In preparing this curriculum unit, I’ve had to look back at the year as objectively as possible, not an easy trick. What came to mind was the difficulty of the first few weeks of school. More specifically, organizing a writing program that fit the needs of children with DRA reading levels from two (kindergarten level) through 20 (second grade level) proved to be both challenging and frustrating. Consequently, it is important to have a philosophical and pragmatic attitude about the curricular demands made on teachers, demands that don’t exactly jibe with the realities of the classroom situation.
I mention this in spite of my personal history. I’ve been teaching English as a foreign and second language to children and adults for fifteen years; my experience is significant. This, however, was my first year in a self-contained third grade bilingual classroom--an interesting tidbit that shows you’re never too experienced or too old to learn.
During the beginning of the school year, new teachers experiment with class-management strategies and block out units for the whole year--daunting but challenging tasks. Therefore, solid but simple suggestions on how to get the children writing immediately could ease the load for the new bilingual teacher.
With this in mind, I have outlined a writing plan that I will use during the first six to eight weeks of school next year. The plan is designed for students learning English, some of whom may not be literate in their first language. The ideas I will be adopting could also work for regular education teachers who are unfamiliar with the special challenges involved in welcoming bilingual children into a mainstream program.
It contains suggestions and possible lessons that can be adjusted to the level of the student. I have based these lessons on the Higher Standards of the New Haven curriculum provided specifically for teachers of English as a Second Language and Bilingual Education. This guide outlines the four stages of language acquisition and what a child is able to communicate at each stage. These include social and personal communication, interaction in the classroom, and appropriate cultural interchange.
The Higher Standards booklet, a mere eight pages in length, provides a sort of benchmark for the teacher. It is a reminder that learning a language well enough, for example, to analyze information, categorize it, and evaluate that information takes time. In fact, Rebecca Huss reminds us, in her article in the TESOL Journal, (Young Children) that “...becoming literate is a large undertaking for children.”
The lessons begin with the most simple, controlled writing exercises, and proceed after a few weeks to exercises in narrative writing. Ideally, the writing should be linked with literature across the curriculum. The books that I have found most useful are listed in the children’s bibliography at the end of this paper. There is also a new program of reading across the curriculum designed by the Bilingual Department, New Haven Public Schools; these books may also be included. Teachers may choose to pull material from some of the simply written science and social studies readers--these books are leveled in the same way as the regular texts used for the guided reading. The six-week plan includes the following components, including a weekly time line indicated in parentheses; they are explained more fully in the next sections of this paper:
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Print Concepts: what to do before writing (1)
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Rules of the Classroom (1)
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Personal Information: name, address, telephone number, etc. (2)
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Students prepare a self-portrait poster describing themselves (2)
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Journals (2)
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How to Encourage Low-Level Readers to Write (2)
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Dialogue Journaling (3 and 4)
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Pen Pal Journaling (4 and 5)
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Teaching the Past Tense and Reported Speech (5)
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Retelling a Story (5)
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Relaying Messages (5)
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Daily Routine (6)
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Narrative Prompt Writing: The Beginning (7)
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Sample Story Beginning (7)
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Prompt Writing: Using Suspense in the Beginning (8)
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Art Component of Prompt Writing (8)
Lesson plans are included for some of these lessons.
