Kerry Anne Enright

Language and Literacy for a New Mainstream

This article presents cases of three young people who represent the “New Mainstream” of the 21st-century classroom as they engaged in a year-long research and writing project. Focal students were classmates who represented the linguistic and cultural diversity of today’s New Mainstream: a transnational Mexican-origin bilingual female, an immigrant Mexican-origin bilingual female, and a Caucasian English-speaking male. Cases focus on the young people’s language and literacy histories and key patterns related to their language use in school as examples of the complexity of students who represent the New Mainstream. Findings suggest the need for a reframing of the notion of “mainstream” and expanded definitions of academic language to better address the realities of New Mainstream classrooms.

Hope is the thing with metaphors: de-situating literacies and learning in English Language Arts classrooms

In this article, we examine the relationship between classroom talk, teacher–student roles and paradigms for literacy and learning in two ninth-grade English Language Arts classes. Our goal was to understand how these roles and practices socialized students into norms for academic language and literacy as they read and wrote poetry in preparation for a high-stakes standardized essay. Drawing from social and critical approaches to literacy, we describe how a policy-driven narrowing of the curriculum also narrowed conceptions of literacy and knowledge. Differences in the treatment of students’ poems versus the Dickinson poem positioned students as unable to co-construct knowledge. The high-stakes essay, not yet assigned, drove almost all discourse about text, meaning and legitimate knowledge, essentially ‘de-situating’ literacy from the tasks and immediate context and prioritizing technical skills over communicative purposes. Implications for research, teaching and students’ development of academic language and literacy address the tension between meaningful literacy instruction and accountability demands of contemporary classrooms.

Relocalizing Standards in English Language Arts: Consequences on Functions of Literacy

ABSTRACT The authors examine the functions of literacy in three accountability-driven English language arts classrooms. To explore the interplay between transmission-oriented, standards-based instruction and local interpretations and uses of literacy, they employed Pennycook’s (2010) notion of relocalization. The authors examine how accountability mandates, relocalized as curricular standards, and relocalized again in textbook materials and teachers’ instructional moves, shape the functions of literacy in these classrooms, with consequences for students’ negotiation of meaning of the assigned texts. They found that language and literacy practices across ability tracks, curricular tracks, and teachers emphasized “separating” functions of literacy: separating, reducing, and narrowing (a) which texts or aspects of text counted as official or important, (b) which ways of making meaning with texts counted as legitimate, and (c) which meanings counted as legitimate interpretations. The contribution of this work is to expose the mechanisms by which these separating functions of literacy occur in diverse classrooms, and to examine how a common approach to standards-based instruction, encouraged in the current accountability paradigm, limits students’ possibilities for meaning-making by encouraging “separating” functions of literacy to the near exclusion of student-centered involvement in meaning-making. The authors conclude by suggesting alternative frames and approaches for attending to standards.

When Procedure Limits Practice: Lab Versus Lecture in High School Science Classrooms

In this chapter, we use examples from ninth grade lab and lecture science classes to illustrate how classroom language practices reveal and reinforce particular conceptions of classroom science knowledge, and position students as learners and knowers in relation to classroom science knowledge. Our data indicate that prescribed lab activities resulted in prescribed and constrained language practices, very different from the language used to explore, hypothesize, or describe and substantiate one’s scientific findings. Surprisingly, we found more exploratory language from students’ personal engagement in science learning during lectures as new material was presented by the teacher and discussed by the class. We situate our findings in light of recommendations related to language and practice in the 2012 National Research Council’s A Framework for K-12 Science Education. These examples frame a discussion of how to shift classroom language norms to support science learning that emphasizes scientific inquiry and argumentation.

Making It Matter: Relevant Instruction for New Mainstream Students

In todays ethnically and linguistically diverse classrooms, teachers need a notion of “relevant” that allows students from vastly different backgrounds to make personal purposeful connections with their academic work.