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home > areas > ci > profiles > stritikus

Academic Areas & Divisions
Curriculum & Instruction

Teaching the Bilingual/Bicultural Student
Education

Curriculum and Instruction 540
Autumn 2008Thursdays —4:30 to 6:50pm

Instructor: Tom Stritikus, Miller Hall 206

Office Hours: Thursdays, 3:30-4:30pm and by appointment.

Email: tstrit@u.washington.edu
(This is the best way to get a hold of me. I can generally get back to you the same day.)

Course Description

The development of a second language is a cognitively, linguistically, and culturally daunting task for many culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students.  Teachers of CLD students are presented with the equally difficult job of creating learning environments to facilitate second language development. This course will present you with a broad framework for understanding the political, legal, policy, and cultural dimensions of schooling for immigrant students.

In addition to being a general introduction to the issues facing culturally and linguistically diverse students, this course will help students develop the specific competencies for the “Culture” requirements of the Washington State ESL secondary teaching endorsement. This course is one of 6 courses required to gain an ESL endorsement.  Specifically, students will:

  • Understand ways to create partnerships with families and communities that enhance the educational experience of CLD students

  • Understand the impact of students’ cultural identity on learning and school achievement

  • Develop ways to incorporate cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource in classroom instruction

  • Develop an understanding of the historical and legal issues surrounding CLD students

  • Develop the tools necessary to serve as an adult advocate for CLD students

Course Texts

(All course texts are available at the University Bookstore. Each is also available on amazon.com).

Olsen, L. (1997). Made in America: Immigrant students in our public schools. New York: The New York Press.

Suarez-Orozco, C. E., & Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2003). Children of immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Additional Course readings available through online journals access through UW
Libraries.

Requirements

Readings and Class Participation.  This course is designed as a reading seminar. This places the responsibility for class discussion and learning in your hands. Come prepared to actively participate in a critical analysis of the week's topic, informed by thoughtful consideration of all the assigned readings. You can not participate unless you come to class each week. If you think you will miss even one class, you should consider not taking the course at this time. 

Writing Assignments:  Throughout out the course there will be a series of writing assignments that will serve as an opportunity for you to digest, analyze and apply the readings for the week. The particular requirements for each assignment are described in the syllabus. Each of the assignments is short in scope (around 500 words depending on the assignment). While you do not need to use APA format for the assignments, they should be typed, well-written, and make specific reference to the readings, when appropriate.

Final Project.  There are two options for the final project. If you are completing this course as part of the ESL endorsement you must choose the second option. Otherwise, you are free to select either option.

 

Option # 1   Review of Educational Research

While this course attempts to provide an introduction to the broad array of issues facing immigrant students, it is at best just a cursory look at the many issues that have been examined through educational research. The purpose of this assignment is for you to develop a deeper understanding of a pressing question in the field of the education of immigrant students. To do this, you will complete a ‘review of research’ which examines a question of your choosing. Your final product will be a 12-page double-spaced formal paper using APA style.

The following steps will guide you in completing the assignment:

Step 1     Outline of problem/question.

What particular question related to the education of immigrant students is most pressing for you? Your question should attempt to illuminate some key issue for immigrant students and/or their teachers. Thus, the range of possible questions is extremely broad. They can focus on school-based issues (e.g., what is the nature of literacy development for ELL students? or how are ELL students best assessed?) or they can focus on more broadly defined themes (e.g., what is the role of gender in the adaptation of immigrant students? or how does race and class impact the school experiences of recent immigrant students?). 

You will send me an abstract of your question. Your abstract should include: the question and any related sub-questions. You should also include some analysis of why you chose this particular question and what you think its importance is to the education of immigrant students. Your abstract should be about a page long. I will respond to your question and suggest some places to start your review of your research.

Step  2  (Due by Week 5)

You will then develop the 12 sources on which you will base your literature review. I suspect that you may have to sift through/read more than the 12 sources to complete this assignment. At this point, you will be attempting to find the 12 sources that most directly speak to your question. You will also need to attend to the credibility of these sources. You’ll start with peer reviewed journals or books by major researchers in the field. I will guide you in this process.

Step 3 (Write-up)
A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers.  For the purpose of this assignment, you will be using articles in peer reviewed journals and/or books from major publishers in the field of Educational Research.  In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries. For this assignment, your guiding question will be the question you develop relating to some aspect of schooling for CLD students.
Your review of research must do these things (this will also serve as an organizational structure for your final paper):

  1. be organized around and related directly to the research question you are developing.

  2. synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known about your question

  3. identify areas of controversy in the literature as they relate to your question

  4. draw connections between various studies and bodies of research as they relate to your question

  5. formulate questions that need further research and/or draw lessons from what is currently known for the schooling of immigrant children

As you approach this assignment you might ask yourself some of the following questions to guide your thinking and your process:

  1. What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?

  2. What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies )?

  3. Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?

  4. Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?

As you examine the articles/books you have chosen for this project, ask yourself the following questions that are designed to help you toward writing about the research:

  1. Has the author formulated a problem/issue?

  2. Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?

  3. Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?

  4. What is the author's research orientation (e.g., ethnographic, experimental, program evaluation)?

  5. What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., anthropological, sociological, developmental, etc.)?

  6. What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?

  7. In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (research design, findings, sampling procedures)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?

  8. How does the author structure the argument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?

  9. In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?

  10. How does this book or article relate to the question I am developing?

Option # 2: Student Shadow and Program Improvement

This is a three part assignment. Part # 1 is due by Week 6. Part # 2 is due by Week 9. The final part of the assignment is due on the last day of class.

Part #1: Student Shadow (Due to the time required to complete this assignment you should begin immediately).

With the help of the ESL teacher in your building, identify one CLD student who is new to your school (within the last 6 months or so).  The goal of this assignment is to attempt to see the school environment from the student’s perspective. We will be looking at the manner in which the school environment constitutes a welcoming place for CLD students. For this assignment, we will be focusing on social interactions between the CLD student and other CLD students, other students, other adults in the building in non-classroom settings (lunchroom, hallway, before school, recess, in between class periods, after school, etc).  In addition, we will consider the nature of the ESL program at your school and how it is experienced by the student. If you are not currently teaching, you can do this assignment in any school with a population of CLD students.

To complete the assignment, you’ll need to ‘shadow’ the student over the course of the next two weeks. I realize that your ability to shadow will be deeply constrained by your work context.  Then, keep a journal that documents what you observed. Some questions to consider:

  • Who does the student interact with?

  • Who doesn’t the student interact with?

  • What structures exist school wide to facilitate the integration of the student?

  • What structures seem to work against this?

  • How does the student fit in socially?

In addition to these social questions, gather some information about the nature of the ESL program that student receives. If you are an ESL teacher, you might need to ask the student’s other teachers about what happens for the student in their classes. If you are a mainstream or content area teacher, try to get a sense of what is going on for the student instructionally in other situations. You are not trying to perform an evaluation or be judgmental. You are merely gathering descriptive information about how the student experiences the school’s ESL program (and that means what happens in both an ESL setting and a ‘regular’ classroom). You’ll need to conduct a minimum of three shadows. You might also need to interview key teachers who are involved in delivery of structure of the school’s program.

After you complete your observations and brief interviews, you’ll write a 3-4 page memo detailing what you found. As you consider the non-classroom life of this particular student, please explore the connections between their school life and the ideas presented in Ovando, Valdes, Olsen, and Berman et al.

Part #2: Student Shadow and Observation

This assignment continues what you found on your first student shadow assignment. Now you will conduct four “classroom observations” of a CLD student. Ideally, it would be the same student, but that might not be possible given your situation. Since you will be confined by your schedule, this will heavily influence the student you select and class time you are able to observe. You’ll also need to secure permission from one of your colleagues to conduct this assignment.

Your goal is to be able to see how this particular class period is experienced by the CLD student. To this end, you will keep a journal of your observations. You may want to ask the student a few questions that might come up from your observations of the student. You could also ask the teacher a few questions. Please include these questions in your journal.

Then, after you have spent some time understanding part of this student’s instructional reality, write a 3-4 page paper detailing what you found to be the key elements. Are there parallels to this student’s life and the student presented in the research of Olsen, Valdes, If so, how? If not, why do you think these differences exist? What do others in your school need to know about the data you’ve collected? What are the implications for what you’ve found out for school improvement issues at your school?  What did you learn about the nature of your school’s program for ELL students?

Part # 3 (final part): What needs to be done

Based on what you learned from the first two assignments, develop a 3 page memo that outlines steps for program/school improvement that you would suggest to the decision makers at the school or district. You should refer directly to both your assignments and course readings, in this assignment.

Grading

Each of the course requirements has a particular point value adding up to a total of 100 points. Your final grade will be based upon the number of points you earn divided by 4.

Participation 20
Weekly Writing Assignments 30
Final Project 50

Late assignments are not accepted. No extensions will granted on any assignments (this includes weekly writing assignments).

Course Readings and Outline

Week 1 (09/25): No Class. Instructor at Northwest Regional Labs Board Meeting. Begin Reading for Week 2.

Week 2 (10/02):  Immigration and Linguistic Diversity in Educational Contexts 

Readings

  • Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 from  Suarez-Orozco, C. E., & Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2003). Children of immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Valdés, G. (1998).  The world outside and inside schools:  Language and immigrant children.  Educational Researcher, 27 (6), 4-18. (Reader)

Writing Assignment

Immigration has, and continues to be, one of the primary sources for linguistic diversity in the United States. In our present historical moment, foreign-born residents make up a larger percentage of the total population than any other time since the great waves of immigration in early 1900s. Our nation’s relationship to immigrants is at best tenuous.
There is often dissonance between democratic, egalitarian ideals, and our treatment of persons of color. There are a number of commonly accepted "truths" or ideals we espouse that seem to conflict with our educational responses to the needs of immigrant students. In this session of class, we will explore how immigration has impacted schools. In particular we will consider the popular “truth” that: This is a nation of immigrants. We welcome immigrants and the diversity they bring.  In reality, our behavior is often quite different: we are often nervous about the very differences (diversity?) that immigrants bring. One of these differences is at the core of being an immigrant: the use of a language other than English.

In preparation for our discussion, please take up one of the following questions. While your response should draw heavily from the week’s readings, you are free to add analysis based on your own research, work, or experience.  Your response should be approximately 800 words.

Question #1:

Do we in fact value immigrants for more than cheap labor?

  • Recognizing individual differences in attitudes, has all of the more positive "open-arms" sentimentality (e.g., Statue of Liberty) disappeared?
  • What is the connection between the answer to the above question and schooling for immigrant children?

  • Is it realistic or even desirable to believe that you can have a policy that encourages labor of immigrants but expects them to leave families at home?  (e.g., a bracero-type program, Bush’s guest worker proposal)

Question #2:

Is it realistic or desirable to try to use the schools to cleanse immigrants of their language and culture and to turn them into little undifferentiated "Americans"?

  • Do you want to turn parents off?  Research (Rumbaut) suggests immigrant parents, by virtue of their positive energy and expectations, are essential to school success.  Can you maintain this if you quash language?

  • What about use of their language to reach parents?  Parents as partners in education?

  • If language is a key ingredient of culture, might you not strip a child of all foundation by not respecting his language in school?  Might there be serious confusion in a child who may not be expected to be part of mainstream culture as part of first generation in U.S.

Question #3:

To what extent is backlash a product of fear of numbers?  (i.e., our "culture" as we know it is threatened by mass immigration). What is the impact of this backlash on the schooling of immigrant students?

Week 3 (10/09): Legal, Historical, and Policy Foundations of Immigrant Education

Readings

Ovando, C; Collier, V, & Combs, M.C., (2003). Policy and programs, (Chapter 2). In, Bilingual & ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts. McGraw Hill: Boston, MA. 

  • Crawford, J. (1995). Some Crawford reading?. (Reader)
  • Gandara, et al. (2004).  Legacy of Brown: Lau and language policy in the United States. Review of Research in Education, 28.  (yes).
  • Rachel Moran (2008) piece
  • Moran, Rachel F. (2005). Undone By Law: The Uncertainty of Lau v. Nichols. La Raza Law Journal, 16. 1.

Writing Assignment
The recent school board elections in your district in Western Washington signaled a major change in the community. For one thing, the demographics of the school district have shifted significantly. While it continues to serve a primarily middle-class and professional population who are overwhelmingly from native English-speaking backgrounds, recent world events have caused an influx of refugees in part because of the actions of local charitable and religious organizations. In addition, a local military base that was closed five years ago has been converted into low-income housing, and has drawn a substantial group of Spanish-speaking (mainly from Mexico but about of quarter of them from other Central American countries) as well as Somali and Vietnamese families. Because the base installation falls within the school district boundaries, there has been a significant increase in students from these backgrounds.
The demographic changes have fueled considerable local political controversy, one result of which was a highly contested school board election that resulted in new board members for 3 out of the 5 seats. The two incumbent seats represent traditional liberal perspectives sympathetic to immigrants at an abstract level, but with little experience in dealing with language minority populations -- the district has had only a small (about 2%) group of children of foreign professionals in the computer and biotechnology industries. The three new seats are made up of the following:

  • Ruth Segal, a retired attorney whose own children attended the public schools, and who ran out of concern for the education of her young grandchildren. In the elections, Ms. Segal was outspoken about the need for making the schools the best they can be for all students, and that different students have different needs, and principals and schools, especially the site councils, should be given considerable resources and leeway in determining what's best for the school. In her campaign speeches, she spoke passionately about the wisdom of true local control and the "broken promises of centralized bureaucracy". She said the problems posed by the influx of immigrants and refugees into the district can be taken care of locally, because they are concentrated mostly in two out of the district's twelve elementary schools.

  • Arian Belago, a CEO of a small high-technology company with a doctorate in computer science. Mr. Belago is a personal admirer of Silicon Valley entrepreneur and political Libertarian Ron K. Unz, who authored Proposition 227. He has been an outspoken opponent of the recent immigration to the district, and campaigned on the idea that the school district needed to improve services for “their own homegrown students.” He is a third-generation immigrant and believes that immigrant students are served best when they shed their ‘old world ways’ and become American.

  • Sara Cantiller-Chang, a parent who was born in the Philippines and immigrated when her American-born husband changed jobs and moved to the district. Ms. Cantiller-Chang early in her career was a high school English teacher in Manila. She believes in the value of bilingualism, and she has been a vocal advocate for better foreign language programs in the schools. Her message resonated strongly with the local business community, and because of her engagement with local civic organizations such as the Rotary Club, she was widely considered the "establishment" candidate during the campaign. Curiously, aside from showing compassion citing her own immigrant background, Ms. Cantiller-Chang did not take an active position with respect to the language minority students in the schools, saying that she would study the matter thoroughly if she is elected.

The first school board meeting of the year is about to take place next Tuesday, and one of the agenda items is a discussion of programs and policies for English learners. You are concerned that the school board lacks even the most basic information on the legal rights of these students. Based on what you know from the readings, write an e-mail memorandum to the school board outlining the district's responsibilities under Federal law to educate these students. The note should be short -- no more than 800 words -- people don't read long e-mails. Be sure to give them the gist of the major federal court decisions as well as a sense of where they should turn for additional information. You should draw heavily from the readings but do not need to make direct reference to them. Try to be creative in making the information as appealing to the board members as possible!

Week 4 (10/16):  School Level Improvement and Programs that work for CLD Studetns

Readings

  • Collier, V. & Thomas, W. (2007). Predicting Second language Academic Success in English Using the Prism Model. International Handbook of English Language Teaching, 15, 333-348.
  • Freeman, Y. & Freeman, D. (2007). Four Keys for School Success for Elementary English Learners. International Handbook of English Language Teaching, 15, 349-364.
  • Nieto, S. (1999). Who does the Accommodating? Institutional Tranformation to promote learning. In, The Light in Their Eyes. Teachers College Press.   (Chapter 4)
  • Berman, C. Minicucci, B. McLaughlin, B. Nelson & K. Woodworth (1995).  School Reform & Student Diversity: Case Studies of Exemplary Practices for LEP Students. P.

Read the following:

Introduction and CHAPTER 4 Linda Vista Elementary School
or
CHAPTER 6 Graham and Parks Alternative Public School  and CHAPTER 7 Hanshaw Middle School Modesto City Schools
or           
CHAPTER 8 Horace Mann Academic Middle School San Francisco Unified
School District      

Writing Assignment to be distributed by email.  

Week 5 (10/23): Bilingual Education Debate

Readings  

  • Gandára, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J., García, E., Asato, J., Gutiérrez, K., Stritikus, T., & Curry, J. (2000). The Initial Impact of Proposition 227 on the Instruction of English Learners. Santa Barbara, CA: Linguistic Minority Research Institute. Available at: http://lmri.ucsb.edu/resdiss/2/pdf_files/prop227effects.pdf
  • Rossel, K. (2003). The Near End of Bilingual Education," Education Next, 3(4), Fall 2003: 44-52.   http://www.educationnext.org/20034/44.html
  • Stritikus, T. & Garcia, E.E. (2003). The role of theory, policy and educational Treatment of Language Minority Students: Competitive Structures in California. Educational Policy Analysis Archives 11: (26).  http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n26/
  • Thompson, M.S., DiCerbo, K.E., Mahoney, K. and MacSwan, J. (2002, January 25). ¿Exito en California? A validity critique of language program evaluations and analysis of English learner test scores. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(7). Retrieved [date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n7
  • Chapter 5, Immigrant Children in Schools, in Suarez-Orozco, C. E., & Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2003). Children of immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Additionally, spend at least one hour on each of the following websites: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/  
    (bilingual Education Advocate)
    http://www.onenation.org/  (Ron Unz’s website).

 

Writing Assignment

A group of votes in Washington State have proposed an Unz-like Initiative that has made it to the ballot in the next election. A great deal of misinformation has characterized the early public discourse surrounding bilingual education. Additionally, you feel there has been very little attention paid to the needs of immigrant students and the role that schools can and should play in meeting them. You have decided to write an 800-word letter to the editor to better inform voters on the issues surrounding bilingual education.

Week 6 (10/30):  Student Experience of School:  Theories Explaining the Under Achievement of ELL students

Readings

  • Chapter 4, Remaking Identities, in Suarez-Orozco, C. E., & Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2003). Children of immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Olsen, L. (1997). Made in America.  Introduction, Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Writing Assignment

The first five chapters of Olsen offer us vivid portraits of immigrant student underachievement. All too often, these are very common stories. Nieto, Noguera and Professors Suarez-Orozcos offer various theories and analysis about student underachievement. To what extent do you think the theories offered in those two sets of readings have explanatory power in describing the experiences of the immigrant students in Olsen’s book? What (if anything) that Noguera, Nieto and Saruez-Orozcos highlight do you find compelling for explaining the nature of schooling for immigrant students?  (600 words) 

Week 7 (11/6):  Culture and Student Achievement

Readings

  • Olsen, L. Made in America. Chapters 6, 7, 10, 11
  • Gold, N. (2006). The High Schools English Learners Need. Santa Barbara, CA: Linguistic Minority Research Institute.
  • Lucas, T. (1993). Applying elements of effective schooling for language minority students. National Clearing House for English Language Education: Washington, D.C. 

Writing Assignment

Memo to Madison Adult Community

Cleary Madison High is replete with a host of structural issues that limit its ability to meet the needs of immigrant students. Lucas offers a starting point for thinking about the real work that needs to occur if we are to reform schools. For this assignment, imagine that you are one of the concerned teachers at Madison High and you have decided that something needs to be done.  Based on your reading of Lucas (as well as other course readings), outline and describe two areas in which you would you might mount a reform effort. Where would you start? What would that work include? You will be sending your memo to various members of the adult community with the hope of starting the reform process, so you’ll want to sound credible but not overly academic.

Week 8 (11/13): Student Learning in Classroom Contexts

     Readings

  • Gibbons, P. (2007). Mediating Academic Language Learning Through Classroom Discourse. International Handbook of English Language Teaching, 15, 701-718.
  • Short, D. & Echevarria, J. (2004/2005). Teacher Skills to Support English Language Learners. EducationalLeadership, 62(4), 8-13.
  • Dong, Y.R. (2004/2005). Getting at the Content. Educational Leadership, 62 (4), 14-19.
  • Bielenberg, B. & Fillmore, L. (2004/2005). The English They Need for the Test. Educational Leadership, 62(4), 45-49.
       
  • Zwiers, J. (2004/2005). The Third Language of Academic English. EducationalLeadership,62(4), 60-63.

Week 9 (11/20): The Home School Connection for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students     

Readings 

  • Moll, L., C. Amanti, D. Neff and N. Gonzales. (1992) Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2): 132-141.
  • Huss-Keeler. (1997). Teacher perception of ethnic and linguistic minority parental involvement and its relationship to children's language and literacy learning: A case study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(2), 171-182.

Week 10 (11/27):  University Holiday

Week 11 (12/4):  Project Sharing, Make-up, Add-on Day


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