. Planned
scaffolds support community building and collaboration for co- construction of knowledge, connecting
curriculum and students’ experiences. Use of culture
enables students to build on prior knowledge.
In add it ion to t hese pla n ned a nd d iag nosed
sca f folds are interactiona l elements that foster
participation in discourse beyond initiation-responseevaluation to purposeful engagement through which
feedback moves discussion forward (de Oliveira, 2016).
Scaffolding needs to be responsive to emerging needs
and adaptive in the moment (Duffy, 2002; Parsons,
2012). In-the-moment responses, seldom viewed as part
of a scaffolding tool kit, are an important part of teaching and learning.
Use Planned Scaffolding to Design Instruction .
Planned elements sequence tasks meaningfully, with
participant structures targeting engagement and language use (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005). Infusion of
visual, aural, and tactile supports is particularly important for ELs. Scaffolding that is monitored and flexible attends to students’ diverse learning needs. Lesson
plans are templates, not scripts. Materials, routines,
and modes are adapted as needed.
Adapt Scaffolds Purposefully. Extending the notion
of diagnostic strategies, when teachers collect and analyze student work and classroom data, they may discern
need to adjust scaffolds and adapt literacy routines, materials, strategies, and activities so these better support
and align with students’ strengths, interests, and needs
(Athanases et al., 2015). Reflecting on students’ evolving
needs enables teachers to develop high-quality rationales to adjust learning supports (Parsons, 2012).
Use Interactional Scaffolding to Support Language
Production . Interactional scaffolds include oral discourse to prompt elaboration, build academic literacy,
and move discourse forward. Classroom interactions
support language production. Verbal and gestural
hints with specific purposes for participation provide
means for attending to academic tasks. Interactional
scaffolds are contingent upon what arises in classroom
discourse. In her work on teaching bilingual children,
Bartolomé (1998) found that teachers too frequently relied on a methods fetish, failing to provide supports that
followed the lead of learners’ resources and needs.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
Toward a Scaffolding Tool Kit
for Teaching Linguistically
Diverse Learners
Scaffolding is an instructional practice not readily resolved, finalized, or routinized. Instead, scaffolding per-
127
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
Table 2
Toward Flexible, Adaptive Instructional Scaffolding for Linguistically Diverse Learners
Reenvisioned scaffolding
for expansive learning
Scaffolding domain
Routine foundational supports
→
For whom?
Uniform and generic to manage teaching
many students per day
→
Differentiated support responsive to
diagnosed needs
Continual use for all to ensure that
components of a learning activity are in
place
→
Planned release to support
independence and advancement to
next levels
Building basic skills to provide building
blocks
→
Challenging disciplinary work
simultaneously with basics
Narrowly focused to foster success with
components of a practice
→
Larger purposes as explicit goals
Supportive routines to internalize
foundations of learning
→
Flexible and responsive to ongoing
developments
Planned scaffolds to carefully structure
pedagogy
→
Interactional scaffolds adaptive in
the moment to emerging language
production
For what purpose(s)?
How?
sists as an ongoing concern, where thoughtful teachers
continually learn about and assess diverse students’ diverse levels and forms of readiness for learning activities.
The work is complex and ongoing. Table 2 revisits the
three domains of our framework, highlighting the value
of routine foundational supports, with a goal also of reenvisioning scaffolding for expansive learning. We find that
thoughtful teachers continually reflect on their instruction and the range of ways that it works and does not work,
and for whom. Such teachers, we find, remain open to and
engaged with new strategies for their scaffolding tool kits,
particularly important in pushing the boundaries of effective pedagogy for linguistically diverse learners.
through teacher inquiry: Focus on writing. New Educator,
9(4), 304–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688X.2013.841
506
Bartolomé, L.I. (1998). The misteaching of academic discourses.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Delpit, L.D. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy
in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational
Review, 58(3), 280–299. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.58.3.c4
3481778r528qw4
de Oliveira, L.C. (2011). Knowing and writing school history: The
language of students’ expository writing and teachers’ expectations. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
de Oliveira, L.C. (2016). A language-based approach to content
instruction (LACI) for English language learners: Examples
from two elementary teachers. International Multilingual
Research Journal, 10(3), 217–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/193
13152.2016.1185911
Duffy, G.G. (2002). Visioning and the development of outstanding teachers. Reading Research and Instruction, 41(4), 331–
343. https://doi.org/10.1080/19388070209558375
Dyson, A.H. (1999). Transforming transfer: Unruly children,
contrary texts, and the persistence of the pedagogical order.
Review of Research in Education, 24, 141–171.
Echevarría, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for comprehensive schoolwide
intervention. Washington, DC: Center for Research on the
Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language
Learners.
Enright, K.A. (2011). Language and literacy for a new mainstream. American Educational Research Journal, 48(1), 80–
118. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831210368989
Hammond, J. (2006). High challenge, high support: Integrating
language and content instruction for diverse learners in
REFERENCES
Athanases, S.Z., Bennett, L.H., & Wahleithner, J.M. (2015).
Adaptive teaching for English language arts: Following the
pathway of classroom data in preservice teacher inquiry.
Journal of Literacy Research, 47(1), 83–114. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1086296X15590915
Athanases, S.Z., & de Oliveira, L.C. (2011). Toward programwide coherence in preparing teachers to teach and advocate for English language learners. In T. Lucas (Ed.), Teacher
preparation for linguistically diverse classrooms (pp. 195–
215). New York, NY: Routledge.
Athanases, S.Z., & de Oliveira, L.C. (2014). Scaffolding versus routine support for Latina/o youth in an urban
school: Tensions in building toward disciplinary literacy.
Journal of Literacy Research, 46(2), 263–299. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1086296X14535328
Athanases, S.Z., Wahleithner, J.M., & Bennett, L.H. (2013).
Learning about English learners’ content understandings
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
128
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
Schwartz, D.L., & Bransford, J.D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition and Instruction, 16(4), 475–522. https://doi.
org/10.1207/s1532690xci1604_4
Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary
literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy.
Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. https://doi.
org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101
Stone, C.A. (1998). Should we salvage the scaffolding metaphor?
Journal of Learning Disabilities, 31(4), 409–413. https://doi.
org/10.1177/002221949803100411
Valencia, S.W., & Wixson, K.K. (2013). CCSS-ELA: Suggestions and
cautions for implementing the Reading Standards. The Reading
Teacher, 67(3), 181–185. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.1207
van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2009). Patterns
of contingent teaching in teacher–student interaction.
Learning and Instruction, 21(1), 46–57.
van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding
in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research.
Educational Psychology Review, 22(3), 271–296. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10648-010-9127-6
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language (E. Hanfmann &
G. Vakar, Eds. & Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Walqui, A. (2006). Scaffolding instruction for English language
learners: A conceptual framework. International Journal of
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(2), 159–180. https://
doi.org/10.1080/13670050608668639
Wood, D., Bruner, J.S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem-solving. The Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x
an English literature classroom. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, 5(4), 269–283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jeap.2006.08.006
Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). Putting scaffolding to work:
The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect, 20(1), 6–30.
Heath, S.B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in
communities and classrooms. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Kibler, A. (2013). “Doing like almost everything wrong”: An adolescent multilingual writer’s transition from high school
to college. In L.C. de Oliveira & T. Silva (Eds.), L2 writing
in secondary classrooms: Student experiences, academic
issues, and teacher education (pp. 44–64). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Langer, J.A., & Applebee, A.N. (1986). Reading and writing instruction: Toward a theory of teaching and learning. Review
of Research in Education, 13, 171–194.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). English language learners in public schools. Retrieved from https://
nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp
Parsons, S.A. (2012). Adaptive teaching in literacy instruction: Case studies of two teachers. Journal of Literacy
Research, 44(2), 149–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X
12440261
Pea, R.D. (2004). The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for
learning, education, and human activity. Journal of the
Learning Sciences, 13(3), 423–451. https://doi.org/10.1207/
s15327809jls1303_6
ILA Gives
You Choices!
Looking for a good book? Check
out the 2017 Choices Reading
Lists—vetted by students and
teachers themselves.
Consider Children’s Choices,
Teachers’ Choices, and
Young Adults’ Choices for
curriculum planning and
summer reading.
See all the lists at literacyworldwide.org/choices
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Vol. 61
No. 2
129
September/October 2017
literacyworldwide.org
19362706, 2017, 2, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.663, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
COMMENTARY
RRQ SNIPPET
How will diversity affect literacy
in the next millennium?
Sarah J. McCarthey
Mark Dressman
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Champaign, USA
C
urrently, competing goals and
practices in education are
shaping what will happen in
the next 25 years. Schools in the
United States are becoming increasingly decentralized with the advent
of voucher programs, charter
schools, and site-based management,
while competing groups attempt to
take charge of systems to reflect
their own community goals and values. At the same time, the moves toward creating national curricular
standards, high-stakes assessment,
and statewide textbook adoptions
tend to homogenize curriculum.
These competing goals are reflected
in the literacy curriculum as well.
For example, reading and writing
workshops that emphasize choice
and flexibility are at odds with onesize-fits-all programs such as Success
for All and Open Court that emphasize conformity.
We envision two quite different
images that may result from the increase in the student population
from diverse backgrounds and the
competing goals of decentralization
and national standards. The first image is that of a multicultural quilt,
created from the diverse experiences
and backgrounds of children and
teachers, stitched together by their
contacts with one another within the
seams of schools. The focus in
schools would be on local, situational literacies. Skills would be taught
in context, students would have multiple opportunities to work in small
groups, and students would have
many choices about the tasks in
which they engaged. Students would
read and critique texts created from
multimedia and written from a variety of points of view that reflected
the diversity of their racial, social,
cultural, and linguistic backgrounds.
Teachers would be knowledgeable
about students’ backgrounds and design literacy instruction in a culturally responsive manner (Au, 1998).
Greater parental involvement and instruction related to community issues
would play larger roles in the classrooms. Assessment would be learner
based rather than standards based
and draw from a multiplicity of
sources. The image of the quilt suggests the breakdown of hierarchy
and the rhizomatic spread of innovative literacy practices (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987).
In contrast to the horizontal
image of the quilt, the vertical
metaphor of the pyramid implies in-
548
creased stratification, increased competition, and hegemonic relationships. Cultural differences are
considered problematic because they
detract from the overall hierarchy
and structure. The groups at the top
have access to what Gee (cited in
Ladson-Billings, 2000) calls high literacy or metaknowledge, while
those at the bottom are limited to
low literacy skills. For example, to
address individual differences in
background knowledge, some students would be creating texts using
hypermedia, while others would be
completing computerized worksheets. Not only would assessment
be designed to compare students on
national averages, but also instruction would be geared to match assessment closely; low-achieving
students would receive remediation
to bring them up to the standard,
and higher achieving students would
have access to increased resources
as needed for the marketplace.
There are a number of challenges that literacy educators need to
address to create quilts. First, managing the numbers of students in an
economic and political climate in
which funding does not keep up
with growth is an enormous task.
Second, with continuing mobility
patterns of both teachers and children, it is unlikely that teachers will
teach in the same community in
19362722, 2000, 4, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/RRQ.35.4.6, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Reading Research Quarterly
Vol. 35, No. 4
October/November/December 2000
©2000 International Reading Association
(pp. 548–552)
REFERENCES
AU, K. (1998). Social constructivism and the
school literacy learning of students of diverse backgrounds. Journal of Literacy Research, 30,
297–319.
BANKS, J.A. (1998). The lives and values of
researchers: Implications of educating citizens in a
multicultural society. Educational Researcher, 27
(7), 4–17.
DELEUZE, G., & GUATTARI, F. (1987).
A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
LADSON-BILLINGS, G. (2000, February).
Reading, writing, and race: Literacy practices of
teachers in diverse classrooms. Paper presented
at the annual meeting of the National Council of
Teachers of English Research Assembly, Seattle,
WA.
MOLL, L., & GONZALEZ, N. (1994). Lessons
from research with language-minority children.
Journal of Reading Behavior, 26, 439–456.
Laura Smolkin
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
R
ebecca Perini’s (1999) dissertation exploring African
American children’s literature
in mixed-race first-grade classrooms
presents a powerful vignette. An
African American teacher read aloud
a racial slur that erupted from a
white man in a book on Martin
Luther King, Jr. Listening, an African
American girl whispered, “Awwww,
he said the ‘n’ word” (p. 170). Some
classmates looked at her; none said
a word; the teacher continued reading. This differed from the teacher’s
usual responsiveness to children.
Earlier Perini had pondered how
“teachers fail to make use of these
books, skittering away from opportunities to guide their students in
considering issues of race, culture
and social justice” (p. 117).
My mostly white preservice
reading and language arts students
surprised me when I presented this
missed opportunity to discuss bigotry and racism. “But look what happened to the teacher who read
Nappy Hair!” White teacher Ruth
Sherman, sharing multicultural literature with her African American students, had disturbed local parents
who believed she had no business
discussing the sensitive topic.
Perhaps, my students worried, re-
How will diversity affect literacy in the next millennium?
sponding sensitively to race was
risky and best avoided.
Diversity and literacy is a complicated topic, made so by very human assumptions, expectations, and
emotions. Still, projections that 49%
of U.S. school-aged children in 2025
will be children of color, and the fact
that all children will need to handle
texts difficult even to imagine, signify that “skittering away” from this
topic is not an option. In the sections that follow, I look at what is,
what must be, and how we surpass
our present limitations.
Tensions in teaching and
learning
Valdes’s (1998) study raises important issues regarding children of
color and their teachers, who are
mostly white. The staff of Garden
School knew little about living in
poverty. They did not understand
how parents (often working several
jobs) could ostensibly care so little
about their children’s education.
They were ill-prepared to teach
English as a second language or to
conduct sheltered English content
courses.
From cultures where very strict
teachers demanded respect, children
“confused the teacher’s friendly demeanor for permissiveness” (Valdes,
1998, p. 5). Unable to speak acceptable English, excluded from content
courses that could have built upon
their existing subject area knowledge, students became “bored and
disruptive” (p. 9). In ESL classrooms
that failed to support communication
of important concepts, children
learned little about using English for
cognitive and academic purposes.
Their access and ability to work with
texts containing significant content
were most severely limited.
549
19362722, 2000, 4, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/RRQ.35.4.6, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
which they live and will become
what Banks (1998) referred to as external outsiders. Third, appreciating
the quilted pattern requires an elevated point of view.
Two threads show promise for
addressing these challenges and
stitching the diverse pieces of the literacy quilt: teacher education and
technology. Moll and Gonzalez’s
(1994) conception of teachers as
ethnographers of communities who
use community funds of knowledge
as resources for learning about students and their backgrounds is
promising. Likewise, teacher education programs can target prospective
teachers to become what Banks
(1998) called internal outsiders,
teachers who are able to understand,
appreciate, and use the knowledge
from within the community. Technology has the potential to promote
the development of a shared knowledge base and allow previously
silenced voices to be heard.
Yet, access to computers may
continue to be problematic for students from diverse economic backgrounds. While all students may
learn basic skills needed to load
computer games or gather information from the Internet, some students
may be limited to being merely consumers, while others learn to critique
and contribute to the knowledge
base. Thus, stratification can be reproduced at a broader, structural level. In conclusion, we pose the
following dilemma: How do we begin to construct a horizontal view of
diversity, rich with possibilities, and
yet, at the same time, appreciate the
unique design without reproducing
hierarchies?
What skills and abilities will individuals need in the world’s developing workplaces? Successful
individuals will rapidly access and
evaluate information, quickly providing solutions to problems through
effective communication (Leu &
Kinzer, 2000). Clearly, these are the
very skills Valdes’s students could
not develop. Although appeals for
equity and social justice may have
fallen on deaf legislative ears, perhaps an argument based on the economic future of the United States
will not. When the minorities become the majority of the U.S. workforce, continued failure to promote
all children’s full access to literacy
threatens the U.S. as a world economic power.
Surpassing our present
limitatio ns
Technology is no panacea in
the complicated topic of diversity
and literacy. Presently, it offers little
to help teachers comprehend their
own assumptions and the limitations
of their thinking. It certainly does
not guarantee that my students’ tentative efforts on topics of race and
marginalization will not be pounced
upon as cultural faux pas.
Still, large, easily accessible,
Web-based picture libraries will enhance ESL students’ comprehension
in content classrooms. Web-based,
native language classes will support
immigrant students’ cognitive growth
so that highly motivated, nonEnglish-speaking students can also
continually become literate in new
technologies. Technology can also
assist teachers with their diverse students. “I want to do what’s right,” a
New Mexico Anglo teacher said to
me, “but it’s so hard to find the
information.”
550
An IRA Web site could provide
that information—minitutorials on
the full range of children—moving us
beyond simplistic descriptions of particular racial or ethnic groups. Video
clips, audio clips, and work samples
giving insight into children and their
school performances, now available
only through purchase, could be
made public. Powerful ethnographies
could truly enable all to see and hear
the communities that figure prominently in children’s lives. If diversity
truly matters to us as a profession,
then it is time to put our expertise in
meaningful forms that America’s
teachers can access. If equity and social justice truly are our goals, we
cannot afford to “skitter away.”
REFERENCES
LEU, D.J., JR., & KINZER, C.K. (2000). The
convergence of literacy instruction with networked
technologies for information and communication.
Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 108–127.
PERINI, R. (1999). Teacher use of African
American children’s literature. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville.
VALDES, G. (1998). The world outside and inside classrooms: Language and immigrant children. Educational Researcher, 27 (6), 4–18.
Anne McGill-Franzen
University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
“O
ur social world, with its
rules, practices and assignments of prestige
and power, is not fixed; rather, we
construct it with words, stories and
silence” (Delgado, 1995, p. xiv).
Look at the structure of the
word diverse, from the Latin
divertere; it literally means turned in
opposite directions. When we speak
of diversity, we often speak of others
whose culture is visible, who are
turned away from the mainstream in
highly visible ways. White teachers in
the United States, for example, like
members of dominant cultures everywhere, think of ourselves as not having a culture: What we experience
seems so natural, it is almost invisible
to us. Diversity in the new millennium may change us, transforming
what we see. As Delgado (1995) and
Ladson-Billings (1999) reminded us,
our personal lives are interconnected
with and inseparable from our social
constructions of what is—what is just
and diverse, visible or not.
Living, teaching, and conducting research in diverse communities
may transform the way we think
about literacy pedagogy. Recently,
colleagues from the Center for
English Learning and Achievement
(CELA) observed more and less effective elementary teachers in a large
urban district in the southwestern
U.S. Our goal was to validate a model of effective teaching that derived
from earlier research. The model
was theoretical and heavily weighted
toward student-centered discussion
and other elements of a constructivist classroom. After just a week, it
was clear to all of us that much of
the instruction in these diverse, urban classrooms was unlike the model. For us, as mainstream
researchers, the contrast between
our model of effective literacy instruction and the reality of urban
teaching was stark and highly visible; we struggled to see beyond it
(to what really mattered).
Our observations of the teachers were blind, that is, we did not
know which teachers were ranked
highly effective within a value-added
framework (Sanders, 1998). Although
the analyses of this study are barely
underway, each of us checked the
observations of our teachers against
the teacher’s value-added ranking of
effectiveness. The results often surprised us.
Among the teachers I observed, the one who facilitated the
READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY October/November/December 2000 35/4
19362722, 2000, 4, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/RRQ.35.4.6, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Touching the future
REFERENCES
DARLING-HAMMOND, L. (1994). National
standards and assessments: Will they improve
learning? (NCREST Reprint Series). New York:
National Center for Restructuring Education,
Schools & Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia
University.
DELGADO, R. (1995). Critical race theory: The
cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University.
LADSON-BILLINGS, G. (1999). Preparing
teachers for diverse student populations: A Critical
Race Theory perspective. Review of Research in
Education, 24, 211–247.
SANDERs, W. (December, 1998). Value-added
assessment. The School Administrator, 55.
[Online]. Available: www.aasa.org/SA/dec9801.html.
Violet J. Harris
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Champaign, USA
N
early a century ago, scholar
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that
the problem of the 20th century was the color line, the racial divide between blacks and whites
(Du Bois, 1903; 1996). At the dawn
of another millennium, the color line
remains a dilemma for blacks,
Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans,
Native Americans, and biracial and
multiracial individuals. Other elements of difference—for example,
language, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, and religion—are
problematic as well. Diversity is a
fairly common topic, welcome or
not, in discussions about literacy. Yet
the acknowledgement and inclusion
of ideas about diversity do not suggest that progress will occur in a linear, unchallenged fashion.
Two of my recent experiences
highlight the intricacies, incongruities, and unforeseen consequences of diversity and literacy.
The first involves a student teacher
who embodies many of the characteristics of those who we assume
will teach in a culturally centered
way. The second explores the views
of teachers who are labeled black
but represent many different cultures
How will diversity affect literacy in the next millennium?
and share ideas about emancipatory
literacy.
An African American student
teacher, whose placement is in the
Chicago Public Schools, posted an email to several of her university instructors in which she shared her
enthusiasm for teaching. She requested help as well. Many of her
fourth graders were unable to read
and comprehend their texts. Her
SOS highlights one of the intricacies
of diversity: How do we prepare
young, motivated, inexperienced
teachers for classrooms in which
many children, but certainly not all,
have reading difficulties of the most
fundamental type, speak various languages and dialects, and represent a
multitude of cultures? The student
teacher requires far more preparation than what is provided by standard methods courses in reading,
language arts, and children’s literature. She needs the educational
equivalent of a duenna.
The teachers in the particular
school district I visited in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant section of
Brooklyn, New York, embody many
elements of diversity. At first glance,
they all seem black, a part of the
vast African Diaspora. Small group
discussions revealed the error of this
cursory characterization as I noted
the telltale cadences of Spanish,
West Indian dialects, and Haitian
Creole. A discussion of two poems,
Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” (in
Cooper, 1973) and Ntozake Shange’s
(1991) “the suspect is black & in his
early 20’s,” allowed us to talk about
cultural similarities and differences.
These teachers view themselves and
their multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, and multicultural classrooms as harbingers of the
future, the reality of the United
States of America. Most are veteran
teachers committed to the education
of children of color. Literacy as liberation or emancipation is a core aspect of their beliefs. They want
551
19362722, 2000, 4, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/RRQ.35.4.6, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
most peer-to-peer discussion was
less effective. As I reflected on my
observation, I realized that the children spent their entire language arts
period chatting with one another
about the dioramas they were building to represent a favorite scene
from their self-selected book. By
contrast, the children in the more effective teacher’s classroom barely
breathed—they were so quiet and
attentive—let alone talked with
peers. Yet this teacher taught each
and every first grader to read. She
spoke with me about each child: his
or her progress and out-of-school
life, and how being able to read
would set each child free. She was
the district’s teacher of the year. I
referred to the latter teacher as a
Marva Collins teacher, because she
embodied all the elements of teaching that made the director of an inner-city Chicago academy famous.
The more effective teacher not only
knew the subject of first-grade reading; she knew her students, she
wanted for them. Darling-Hammond
(1994) noted that “If students construct knowledge in highly contextualized ways based on their diverse,
culturally grounded experiences,
[then effective] teaching must be
highly adaptive, and curriculum…
based on a deep understanding of
students and learning contexts”
(p. 2, 3).
With value-added methodology, each child serves as his or her
own longitudinal control, making it
possible to describe diverse pathways to literacy in terms of test
scores. As literacy researchers we
need to do more. Through our
words and our stories we need to
make visible to ourselves and to our
community what matters to learners
in diverse contexts.
552
sexual orientation, religion, or other
markers of difference. They want
books that accept these distinctions
in a natural, unconscious, and fun
manner. Equally important, they
want school administrators to provide the funds with which they can
purchase the books.
These anecdotes highlight the
messiness of diversity and literacy.
Critical questions emerge: How do
we prepare a majority European
American teaching population to
teach children of color, children who
speak dialects or languages other
than English, poor children, or children with disabilities as well as we
prepare them to teach middle class
European American children? In
what ways can teachers balance
their ideas about the purposes and
functions of literacy in child-centered
ways? How might we reconceptualize assessment and tests to reflect
our understandings of difference?
These questions and others have the
potential to shape literacy research
for years to come.
REFERENCES
CHAMBERS, V. (1998). Marisol and
Magdalena. New York: Hyperion.
COOPER, W. (Ed.). (1973). The passion of
Claude McKay: Selected prose and poetry,
1912–1948. New York: Schocken Books.
DU BOIS, W.E.B. (1903; 1996). The souls of
Black folk. New York: Penguin.
MYERS, W.D. (1999). Monster. New York:
HarperCollins.
SHANGE, N. (1991). Nappy edges. New York:
St. Martins Press.
SOTO, G. (1997). Buried onions. New York:
Harcourt Brace.
WALTER, V. (1998). Making up Megaboy. New
York: DK Publishing.
READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY October/November/December 2000 35/4
19362722, 2000, 4, Downloaded from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/RRQ.35.4.6, Wiley Online Library on [18/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
literature and literacy materials that
reflect their students’ heritages in a
culturally conscious way, literature
that addresses the political realities of
being a person of color in the U.S.
I shared examples of literature:
Monster (Myers, 1999); Buried
Onions (Soto, 1997); Marisol and
Magdalena (Chambers, 1998), and
Making Up Megaboy (Walter, 1998).
After talking about how we might
share these books, encouraging response to the texts in multiple ways,
and analyzing the texts’ literary elements, a question is raised that stops
discussion: “Are there books that
show blacks as happy in everyday
situations?” Herein lies a contradiction. These teachers also want books
that are not weighted with the burden of explaining race, gender, class,