- What do you Think?? REFLECT: Strategies 9-12 (14:39 - 20:30) have a common thread around respecting and honoring a student. Gonzalez cites, “They’re doing twice the job of everybody else in the class, even though the result looks like half as much.” What do you think?
Going through this list it made me reflect on times where I had difficulty understanding an ELL student and how, in the moment, on my toes, I tried to problem solve how to be clearer. If I am an adult and I am self conscious and scrambling to communicate in my area of expertise, OF COURSE our ELL students are doing twice the work. What I am feeling in the moment may be what they are feeling all the time, at least for a period in their experience here. I am not sure if I agree with half the results, but perhaps that is because my content area is heavy on visual products and not reading or writing. I tend to see a pretty even output of quality artwork between our ELLs and English speakers. It's a universal language that everyone has access to.
- Now What?? From the 12 strategies Gonzalez offers, which do you already use consciously? What are the results? Are there any strategies that you connect with and plan to use? How will you know if you are successful? Please explain.
I already consciously use...
Strategy 1: Making it Visual is something we automatically do as Art teachers. All examples and demos are visual as well as verbal. Walking around the room with my own sketchbook to draw or share techniques for individuals as needed helps everyone, but also makes directions clear to my ELL students. Strategy 8: Preteach. One thing I love about Schoology and our district being one to one is that I can have entire units avaible to students ahead of time along with additional resources. When I begin a unit I always share the unit folder with the class and share what is in it that they can explore or revisit at their own pace.Strategy 9: Learn About Cultural Backgrounds is so huge as well. I taught in the Lehigh Valley of PA for 5 years where the population is about 40% Latino. It was exciting to learn about the cultural variety (and sometimes drama between) my students with Dominican, versus Puerto Rican, versus Guatemalan backgrounds. It showed that each individual was important and worth understanding instead of lumping people into one language sharing package.I plan to use...
Strategy 7. By using Sentence Frames on written reflections or during critiques in art. Talking about Art can be a formal process and it would help everyone to model a clear format to do it. I will know it is successful if my students written responses to art express a clear opinion with a specific reason to back it up. Just setting up a space to to hold those two parts on a worksheet would support that practice. Also modeling that everyone share their thoughts in this format and having the whole class practice it when we discuss Art aloud would be helpful.
