Learning From Urban Immigrant Youth About Academic Literacies

This book reports on a two-year long, qualitative literacy case study of the academic literacies of first and second-generation immigrant youth in an afterschool tutoring program in South Bronx, New York. Through transcripts of tutoring sessions, interview data, and youths’ written work, each chapter highlights how youth interpreted and navigated various school assignments, and what resources and perspectives they brought to unpacking the meaning and significance of texts and disciplinary discourses. By focusing on the immigrant youth themselves, and not on the teaching that happens (or does not happen) inside classrooms, this volume provides a unique and much-needed vantage point to understanding the academic literacies and engagement of urban immigrant youth.

This book revolves around educating recently arrived immigrant youth in the United States who are emergent bilinguals. Drawing on a seven-year research collaboration with three ESL teachers in an urban secondary school in the United States, it addresses questions around taking a critical approach to language and literacy education, including what this looks like in everyday practice and what emergent bilingual youth can learn from it. The chapters illustrate the praxis of critical language and literacy education undertaken by everyday ESL teachers, curricular materials and pedagogical practices that promote emergent bilingual youths’ engagement with words and worlds, and finally, a methodological and relational approach to researching with classroom teachers. The book introduces teaching practices such as dialogic problem-posing, translanguaging and translation, the use of multimodal texts, and youth research on language. Arguing for the potential power of critical language and literacy education for immigrant youth and their teachers, this book will benefit educators, researchers, and graduate students in the fields of language and literacy, second language acquisition (SLA), ESL and TESOL pedagogy, and in curriculum studies, education of immigrant children and youth, and multicultural issues in education.

This collaborative volume offers an in-depth portrait and valuable reference for the development of clinical or school-embedded partnerships in teacher preparation by drawing on the decades-long partnership between a university and set of schools in an urban neighborhood. In the midst of a national movement towards partnership-based clinical teacher education, this book explains and illustrates the roles, commitments, and collaborative practices that have evolved. Divided into three parts, contributors outline the theory and practice of the clinical teacher preparation model and its neighborhood focus, covering topics such as: The social and institutional context of partnership development and teacher education; Key collaborative and learning practices; Challenges and questions that have emerged, and what can be learned from the experience. Written with voices of university faculty, school educators, program graduates, and students from partner schools, Thomas Del Prete offers a volume perfect for those looking to be inspired by an example of clinical teacher education and partnership in an urban community and to learn what can be achieved with conviction and perseverance over time.

This is the first book dedicated exclusively to presenting the current state of scholarship on multilingual development and language use among adolescents. Drawing upon the fast-growing interdisciplinary field of youth studies, the book provides a detailed examination of the linguistic, cognitive, and literacy development of multilingual teenagers in home, school, community, and global contexts.Areas covered include: • effective needs analysis • using the CEFR as a resource for course planning • writing scenarios for classroom teaching and assessment • triangulating course objectives, materials, and learners’ goals • key terminology Extra resources are available on the website: www.oup.com/elt/teacher/lcp Brian North is a co-author of the CEFR and of its companion volume, and was Chair of Eaquals from 2005 to 2010. Mila Angelova is the Academic Vice Chair of Eaquals and Head Director of Studies at AVO Language and Examination Centre, in Sofia. Elzbieta Jarosz is a member of the Eaquals Certification Panel and is the Academic Director of Gama College, in Krakow. Richard Rossner is a co-founder of Eaquals, and a co-author of the European Profiling Grid and the Eaquals Framework.

Contributors to this book have illuminated the practices of literacy and learning in the lives of urban youth. Their descriptions and assessments of these practices are anchored in perspectives of «New Literacy Studies». The ten studies explore a number of urban scenes in order to engage, understand, and present multiple youth identities, attitudes, activities, representations, and stories connected to a range of situated, adaptive, and voluntary uses of literacy. The authors use a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to explicate the various skills, the distinct methods of production or composition, the subjective and collective meanings, the mutable and variegated texts, and the dynamic contexts that urban youth utilize for expression, affirmation, and pleasure. There is a response to each chapter by a major scholar in its area of focus. Together, these studies and responses contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the pedagogies, politics, and possibilities of literacy and learning in and out of school.

This powerful book demonstrates how culturally responsive teaching can make learning come alive. Drawing on his experience as a fifth-grade teacher in a multiethnic school where children spoke over 14 different home languages, the author reveals how he created a language arts curriculum from the students’ own rich cultural resources, narratives, and identities. Illustrating the challenges and possibilities of teaching and learning in a large urban school, this book: Documents how a culturally engaged pedagogy improved student achievement and increased standardized test scores.Examines the literacy practices of children from immigrant, migrant, and refugee backgrounds, and includes powerful examples of their voices and writing.Provides an invaluable model of reflective practice, including a wide array of student-centered strategies, to generate powerful learning experiencesDemonstrates a way for teachers to tap into the various forms of literacy students practice beyond the borders of the classroom. “Campano illustrates what it takes to be a teacher with heart and soul, not simply one who succumbs to the increasing calls for higher test scores and standardized curricula. . . . There are many lessons to be learned from this gem of a book.” —From the Foreword by Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts at Amherst “Campano shows us what we can do—what we must all learn to do—to restore children’s full humanity to the center of U.S. literacy education.” —Patricia Enciso, The Ohio State University

This volume aims to reveal how Dewey’s notion of the religious—understood as faith in the human relational condition—offers a way to think differently about the aims and purposes of education. After exploring the effects of neoliberal conceptions of schooling against broader democratic forms of education, this book suggests that Dewey’s vision of the "teacher-as-prophet" is a useful model for positioning teachers as agents of social change. By catalysing the religious work of schools—understood not as teaching religion, but as a process of social unification—the Deweyan teacher-as-prophet can stimulate experimentation towards a democratic ideal of schooling.

This book provides targeted suggestions that educators can use to ensure successful teaching and learning with today’s growing population of transnational, multilingual students. The text offers insights based on the author’s observations, interactions, and interviews with second-generation immigrant children, their families, and their teachers in the United States and South Korea. These collected stories give educators a better understanding of how elementary school children engage in language, literacy, and learning in and across spaces and countries; the forms of unique linguistic and cultural knowledge immigrant children build, expand, and mobilize as they move across contexts; the ways in which immigrant children position themselves and represent their identities; and how educators and researchers can honor these children’s identities and unique talents. Featuring children’s narratives, drawings, writings, maps, and photographs, this resource is must-reading for educators and researchers seeking to create more inclusive learning spaces and literacy practices. Book Features: Examples of students’ literacy practices with insights for more effective teaching.Practical lessons gleaned from children engaging with language and literacy in flexible and dynamic ways in their everyday lives.Targeted suggestions to help educators better understand and utilize children’s unique linguistic abilities and cultural understandings. Discussion questions and examples that challenge deficit perspectives of immigrant children and reposition them as multilingual and transnational experts. Implications for educators and researchers seeking ways to amplify young immigrant children’s voices and leverage their knowledge.