Researching Language, Nurturing Voices: Collaborative Engagement and Knowledge Building in Poetry Inside Out

• In Event: 52.039 - Critical Language Awareness in Action: Examining Poetry Inside Out From the Perspective of Youth Researchers, Teacher Researchers, and University-Based Researchers

Abstract

Objective. As “English as a Second Language (ESL)” teachers in a high-poverty urban district, our greatest challenge is providing rich, challenging curricula for students who are in the process of learning English. We teach mixed grade classes (7-12) with varying degrees of English language proficiency. New students arrive throughout the year, which can mean new students each week.
In January of 2014, we attended a workshop on Poetry Inside Out, facilitated by the Center for the Art of Translation. Soon after we began implementing PIO and joined a teacher research community. In this paper, we discuss how PIO, linked with teacher research, became a vehicle for powerful student and teacher learning. As our students delved into language and meaning, we, as teachers, researched their language and learning.
Theoretical Frameworks. Our work is framed by sociocultural understandings of discourse and language, specifically the ways in which discourse is situated within and varies across cultures and communities. Our attention focused on the ways students understood, valued, and used language in meaningful and adept ways. Michaels, O’Connor and Resnick’s (2008) ideas about accountable talk and “talk moves as tools” facilitated our looking closely at “language in action” – how students used language and the language of others to make meaning. We explored how pedagogical practices placed listening at the center of teaching, learning and community building so that exchanges of ideas, opinions beliefs and passions became routine (Schultz, 2009).
Methodology. We video and audio tapped in our classrooms over four months; collected students’ written work, kept teaching journal, and met bi-weekly in our teacher research group. We analyzed transcripts using a descriptive review protocol (Carini, 2000) and discourse analysis. Descriptive review of select transcripts allowed us to first describe in order to generate low and high-inference claims about students work during PIO. Discourse analysis focused on the students’ language strategies and reasoning practices, and on our own talk moves that at times facilitated or limited student discussion (Michaels & O’Connor, in press).
Findings. Through PIO, students gained access to new forms and facility with academic language, and engaged in reasoning-oriented practices. While we explored the learning of our students we learned about our own learning, specifically the ways in which transcript analysis supported us in interrogating our assumptions about the linguistic, intellectual, and social resources of youth, and our assumptions about language and literacy pedagogy. When newcomers struggled with PIO, systematic and intentional investigation into their language struggles helped us to make modifications, and see that although English proficiency is an important goal for all our students, it is not a prerequisite for literate engagement.
Significance. The theme of this year’s conference focuses on mutually respectful collaborative engagement in the service of democratized knowledge and knowledge production. This paper, we posit, illustrates the power of collaborative engagement on multiple levels—collaborative engagement between and among students as they participate in PIO; collaborative engagement between teacher researchers and their students; and collaborative engagement between teacher researchers and university-based researchers.

Author

• Sarah Michaels, Clark University