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ENCOURAGING BILITERACY 1

Running Head: ENCOURAGING BILITERACY

Encouraging Biliteracy

in a

Fifth Grade English-Only Classroom

Stephanie Abraham

Department of Language and Literacy Education

University of Georgia


Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the development of biliteracy among bilingual

Spanish/English speaking students. The research question of what ways biliteracy can develop

in an English-only classroom with fifth-grade Latinos who are bilingual speakers of Spanish and

English guided this study. Combining ethnographic, action-research, and case-study

methodologies, this study used classroom observations, student interviews, and student artifacts

to collect and triangulate the data concerning biliterate development. The findings show that

funds of knowledge can be a source to initiate and extend biliteracy development. Also, dual

language books scaffold reading, especially for those who are substantially dominant in one

language for reading and writing. While reading bilingual books, students used translation

strategies such as highlighting or circling the unknown words to equivalent words in the included

translation. Easily decoding words increased students’ willingness to read in Spanish and helped

emerging bilingual students to derive meaning from the text. Finally, the incorporation of

bilingual poetry alleviated some frustration among bilingual students while reading in Spanish or

English because of the brevity of the texts and multiple opportunities to practice.


Introduction

This study presents the findings from research conducted by a teacher/researcher using a

combination of ethnographic, action-research, and cast study methodologies. I, the

teacher/researcher, sought to observe, describe, and support the inclusion of funds of knowledge

and biliteracy development in a traditionally and historically monolingual classroom as equitable

and critical pedagogies for Latino, bilingual students. Looking across public schooling in

Georgia, I asserted that languages other than English are being valued socially, economically, or

educationally. Socially, first languages connect people to their families and cultural history.

Economically, multiple languages are used to negotiate a world-wide capitalistic system, and a

person who knows some of those languages is more competitive in this kind of market.

Educationally, research has established that knowing and learning to read and write multiple

languages contributes to increased cognition (Bialystok, 2001) and academic achievement as

measured by standardized test scores (Snow & August).

Although, the terms ELL and English for Speakers of Others Languages [ESOL] are used

by the state of Georgia and the school where this study took place, the term emerging bilingual

(Garcia, Kleifgen, and Falchi, 2008) counters the deficit view embedded in the label, English

Language Learner, which conveys bilingual students as lacking knowledge of English while

ignoring knowledge of another language. However, these terms, ELL, ESOL, and emerging

bilingual, are used when referring to the settings and the students’ placements within the state

school system. The question, in what ways can biliteracy among Spanish/English bilinguals be

developed by a teacher who does not speak Spanish in an English-only classroom, guided this

study.

Conceptual Framework


Several educational researchers have nominalized the concept that all children have

valuable knowledge that should be recognized and used in classrooms; however often the

knowledge of the marginalized is dismissed and devalued by educational discourses. Gonzalez,

Moll, and Amanti (2005) popularized the term, funds of knowledge which encapsulates this idea;

Thomson (2001) used the term, virtual schoolbag to explain that all students bring knowledge

with them to share, but only some to get unpack their backpacks. Gutierrez and Rogoff (2003)

referred to students’ ways of knowing and learning as repertoires of practice, a term to

destabilize concepts of language and culture, and Baynam (2006) called it “bringing the outside

in” and argued that this may “interrupt the orderliness of classroom discourse to bring the outside

in and the contingency of teacher responses to such ‘interruptive’ moments in the classroom

discourse. (p. 25). These concepts encompass many kinds of knowledges that students have

when they enter classrooms, and often the knowledge of those who lived outside the norm in US

society are silence, ignored, and actively corrected. In this paper, I forefront the linguistic

knowledge that students bring with them to classrooms, more specifically the linguistic

knowledge of bilingual students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. I argue that this

linguistic knowledge must be examined in ways that also connects the microlinguistic practices

of this linguistic knowledge to larger systems of power produced by macrodiscourses concerning

those languages.

Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez (1992) described funds of knowledge as the valuable

knowledge that all people have that allows them to go about and live their daily lives. The

concept stresses the ideas that students and their families are competent people with their own

possession of language and cultural knowledge which can be used to construct more knowledge

in the classroom. Teachers can draw upon the schema possessed by marginalized families as a


valuable resource for instruction in the classroom. In their study the ethnographic methods used

by classroom teachers changed the way that they saw marginalized families, and the teachers

were able to complement their classroom pedagogies with the knowledges they observed in their

families’ homes. Although, students’ linguistic funds of knowledge was not the only focus in

these ethnographic studies, the linguistic funds of knowledge has been forefonted in other

studies, and this research heavily informs my argument concerning the intersection of student

knowledge, their language, and the positioning of students and their language by educational

discourses.

In a study called the Family Stories Writing Project, Dworin (2006) integrated biliteracy

with funds of knowledge. He took the funds of knowledge concept and specifically focused on

the linguistic “fund” of knowledge to create a space where bilingual children could further their

biliterate development.

The Family Stories Project adds to our understanding of the ways in which biliteracy may

be an important tool for children’s learning in classrooms and how it mediates their

thinking by providing greater access to social and cultural resources. Including translation

as part of the project demonstrates that bilingual children have sophisticated levels of

language knowledge and abilities that teachers can easily make part of literacy learning

by valuing biliteracy. The study suggests that the children’s intellectual development was

enhanced because they could use both English and Spanish for their work in this literacy

project. (p.519)

In his project, families stories were used to “mediate their thinking by providing greater access to

social and cultural resources” (p. 519). The students collected a story from a family member,

wrote it, and translated it to Spanish or English depending upon the original version. This study


demonstrated that funds of knowledge facilitated biliteracy development by drawing knowledge

from home, using bilingual students as biliteracy peer resources, and merging the two in the

classroom to further this development.

Connecting to the importance of the family in maintaining and extending biliteracy,

Peterson and Heywood (2007) also found in their interviews of immigrant parents, teachers, and

principals that the support of families’ first language led to additive practices of English versus

subtractive. Surprisingly, some teachers and principals found parents with limited or no English

speaking abilities supporting the students L1 and L2 at home with books, newspapers, and

homework help. The researchers recommended the following for schools and teachers regarding

their policies concerning first language support for students and families. One is to make dual-

language books available and/or invite parents into classrooms to create the books. Two is for

school officials to learn the languages of students in the school. Finally, parents should be

encouraged to read and write to their children in their first language. The previous studies have

bearing on the bi/multiliterate practices that schools and teachers should follow, and in the next

section I focus on what has been found in classroom pedagogies that leads to bi/multiliterate

students.

The Academic Argument for Biliteracy

Focusing on the academic reasoning to use forms of multilingual education for children, I

synthesize empirical evidence that shows that a person must possess a certain level of oral

language proficiency before reading and writing proficiency can be developed in that language.

Thomas and Collier (1997) claim that educational proficiency in the student’s first language is

the best predictor for academic success among students who are acquiring English as another

language. This claim speaks to the importance of first language development in and out of


classrooms. Two-way or one-way bilingual educational models are strong forms of education for

emerging bilinguals because they lead to this language proficiency; several other meta-analyses

of research concerning emerging bilinguals also support this claim by showing the advantages of

two-way bilingual education programs (August and Hakuta, 1997; Slavin & Cheung, 2003;

Snow et al., 1998). These dual language models of education are the strongest because first

language (L1) literacy development aids the development of second language literacy skills, and

these researchers recommended that first language literacy should be developed and supported in

schools. Emerging bilinguals benefit from developing first language literacy skills, and in turn

these skills transfer to other languages that they may be learning at the time or after first

language literacy.

In terms of academic achievement, educational research has firmly established that first

language proficiency and literacy are beneficial to students trying to acquire literacy skills in

another language. Cummins (2001) states that unequivocal support of L1 literacy is needed and a

pedagogical perspective should not be adopted that eliminates one language or the other. Slavin

and Cheung (2003) found additive effects for bilingual children who received bilingual strategies

for teaching reading in English and the first language at the same time. According to this finding,

there is no need to delay reading and writing instruction in English if the child is receiving

literacy instruction in their first language. This means that the bilingual and biliterate classroom

foster the acquisition of first and second languages more so than a monolingual environment for

a bilingual student. Some lingering questions surround this unequivocal support, such as how

multiple languages and literacies may be supported in contexts that may not fit the ideal situation

of dual language immersion program or school. Additionally, new work shows that complete


mastery in first language literacy is not necessary before beginning literacy instruction in another

language (Garcia et al., 2006).

Many of the studies that show the positive effects of bilingual education use a

combination of bilingual strategies that taught reading in the home/first language and English at

the same time (Slavin & Cheung, 2003 p. 40). This idea of not separating languages and

developing two literacies at the same time will be revisited in the section on biliterate

development, but it is fundamental in establishing the bilingual as unique to the monolingual. A

bilingual student is not merely two monolinguals in one, and their literacy development does not

occur in two separate contexts. Cummins (2001) unequivocally states that “strong and

uncompromising promotion of L1 literacy is a crucial component, but we should adopt a

both/and rather than an either/or orientation to L1 and L2” (p. 121). Multiple languages can

complement one another if promoted together, instead of seeing one as detracting from the other.

Multilingualism and bi/multiliteracy has been argued as avenue for metalinguistic

awareness and divergent thinking (Moll & Dworin, 1996). In an ethnographic study of fourteen

sixth and seventh grade students, Jimenez, Garcia, and Pearson (1996) looked at the reading

strategies of successful Latina/o readers in both English and Spanish. They found that the

successful readers used cognates, activated prior knowledge, and consistently translated from

English to Spanish or Spanish to English to draw conclusions from the text. The less successful

Latina/o readers only used these strategies minimally or not all. Additionally, bilingualism and

biliteracy were viewed as assets by the successful Latina/o readers and as handicaps by the less

successful readers Latino/a readers. Among the students were four monolingual English speakers

who also used the strategy of activating prior knowledge to draw conclusions, but they did not

use the biliterate abilities of translation and searching for cognates, however the comprehension


levels of the successful Latina/o readers and the monolingual readers were similar. This suggests

that numerous strategies may lead to increased comprehension, and the bilingual student may go

about comprehending in a manner different than the monolingual student.

Multilingualism and multiliteracies provides more ways of thinking, and acquiring two

languages broadens those tools through access to cultural resources and metalinguistic awareness

(Moll, Saez, & Dworin, 2001). Based on this idea, educators dedicate an enormous amount of

time to developing language and literacy for young students in hopes to establish a solid

foundation for future learning across disciplines. When two languages are involved in literacy, it

has been established that cross-linguistic transfer occurs as suggested in Cummins’

interdependence theory (1981). This means that an even greater repertoire of language and

literacy is being developed among biliterate students. If this principle is applied specifically to

biliteracy, reading and writing skills learned in the first or second language will transfer to the

other. Logically, it would seem that biliteracy would be an even greater intellectual

accomplishment and benefit, but it seems that biliteracy has not only been neglected among

fields of research but also in early childhood classrooms (Moll, Sàez, & Dworin, 2001).

Biliteracy and Pluriliteracy Classroom Practices

The work of Nancy Hornberger, one of the most prevalent scholars on biliteracy, is not

extensively reviewed here; however, in one manner it is included because her continua model of

biliteracy is implemented in many of the studies reviewed in the upcoming section. The inclusion

of the individual studies gives more specificity to the ins and outs of a daily classroom life where

biliteracy occurs. For brevity, Hornberger (2006) explained that “the continua model of biliteracy

uses the notion of intersecting and nested continua to demonstrate the multiple and complex

interrelationships between bilingualism and literacy and the importance of the contexts, media,


and content through which biliteracy develops.” She presents the model as way to disrupt the

binaries in language learning, such a fluent or not, competent or not, and instead reframes

biliteracy to “draw attention to the continuity of experiences, skills, practices, and knowledge

stretching from one end of any particular continuum to the other” (p. 156.)

Multiliteracies and biliteracy classroom practices have received a relatively small amount

of attention in recent educational research. To me, this absence makes sense in a society where

multilingualism/multiliteracy is not especially valued, and the current educational discourses

promote monolingualism as the norm, which in turn produced monolingual standards of

academic achievement. As Moll, Sáez, and Dworin (2001) point out that it is surprising that

“given the predominance of bilingualism in the world and the proliferation of studies about

literacy, that there is a paucity of research on becoming literate in two languages, or more” (p.

436). Classroom research informs us, educational agents, as to how to create classrooms spaces

where multiliteracy and biliteracy may be an outcome. Moll and Dworin (1996) argue that an

“essential element” for bilingual/multilingual classrooms is that students learn “to read and write

in both languages for academic purposes, where biliteracy is an integral and legitimate part of the

intellectual culture of the classrooms, and where both languages are involved substantively in

academic tasks” (p. 240). They need to make this claim because often in bilingual programs the

non-dominant language is seen only a tool to acquire English, and literacy in the non-dominant

language may be foregone.

In a case study of third grade bilingual students Moll, Sàez, and Dworin (2001) found

four conditions conducive to biliterate development. In this classroom, Spanish and English went

unmarked, and either language was used for academic work and support. Multiple texts were

available in both languages, the students were free to engage with them in multiple ways, and the


students exhibited a transfer of literature competencies across languages. Rigorous academic and

socially-oriented content was evident in the bilingual reading and writing of students. Ultimately,

the students in this study learned how to use their multiple languages as a resource for expanding

their thinking about themes and topics. Reyes (2006) found in her case of study of emerging

bilingual preschoolers at home and at school that support from peers and adults in all social

contexts was the most important factors in facilitated the emergence of biliteracy. She also found

biliteracy to be bidirectional in that the student’s L1 influenced their L2 as well as their L2

influenced their L1. Perhaps this study can further establish the idea that “if children continue to

have access to and opportunities to function in both languages and writing systems, they will be

more likely to maintain and continue to develop their bilingualism and biliteracy” (p.289). In a

case study in a bilingual school that tracked four Spanish/English emerging bilinguals from

kindergarten to second grade, two factors were found that contributed to spontaneous biliteracy

(Reyes, 2001). The first is the presence of a learning environment that uses the cultural and

linguistic capital of the child, and the second is a focus on student social play. In this study, the

students took up a bilingual repertoire as a game to be played with and laughed during the

process of negotiating their biliteracy. In this case study, the teachers drew upon the student’s

natural experience to generate writing ideas, in turn using these experiences validated the cultural

identities of these students and it “[unleashed] the potential for bilingualism and biliteracy rather

than forcing them to choose between their two cultures” (p.116).

Similar to Reyes, Dworin (1996) also conducted a case study of second and third grade

Spanish/English bilinguals who were developing biliteracy in the classroom. He looked at the

ways the teacher set up peer interactions to foster natural language use to include code-

switching. This created a situation where the students were linguistic resources for one another;


these peer resources were valuable avenues for student learning giving them access to

vocabulary, language structure, and language pragmatics. Dworin (2003b) further discussed

biliteracy in a case study of Daniel, a 7 year-old Mexican American student, who was becoming

biliterate in Spanish and English. His conclusions stated that Daniel was becoming biliterate

because he thought of his bilingualism as normal and useful for communicating, there was an

additive context for language, the languages were unmarked, and he was able to use various

reading strategies to draw conclusions from books in both Spanish and English.

Worthy, Rodriguez-Galindo, Assaf, Martinez, and Cuero (2003) found in a case study of

fifth grade bilingual students in a bilingual education program that they students were still

experiencing immense pressure to transition to functioning in English only. It seemed that even

though the school environment supported the ideas of bilingualism and biliteracy, the larger

political discourses were saying English is more important. This study illustrates the difficulty of

maintaining bilingualism and biliteracy among a discourse of monolingualism, even in a

bilingual education program that attempts to present both languages as unmarked. Certainly

maintaining bilingualism in bilingual school in the United States’ predominantly monolingual

society is difficult, but it is even more difficult when the classroom is also considered

monolingual. In a rare study of Spanish/English biliteracy developing in the English-only

classroom, Manyak (2006) claimed that biliteracy could be developed in the monolingual setting.

However, he is not optimistic about the “fleeting” attempts of the teachers in this study to foster

biliterate development in a de-jure, English-only environment versus an environment using

strong, systemic forms of bilingual pedagogical models. The greatest disparity occurred among

the highest performing and lowest performing students in the classroom. It seemed that the

students who were more comfortable switching between English and Spanish were able to


benefit the most from the biliterate practices implemented in the classroom. These same students

had also received strong forms of bilingual education in their kindergarten and first grade

classrooms. One particular student who had recently immigrated to the United States and was

just beginning to acquire English showed little progress in developing reading or writing skills in

Spanish or English by the end of the school year. However, Manyak predicted that this student

would not have been more successful if the classroom was English-Only without the biliterate

support. This study further supports the claim for rigorous classroom biliteracy development and

negates the unnecessary separation of languages in the bilingual or the monolingual classroom.

In Cahnmann-Taylor’s and Preston’s (2008) study of emerging bilingual students in an

afterschool poetry program they found how biliteracy in poetry was “a model for exploring

creativity and multiculturalism in English education” (p. 235). Even though this study was not in

a public school classroom, the findings showed many similarities to the previous studies for

instance, “poetry [was] a vehicle for language development, [that invited] bilingual and

bidialectal poet-students to draw upon all of their linguistic and cultural resources” (p. 235). The

dynamic combination of languages around a rigorous intellectual task has appeared to be

fundamental in fostering the further development of both languages in a given context.

Additionally, the authors suggested that “bidialectal and bilingual poems not only encourage[d]

students to tap into their own varied linguistic resources, but [could] also lead students to the

riches of writers in the English canon such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake and Burns.” This

connection to other poets and thinkers is critical because these artists also “employed verse and

vernaculars to address taboo contemporary concerns with language, class, and sexuality” (p.

250). This idea of bi/multiliteracy engaging more than the acquisition of language for students

will be further explored in the next section.


To conclude this section on findings concerning the bi/multiliterate development of

emerging bilinguals, I first address Manyak’s claim that biliteracy can be developed in the

monolingual setting. Overall, I argue that it cannot. Instead, I suggest that the typical

monolingual classroom needs to shift a space of pluri/multilingualism. Multiliteracy has the

potential for practice and development in the space that values multilingualism. The classroom

where this occurs will have to meet certain criteria for this multiliteracy to emerge. The teacher

will play a key role by taking up ideologies that search for untapped linguistic knowledge in

students. The linguistic, cultural, and social capital held by the students would be actively

brought in the classroom to inform classroom knowledge. Cooperative learning that encourages

code-switching and translanguaging would be present in the classroom. Peers would be resources

for the development of biliteracy. Supporting the non-dominant language would not be only an

excuse to enhance English acquisition and development, but literacy in the non-dominant

language would be a goal. Ultimately, biliteracy would be developed because it is valuable as a

resource, and it is part of the identity and everyday practices of the students.

More than Language Learning

The previous section showed what classrooms may look like that use multiliterate

practices to develop multiliteracy in their students, but more than language learning may be

happening in the classroom that acts as a multilingual and multiliterate space. Garcia (2009)

argues that educational spaces that promote multilingualism are the ones that recognize what she

calls “translanguaging.” She defined translanguaging as “the act performed by bilinguals of

accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous

language, in order to maximize communicative potential” (p. 140). This approach to

“bilingualism is centered, not on languages…but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily


observable in order to make sense of their multilingual worlds” (p. 140). To focus on the

everyday practice and not on the language shift how educational researchers and public school

educators may go about creating these translingual spaces. One, prescriptive notions of teaching,

such as best strategies and activities are no longer fore fronted, and for that matter those

strategies and activities will vary and change depending on the observable practice of the

student. Two, because of the dynamic nature of learning that a focus on translanguaging

practices will create, it makes the outcomes of that practiced pedagogy different for each child.

This idea of multiple outcomes stands in stark contrast to what is currently expected from US

public school educators and students. Some recent studies that explore biliteracy beyond the

language learning are reviewed here.

For example, Medina (2010) found in a critical discourse analysis of student’s Spanish

oral narratives that told of their reactions to Spanish children’s literature about immigration that

“border worlds were embedded in discourses that signified time, places, and actions” (p. 51). The

data showed in “this study that background knowledge in literature response is not static, and it

is not knowledge from the past brought to the present” (p. 51). Instead the students brought a

“dynamic view of making history, situating their experiences within current issues of global

mobility and migratory movements” (p. 58). Connecting to students through language was a way

of “expanding the limits of what constitutes an acceptable response in a literature discussion and

a valid story in students’ authoring processes could perhaps help us develop global/local or

translocal practices, where the students’ identities, histories, and imaginations are at the core of

how they understand literacy events” (p. 58). This leads to argument that multilingualism goes

beyond academics and cognition. In fact, multilingualism may be e a way to create “deeper

engagement and a sense of belonging in school contexts.”


Likewise, Cahnmann (2005) wrote that many “studies have located linguistic practices in

bilingual encounters as parts of larger systems of social inequality,” but it is “less common [to]

have” studies where “discourse[s] [are] examined for [their] potential for resistance rather than

containment” (Cahnmann, 2005, p. 231). Returning to Cahnmann-Taylor and Preston (2008)

study that illustrated this resistance with their practice of “varying [the] course through the

writing of individual and group-generated poems, listening for meaning rather than insisting

always on ‘correct’ grammar and spelling, are freedoms we imagine within the context of a

poetry unit in English classrooms.” (p. 250). Furthermore, the bilingual poems countered

normative discourses in society, again, like the well-known poets (Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.)

often read and taught in typical American English classrooms. In this instance, I see how

translanguaging can produce socially critical students, and student social criticism may be

directed at a system that has long oppressed and devalued their linguistic practices.

Wynne (2002) wrote that her students “were silenced by language bias born of racism,

biases that crippled their inquisitive manners” ( p. 206). A multilingual pedagogy may unsilience

them and when students can “use their language and their stories in the classroom might be one

of the greatest lessons of empowerment we could give all of America’s children.” She continues

to advocate that “telling our students of the audacity of ordinary young people like themselves,

who dared to think they had the right to shape the world around them, might do more toward

creating critical thinkers in our classrooms than any of the other pedagogical tricks that we have

up our sleeves” (p. 216). One way that students can shape the world is by interrogating the

superiority of languages, choosing and practicing their languages, and the learning those

languages well.

Methodology


Based on the findings of the previous research, I implanted the following classroom

practices: Cooperative learning that encouraged code-switching was present in the classroom;

bilinguals became resources for the development of biliteracy; supporting Spanish literacy

development was not only an excuse to enhance English acquisition and development; biliteracy

was developed because of its value as a cultural, social, and economic resource; dual language

books and poetry were present in the classroom every day; dual language writing was accepted

and encouraged.

Participants and Setting

The school was in Georgia. The average student population is 70% Latino, 25% African-

American, and the remaining 5% of students coming from various racial/ethnic backgrounds

including White/Anglo students, Vietnamese, and Indian. Additionally, the school is Title I with

98% of the students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The school has met Annual Yearly

Progress [AYP] as established by No Child Left Behind [NCLB] for the past seven consecutive

years. Additionally, the city has bilingual and bicultural Latino and African-American

population. Latino and African-American stores, churches, and social groups are active in the

community. This study took place in a fifth grade regular education class of twenty-one students.

Nineteen students participated. There were seven Latinos, nine Latinas, two African-American

girls, and one African-American boy who participated in the study.

Teacher Researcher

My first language is English; I was born in Georgia, and I am White/Anglo-American.

At the time of the study, I had conversational knowledge of Spanish. I used inquiry and

constructivist-based pedagogies in the classroom by using topics that interest the students

including explorations into student culture through relevant literature, music, self-guided


projects, and real life learning activities. I affirmed their families’ fund of knowledge by

connecting to the students’ families through letters, phone calls, and home visits, as well as

believing that my students and their families are competent people who have substantial value to

our school, community, country, and world. I created create an environment where I hoped that

biliteracy in Spanish and English would emerge. Bilingual Spanish/English picture books,

Spanish picture books, and collections of bilingual Spanish/ English poetry were displayed and

shared daily in the classroom. Bilingual comic strips were projected daily for morning work.

Family literacy kits that included a bilingual book and activity were sent home with students, and

bilingual family stories and poems were written.

Data Collection

This study stems from methods in action research, ethnography, and case study. I

conducted classroom observations through the school years, kept field notes, interview students,

and collected student artifacts as sources of data. Since I was the teacher and the researcher, I

observed the classroom all day, noting events that involved biliteracy development. At the end

of the day I wrote a reflection that included summaries, concerns, and questions evoked by the

day’s observations. Fifteen students were interviewed. Numerous examples of student work

were executed, collected, and examined to triangulate observation and interview data.

Data Analysis

After the first three interviews were transcribed, themes began to emerge among the

student interviews, and after a week of classroom reflections themes were also evident.

These early categories were: the presence of Spanish-speaking interlocutors at home who

influenced the biliterate development of the student; personal and cultural interest such as soccer

and TV shows; the influence of Spanish books and libraries on access to Spanish literacy


activities; the presence of biliteracy activities in the regular classroom; and the frustration at the

difficulty of reading and writing in Spanish. Data collection and analysis were intertwined and

cyclical (Allen, Erlandson, Harris, & Skipper, 1993). Based on these themes, I began to alter

classroom instruction. Specifically I wanted to lower the frustration experienced by many

students when reading or writing in Spanish by choosing easier texts, using a computer with

Spanish grammar/spell check for Spanish-writing, and sending home bilingual stories to elicit

parent help/involvement. While more interviews were collected, classroom attitudes and culture

began to shift because of the changes to classroom instruction. I coded the reflections using the

above categories, and I created a checklist for classroom student observations using these

categories as well. This focused classroom observations on the specific themes, and it allowed

me to scan the entire classroom searching for moments to capture and illustrate biliteracy

development. It became easier to check off the student, the category, and write a brief note as a

reminder of the moment that fell under the category. The concept web created from the first

themes continued to grow and connect throughout data collection. Connections and themes from

this web are further elaborated in the next section.

Findings

At the beginning of this study I handed Gisela, Plumas para almorzar/Feathers for Lunch by Lois

Ehlert. Her response was, “But I can’t read Spanish!” She would not attempt to read, what I

perceived as a simple picture book, independently, so I sat with her to help her decode the

Spanish text. Eight weeks later, Gisela begged to take home a higher level biography of Frida, in

Spanish, to read with her father; she brought it back the next day with the empathetic comment,

“Her life was very sad.” What happened during this study that changed Gisela’s perspective of


Spanish reading so significantly? Based on the data collected through observations, interviews,

and data, this change is described.

Gisela

The first week after winter break, I shared a new assignment with the class. “We are

going to collect family stories,” and I began to share my own collection of a “family story”

passed down from my father. I showed the students my messy notes and shared the story of my

great-grandfather losing his wife and walking a hundred miles from his cabin in the North

Carolina mountains to the city, so he could work in a factory to raise enough money to pay for

his children’s train tickets into the city where they would begin a new life. For the next few

days, I shared other published family stories, such as Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco and

The Christmas Gift by Francisco Jimenez. As family stories began to appear, students asked if

their dad riding a bull or being afraid of cows could be used as a story, and I responded, “Of

course!”

Gisela pulled me aside one day to tell me a brief version of the story she had collected.

She told me about coming home to find her mother gone. She called her father to ask where her

mother was, and he said, “She’s in jail.” Her mother was stopped in her car, and it was

discovered that she did not have papers. Her father was desperately trying to find lawyers and

money to get her out of jail. She asked if she could write about this, and I responded with teary

eyes, “Yes, but I would you like to you write some of it in Spanish.” At first she was hesitant,

seeing that she still held to the idea that she could not read or write in Spanish. I suggested that

she write only her father’s words in Spanish, reasoning that those words would be spoken in

Spanish to her, and she could use those as a source or “fund of knowledge” for generating


Spanish text. She took the suggestion, and an excerpt of this bilingual story can be seen in

Figure 2.

[Insert Figure 2 About Here]

As I continued in the classroom, I saw frustration expressed by students toward books

entirely in Spanish or lengthy. I began to check-out bilingual poetry books for the classroom to

provide form of scaffolding so that Spanish text would become more accessible. From

interviews, it seemed that students were having trouble locating Spanish books (because there

were so few) in the classroom, so I created a crate for the bilingual poetry books and announced

to the class its contents and placement. Soon after our normal story-time routine, I began asking

bilingual students to read a poem with me in English and Spanish, hoping to create a new routine

that would establish bilingual reading as normal part of the day. Students did not seem interested

at first, but I continued modeling the bilingual reading. Gisela came to me with a book, The

Empanadas that Abuela Made/Las empanadas que hacía la Abuela by Diane Bertrand, a recipe

told in a cumulative, repetitive folk song. She wanted to take the book home to practice so that

she could read it with me the next day during our newly created bilingual shared reading time.

The next day we laughingly and flawlessly read this story to the class in English and Spanish.

Students wanted the recipe, and suddenly the excitement around bilingual reading surged higher.

Concurrently, students were setting up story boards during our Language Arts/Writing

block to draft their family story. I watched Gisela struggling to write hers. She asked if she

could work at home, and I agreed. The next day she came to school with a handwritten, single-

spaced, story that was more five pages long. Awed, I began to read. I realized that during the

past couple of weeks, Gisela’s mother had come home, but she was set to appear in court in

couple of weeks. Gisela began laying out her story, so that she had space for illustrations when it


was finished. This same week, I interviewed her for this study. She disclosed to me that she did

not like asking her parents for help with homework, but her mother was instrumental in

providing her with Spanish books, so I decided to send home a literacy kit with bilingual

directions and a collection of bilingual poems, My Name is Jorge on Both Sides of the River by

Jane Medina. A couple of days later, she returned with a bilingual poem, “My Shadow/Mi

Sombra”, along with a metaphorical illustration.

[Insert Figure 3 Here]

Gisela was checked out early one day in February for what I thought was a doctor’s appointment.

Later I found out more of Gisela’s family story. Her mother and their friend had picked her up

so that she could go to court with her mom. While waiting her turn for appearance, Gisela and

her mother witnessed another undocumented immigrant receiving his sentence. He was taken

into custody, and so were his children who were with him. They began to cry as the DEFACS

workers took them from the courtroom. As the judge adjourned for his lunch, Gisela’s mother

told her to wait in the car, and that if she did not come back, their friend would drive her home.

Her mother was now afraid that not only might she be taken into custody, but her daughter might

be taken from her as well. Gisela’s mother was ordered to deport by May 8th, 2009, or she would

be taken into custody. The family has planned their move back to Guanajuato, Mexico for the

first week in May, and Gisela’s story ended.

On portfolio night, Gisela’s parents came to see their daughter’s work displayed on her

desk and around the room. They read Gisela’s story, and her father chuckled at Gisela’s writing

her mother’s bail at $100,000,000. I had purposefully not corrected this because it demonstrated

the impossibility and hopelessness Gisela felt when she heard the amount they must raise to free

her mother. Due to the loans for the bail money, Gisela’s father will stay in the US to pay back


them back, while his wife and children will leave for Mexico without him. Before leaving the

classroom, he walked over to one display wall to read Gisela’s poem, “Mi Sombra,” Gisela’s

little sister commented, “He helped her with that one.” I realized that bilingual literacy kit had

achieved its intended purpose of creating a space around bilingual literature for families to

interact among.

Nearing the end of the study, Gisela chose to research and dress up as Frida Kahlo for our

Biography March. It was this choice that led to the begging for the Spanish biography of Frida

to take home and read. Gisela’s biliteracy growth was evident in observations and her classroom

performance, and one final piece of student work produced independently illustrated this

development. Gisela’s bilingual poem was inspired by Lyon’s (1999) poem, “Where I’m From,”

and is seen in Figure 4.


Tony

Unlike Gisela, Tony no longer receives ESOL services and now attends Spanish class

daily. According to the stated standardized tests given in English, he performs above average

across content areas. However, after writing his family story entirely in English, his response to

my request to translate it was, “How do you say rock in Spanish?” At first, I was taken aback,

not realizing how much Spanish he had lost. I paired him with a peer to discuss translation, but

he was reluctant to work on translations, so I wrote a note home to his dad that he needed help

translating it into Spanish. Tony came the next day with his hand-written, father-supported

translations, and he got to work adding them to his story. After typing it and turning on the

Spell/Grammar check in Spanish, we realized there were still more mistakes. The story went

home for several more nights and eventually a final bilingual version was printed and illustrated.


Without the presence of Tony’s father, a translation would not have been possible in this

instance. In Tony’s interview, he disclosed the support of several Spanish-speaking interlocutors

who aided his biliteracy development, mainly his father through readings of the newspaper and

his older brother’s interest in soccer. Indeed, the interest in soccer seemed to converge among

three Latino students -Carlos, Tony, and Antonio- with Spanish print being highly associated

with their soccer interest as accessed in magazines, newspapers, and the internet. Still, he

expressed his reluctance and even embarrassment surrounding speaking Spanish, but by

connecting to Tony’s interlocutors at home, biliteracy developed at his home, Spanish was

preserved, and possibly a language shift was avoided. At the end of the study, Tony showed

progress in his attitudes toward biliteracy and his ability to write bilingually. For an assignment,

he independently wrote a bilingual “Where I’m From” poem (Lyons, 1999) as seen in Figure 5.


Antonio

As previously stated, Antonio loves soccer. He goes to great lengths to read his Spanish soccer

magazines by calling his 12-year-old cousin in Mexico City, slowly spelling out the unknown

word, and his cousin pronounces it for him in Spanish. Antonio receives Spanish instruction

every day at school for 50 minutes and no longer receives ESOL services. I would like to return

to the daily read-aloud time and share a brief moment of Antonio diving into biliteracy. The day

before, a monolingual student had responded to my request for a volunteer reader in Spanish

with, “They don’t like reading in Spanish.” I did not respond, but continued to wait for a

volunteer, and immediately Roselyn stood and read a poem from The Dream on Blanca’s Wall

by Jane Medina and kept the book for the next 30 minutes reading and rereading poems in

Spanish and English. On this day, when I asked for a Spanish reader, the usually shy Antonio’s


hazel eyes met mine, and he volunteered. Afterwards, I took a brief moment to ask him why he

volunteered, and he responded, “I’ve never read Spanish in front of anyone before, I wanted to

know what it was like.” That day was a turning point for the daily bilingual read alouds.

Because of new energy and willingness to read bilingually, a schedule of daily readers was

created and posted in the room. This new daily shared reading time ranged from ten to twenty

minutes, and the bilingual poetry crate was often asked to be replenished with new books.

For his family story, Antonio also wrote a short, but funny, bilingual family story

retelling his previous fear of cows.

When I was three years old I was scared of cows. Then I wouldn’t get close to them because I was scared.Cuando yo tenía tress anos yo tenía miedo de vacas. Luego yo no me acercaba a ayas por que tenía miedo.

So when I had to feed the cows I left the tray far away and then the cows started to get closer so I started running.Lugo cuando les tenía que dar de comer les de java la comida un poco lejos y las vacas venia donde estaba yo pero yo corrí.

I was scared because I thought the cows were mean because of the way they looked.Yo tenía miedo porque yo pensaba que estaban enojadas con migo.

Then when I was four years old, I was no longer scared of cows because I learned that if you look mean it doesn’t mean that you are.Luego cuando yo tenía cuatro anos ya no tenía miedo de vacas por que aprendí que no son malas.

I complimented Antonio on his story and translations during his interview, and he stated

that he did so well because, “Carlos helped me.” The necessity of Spanish-interlocutors in the

form of peers to aid the biliteracy development was essential to his ability to create a bilingual

story. Antonio’s mom came to portfolio night, and she read the story aloud in Spanish to her

other children, and we all laughed at his silly fear and poignant illustrations. The last drawing

had a tiny cow giving a meager “Moo,” with a huge Antonio bravely waving. The same access


to his work would not have been present during portfolio night if the story had been written in

only English. His mother spoke a little English, as I spoke only a little Spanish, but with the

bilingual stories, parents accessed their child’s work and immediately connected, critiqued, and

responded to it.

Critical Biliteracy

An unintended reward of using funds of knowledge as a source and guide for choosing

books, topics, and designing lessons was the occurrence of critical literacy moments. As Moll

(2001) laments, often classrooms located within the milieu of the working–class are consumed

with teaching only basic skills and using a banking idea of instruction. It seems that when

biliteracy happens with Funds of Knowledge as a theoretical lens then a natural byproduct

emerges, critical literacy. A few instances from this study illustrated this emergence. After a

bilingual reading of “Quitting” by Jane Medina, I posed a question following the last line of the

poem, “Maybe he quit being my brother/Quizás, dejo de ser mi hermano.” “How many of you

know someone who quit high school?” Every hand went up in the classroom, including my own,

thinking of my mother. For a few minutes the students shared their connections and thoughts on

why those individuals quit high school and what they were doing now. Several students

mentioned that these friends or relatives were not allowed to return to school, even if they

wanted. Briefly, we explored reasons for this, taking on the perspectives of the student, the

parent, and the school system. We questioned school policies that would expel students from

high school permanently or so it seemed, and we discussed that the students felt powerless and

could not complete school even if they wanted to. Taking on perspectives and questioning

power are two important aspects to critical literacy (Jones, 2006). This brief poem had disclosed

a story of an older brother’s choice to quit high school and the subsequent changes to his


relationship with his little sister, but at the same time it allowed us to discuss and deconstruct

some of the perspectives and beliefs surrounding high school drop-outs.

By initiating the collection of a true family story, some serious topics were brought to the

forefront. Lora’s story entitled La Vida de Mi Mama/My Mother’s Life, written entirely in

Spanish, chronicled her mother’s journey back to the US from Mexico, while illegally crossing

the border, hiring a Coyote, and being caught by the Border Patrol on her first attempt. Lora’s

story led to the discussion of “illegal” immigrants and eventually to creation of some persuasive

papers arguing for labor rights for all immigrant workers. As part of their inquiry into immigrant

rights, many turned to biographies on Cesar Chavez and ¡Si, Se Puede/Yes, We Can!: Janitor

Strike in L.A., both texts written in Spanish. The results were persuasive papers that argued for

the humane treatment of immigrants demonstrating the basic denial of human rights being issued

by current federal and state governments.

These discussions opened up a space where we could discuss any topic (Jones, 2006).

Soon the bathrooms were included in discussion, and we questioned why the predominantly

white school down the street does not have smelly restrooms like our school does. Students

questioned why some teachers in our school constantly correct the grammar of the African-

American students demeaning them in the process, and they created a circle graph illustrating the

racial/ethnic diversity of the required biographical readings as stated in the Social Studies

Georgia Performance Standards. Here they discovered that nearly 70% were white males, only

one African-American woman was included in the list, and absolutely no Latinos or Latinas were

required for study. Outraged as a class, they began supplementing this list with various people

who were African-American, female, Latino/a, Muslim, and Asian. The biliterate cycle

continued because once George Lopez, Cesar Chaves, Gabriela Mistral, Frida Kahlo, Pablo


Picasso, Oscar de la Hoya, and Ellen Ochoa were added to the readings, Spanish words appeared

in bilingual biographies, websites, speeches, and posters.

The Teacher/Researcher

Some common threads emerged in my lesson planning, journaling, and overall teaching

strategies during this study. First, the use of dual language books, instead of English-Only or

Spanish-Only, helped those students who felt reluctant to read in either English or Spanish.

Naturally, theses reluctant readers accessed both languages while reading. This helped with

decoding and creating meaning from text. Ana demonstrated this while reading “Braids” by Jane

Medina in Spanish and English, she would stop when she came to a difficult word in Spanish,

glace over at the English version for help with word meaning, return to the Spanish word,

decoding it correctly. Second, bilingual Spanish poetry became an epicenter of biliterate read

alouds, collaboration among monolinguals and bilinguals, and a demonstration of linguistic

capital. I would not have predicted this before this study; however, in reflection there seems to

be a number of reasons this would occur. The text is accessible to everyone in the classroom in

terms of the linguistic code, Spanish and English, as well as the language levels being

appropriate for every child in the classroom in at least in one code of the poem. Due to the

increased access, it now allowed monolingual and bilingual students to collaborate when

presenting a bilingual piece and to present a poem bilingually there needs to be a bilingual

reader, so those readers became a highly demanded commodity during read-aloud times. This

created an atmosphere where African-American students were consistently reading with a

Latino/a, bilingual peer, which differed from the previous segregated friendships and

partnerships that existed in the classroom. Third, without the family stories that connected the

home to classroom, only a few bilingual written artifacts would have emerged. The funds of


knowledge displayed through the stories, brought the home to the classroom. It gave the

students a concrete, personal event to describe and illustrate in Spanish and English.

Limitations

Negatively, reoccurring throughout my fieldnotes was the consistent isolation of

biliteracy development to Language Arts or read-aloud times. I experienced what Manyak

(2006) called a “funny compromise” (p. 249). Fostering biliteracy when I could in two

languages and trying to keep up the best I could with the other content areas. Some of the time, I

intentionally planned lessons to develop biliteracy among the students, such as the family stories,

bilingual poetry readings, and dual language picture books. However, during math and inquiry,

the time for science and social studies, biliteracy was a distant thought. Certainly, a bilingual

teacher could bridge these concerns by switching into the other language easily for content area

instruction, but my lack of Spanish proficiency limited those abilities. Even though some

instances of organic biliteracy development occurred during math and inquiry, without my

intention. One of these promising biliteracy developments occurred naturally between friends,

Lora and Leidy. Leidy emigrated with her family from Mexico to Georgia last year. She had

strong Spanish literacy skills, and she is acquiring English at a surprisingly fast pace, but she

often struggles with Science and Social Studies contented related vocabulary. In this instance,

we were discussing Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and the invasion of Poland, thus

beginning WWII. Lora, also bilingual, had four historical photographs pasted in her War &

Peace scrapbook and began a retelling of the events in Spanish using the photographs to illustrate

and guide her teaching. Certainly, this moment could be duplicated with other students, as well

as extended with bilingual captions for the photographs, but, unfortunately, I moved on to

another task and the opportunity was lost.


Even though, I attempted to value and incorporate the languages that my students used at home, I

failed to recognize and include languages other than Spanish and English in the classroom. This

became evident on the last day of school, when…

Implications

Funds of knowledge can be a source to initiate and extend biliteracy development among

bilingual students. This affirms Manyak (2002) conclusion that access to a child’s linguistic

repertoire and Moll’s (1992) theory of Funds of Knowledge will provide a natural avenue for

access into the students’ home and life, in turn providing access to linguistically diverse events.

Dual language books scaffold reading, especially for those who are substantially stronger readers

in one language versus the other. Strategies such as highlighting or circling the unknown words

and searching for the equivalent in the translation support the decoding of the word in hopes to

derive meaning from the text. Bilingual poetry alleviates the frustration experienced by

bilinguals while reading in Spanish or English, as well sparks friendships among monolingual

and bilingual students who previously appeared disconnected from one another. The

teacher/researcher hopes the research gathered here will create a “cross-contextual analysis of

how social relations and institutional practices shape the what, how and why of biliteracy” (Moll

& Dworin, 2001, p. 2). This study further establishes Reyes (2006) statement, “when children

have access to writing systems and to various literacy activities in both their languages, they are

more likely to become biliterate rather than literate only in the dominant language” (p. 289).


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Table 1

Classroom Demographics

Student SexLanguage Spoken

at Home ServicesYears in

US Schools

Carlos MMexican American Spanish Heritage Spanish 6

Roselyn FMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 6

Blanca FMexican American Spanish SPED/ESOL 6

Destiny FAfrican

American EnglishSecond Language

Spanish 6

Ana FMexican American Spanish ESOL 6

Eliza FMexican American Spanish ESOL 6

Tony MMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 6

Alex MMexican American Spanish/English EIP 6

Gisela FMexican American Spanish/English ESOL 6

Antonio MMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 5

Leidy FMexican American Spanish ESOL 1.5

Christina FAfrican

American English EIP 6

Luis MMexican American Spanish ESOL 2

Lora FMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 6

Dulce FMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 6

Jorge MMexican American Spanish EIP 6

Khryi MAfrican

American English EIP 6

Alejandra FMexican American Spanish/English Heritage Spanish 6

Alejandro MMexican American Spanish Heritage Spanish 6

Figure 1 Emerging Themes Concept Web


Figure 2 Gisela’s Family Story


Figure 3: Gisela’s Poem, “My Shadow/Mi Sombra”


Figure 4 Gisela’s “Where I’m From” Poem


Figure 5

Tony’s “Where I’m From” Poem

i web viewthis study presents the findings from research conducted by a teacher/researcher using a...

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