|
|
Background of the Project I teach in the Division of Education, Department of Childhood/Early Childhood at Lehman College/CUNY. All of the students in this particular course were bilingual/biliterate (English/Spanish) graduate students. Some of them were in the early childhood and childhood cohorts. A few of them came from the Speech Therapy Department. Although a few of the students had a number of years of experience in the classroom, for most of them this was their first introduction to bilingual pedagogy. EDE/EDC 738 is a methods course, which means the students will learn the methodology for teaching children how to become readers and writers in family, neighborhood, and school settings. They study how children construct their own understanding of biliteracy and the role of the adult in supporting children's biliteracy development. In addition to doing their own inquiry projects, the students read from the work of several nationally and internationally known researchers in the area of biliteracy. They also read works by children's authors that are written in both Spanish and English, and maintain their own writer's notebook. For the purpose of my WAC project, I focused on one of the assignments, a project in which students are asked to engage in inquiry as teacher researchers. I first had the opportunity to learn about inquiry as a graduate student at Arizona State University and during my year at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, where I taught their inquiry courses. I decided to ask the students to engage in this project due to my strong belief that teachers need to ask and investigate their own questions and pursue their own answers in the company of others. In addition, this project has a more recent story. Last year the required project asked students to complete a study of a theme, author, or genre of children's literature in Spanish and produce 5 related lesson plans. Several students resisted the project, arguing that they had been doing lesson plans for a long time. I decided to ask these students to carry out an inquiry project centered on question they had regarding the teaching of biliteracy. As soon as I explained the new project, the "resistant" students were eager to start. Within a few days, they came up with their own inquiry questions and began their projects. As the semester progressed, I was impressed, for the most part, with their commitment to their inquiries. What surprised me was their level of intellectual engagement, which was very different from that of those students who were doing lesson plans. These students were not only asking hard questions about their own practice, they were also making thoughtful shifts in response to the particular children they were working with. They were posing questions about theory that positioned them in a more dialogical relationship with it. They weren't just consumers of research; they were questioning it, deepening it, and making it their own. As I prepared my syllabus for this semester (spring 08), and thought about my project for this advanced WAC seminar, I met with Elaine Avidon, one of our Lehman College WAC leaders, to discuss some of the possibilities I was considering for this project. After my conversation with Elaine, I decided to ask all of my students in EDC / EDE 738 to carry out an independent inquiry project about an aspect of their practice as it relates to children who are becoming bilingual/biliterate
|
|
|
|
Developing a Line of Inquiry This project asks students to choose a question that is of particular interest to them and relates to biliteracy. From my past experiences as a teacher researcher and as a reader of this type of inquiry, I know that an initial question often arises from a tension that the teacher is feeling in his/her teaching and that this question continues to evolve over time. I explain to my students that the evolving question can be about any topic of literacy. They might, for example, want to begin with a question such as "what happens when I engage my students in discussion after the read aloud?"; or, "what happens when I engage bilingual young children in storytelling?" What matters to me is that each student thinks of a topic or issue that is of great interest to him/her. After all, the student will be working with this issue ALL semester. The students spend a couple of weeks considering tensions in their practice that are related to biliteracy development. By the second week, most students have a strong evolving question.
|
|
|
Double Entry Journal Throughout the semester, students were required to keep weekly observations utilizing the double entry journal format [see links below]. I asked them to gather 9-10 observations in total. These observations, I explained should take place in both formal learning situations and in informal interactions. I asked them to turn in their observations on a weekly basis so that I could provide feedback and conference with them. My aim in providing this feedback was to help them capture critical moments with rich detail and to help them make connections to their evolving question. The students also collected their student(s) work (i.e. copies of notebooks or other related literacy engagements, copies of lesson plans, schedules, charts, tape recordings of children's talk, etc.) I explained that there will be time allocated in class to share their works-in-progress. My hope was that a community of inquiry would develop as they shared classroom stories and supported each other's growth and development as teacher/researchers.
Double Entry Journal Assignment
Double Entry Journal Guidelines
|
|
|
Final Writing Assignment At the end of the semester, I asked each student to prepare first a draft and then a final paper describing: 1) his/her journey as a teacher researcher; 2) the evolution of their question; and 3) the context of his/her inquiry. The students could compose this inquiry in either English or Spanish. During our last class meeting, students presented aspects of their inquiry projects to their colleagues in small groups.
Inquiry Project Guidelines
|
|
|
|
Method After students turned in their observations, drafts and final inquiry paper, I met with WAC Fellow, Rachel Ihara to look over and analyze several of the students' observations, drafts and final papers. We were both struck by the abundance and richness of the material. Several of the thirteen projects were of excellent quality, and most of the students had evolved as teacher researchers in fascinating ways. Yet, given the purpose and nature of this project, it was critical that I only provide a slice of its life. For this reason, I decided to focus on one student whose evolution seemed particularly intriguing. In looking at "Esmeralda's" (a pseudonym) work, I returned to my inquiry questions to consider: 1) how her journaling capacity changed over time; and 2) how she was able to use her double-entry journal to compose her final paper.
|
|
|
What I Learned I love teaching. There is no doubt about it. Yet, during the spring semester of 2008, two experiences made my experience of teaching even more intellectually stimulating and engaging. First, I was able to begin the semester by taking an inquiry stance with regard to an aspect of my practice about which I feel passionate. Second, I was able to develop my own teacher as researcher inquiry project with the support of Lehman's Writing Across the Curriculum program. I know that my experience was richer because of the intellectual atmosphere of these workshops and because of the collegiality of the participants. This space offered each of us the opportunity to engage with others in thinking about our practice. I left our meetings with a renewed sense of engagement and commitment, not only to my own practice but also to the process of inquiry. Taking an inquiry stance allowed me to slow down and pay more careful attention to what my students were actually doing, as I thought about what I needed to do differently. Throughout this process, I was supported by WAC Fellow, Rachel Ihara's gentle nudging. I learned from her how important it is to work alongside the teacher researcher. I can't imagine that I would have taken the risks I took without her caring support and most effective and thoughtful feedback.
|
|
|
