Week Two #5

When matching English learners with books, teachers and librarians must consider specific language factors that influence comprehension. The more the book material deviates from these criteria, the more teaching support will be needed to assist English language learners. The goal is always selecting quality literature that is well written and illustrated (Gibbons, 2002).
One book I chose to analyze was Waiting to See the Principal and Other Poems. The problem with poems for English Language Learners is that many poems are deeply symbolic and very abstract. If the poems are meant to be humorous, this could be culturally damaging to ELLs because they might not understand the same type of slap-stick humor. This particular book I chose to look at was highly recommended by the school librarian for getting students involved in poetry. However; I would not recommend this book for ELL students. For starters, the poems involved in the book have nothing to do with the title which could be confusing for ELLs, and many of the poems included parodies, irony, and sarcasm, which is a cultural barricade. In order to accommodate English language learners in teaching poetry,  poems that have a rhyming scheme to it, pictures, and the shapes should be selected (Hadaway, 2002). Some strategies to activate schema around poetry for ELLs would be to pre-teach vocabulary (Gibbons, 2002), talk about the structure of the poem, invite students to interpret and give their perspective on the poem, and talk about the titles to the poem. Poems with titles that lend themselves to culture are ideal in providing familiarity for the sake of comprehension for English language learners.
The second book I chose to analyze was the classroom textbook that I use in 8th grade American History, The American Nation. Non fiction books can be intimidating for English language learners because of their technical vocabulary and their unfamiliar contents. When teaching literature to ELLs in content classrooms, the teacher should introduce text structure. Knowing how to navigate a textbook, the headings, subheadings, indexes, glossaries, makes these books more approachable. Also, the teacher should let the ELL student know that scanning and navigating the text is appropriate and that the reader does not always have read entire pages (Hadaway, 2002). Illustrations and books that are visually accessible should be used to help activate and engage schema. In addition, allowing the opportunity for students to write about previous experiences around topics encourages engagement. Here again, vocabulary needs to be addressed and explicitly taught.

References:

Gibbons, Pauline. (most recent edition). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hadaway, N.L., Vardell, S.M., & Young, T.A. (2002). Literature-based instruction with English language learners, K–12. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.