Dramatic Play & Language Learning
from The Newcomer Student: An Educator’s Guide to Aid Transition, Louise Kreuzer-El Yaafouri, Roman & Littlefield International Press, 2016.
Dramatic play is a natural and inherent piece of healthy child development, fostering both language and intellectual capabilities. Dramatics are pertinent to the Newcomer classroom in that they allow for expressed emotion and understanding, even with limited use of the host language. Learners who have not yet become comfortable in the new language framework have an opportunity to discover a “voice” through acting-out processes. These types of constructive experiences can be freeing for the student, revealing for the educator, and base building for the learning community. Beyond all of this, drama is just plain, old-fashioned fun!
One outcome of dramatic play is emotional exploration. Emotional exploration that occurs within a sheltered environment can provide many benefits, especially working with resettled refugee populations, where grief and traumatic exposure are routinely elevated. In positive, carefully crafted settings, dramatic learning structures can provide safe and healthy platforms for combined emotional and vocabulary growth. Meanwhile, theatrics function as a valid comprehension assessment that can be exclusive of the language piece.
For example, guided role-play, in which students silently act out various emotions, can satisfy the aim of associating specific facial features and body language with a given circumstance. In a literary setting, learners may be asked to show a character’s facial expressions (link: feelings); or to mime or act out character traits, actions, or whole scenes. As it is said, the best way to know something is to be it. Here are a few fun starters!
1. Create A Human Machine
Begin with one or two connected children creating a simple, repetitive sound. Children contribute to the machine by entering the work space one at a time, connecting to another part of the machine by some body part, and adding a new beep, honk, bend, squat, jump or squish. After: Discuss questions, insights, new vocabulary and celebrated demonstrations of creativity.
2. “Two Noses”
Invite students to circumambulate the room. Facilitator calls out a) a number and b) a body part. Learners respond to the prompt by aligning themselves with the appropriate number of people, touching at the corresponding body part. For example, three elbows would play out with three students connected to each other in some way by their elbows. Encourage children to be creative in their connective choices and formations. This process continues: 4 knees, 6 thumbs, 2 backs, or 5 shins. This is a fun and creative means of team building; it also functions as a valuable opportunity for vocabulary acquisition.
3. Still Pictures/Tableaus
Working in small groups, students create frozen snap shots of a scene from a text. Tableaus can capture setting, character thought or emotion, sequence of events. This is terrific for group work, and also as a means of evaluating individual understanding and participation.
4. Act It Out
Read and discuss a text with students (The Hungry Caterpillar, for example), and then ask them play out the story alongside a narration. This is an entertaining process for all involved! More than this, dramatic role play is engaging and meaningful for the students, and it meanwhile offers educators a valid formative assessment of learner comprehension. Other ideas: plant life cycle, character reaction, imaginative journey (to another planet, say), migration trails, bullying responses, historical enactments, or the life of a drop of water. This is also a great activity for acting out dialogue or the sequence of events in a story or text.
5. True Theatrics
Simple plays at early reading levels are fantastic for developing and practicing reading fluency. Mask making can incorporate a host of various cultural and country traditions. Puppetry allows for student creativity, reading fluency, imaginative skills, and the ability to act without fully revealing or exposing themselves. Set the stage!
6. Human Knot
Students form a close circle, hands open and facing toward the center of the circle. Each participant reaches for two hands. The hands should not belong to the same person, or be joined to an immediate neighbor. Slowly, and with some coaching, students try to unravel their human knot without disconnecting their hands. This process stimulates teamwork, problem-solving skills and creativity.
7. Treasure Chest
Students sit in a circle. One student is blindfolded and stands inside the circle. An object (scarf, piece of paper, stuffed animal) is placed somewhere inside the circle. Taking turns, participants will guide the blindfolded learner to the treasure chest, practicing the usage of descriptive and clear directions. (Take three baby steps forward, then turn right…) Exchange roles. This process enables students to give and follow prompts, practice directional cue words and creatively problem solve toward a solution.
8. One Word Story
Sitting in a circle, the first person offers a single word to begin a story. The next person contributes the second word of the story, and so on. The story may shift and change unexpectedly, but should ultimately find closing. This exercise is great for sense-making, sequencing, and vocabulary building; meanwhile, it is a fun team-building activity. Certain parameters may be set in advance (theme, topic, unit vocabulary). Recorded sessions are excellent opportunities for practicing recorded dictation and/or recall, story continuation, and listening station options, among others.
9. What Are You Doing?
Divide students in half; one group will be an audience. The acting group of students forms two straight lines vertically facing the audience. One of the two students in front begins a verb motion (for example, eating lunch). The other student asks, What Are You Doing? The first student replies with a new verb. I’m brushing my teeth.
The second student immediately begins acting out this verb, while the first student goes to the back of his or her line. The next student in line steps up and asks, “What are you doing?” The active student responds with a new verb, I’m driving my car, and returns to the back of the line. The process continues until all players have had a turn. Actors and audience reverse.
This is a fantastic vocabulary building game! For ELLs- if a student can create an action, but is without the English word for it, the audience may kindly assist! A high five to the audience can signal, “Help me out, here!” Both sides love this!
10. Miming
Give a specific direction. Model miming exact directive. For example, Sharpen your pencil. Open your book. Think. Have an idea. Feel the window and look out. Invite students to join. Continue, without modeling. This is a great exercise to check for understanding without language restriction. Miming is also effective for story lines and plot directives.
11. Mock Interviews
Author study? Character study? New science material? Covering world topics or key figures in history? Perfect for an interview! Students can conduct this activity in pairs, or as a larger group interviewing a panel of experts. Many learners, especially ELLs, may need specific insight and modeling regarding the interviewer/interviewee relationship. Graphic organizers specific to the topic may also be very useful for recording responses.
12. Scene Improvisations
Students divide into small teams. Each team selects an index card with a scenario or location (at the grocery store; on the bus; at the pool; at a birthday party; at the zoo; learning to ride a bike; losing a tooth). Teams act out the scenario or a short bit that would reveal the location, without actually saying the actual name of the scenario/locale aloud. Observing teams will attempt to guess the index card cue correctly.
13. Emotion Party
Have students pretend they are going to a fancy party. One student, acting as the host, will begin in the stage space alone, waiting for guests to arrive. Another student will knock on the door, and be let in by the host. The guest, without using words, will show an emotion. (Silent emotions may work best in the classroom setting). The host, upon understanding the new emotion, will immediately assume the same energy.
A new guest will arrive, with a new emotion. Everyone at the party will demonstrate this new emotion, and so on, until all guests have arrived. Once everyone has had a turn to enter, each will leave in the order they arrived, with the emotion they came with.
This is a wonderful chance to explore emotions.Beginning learners will demonstrate simple facial expressions, and will match them with baseline vocabulary- happy, sad, mad, or tired.More advanced students will be able to apply other body language and may also be able to reach beyond basic word use, exploring higher level synonyms and altogether new ranges of emotion.
Teaching Resiliency: A Tool Kit
Resilience is the ability to negotiate and recover from adversity. Humans experience all kinds of unique life experiences that demand an element of resiliency in order to move forward. We may endure physical illness, family dysfunction, abuse, transition, migration, loss or defeat.
We are also hard-wired with tools to overcome these events. We add to this tool box of healthy coping mechanisms as we move through life. We experience significant events that require us to manage defeat and rise again, and we also observe resilient-oriented behaviors of others who pass through struggle.
Sometimes, our ability to overcome adversity becomes compromised- perhaps our systems have become overwhelmed by challenge or we have not had access to healthy examples of resilience (or we have noted plenty of examples of unhealthy coping behaviors). Because resiliency is largely learned, students can benefit from lessons that explicitly teach and allow for practice of resilience-oriented behaviors.
In speaking to a school-based approach to resilience, I find it helpful to examine the concept from four lenses: foundation, regulation, incorporation and education.
Foundation
Foundation, in the context of achieving resilience, relates to the meeting of basic needs. Access to essential goods and services such as healthy food, clean water, clothing, transportation and medical care are considered foundational to resilience. Other features of resilient children include a sense of safety and “access to open spaces and free play”, which enriches multi-faceted age-appropriate development (1). Discrimination plays a role in determining a baseline for resiliency, too. As incidences of prejudice, discrimination and bullying are decreased, resilience is encouraged.
Regulation
Resilient individuals are capable of self-regulation. That is, they have developed healthy ways to negotiate and recover from unexpected or undesirable life events. (4) Healthy regulation mechanisms include self-soothing, creative problem solving, acknowledging and keeping boundaries, practicing bravery, calculated risk-taking, asking for help, flexibility and exercising a sense of humor when things don’t go as planned.
Incorporation
A sense of belonging, or “feeling valued and respected within a community”, is critical to resilience. (3) (4) Children, in particular, need to be able to identify specific people and places that make them feel welcomed and protected. Positive recognition and inclusion are critical tenants of belonging. (3) Positive relationships matter, and a diversified portfolio of relationships is ideal: family members, school friendships, non-school friendships, teachers and mentors. (1) Research indicates a a robust support community- and a deep sense of belonging within that community- are strong indicators for resilience. (2)
Education
Resilience can impact student learning; and learning can influence resiliency. Those who have their basic needs met and belong to the learning community- are more receptive to receiving and storing new information. Similarly, students may gain confidence through learning and sharing existing strengths, which promotes resilience. (4) Many indicators for resilience are embedded throughout the school day: organization, relationship building, access to play, opportunities to share expertise, and practicing commitment and follow-through.
From each of these four lenses, let’s explore some ways that we can actively approach resiliency and engage students in resilience-oriented behaviors at school.
FOUNDATION
Students cannot learn when they do not feel safe. Similarly, they will struggle to process new information after a poor night’s sleep or missed breakfast. Those who are facing social challenges, such as discrimination or bullying, may find it impossible to concentrate on the learning at hand. So, before we address the curriculum, we must address the learner. How are our students showing up for each learning day? How can we encourage those students who come to school in survival brain move toward learning brain… and stay there?
One of my favorite activities is the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT House. You can visit the activity description and view students samples HERE. The strategy is also available in the book, The Newcomer Fieldbook (Louise El Yaafouri), available HERE.
The DBT House exercise allows a glimpse into students’ lives, so that we re better able to meet them where they are. To foster resiliency, I like to follow the DBT House with this “Being Safe” lesson from Resilient Tutor Group: View it HERE.
PROMOTING ACCESS TO BASIC NEEDS AT SCHOOL
· 7 C’s of Resilience VIDEO
ANTI-BULLYING AND BULLYING PREVENTION
Non-academic foundations for learning:
· K. Brooke Stafford-Brizard @ EdWeek
REGULATION
Self-regulation leads to resiliency. Most self-regulation behaviors are learned. With this in mind, it makes sense to incorporate and model effective regulatory strategies throughout the school day. Chances are, we do this already. We may ask a student to count to 10 slowly before reacting; to self-evaluate and record distress levels; to identify “safe” spaces in the school or to diffuse disagreements with a Peace Circle.
Here are a few of my favorite techniques to use with learners of all ages.
Check out these other worthwhile resources, too!
· American Psychological Association
INCORPORATION
There are many ways to encourage students to grow in their sense of belonging at school. A great way to begin is by deliberately focusing on simple cues of belonging, such as making eye contact and referring to each child by his or her preferred (and correctly pronounced!) name. The following lessons and tools provide an entry point to promoting healthy incorporation in a school setting.
· MindSet Kit LESSONS
· MindSet Kit INTERACTIVE
EDUCATION
How can we draw from students’ existing resilience? How do we make room for bolstering new strands of resiliency in our already congested school day? We can begin by choosing resilience-building strategies that can be easily incorporated into a lesson and into the daily functioning of a classroom. Examples include:
· creating and adhering to routines (as much as possible!);
· opportunities to practice responsible choice-making (hey-hey, flexible seating!);
· brain breaks that engage students in physical exercise and creative play (GoNoodle is the bees knees!);
· learning games that encourage memory and impulse control;
· encouragement to practice safe risk-taking;
· and modeling of resilient behaviors, such as reframing disappointment.
As these tools and expectations become consistently embedded throughout students’ school experiences, they become part of the culture of the school. Ready to get started? Check out these recommended launch-points:
OVERALL TOOLBOX:
EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR ACKNOWLEDGING FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE
· North Carolina Early Learning Network
EXECTUTIVE FUNCTIONING STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS:
· Career and Life Skills Lessons Channel VIDEO
LESSON PLANS & IDEAS FOR RESILIENCY:
Sources:
1. Pearson, Umayahara and Ndijuye. Play and Resilience: SUPPORTING CHILDHOOD RESILIENCE THROUGH PLAY A facilitation guide for early childhood practitioners
2. Sarah V. Marsden, Resilience and Belonging https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-55019-4_4
3. Taylor & Hart. The Resilient Classroom A Resource Pack for Tutor Groups and Pastoral School Staff, Published by BOND and YoungMinds.
4. Nowicki, Anna. 2008 Self-efficacy, sense of belonging and social support as predictors of resilience in adolescents Anna Nowicki Edith Cowan University
8 Listening-Speaking Strategies to Engage ELLs
Listening and speaking are often the first domains explored by a language learner. Students who are new to English require frequent, purposeful opportunities to develop these skills. With so many demands on our classroom time, it can be challenging to make room for dedicated speaking/listening skills practice. Fortunately, we can engage learners by embedding meaningful conversational activities in our lessons throughout the school day.
Here are eight low-prep cross-curricular activities that will get students talking (and listening, too!).
DESCRIPTIVE PAIRS
This activity encourages academic vocabulary development by engaging students in active speaking and listening around relevant classroom content. A pair of students sits back to back, with one student facing the front of the room. A category is announced (for example: mammals, text characters, types of triangles) Facilitator presents an image of one item in this category. The student facing the visual must relay to his or her partner what the image shows. In giving clues, this student must be as descriptive as possible, but cannot say the actual word or words that name the image. The student facing away from the image must engage his or her active listening skills in order to guess what the image is. When the away-facing student correctly names the image, partners hold a high-five or touching elbows and wait for other teams to solve the puzzle. Partners exchange seats and reverse speaking/listening roles.
FAN N’ PICK
Fan N' Pick is a Kagan cooperative strategy that can be used to activate background knowledge, facilitate discussion on a topic or review a concept. To prepare for activity, create a series of questions related to a text or concept. Write or type questions on strips of paper that are of similar size and shape. Place questions in an envelope. Each working group of four students will receive one envelope. Create as many envelopes as projected student groups. For lesson, arrange students into groups of four and distribute envelopes. Students in each group are numbered 1-4. Student 1 will remove the strips, making sure that all of the questions are faced down. Student 1 "fans" the strips and presents them to Student 2. Student 2 reads the strip that he or she chose and provides thinking time. Student 3 is responsible for answering the questions. Student 4 clarifies, praises, or adds on to Student 3's response. Then, the sentence strips are passed to Student 2, who becomes the new Student 1. The process repeats until all students have had a turn or all questions are answered.
INFORMATION DETECTIVE
Students work in pairs for this cooperative activity. Within pairs, each student has a card containing an image or text. The two images or passages are the same, except that each is missing some information. It is important that different information is missing on each card. Place a folder or other divider between the two students. Partners take turns asking each other questions in order to solve for the missing information on each card. New information should be recorded on the card or in a notebook. The students should not view one another's cards during the activity. Sentence starters may be useful.
LISTEN-RETELL
Listen-retell is a straightforward strategy that assesses student comprehension while working to develop learners' listening and speaking skills. For this exercise, students work in pairs. Facilitator gives each pair a prompt that is relevant to a topic being studied. One student from each pair responds to the prompt. The other student listens carefully to his or her partner's response. Then, the listening partner rephrases what was said. The first partner confirms the accuracy of the listing partner's retell. For older or more advanced students, the listening partner will rephrase the speaking partner's statement and then add on to the conversation with a new statement. After both partners have contributed, a new prompt is issues and students' speaking/listening roles are reversed.
MIX-AND-MATCH
The Mix-and-Match strategy encourages students to interact with one another in a guided format and allows for movement within the classroom. This exercise works well across all content areas. To prepare, first create a series of questions related to a topic or unit of study. Record these questions on a set of index cards. On a separate set of cards, record appropriate responses to those questions. Each question card should have a corresponding answer card. In working with older learners and/or learners with higher levels of language proficiency, it is best to incorporate student-generated questions and responses. To carry out the exercise, half of the participants are issued cards containing questions. Give the other students cards with appropriate responses to questions. Learners must move about the room sharing and comparing their cards until they find their match. Once all students have found their match, pairs may share out their corresponding questions and responses with the other students in the class.
PARTNER COACHING
Partner coaching is a cooperative strategy that allows students to practice using several or all language domains while working to solve a problem together. This activity works especially well in math or science subjects. To begin, arrange students in pairs and assign two challenges or problems to each pair of students. Each student in the pair will be responsible for solving one challenge. While the first student works on his or her problem, the second student acts as a coach, offering advice, feedback and encouragement. The coach is not permitted to write the answers or solve the problem for the first student. Students reverse roles and solve the other problem. When both challenges have been solved, one pair of students partners with another pair to form a group of four. All four students work together to confirm the validity of answers and make corrections as necessary. Note that it is helpful to model the acts of offering and accepting constructive feedback in advance. Some students may find it difficult to accept peer coaching. Make it clear that the expectation is to try to be open to feedback as possible. Offer sentence stems and other supports to guide students through the cooperative practice, as needed.
PARTNER DICTATION
Partner dictation is a fast-paced, simple activity that engages students in all four language-learning domains. To prepare, select a brief passage on a focus topic. Print half the number of copies as students in the class. (Or, choose unique dictation passages and print separately). For the activity, begin by pairing students. Each pair of students stands on one side of the room. Dictation passages are posted in another part of the room (or outside of the room in a hallway or corridor). One student will act as the "runner" and the other as the "recorder". (Students will have a chance to change roles). The "runner" will quickly make trips to and from the printed dictation passage to read it and return to partner to relay the message. The recorder writes what he or she hears. Students work together to edit scripts as they are being written. The runner makes as many trips to the dictation sample as needed for the recorder to capture the whole passage. Roles reverse, with a new dictation passage. Length and complexity of passages should reflect grade and language abilities present in the classroom and should be modified for pair groups as necessary.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
This is a classic drama warm-up game that works great for ESL verb study. To play, select a small group of students (teams of 5-7 students works well, though any number is fine) to enter the "stage". The remaining students in the class will serve as the audience, though all students should have the chance to perform. Have one student from the acting group take center stage while his or her teammates wait "in the wings". The first student begins the game by performing an action, such as driving a car. Another teammate enters and asks the first student, "What are you doing?" The first student can respond with any answer excluding his or her actual answer. For example, "I'm brushing my teeth." The second student would then have to begin the action of brushing his or her teeth. The first and second students continue performing their actions. The third student enters and asks the second student, "What are you doing?" He or she responds with a new action, such as "I'm ice skating." The third student mimes ice skating. The process repeats until all students in the group have gone. Audience applauds and a new group takes the stage. More advanced students may be encouraged to use more complex verb clauses, such as “I’m baking a cake for my mom’s birthday.” Students really love this activity!
Ready to dig deeper? These activities (and many others) are part of the comprehensive EduSkills platform. Learn more at eduskills.us.
EduSkills is an educational services and school data analysis company serving schools and districts Pre-K through 12th grade. EduSkills collaborates with schools and districts in order to help teachers and administrators become high-performing outcome based educators with a clear focus on high level student achievement.
Growing Through Our Biases: An Educator Exercise
The recent events surrounding race and racism have been difficult and painful.
And we have to talk about it.
As we piece through our individual places in the fray, we have the double task of coaching our students through these uncomfortable social paradigms. In the case of schools, we can only support our students' in the shedding of unhealthy biases after we have examined and tended to our own.
As someone who is hired to coach educators through the processes of naming and mitigating implicit and explicit biases, recent events have forced a re-evaluation of my own thoughts, rooted values and prejudices. More than this, they've been a catalyst to explore my potential contributions within this context, as well as the potential contributions of my peer practitioners and our students, who watch us with anticipatory eyes. How can our voices be proactively and retroactively employed? How can we come to terms with a reasonable framework for self-accountability in light of the brazen dissolution of interpersonal respect and cooperativeness?
I have prejudices. You have prejudices. Our students and their parents carry biases into the school each day. Some of those are friendly, harmless judgments. Many are not.
We have a responsibility to mitigate our own biases to whatever extent we are able. This duty carries remarkable weight, based on the nature of our work with children and the inevitable part we play as role models in urban, multicultural settings. It is also our task to encourage a shift in the negative biases that exist in our parents and students, Newcomer and non-Newcomer alike.
Where is our start point?
The following is an excerpt from The Newcomer Teacher: A Workbook Companion to the Newcomer Student (Sept 2017). The Cultural Biases Workshop is a means to explore our own thought and action patterns. After all, only after we are brave enough to confront our own implicit and explicit biases can we hope to make positive changes to the broader social dynamic.
From the text:
"When we meet new people or begin to establish new relationships, our brains respond with a flurry of conscious and unconscious activity. We are analyzing the other individual and making a series of analyses based on the stimulation that our brain is receiving. We are producing and activating biases.
Prejudices, stereotypes and discriminatory evaluations are unconscious thinking patterns. Often, these thought-processing channels were constructed in our early childhood, influenced by our role models, societal constructs and media. Reinforced or repeated prejudices eventually become automatic. They become ingrained information-processing mechanisms."
But there's good news.
"Evidence strongly indicates that unconscious biases can be overcome, and even reversed, with sincere intent." In fact, "A person who is motivated to be unprejudiced—because of legal sanctions, social pressures, or strong personal egalitarian values—can suppress biased responses." -Culture Plus, 2018
In a fascinating turn of events, the human mind is capable of overriding itself.
Again from The Newcomer Teacher:
"We are capable of re-imagining our vision of the world around us. In order for true culture and bias training to be effective, we have to make way for it to be effective. That process begins with us taking the time to be raw and honest with ourselves about our own apparent and underlying prejudices.
There’s no promise that the process will be attractive, or even particularly enjoyable. However, be assured that by taking the first steps in being truthful with ourselves, we can open doors for growth and improvement, both in our lives and in the the lives of the students we serve."
Ina Catrinescu writes, “Confirmation bias is our most treasured enemy. Our opinions, our acumen- all of it, are the result of years of selectively choosing to pay attention to that information only which confirms what our limited minds already accept as truth.”
If we can selectively choose to pay attention to those things that support one thought pattern, then we can selectively choose to entertain new though patterns as well. Let’s make an effort to choose wisely.
Access the full Cultural Biases Workshop HERE.
Books That Celebrate Diversity 2017
Readers- especially young readers- should have access to texts that provide mirrors and windows. Mirrors in literature enable our readers to see reflections of themselves within the pages of books. Windows allow for glimpses into worlds, cultures and perspectives that are outside of a reader's personal experience.
These remarkable books of 2017 allow for both- and they are calling for a place on your classroom bookshelf.
EARLY READERS
This is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World
Matt Lamothe (Chronicle Books)
This visually engaging picture book follows one day in the lives of seven children from countries around the world. From Uganda to Russia, from Peru to Iran, we find that while differences do exist, we are all connected by our human qualities and the world we share.
My Beautiful Birds
Suzanne Del Rizzo (Pajama Press)
My Beautiful Birds is an eloquently written story of a boy who is forced to flee his home in war-torn Syria. He finds purpose in caring for the birds that surround him. Del Rizzo, through words and fascinating mixed-media illustrations, tells a story of human resiliency with clarity, compassion and a firm sense of hope.
A Different Pond
Bao Phi, illustrated by Thi Bui (Capstone Young Readers)
Author Bao Phi relays the touching story of a father and son in honest, captivating simplicity. Each day, the father and son fish a Minneapolis pond for the family’s evening meal. During these precious moments together, the father reveals more of his own memories of fishing in Vietnam and of his migration to the United States. The illustrations are equally as moving, making A Different Pondan impactful and digestible sharing of the human experience.
A Family is a Family is a Family
Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Qin Leng (Groundwood Books)
This vibrant picture book tells the story of a young girl who lives with her loving foster family, but is hesitant to share this information with her classmates. When a class project reveals the diversity of other students’ home lives, she becomes empowered to share- and to find pride in- her own unique version of family.
All the Way to Havana
Margarita Engle, illustrated by Mike Curato
Full of energetic sounds and illustrations, All the Way to Havana highlights the adventures of a young boy and his parents while driving to Havana, Cuba. “Cara Cara”, the old family car, chugs and rumbles and zooms through streets filled with musicians, vendors, bustling activity and colorful buildings. All the Way to Havana is a delightful celebration of culture, sight and sound.
Danza!: Amalia Hernandez and El Ballet Folklorico de Mexico
Duncan Tonatiuh
Danza! celebrates the life of famous dancer and choreographer Amalia Hernandez. It tells of her dreams as a young child and her eventual founding of El Ballet Folklorico de Mexico. With this troupe, she performed all over the world, sharing her unique blend of ballet, modern and traditional Mexican dance. Danza! is engaging, informative, inspiring and a visual treat for young readers.
The Journey
Francesca Sanna (Flying Eagle Books)
Italian author and illustrator Francesca Sanna examines the kinds of journeys a refugee might take and the difficult decisions a family might endure when confronted with the unimaginable. The Journey does not detail the refugee experiences of a specific region, giving the main characters a sense of universal relevance. The book is expressive, beautifully depicted and incredibly timely.
The World is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid
Jeanette Winter
Zara Hadid, famed Iraqi architect takes the stage in this uplifting non-fiction picture book. Readers learn of Hadid’s struggles to achieve her dream of becoming a great architect, despite the obstacles she encountered because of her gender and religion. The World is Not a Rectangle encourages young readers to dream big and work hard to reach their aims.
Malaika’s Costume
Nadia Hohn, illustrated by Irena Luxbacher (Groundwood Books)
The culture of the Caribbean comes alive in this delightful picture book. Maliaka, living with her grandmother in Canada, work together to create the perfect carnival costume. Malaika’s Costume celebrates the values of family, cultural pride and imagination.
MIDDLE READERS
Refugee
Alan Gratz (Scholastic)
Refugee details three separate accounts of the refugee experience, from
Nazi Germany to 90’s Cuba to modern day Syria. Gratz weaves these stories together in suspenseful ways, making clear that each refugee experience is significant and deserving of human attention. While each character's search for refuge is unique, hope is the overarching sentiment throughout.
Amina’s Voice
Hena Kan
In this coming-of-age story, Amina and her best friend Soojin must navigate middle school and what it means to be American. Faced with the idea of “fitting in”, Amina contemplates changing her name and hiding her most obvious cultural markers. When her local mosque is vandalized, Amina is forced to reconcile with her own identity. Amina’s Voice is a brave story of finding balance between cultures new and old.
Illegal
Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano (Hodder Books)
Illegal is an engrossing graphic novel that tells the harrowing story of Ebo, who is forced to leave his North African homeland. At only twelve years old, Ebo must make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, experiencing a vast range of emotions and experiences along the way.
The Epic Fail of Artura Zamora
Pablo Cartaya
Growing up in Miami, thirteen-year-old Artura Zamora is about to embark on a summer of challenges, complicated by the presence of Carmen, who moves into the neighborhood and consumes Arturo’s thoughts. Artura becomes a hero in the community when he uses poetry and the art of Jose Marti as a form of protest against neighborhood gentrification.
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
Vashti Harrison (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Little Leaders features forty inspiring role models in history, including Sojourner Truth, Bessie Coleman, Alice Ball and Maya Angelou. The text is beautifully illustrated and captures the imagination of readers of all ages. From science to poetry to advocacy, Harrison relates these true stories of determination with poise and clarity.
Somos Como Las Nubes/We Are Like the Clouds
Jorge Argueta (Groundwood Books)
We Are Like the Clouds is an honest collection of bilingual poems that relate the experience of child migration from Central America to the United States. The poems tell stories from a variety of perspectives and capture sentiments of fear, sorrow, adventure, desperation, hope, and resilience.
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
Karina Yan Glaser (Houton Mifflin)
Celebrated as a New York Times Notable Children’s Book of 2017, this book swallows readers up in the story of a large bi-racial family known as the Vanderbeekers, and the beloved brownstone they’ve always called home. When Beiderman, the not-so-nice landlord, refuses to renew their lease, the Vanderbeekers must use all of their combined creativity to keep their home.
YOUNG ADULT
The Stars Beneath Our Feet
David Barclay Moore (Knopf)
Lolly Rachpaul is a twelve-year-old boy living in Harlem. He and his mother are still grieving the loss of Lolly’s older brother, who was lost to gang violence. A gift of Legos changes the course of Lolly’s life, marking a path toward friendship, purpose, overcoming and eventual healing. This remarkable coming of age story is heartfelt and speaks to the combined power of self-determination and human connectivity.
The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas (Walker)
Thomas’ debut novel about Starr Carter is a Black Lives Matter inspired testament to our times. Starr’s friend Khalil is shot and killed by a police officer as she watches. The consequences are many, rippling into the community and rattling Starr’s existence. This is a potent look at modern race issues, tempered by the goodness of community and the strength of human resolve.
See You in the Cosmos
Jack Cheng
See You in the Cosmos is an endearing story of 11-year old Alex, who records his travels throughout the American southwest on his iPod, with the hopes of one day launching the device into space. Sharing in Alex’s adventures are his troubled mother and sidekick of a dog, Carl Sagan. Alex’s experiences lead him to recognize that the destination is the journey and that family is where- and what- you make of it.
American Street
Ibi Zoboi (Balzer & Bray)
Teenager Fabiola Toussaint expects to find joy and ease after making it from Port-au-Prince to Detroit. She is faced with a different version of reality when her mother is detained by U.S. immigration. Fabiola now wrestles with high school in a new country, the overbearing presence of her cousins, a feeling that must certainly be love- and at the forefront, a desperate drive to free her mother.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Erica L. Sanchez
Julia has always been compared to her “perfect” sister Olga. In fact, Julia's family struggles to understand her motive to leave the family and move away to college. When her sister is killed in a tragic car accident, Julia faces even more pressure to live up to the daughter Olga was. Julia is already juggling new life and new love- and now must face the loss of Olga and the truth about who her sister really might have been. In all of this, Julia begins to reconcile with the past, make peace with her Mexican heritage and discover her own self worth.
Piecing Me Together
Renee Watson
Jade is a determined and bright young women fighting an upward incline of social mobility. She has set out to leave her neighborhood to find success. She is awarded a scholarship to a predominately white school and is taken under the wings of powerful black female advisors. Yet, Jade struggles to identify completely with her old world or her new one. She eventually learns to value all that her less-privileged upbringing taught her. These lessons are part of her identity and become part of her own success story. Watson elegantly tackles race, privilege, and identity in this coming-of-age treat.
When Dimple Met Rishi
Sandhya Menon
Menon has crafted a lighthearted YA romance that places her protagonist at the crossroads of cultural tradition and modern aspirations. Dimple Shah has recently graduated high school and is off to a summer academy for web developers. There, she meets Rishi, the same boy her parents selected as her “suggested arrangement”. While Dimple shuns the idea of an arranged marriage, Rishi welcomes it. Despite their differences, the two are drawn together, and eventually discover a connection that surprises them both. New York Times bestseller and winner of multiple book awards
The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen’s Escape from War to Freedom
Nujeen Mustafa and Christina Lamb
Lamb, co-author of I Am Malala has joined with Nujeen Mustafa to relate another incredible true story. Sixteen-year-old Nujeen was forced to flee Syria amid the destruction and terror of civil war. Her journey is complicated by the fact that she is has cerebral palsy is bound to a wheelchair, making her escape more challenging and dangerous. Nujeen’s quest for safety becomes a sixteen-month odyssey across the Mediterranean and through a number of countries before at last finding haven in Germany. A Girl From Aleppo offers a window into the tragic events in Syria and through one young woman’s story of hardship, perseverance, and overcoming.
Voices from the Classroom: Birtukan
Deep into the process of writing my second book, The Newcomer Fieldbook, a singular thought came to mind: gratitude. Gratitude for the teachers, who guided, mentored, supported me and kept me sane; and gratitude for my students, who had taught me so much.
There it was. The light bulb. My top-notch, unbeatable professional developers? My peer practitioners and my students.
Another “aha” followed. These very student voices- the same ones that had guided my professional growth and acted as magic carpet to new worlds and cultures- appeared no where in my writing. In fact, I couldn't find them in my state's PD platform or in my college curriculum. How had I (and indeed, we) overlooked our most powerful resources?
That's when the last chapter became the penultimate chapter. The closing space would be reserved for the best insights of all- those that don't come from me. This final segment has been divided into two parts: educator contributions and student contributions.
As part of the student insight piece, English language learners from all over the world, ages 7 to 70 took part in a twelve-question survey about their experiences. The responses are telling of our own work as educators. The narratives at once heart breaking and uplifting. These are the voices of our ELLs, as humans, as learners, as individuals who are ready to make a positive mark on the world around them.
Let's look at one of those responses. I happen to know Birtukan personally. In fact, she was in my Newcomer classroom two years in a row, as I rolled up with her class. Her first teacher, Ms. Carmen Kuri, is among my mentor teachers. Carmen's passion for her students' success shines in this interview. Birtukan is now a socially and academically competent, full-of-life middle school student on the brink of high school.
Birtukan G., age 14, female. Heritage: Sudanese. Arrived in U.S. at age 7 from Eritrea. First languages: Tigrinya, Amharic, Arabic.
Survey: What do you remember most about your first day of school in the U.S.?
Birtukan: I was a little shy. I didn’t know where to go. The school was really big and I didn’t know the language and I didn’t have any friends yet. It was a lot of new things.
S: How did you find U.S. school to be different from schooling in other countries where you went to school?
B: I wasn’t experienced in going to school with a teacher who spoke English. It’s a lot different in my country. There, if you don’t listen you are punished. Also, in my country we didn’t have any homework. You do all of your learning at school. I had to learn what to do with homework.
S: What is something you wish your first teacher in America knew about you (but maybe you didn’t have enough English to tell them)?
B: I didn’t know any English and it was hard for me to communicate. I wanted my teacher to know that when I started learning more English I was like a translator for everything. I don’t have brothers or sisters. It’s just me and my mom. My mom got sick a LOT in our country and in America. We lived in a refugee camp and sometimes in the desert. Sometimes we had to walk a long way. I took care of her. In America, I had to be the translator for the doctors and everyone. Now she’s doing better. She has a job here now, so that’s really good.
S: What is something you wish other students in America knew about you (but maybe you didn’t have enough English to tell them)?
B: That I don’t have any brothers or sisters. It made it harder because I was alone a lot.
S: What were your biggest thoughts or worries about going to school in America?
B: That people would bully me. I was bullied a lot when I went to school in Eritrea, so I thought people would bully me here, too.
S: What is something that your first teacher or teachers did that made you feel safe and welcomed?
B: My teacher saw that I didn’t have a lot of clothes and that me and my mom didn’t have any coats. She came to our house with coats and clothes and a lot of food. That was really helpful. My mom was so grateful.
S: Tell about something in your first years of school in America that was hard for you or made you feel uncomfortable.
B: Everything in America was new. For example, it was hard for us to go buy food. We didn’t know what the money meant. We thought $50 was like a dollar. We didn’t know these things yet and I didn’t learn it in school until after.
S: If you could change something about the way your first teacher in the U.S. taught or the way he or she taught you, what would it be?
B: I would want her to help me not be so shy.
S: Was there something in particular that made learning English easier for you? Something at school or at home?
B: I had a friend, Rufta. She spoke my language. It was really easier having her by my side. She came about six months after me, so I knew a little bit more English. I helped her with math. I started speaking more after I had Rufta.
S: What school activities do you think helped you the most in learning English?
B: Playing with the kids outside helped. I didn’t feel as nervous speaking English on the playground. Reading with my teacher in groups was really good.
S: If you could give Newcomer teachers one piece of advice in working with students from your country it would be:
B: Don’t pressure students too much. Try to help them learn the basics of English.
S: If you could give first year Newcomers one piece of advice it would be:
B: Please don’t be scared. There are teachers and students who want to help and be your friend.
Read more student interviews in The Newcomer Fieldbook, available HERE.