"Unless You Were Native American…Everybody Came From Another Country:" Language and Content Learning in a Grade 4 Diverse Classroom. Issue 6 (2nd November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ernst-Slavit, Gisela; Morrison, Steven J.
• Is Part Of: Social studies. Volume 109:Issue 6(2018)
• Page Start: 309
• Page End: 323
• Publication Date: 2018-11-02
• Subjects: English learners -- immigration -- academic language -- classroom discourse; History -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Sciences sociales -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; Histoire -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; 300.71
• DOI: 10.1080/00377996.2018.1539700
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0037-7996

Abstract

Abstract: Set amidst an increasingly tense discourse about immigration and substantial pressures on educators, this study examines a three-week fourth-grade social studies unit as taught to a class with a large number of English learners located in a low-income school in the Pacific Northwest. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives, we provide evidence of how the teacher leverages a wide array of instructional strategies and scaffolds to build language skills and content knowledge within a fast-paced unit on 19th-century Westward Migration. Embedded within such instruction is the construction of narratives that highlight regional examples of a linguistic and ethnically diverse community and that connect immigration trends on a global scale to local history. These strategies and narratives are then used in a summative lesson about immigration that affirms students' family stories as part of the U.S. history still being written.