Diverse Learners Top Hat Organizer- Anthony Orduno
Article One: Emergent bilingual students in secondary
school: Along the academic language and literacy
continuum
Article one delves deep into discussing academic
language and literacy within emergent bilinguals,
especially at the secondary level. Author Menken
mentions that immigrant students in secondary schools
tend to perform below their non-immigrant peers in
language, literacy, and mathematics in many countries (p.
440, 2013). I found that very interesting because I had
always assumed that the U.S. was one of the only
countries doing a poor job at supporting our immigrant
students. In the same vein, Menken also writes “schooling
in many immigrant-receiving countries remains
monolingual for emergent bilinguals” (p. 448, 2013).
Through my studies, I have learned that utilizing an
emergent bilingual’s home language in instruction
benefits the student as it activates prior knowledge and
allows for students to create more meaningful
connections. Menken supports that idea when they
stated, “emergent bilinguals who are able to develop and
maintain their home languages in school through bilingual
education typically outperform their peers in monolingual
programs and experience greater academic success.” (p.
448, 2013). Another idea Menken brings up is that
content teachers can no longer consider themselves
content-specific but must also consider themselves as
language and literacy teachers (p. 460, 2013). Looking at
instruction with this in mind, we as teachers need to build
upon an emergent bilingual’s language and literacy
practices at a general level, and that of a level that is
content specific. Educators need to integrate academic
language, language in general, and content (p. 464, 2013).
This is a demanding yet necessary requirement in today’s
school setting.
Citation: Menken, K. (2013). Emergent bilingual students
in secondary school: Along the academic language and
literacy continuum. Language Teaching, 46(4), 438-476.
doi:10.1017/s0261444813000281
Article Two: Navigating cultures and identities to learn
literacies for life: Rethinking adolescent literacy teaching
in a post-core world
Article two discusses the need of cultural integration in
literacy and how the inclusion, or lack thereof, impacts
adolescent literacy. Moje et al write of the biases that
teachers can enact when students are “good readers” or
“bad readers.” They state that when teachers assign a
student as a type of reader, their interactions with the
students are influenced. (p. 6, 2017). A bias is formed that
we as teachers need to actively act against if it negatively
influences us. The authors write that evidence of
proficiency in adolescent literacy can be found outside of
the classroom setting (p. 17, 2017). Teachers need to
recognize and acknowledge that struggling students in
the classroom setting may provide many literacy practices
out of the context of school, such as poetry groups,
fanfiction sites, social media, etc., that is meaningful (p.
12, 2017). An effective teacher can acknowledge and
integrate these cultures and identities into their
instruction to provide support learning. It’s all about using
students’ literacy skills in a non-academic environment
and adapting and transferring said skills for students to
use in school learning (p. 12, 2017). One of the biggest
idas, and my biggest takeaway is: “standards need to be
applied to the real, lived experiences of students rather
than asking students to leave their knowledge and
identities behind to learn disconnected academic literacy
skills.” (p. 17, 2017) When a teacher can create
meaningful connections between content and a student’s
prior experiences or personal life, content is absorbed
more readily and engagement is promoted. I wish to
accomplish that in my own classroom.
Citation: Moje, B., Giroux, C., & Muehling, N. (2017).
Navigating cultures and identities to learn literacies for
life: Rethinking adolescent literacy teaching in a post-core
world. In K. Hinchman & D. Appleman (ed) Adolescent
literacies: A handbook of practice-based research.
Similarities

Language and culture go hand-in-hand, so it comes to no surprise that there were many similarities between articles
one and two. One similarity is that the use of prior experiences to build literacy practices. Article one asks that a
teacher’s curriculum to build upon the content of previous years of study (p. 441, 2013), while article two states that
students need to be coached to use their everyday reasoning to develop their own literary interpretations (p.8, 2017).
In both instances, prior experience and knowledge can be integrated into instruction to facilitate development in
literacy processes. Another similarity is the use of personal life and culture to promote success. Menken states
“emergent bilinguals who are able to develop and maintain their home languages in school through bilingual
education typically outperform their peers in monolingual programs and experience greater academic success” (p.
448, 2013) and Moje et al write “Students cannot be prepared for life in a classroom where their home cultures are
not a consideration in lesson planning.” (p. 9, 2017) In both cases, one can see that acknowledging and accepting a
student’s identity, in language or culture, see a higher form of success. When considering who our students are, we
can not only better support them, but engage them to a higher degree. These two similarities are key ideas that can
be applied in any discipline, at any level.

My Thoughts

When going through both articles, I found myself making notes on things I should keep in mind when I have my own
classroom. For example, article one mentions maintaining home language. Though it may not be possible to do that if I
have multiple diverse learners with different languages, one thing I can do is create meaningful connections with
students by incorporating their home language through our engagements. I plan to do that by learning greetings,
farewells, and common phrases in their home language. This will help me create stronger relationships with those
specific students. Another mental note I made was to use a student’s prior knowledge when introducing new
concepts. Creating those connections when introducing new ideas will help build the foundation of that concept and
allow me to build upon that foundation a bit faster.

One question/concern I had when reading these articles is “How am I going to maintain home language in my
classroom if there are students at different levels with more than one non-english language?” I know I can put in the
effort to accomplish that, but I fear that I don’t have the skills to do that at this point in time.