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The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners PDF

1850 Pages·2010·50.02 MB·English
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UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners (ELLs) using Multiple Intelligences Theory and Cooperative Strategies. TESIS DOCTORAL María Isabel García Garrido Granada 2010 Editor: Editorial de la Universidad de Granada Autor: María Isabel García Garrido D.L.: GR 4251-2010 ISBN: 978-84-693-6700-1 Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Dr. Ángeles Linde López, Senior Lecturer at the University of Granada, for accepting the direction of this Doctoral Dissertation, for teaching and inspiring me, for making a difference in my life, for giving meaning to what Kathy Davis once said: “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove . . . . but the world maybe different because I was important in the life of a child.” To my parents, my brother and my aunt Mari, for motivating me to be a better person, for your unconditional love and support, and for always believing in me! To Dr. Jane A. Montes, Director of Language Minority Services of Cicero Public Schools District 99 and Dr. Cynthia K. Valenciano, Department Chairperson for the Department of Early Childhood Primary and Bilingual Education of Chicago State University, for accepting being the expert reviewers of this doctoral dissertation. To the teachers who have contributed with the letters about the students who participated in this study: Gina Pontarelli, Ryan Pellizari, Dorothy Vitacca and Luis Ramirez. Thank you for your time and collaboration. To the teachers at Lincoln School: Paula Kostelec, Paula Manetti, Erin Scott, Carole Scardina, Dalia Sobyra, Camille Salas, Carlin Martinez and Julie Bero. Thank you for your help, professionalism, and support in hard times. To my fantastic students, for always feeling like participating, for your positive attitude, for lighting my days with your joy and for helping me become a better teacher. To the friends who supported me along the way: Juan Villegas, Susana Oncina, Carolina Maroto, Yelena Vargas, Loli Valero, Marta De Miguel, and Maria Jose Chamorro. Thank you for putting a smile on my face when I most needed to laugh. To Bashir, for showing me respect, love and admiration. Thank you for your kindness and for being there for me every time that I needed you. If Thornton Wilder was right, I must be ‘alive’ today because I count you all as my treasures. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~ Thornton Wilder Expert Reviews                       1 Dr. Jane A. Montes    Cicero Public Schools District 99  Director of Language Minority Services  Maribel Isabel Garcia Garrido    The  Teaching  of  Writing  to  English  Language  Learners  (ELLs)  using  Multiple  Intelligences Theory and Cooperative Strategies      To:  The Doctorate Commission, University of Granada in Spain      The focus of this dissertation topic reflects the language domain that tends to be  the most challenging area of language proficiency for ELLs who are school‐age and  older.  In Cicero Public Schools District 99, a K‐8 urban school district located in Cicero  Illinois, ELLs receive bilingual program services via ESL instruction or in our additive  transitional bilingual education (late‐exit) program.  They  often remain in services due  to their inability to meet the program exit criteria that now includes the attainment of a  Literacy  Proficiency  Level  of  4.2  (Reading  and  Writing)  along  with  an  Overall  Composite Proficiency Level of 4.8 (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing).   The  author has provided her students with an essential opportunity to learn writing at a  time when there was no formal writing program in District 99.      Next school‐year (2010‐2011) our district will implement a new literacy initiative  that features a reading and writing workshop approach for students across programs.     3 Thanks  to  the  innovative  writing  instruction  that  Ms.  Garcia  conducted  with  her  students for her doctoral work, several of them have already met exit criteria and are  now poised to be successful junior high readers and writers.  Current  literature  on  best  practice  instruction  for  ELLs  promotes  the  same  features of Ms. Garcia’s dissertation on writing instruction for ELLs.  Pauline Gibbons’  2009  professional  book,  for  example,  entitled  English  Learners  Academic  Literacy  and  Thinking:  Learning  in  the  Challenge  Zone  (a  Heinemann  book  forwarded  by  Jim  Cummins), makes a case for emphasizing academic literacies.  In addition to reading and  writing effectively, Gibbons stresses the need for students to use “literate talk” (p. 7): …  make their reasoning explicit, use language precisely, question and critique others’ ideas, and be  prepared to rethink their own ideas.  These language and learning opportunities can be  found throughout the 57 Writing Lessons that Ms. Garcia developed and taught to her  5th grade students.  How to Help Students Succeed Across Content Areas (2009) by Yvonne S. Freeman  and David E. Freeman (a Heinemann book forwarded by Robert J. Marzano) is another  recent professional book that discusses the benefits of developing meaningful content  instruction with both content and language objectives including: identifying aspects of  academic  language  that  students  should  learn,  how  to  determine  if  students  have  achieved  those  results,  and  then  using  that  information  to  inform  instruction  and  learning experiences for students to learn successfully.  Self‐assessment is a critical    4 aspect  of  this  dissertation.    Ms.  Garcia  carefully  incorporated  explicit  and  comprehensible instruction on topics such as intelligence, multiple intelligences, social  emotional learning, and cooperative learning strategies as a vehicle for establishing a  learning context from which to write.  By the time the students learned the different  types  of  writing,  they  were  equipped  with  personal  and  authentic  information  to  generate  an  organized,  body  of  writing  that  they  could  self‐assess  for  quality  and  possible revision.  Most importantly this type of writing experience will reveal to them  their own writing improvement in English.  The literature review in this dissertation sets the stage for the innovative writing  instruction that Ms. Garcia designed for the high achieving ELLs in her classroom that  is also good writing instruction for ELLs at all proficiency levels.   Evidence of the  students’ learning is captured in detail on the DVDs she recorded and there is no doubt  that the students gained a level of self‐confidence as individuals, learners, and writers  for a variety of purposes.  The I am Special and I’m Smart student activities demonstrate  this  in  action.   It   is  refreshing  to  know  that  school‐age  students  are  becoming  knowledgeable about intelligence and multiple intelligences via cooperative learning  strategies that provide them with daily opportunities to work collaboratively with their  classmates while developing their second language proficiency in all four language  domains:  Listening,  speaking,  reading  and  writing;  while  also  building  their  self‐ esteem.    5 In  closing,  it  is  important  to  recognize  the  notable  increase  in  the  writing  proficiency level, literacy proficiency level and overall composite score on the annual  Illinois  English  language  proficiency  test  (Assessing  Comprehension  and  Communication State‐to‐State) of several of Ms. Garcia’s former students to whom she  taught  these  writing  lessons.    The  three  years  (2008‐2010)  of  these  ELL  students’  performance on ACCESS suggests that her writing instruction laid a strong foundation  that led to especially high ACCESS writing scores that are not usually typical in our  school district:        Female 1:                     1L            S               R            W            Literacy PL                Overall Composite (OC) 2010:          5.0         6.0           5.0          4.6              4.7                                5.2        MET EXIT CRITERIA 2009:          4.8         4.7           5.0          3.9              4.1                                4.3 2008:          5.0         6.0           5.0          3.6                                                   4.4 Female 2:                      L            S               R            W             Literacy PL                Overall Composite (OC)     2010:          5.0         6.0           5.0          4.6                4.2                                5.2      MET EXIT CRITERIA  2009:          5.0         5.4           5.0          3.9                4.1                                4.3  2008:          5.0         6.0           5.0          3.9                                                      4.6     Male 1:                      L            S               R            W             Literacy PL                Overall Composite (OC)     2010:          4.6         6.0           5.0          4.5                4.6                                4.9      MET EXIT CRITERIA  2009:          5.0         5.4           2.4          3.7                3.1                                3.6  2008:          4.6         6.0           5.0          3.4                                                      4.3                                                                  1 L: Listening, S: Speaking, R: Reading, W: Writing.    6

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