Section 3:  Scaffolding the learning and assignments

BHCC Research Findings on Best Practices for Teaching ESL

Characteristics of asset-based/accelerated vs. deficit-based/remedial approaches to teaching ESL

Despite the research cited in the preceding section around the benefits of integrating content and language through linked courses and content- and language-integrated curriculum, there’s still a perception that the still-developing English proficiency of ELL students leaves them incapable of engaging with rigorous academic content.   Though we disagree with this conclusion, it is true that ELL students face unique challenges in engaging with academic content due to the greater linguistic demands as well as the text complexity, assumed background knowledge and academic language of much of the content. 

For ELL students in college introductory content courses like the cluster course we were teaching, the course textbook often presents the perfect storm for ELL students, with its inherently disjointed and ultra-concise format.  For this reason, scaffolding is key in supporting students in engaging with the high-level content of the textbook.  One initial step is to carry out a materials analysis to determine what language learning is needed to support students’ understanding of the textbook. (Crandall, 1998).  A textbook analysis can be very detailed and may include examination of the vocabulary, grammar patterns, language functions and passage sequencing (see Reynolds, 2010).   Based on this analysis, the ELL teacher can design learning activities that support students in understanding the textbook. 

Aurora

As content faculty, my focus is on teaching content in my discipline and on my students demonstrating the learning that has occurred.  I assume that my students must read and comprehend because they know I will assess their learning.  I assume that they will read the 30-plus pages of readings per chapter, or otherwise they will not be able to respond to the assessment and demonstrate that they have learned the concepts.  Though my assessments usually require written responses or oral presentations, I never considered the way students go about writing and reading.  I was interested in the product, not the process.    

Jeff

From the beginning of our planning, I saw that supporting my students to read, engage with and apply the concepts from the sociology textbook would be a primary challenge.  Though Reynolds (cited above) presents a comprehensive materials analysis, my analysis of the SOC textbook was more limited in scope. Though I had chosen the textbook based on its better organization and formatting – such as use of white space, more accessible language and minimal use of cultural allusions – I also saw that the academic language and assumed cultural knowledge would make it a difficult read for my students.  My first step in planning out my lessons around the textbook was to determine what gaps or challenges students would have in understanding the textbook and to plan activities to address those gaps and challenges.  Because I suspected that some of my students would have little experience reading textbooks, I planned an initial lesson at the beginning of the semester reviewing with the students the textbook genre and, more specifically, how the SOC textbook was organized.  Facilitated through paired interactive activities, I had the students identify how the chapters were organized: the learning objectives were stated at the beginning, a brief vignette opened each chapter, and each chapter included insert boxes and a summary section.  Students also analyzed how sections were organized into major and secondary sections, how to identify key points, and how to interpret words in bold, text in the margins and other indicators of key concepts.  Then, before assigning chapter sections from the textbook, I would review them and identify vocabulary or terms that would be challenging for the students.  Though textbooks will often provide additional explanation for concepts the authors predict will be confusing, these predictions are based on the assumed reader being a native speaker raised in the US.  ELL students are more likely to stumble on cultural references embedded in the text or idiomatic phrases.  By conducting this analysis, I was able to identify challenges in the materials and then preview them with students before they were assigned to read them. 

In addition to this pre-reading support, I also plan assignments and activities for students to complete both while reading and after reading the textbook.  Because students will better comprehend challenging texts when applying active reading strategies, I assign a “guiding questions” handout each time I assign a textbook section reading.

Guiding questions for better understanding the text               
Name ________________

Directions: Preview the assigned sections of the textbook.  Then do the following:

1. Identify key concepts and ideas for each section

2. Based on your preview, write 4 guiding questions to help you understand key concepts for each section.

3. Then as you read the section, answer your guiding questions using your own words.

The act of identifying questions and searching for those answers supports students in better engaging with the textbook concepts, and the completed handout provides a support for them when they discuss the textbook section during the following class.  For that post-reading discussion I put students in groups of three and assign each group a concept from the textbook reading to review and then explain to the class.  After 10-15 minutes of discussion and interrogation of the text, each group reports back to the class on their assigned concept with directions such as these below:

Group discussions of the textbook reading

Directions: Discuss your assigned concept with your partners.  Then report back to the class.

1. Explain the concept in your own words.

2. Discuss the example in the textbook that is used to explain the concept.

3. Use your own example to explain the concept

These pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading assignments and activities are all ways in which students are supported in engaging with the textbook content both independently and collaboratively in a recursive way, with each engagement building on the preceding one and leading to a better understanding of the textbook section. 

Aurora

A concrete benefit from clustering with ELL faculty is the knowledge and certainty that the students in the class have read the assigned textbook material.  The assignments created by an ELL faculty partner provide this evidence. I can even take the students’ responses to their ELL assignments and use them as a jump off point in my lecture in Sociology 101.  I also am able to get Jeff’s feedback on concepts that students are having difficulty comprehending so that I can tailor my lessons to reinforcing the concepts, creating more examples or interrogating students’ own responses or ideas that were written up in Jeff’s class.

Jeff

But our students needed more support than just with reading the textbook.  Reading and writing are connected but they also tap into different processes.  The essay assignments that Aurora and I had developed were more demanding than those that I used in my stand-alone ELL classes.  They had more steps embedded within them, they required an understanding of challenging content and they required analysis and critical thinking in applying the content.  Having our primary assessments – the essay – in place and defined through backward design was key in supporting the students in writing them.  That allowed us to start scaffolding these assignments from the very beginning, when students read the textbook sections that directly addressed the content they needed to apply in these essays. 

As an ELL instructor, I know that students understand a text better if they are required to produce something while reading it or after reading it.  Doing something (or interacting) with the reading engages active reading, which in turn leads to better understanding.  Consequently, I often assign short graded 100-200-word writing assignments (analyses) to accompany a reading assignment.  These analyses are always assigned with a prompt I develop that requires the student to engage with what Aurora has identified as the most important content in the assigned textbook section.  These short analyses which the students write are, in turn, used to scaffold their writing of the essays.  For example, our first essay assignment requires the students to apply the “sociological imagination” to their own analysis of their arrival story to the US in the concluding paragraph of their essay.  The sociological imagination is introduced in Chapter 1 of the textbook.  Knowing that students will later need to apply the concept in their essays, my prompt for their analysis requires them to apply the sociological imagination to themselves in a more basic application.  Subsequent readings also are accompanied with analysis prompts that address components of the essay.  Then the students are encouraged to use their analyses in writing their essays.  In this way, the students have already started writing their essays before they have even seen the essay assignment.

Below are the homework assignments for my ELL class that are designed to scaffold and support the students in writing the first draft of the essay assignment profiled earlier in this article.

Homework for Sept 12 for ELL-103

· Read Ch 1: Textbook p. 2-20

· Answer your guiding questions for textbook p. 13-19

· Analysis: Review the meaning of “social location” p. 3 in the textbook and then write a 100-150 word paragraph that responds to the following prompt. Explain the concept of “social location” in 1-2 sentences in your own words. Then explain what your social location is.

Homework for Sept 19 for ELL-103

· Read textbook p. 40-44, 56-61

· Complete guiding question handout for the above sections

· Analysis: Write a 100-150-word response to the following prompt: Review the list of US values on p. 56-57 in the textbook. Choose one value from the list of ten values that you believe is also a core value in your country of origin. Give an example or explanation that shows the importance of this value in your country of origin. Then, identify a core value in your country that is not on that list (it could be the opposite of one of those values or something completely different.) Give an example or explanation that shows the importance of this value in your country of origin.

· Bring an umbrella in case it rains during our tour of Chelsea

Homework for Sept 26 for ELL-103

· Analysis: Review the concept of “the sociological imagination” p. 2-3 in the textbook and then write a 100-200-word paragraph that responds to the following prompt. Explain this concept of “the sociological imagination” in your own words and what Henslin means by the “connection between history and biography.” Then identify a cultural value that you hold and discuss how it connects to your cultural history and your cultural biography.

Aurora

When a concept, a text or an experience is presented and analyzed through different disciplinary perspectives, it can blur the borders between the two disciplines so that the learning becomes intertwined and iterative.  That learning is the magic of a learning community cluster that we want students to experience. 

These essays are the key assessments for determining if our students have met the SOC-101 learning outcome that “students examine the impact of social & cultural factors on the self, and on individual and group behavior.”  As content faculty, I frame these assignments so that they require students to apply sociological concepts and perspectives to their own stories and experiences, and it is my responsibility in evaluating those final essays to determine if they have met that outcome.  But it is through working with my ELL faculty partner that students have the opportunity to engage with these concepts multiple times through close reading of the textbook, written analysis assignments and class activities that allow them to apply concepts to concrete and personal experiences.  Therefore, the writing of the first draft is actually the product of earlier assignments created by Jeff which serve as the first stage for writing the essay.  This is how we scaffold the learning for the students and support them in completing the higher stakes assignments, such as writing the major essays.

Before teaching with my ELL counterparts, I did not think of creating lower stakes learning activities to scaffold the learning needed for completing these demanding and higher stakes essay assessments.  It was only after I observed how my ELL counterparts created reading/ writing/speaking activities that engaged with the reading and writing processes around the content that I understood the need to scaffold activities and scaffold the learning towards the higher stakes essay assessments.