Teaching Secondary English Learners to Understand, Analyze, and Write Interpretive Essays About Theme

Abstract

Members of a site of the California Writing Project conducted the study in this article in partnership with a large, urban, low‐SES school district where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight‐year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers engaged in ongoing professional development implemented a cognitive strategies approach to reading and writing instruction, making visible for approximately 2,000 students per year the thinking tools experienced readers and writers access in the process of meaning construction. This article describes the final year of the project which addressed teaching students to understand, analyze, and write interpretive essays about theme. Students who received cognitive strategies instruction focused on theme significantly out‐gained peers on holistically scored assessments of academic writing, on a high stakes statewide writing assessment, and on English placement exams at the local community college.

In-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Adolescent ELL Writing Instruction

“…Such an uncertain knowledge base, among ELA and ESL teachers alike, points to a widespread lack of pedagogical writing expertise specific to ELLs. These findings suggest that professional development specifically related to writing instruction and assessment for ELLs, such as that experienced by teachers in the longitudinal study conducted by Olson and her colleagues (Olson & Land, 2007;Olson et al, 2011Olson et al, , 2012, might help empower these teachers to differentiate for the ELL writers in their classrooms.…”

“…Lee () found that focused coursework on teaching secondary EFL writing, specifically on using formative assessments as part of the writing process, helped a case‐study teacher negotiate differences between school policies and knowledge gained through coursework. In the U.S. context, Olson and colleagues (Olson, Kim, & Scarcella, ; Olson & Land, ; Olson, Land, Anselmi, & AuBuchon, ) found a significant positive difference in the analytic writing scores of those secondary ELLs in the United States whose teachers were trained to use a cognitive strategies approach to teaching interpretive reading and analytical writing. Zwiers's () action research, an individualized professional development project, provided the opportunity for an ESL teacher to better understand instruction for ELLs in Grades 7–9, including writing instruction and assessment.…”

Renewing Literature Circles: Pedagogies for Curated Multimodal Responses

“…Nina and Jacob's group had identified "identity crisis" and "quest for discovery" from the teachergenerated list and combined elements of these to form the theme "quest for inner knowledge." Whereas students can be challenged in distinguishing theme from topic, character, and plot (Olson, Land, Anselmi, & AuBuchon, 2010), in this case, the use of teacher-generated examples, scaffolding of textual evidence, and group collaboration supported identification of themes. Aspects of curation (Potter, 2011) were evident as students located written language that resonated with their experience of the novel in the teacherdeveloped list of sample novel themes.…”

Los procesadores de texto y los niños escritores: Un estudio de caso

“…Con el fin de erradicar las deficiencias en comprensión y producción de textos que presentan los niños de segundo grado de básica primaria, los maestros en general se esfuerzan por aplicar diversas estrategias metodológicas (Olson et al, 2010;Regan & Berkeley, 2012;Villalón et al, 2011), no todas ellas con resultados efectivos (Corcoran & Silander, 2009). Para efectos de esta investigación, la estrategia didáctica involucró el uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, más específicamente el uso del procesador de textos como instrumento complementario al cuaderno de escritura a mano alzada.…”