Development of Writing in a Bilingual Program. Final Report. Volumes 1 and 2
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 221 057 FL 013 203 AUTHOR , Edelsky, Carole TITLE Development of Writing in a Bilingual Program. Final Report. Volumes 1 and 2. INSTITUTION Arizona State Univ., Tempe. Dept. of Elementary Education. A SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of EdUcation (ED), Washington, DC. PUB DATE Mar 82 GRANT NIE-G-81-0051 NOTE 509p. EDRS PRICE MF02/PC21 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Bilingual Education Programs; *Bilingualism; . Bilingual Students; Child Language; Code Switching (Language); Language Proficiency; Literacy; Migrant Children; Primary Education; *Writing Instruction; *Writing Skills IDENTIFIERS Arizona (Phoenix) ABSTRACT \ t, The writing development of 27 first through third graders in an English/Spanish bilingualprogram was investigated. , Samples of the children's writingwere collected at four intervals during the school year, coded for computer tallying,and analyzed in terms of code-switching, spelling, punctuation and segmentation, structural features, stylistic devices, and content)In addition, the context in which the writing developedwas evaluateby means of classroom observations, teacher interviews, review of thechildren's family backgrounds, and a survey of the communitylanguage situation. The findings provided evidence to counter prevailing mythsabout the language proficiency of bilinguals, biliteracy, bilingualeducation, research on writing, literacy and writing instruction, andlearning to write. For example, the subjects, all children of migrantworkers or Settled migrants, demonstrated varied vocabulary, complex syntax, ack owledgement of the reader, knowledge that contextconStraihs for , and movement toward stylistic sophistication intheir writing. In ta discussion of implications, the concept of a-wholelanguage approach to writing instruction is supported, in which authenticand functional texts are offered to and produced by children. (RW) ***************************************************************=******** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** Developmentoof Writing in a Bilingual Program FINAL REPORT FOR GRANT NO. NIE G-81-0051 Carole,Edelsky Elementary Educ,tic,... Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287 McLL t2. N6kW4b44.4 ( 1.) With special help from Sarah Hudelson, Florence Barkid, and Kristina Jilbert. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) )4This document has been reproduced as 00J-ole c(e1sj received from the person or organizatIon originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality points of view or opinions stated in this docu TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES mont do not necessarily represent official NIE INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." posdion or policy 9 A Development of Writing in a Bilingual Program Table of Contents Volume Page Preface 1 1 Introduction 31 Methodology 52 Contexts 125 The Myths and the Reality 167 Tallieo Findings from Codings of Writing 2 1 Looking Ahead by Looking Back 185 References 218 3 9-* PREFACE It's still possible to hear it in teachers' loungesand read it in the popular press---"they don't know Spanishand they don't know English either. There is also an academic version. In that one, the deficit notion goes by thename of "semilingualism" or "limited English dominant" and the refer- ent is a condition supposedly underlying low test scoresor low achievement in traditional17-defined reading and Language 'Art's programs. It is a condition suffered by many poor minority language children (Cummins, 1979; Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukomaa, 1976) who usually live in language-contact situations. No matter that the systematicity and'legitimacy of non-standard dialects has been demonstratekso well by Labov (11970a)and so many others. No matter that rapid code switching, which is often a feature of the speech of those designated as carrying a "doubl-0e deficit" (DuBois & Valdez, 1980), has been correlated with greater rather than lesser language proficiency (Poplack, 1979). No matter that more thin a decade of research into the nature of literacy (Goodman, 1969; Smith, 1978; Harste & Carey, 1979) Casts doubt on a conception and "operationalization" of literacy that omits accounting for predictions (in processing) and predictability (arising from layers of multiple cues) in print events. Substituting test responses for reading and finding poor minority language children who are poor responders to be semilingual; judging children's language proficiency from test situations which bear little resemance to any other communicative event---these are only a few of the wayswe justify widely shared beliefs about the inferiority ofcer- tain peoples' language. Because the lan'guage deficit idea is still withus, in both more and less sophisticated forms, this report ofa study on the development of writing will begin in an unorthodox iztsh- ion. Though a later chapter Will, consist of a list ofmany myths with counter evidence from our data, this preface will hammer away at one (the myth of language deprivation), and therefore belabor a point that Olould needno such treatment. The assumption in phe present section is that though all members of a speech community may notsubscribeto prevailing beliefs about and attitudes toward language, they know the content of the linguistic folklore (Edelsky, 1974). If that is true, then as a member?of two overlapping communities loosely labeled "Western world academia" and "workers inU:S. public elementary education", I should have knowledge of the content of language deficit ideas in these two communities even in the absence of interview or survey data. Among the dimensions that I believe comprise the more global epith4t called "deprivation" are: meagre vocabulary, non-standard forms, simple rather than complex syntactic constructions, use of general rather than precise nouns, failure to account for the needs of the listener/reader, and wording thatre- flects "poor quality of thought" (which probably means a lack of particular cohesive devices, non-linear organizations, - absence of keen or sustained analysis, absence of inferences or 2 5 syllogistic features etc.). The first two dimensions, vocabu- lary and non-standard forms, have been mentioned in academic discussions of semilingualism (kansegard, 1962, cited in Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukomaa, 1976). Simple syntax and quality- of-thought dimensions, have been examined in numerous studies concerned with the legitimacy, for school curricula, ofpoor or minority children's language. (See Bernstein, 1970; Labov, 1970a;Cummins, 1979 for examples of such work). While the reviews are mixed about the adequacy of these children's oral language usage, they are much clearer in showing thispopu- lation's written language incapacities. However, when "real" writing, not warm-up drills or tests masquerading as reading or wiiting, but writing created to flinction in a given context, is used as data, the incapa- city is not so clear at all. The writing of our subjects (children of migrant farm workers and settled migrants, typi- cal recipients of the language deficit appellation) argues against the idea that the authors are deprived in vocabulary or syntax. It also belies a deprivation claim regarding other aspects of language and literacy, such as accounting for co-participants (readers, in this case) and varying textual features in reponse to contextual features. The data to refute the deficit myth come from a study of writing in a unique bilingual program. At four different times during the 1980/81 school year, a team of researchers collected the writing of 9 first,.9 second, and 8 third graders enrolled in the program. The children's writing was analyzed 3 6 in several respects in order to establish some base line information on development of writing in a bilingualprogram. The team also gathered other data: interviews with teachers and aides, classroom observations, the results ofa language ' situation study, background information on our subjects' older siblings, test data on our subjects, and observations of administrative, parental, and other community members' responses to the bilingual program. These data were used to help in understanding the contexts through which the child- ren's writing was developing. As the team analyzed the data, it became clear that there were many exawles that counter numerous myths/theories (deeply-held systems of beliefs that organize perceptions and experiences (Harste & Burke, 1977)) current among teachers and/or researchers. These will be presented in a later chapter (chapter 4), as will the need for, purposes, and assumptions of thestudy (chapter 1), the methodology, derivation of categories used in coding the writing, means of collecting all the data, and types of anal- yses (chapter 2), detailed descriptions of the contexts through which the writing occurred and developed (chapter 3), findings from the computer analyses of the codings (chapter 5), and classroom implications (chapter 6). The focus on the still-existent myth of non-standard minority language children's language deficits in this open- ing section has two purposes: to entice the reader by revealing at least a few of the "goodies" in advance of the tradition- ally ordered "purpose of the study,methodology, findings," 4 etc.; and to set the tone for the entire report by putting our major bias up front. That is, as with the counter evi- dence