Emergent Bilinguals’ Understanding, Use, and Application of Embedded Design Principles in an Online Writing Space

• In Event: Extending and Evaluating a Theoretically Based, Online Intervention to Improve Latino Middle-Schoolers’ Writing

Abstract

The purpose of this poster is to present findings regarding emergent bilinguals’ use of the video-anchor and the application of STEPS+G elements to analyze resources, take notes, and draft essays. It discusses students’ use of peer/instructor support and their home language to scaffold their work. The significance of the entire intervention is then summarized.
Findings regarding anchored instruction are drawn from different data sources. In interviews, most students stated that the video anchor provided a useful introduction to curricular content. The anchor video for Civil Rights was particularly successful in initiating conversations about rights and discrimination. Audio/video recordings revealed that students repeatedly viewed the video, indicating its effectiveness in generating student interest. However, students’ responses were mixed regarding whether the video anchor helped them understand the STEPS+G framework.
Regarding STEPS+G, findings from student interviews revealed that most students could re-state all six STEPS elements by name. Overall, students cited the Social element as easiest to identify in multimodal resources and use in essay writing. Scientific and Technological lenses were cited as most difficult—presumably due to topics covered. When student note-taking and essay drafts were analyzed for use of STEPS elements, the findings from interviews were corroborated: the most frequently applied elements in descending order were Social, Political, Economic; the least frequently applied were Geographic, Scientific, Technological. Preliminary comparisons of Year One and Year Two student writing revealed overall improvements in students’ ability to:
• analyze a single historical resource from multiple STEPS lenses
• progress from descriptive note taking to analytical note taking, and
• incorporate more STEPS-focused content in their essays.
With regard to “funds of knowledge,” analysis of student writing and video recordings of student interaction revealed that home language scaffolding differed by school. Whereas students at the Harlem school were less inclined to use Spanish in their discussions and writing, students at the Bronx school relied on Spanish extensively in discussions and to some degree in written work. This finding may be due to differences in family immigration backgrounds, length of stay in the U.S., and school admissions policies.
Video recordings of all student groups showed that students not only relied on bilingual texts and the instructor’s guidance, but also relied on one another in constructing their content knowledge and texts. Students consulted with one another orally (and through online messaging introduced in Year Two) to clarify information given during instruction and in multimodal resources. Spanish-dominant students often sought assistance from classmates in translating their writing from Spanish to English.
Project findings (posters 5-6) show STEPS to Literacy to be an intervention of significance: It integrates a flexible, theoretically-grounded technology design and a proven curricular framework, directly addressing the urgent educational needs of a rapidly growing population, which the educational system is failing. Emergent-bilingual Latinos responded positively overall—evidenced by their perceptions and aspects of their writing—to the web-based writing environment and the anchor/STEPS approach, scaffolded by collaboration and the home-language.
This poster will provide note, essay, and message samples along with video-recorded excerpts of student actions/collaboration.

Authors

• Briana Ronan, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Karen Velasquez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jo Anne Kleifgen, Teachers College, Columbia University