Strategies
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) focus on art as way to guide thinking and visual literacy. It is a specific way of leading children into exploring artwork as a means of interpreting. Three specific questions are used to guide discussions with students. You begin by asking: “What is going on in this picture?” and elicit responses. You follow up comments with: “What do you see that makes you say that?” Your final question prompt is: “What more can you find?” Note that words are critical. Changing the phrasing for example to, “What do you see?”, could lead students to merely list words rather than elaborate. As a facilitator, you must guide this process by pointing to what they refer to, paraphrase student responses, remain open and accepting, let students talk, link thoughts, be mindful of timing.
In this unit, this strategy is key as students explore alebrijes design, by interpreting their forms, patterns and sculptor. Use of VTS as they observe and analyze images or hands-on examples of alebrijes can lead to a generative discussion that can help inspire their own designs for their alebrije.
Collaborative conversations foster the development of speaking and listening skills for students in structured, collaborative and measureable ways. Common Core Standards place an emphasis on increasing student-to-student interactions and dialogue in efforts to provide varied opportunities for students to develop their communication skills by engaging with each other and exchanging ideas effectively to reach higher-level applications of learning. Doug Fisher and N. Frey outline four areas of development that are addressed through collaborative conversations: First, student preparation for conversations is critical; second, students need to engage in discussions with a wide range of peers; third, students are expected to build on each other’s ideas; and fourth, students must be able to express themselves clearly and persuasively. Instructional implications include taking structured approaches to the way students engage by a combination of note taking via a graphic organizer that requires individual reflection, listening and sharing of ideas, building on each other’s ideas in order to arrive at new understandings that are again noted on their graphic organizers. The use of sentence frames to assist students in effective exchanges that help build dialogue is also necessary. Finally, students must become skilled in these exchanges by establishing and adhering to a set of rules for conversing.22
For my unit, the use of this strategy is key to establishing the expectations for discussions that are productive and thought-provoking, particularly for emergent bilingual students who need to build oracy skills via varied opportunities for talk. Thus, language development requires opportunities for production of language that is relevant and precise to the content. These conversations are vital to the analysis of literature that students will embark on in this study. Using these structures will allow students a thorough analysis of story elements such as setting, characters, morals and patterns amongst the different tales they will encounter. They will also set the tone for collaboration in their storytelling application.
Translanguaging pedagogical strategies derive from the notion that translanguaging is a normal language practice that occurs amongst bilingual people. In translanguaging people merge two languages into one register in order to communicate or understand. Translanguaging is not code-switching, positing that two separate language registers exist; rather, it is the ability of a bilingual person to fluidly and flexibly understand or communicate in a mix of both languages in varied contexts. This understanding is critical because when we observe students engaging in such discourse, we must recognize and appreciate that they are using their entire linguistic repertoire to facilitate development of academic language and their understanding of rigorous content. Because this unit emphasizes literacy development in both Spanish and English through engagement with texts and artworks, translanguaging amongst students is an expected practice.
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a strategy utilizing physical movements to help children understand and remember key vocabulary or concepts within a text. Students engage in a series of physical movements in order to retell a story or demonstrate understanding of key concepts. TPR is also used to facilitate “bridging” vocabulary and concepts from one language to another in order to help facilitate higher-order application of said vocabulary or concepts in the second language.
Given that specific selected readings will be done in English, TPR is an engaging approach to help scaffold second language acquisition. Students for example can use this strategy to highlight and recall key vocabulary as they discuss or retell a story or details of a story, and later use this same physical movement to link to the vocabulary word in a second language as they learn how to move from the word to a phrase, and later a complete sentence.
Student as Expert is an approach that you can take each and every day. It reminds us that our students don’t walk in as empty vessels waiting to be filled. Rather they are full of life experiences that are relevant to the learning occurring in the classroom. It is especially vital to practice this in light of the student not yet mastering proficiency levels in their target language.
Guided Reading refers to small group reading instruction that is targeted to the students reading level in both Spanish and English. Because this is a biliteracy classroom, we work both languages alternating days throughout the week for each. Small group instruction occurs at least 2 times per student every week and presents additional opportunities for the students to engage in reading folktales and fairytales.
Independent Reading is the time spent for students to read on their own with minimal support from the teacher. Use of a log that asks students to note or reflect on their independent reading experiences may help in determining how much exposure they may have to particular genres or texts.
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