Dual Language Enrichment Bilingual Education: Understanding Each Other and the World Through Dramatic Enactments of Multicultural Children’s Literature

• In Event: Roundtable Session 66
  In Roundtable Session: Using Literacies: Multiple Literacies to Explore Students’ Identities and Experiences

Abstract

This study examined children's dramatic responses to literature in a dual language, bicultural, urban, elementary school in the Southwestern United States. After sharing multiple-perspective, multilingual picturebooks that ‘cross borders’ (cultural, geographic, linguistic, gender), we investigated how stepping into unfamiliar shoes cultivates more nuanced talk about characters and themes, as evidence through children’s oral and written expression. Preliminary data indicate that when offered opportunities to embody character roles both like and different from one’s own experiences, learners demonstrate shifts in perspectives, and are able to think critically in ways that promote problem solving. The findings suggest that when teachers use high quality, multiple-perspective picturebooks, and opportunities to play out stories, children develop new perspectives and cross-cultural identities.

Authors

• Nancy L. Roser, The University of Texas

• Miriam Martinez, The University of Texas - San Antonio

• Deborah K. Palmer, The University of Texas - Austin

• Katie Peterson, The University of Texas - Austin

• Holly Carrell-Moore, The University of Texas

• Sharon O'Neal, Texas State University-San Marcos

• Christian Ellen Zuniga, The University of Texas - Austin

• Suzanne Garcia Mateus, The University of Texas

• Leah Duran, The University of Texas - Austin

• Kathryn I. Henderson, The University of Texas - Austin