English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone

by Pauline Gibbons

For educators individually and collectively who aspire to implement a curriculum based on intellectual quality, and who recognize the importance of infusing the teaching of academic literacy across the curriculum, Pauline Gibbons' book provides inspiration and guidance. The wealth of classroom examples based on actual practice convincingly refutes the argument, reflected in much current practice, that EL and low-income students are incapable of benefiting from an intellectually challenging, inquiry-based curriculum. -Jim Cummins University of Toronto Deep understanding, critical thinking, subject knowledge, and control of academic literacy are goals we have for all our students. The challenge for teachers is to find a way of teaching that helps everyone, including English learners, to reach these high expectations. In English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking , Pauline Gibbons presents an action-oriented approach that gives English learners high-level support to match our high expectations. Focusing on the middle grades of school, she shows how to plan rigorous, literacy-oriented, content-based instruction and illustrates what a high-challenge, high-support curriculum looks like in practice. Gibbons (author of Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning ) presents and discusses in detail five broad areas that enable English learners to participate in high-quality learning across the Based on these areas she then presents guidelines on designing long-term, high-quality instruction that simultaneously provides explicit scaffolding for English learners. Gibbons makes these guidelines an instructional reality through dozens of examples of rich activities and tasks that can be used across the curriculum and that support the learning of all students. English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking supports teachers with doable plans for instruction, reflection questions for individual or group study together, and suggestions for further reading. The book is a valuable resource for inservice training and college courses and provides an ideal basis for a schoolwide response to the growing challenges of raising the achievement of English language learners.

Genres: Teaching, Education, Nonfiction, Professional Development, School

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2009

Reviews

[Phil Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is indispensible for secondary programs for English language learners. The book is focused on academic literacy in the middle grades as a bridge between learning to read to reading to learn in seondary content areas. Gibbons ties together language acquisition theory, functional grammar, and evidence based strategies for second language and literacy instruction. She identifies several key components to quality content based units for language learners, including experiential learning to build background knowledge, vocabulary development, oral language practice, comprehension strategies and scaffolded writing. Collaboration strategies are also embedded throughout each section.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the textbook no one enjoys reading. It's walls of margin-to-margin text with hardly any formatting to break them up, much less diagrams or illustrations to interrupt the monotony. It's supposed to be about helping people learn to read better, yet reaches back 30+ years to pull up academic jargon that serves only to make this text harder to understand, much less practically apply. If you're an academic who doesn't actually need to use the information on this text, then you might enjoy it. If you're a teacher looking for greater understanding or advice on how to help your students read more fluently, this is much more of a theoretical text than anything useful.

[cali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gibbons is ICONIC.

[Constant Raving · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gibbons is ICONIC.

[Jimmy J. Crantz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kände inte att boken kom med så mycket ny forskning, däremot så är boken inspirerande och ger lite andra sätt att tänka och närma sig undervisningen.

[Kenzie Buchan]

if I read it I'm logging it

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read most of it for Title I meetings, read enough to consider it done, but didn't read the whole thing.