Language Analysis: Supporting English Learners in Accessing Informational Texts

Presented by Danielle GaregnaniEnglish Learner Support TeacherSherman Elementary, San Diego Unified School Districtdgaregnani@sandi.net

CCSS ELA/Literacy ShowcaseJune 24, 2013

Session Outcomes

Participants will:• Examine the complex features of academic language• Examine some of the language features and patterns

of informational texts• Engage in text analysis of informational texts• Engage in activities that support student

understanding and use of the language features of informational texts

Functional Grammar

• Based on Halliday’s socio-cultural theory of language learning- Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)

• The function of language is to make meaning

• Language is produced based on choices of the speaker/writer in relation to demands of the context

• Texts are produced for different purposes; the lexical and grammatical features of these texts are influenced by the purpose and context

Eggins, 2004

CCSS - Challenges for ELs

The language patterns of different content areas (the lexico-grammatical features and syntactic structures) make it more difficult for students, especially ELs, to understand and use academic language.

Common Core State Standards AND Next Generation ELD Standards

Challenges of Academic Language- Clause Linking

“Because the climate is dry, farmers there must use irrigation to water their fields. However, the Central Valley has one of the country’s longest growing seasons.” Harcourt Social Studies, grade 4

“As a seed begins to sprout, a root grows from it. Next, the seed breaks open and a young plant, or seedling, appears.” Harcourt Science, grade 3

Challenges of Academic Language- Referencing

“Most newcomers arrived in California with only what they could carry. These people needed places to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and much more. This created demand for workers of many kinds. Carpenters built homes and buildings, and merchants sold supplies.” Harcourt Social Studies, grade 4

Challenges of Academic Language- Lexical Density

“When a river slows down, it drops sediment that builds up in layers at the bottom of rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans, which press and stick together to form sedimentary rock.” Harcourt Science, grade 3

Challenges of Academic Language- Nominalization

“After weathering has broken the rock into sediment, erosion and deposition cause the particles to build up as new sand on beaches. Over time, sedimentation forms new rocks on the beach. This formation of new rock is made up of several layers.” Harcourt Science, grade 5

Metalanguage

We need to give our students the linguistic resources to access, understand, and use the language required for academic tasks (Schleppegrell, 2013)

• Highlight and explicitly teach language function and forms in context

• Engage students in talk about those functions and forms

• Provide opportunity to practice the language in context• Connect the language to other areas

Academic Content and Language

Learning new content is not separate from the development of the language that constructs the new knowledge

The Language of Schooling involves:• Learning Language (vocabulary and forms)• Learning Through Language (content)• Learning About Language (how it works and is

used-its function)Schleppegrell, 2004

Literacy & Language Across the Content Areas

Good literacy teaching isn’t something added to an already crowded curriculum; it isn’t the icing on the cake, but the ingredients of it! Instead of thinking in terms of “covering the content,” we must think in terms of “uncovering the subject.”

Gibbons, 2009

Language features/patterns of descriptive texts

SEE HANDOUT

Language features/patterns of causal & sequential explanation texts

SEE HANDOUT

What are some of the text types students are required to read/write?

Narrative Informational/Explanatory

Argument

Personal Recount Informational Report Exposition

Fictional Story Procedural Discussion

Historical Recount Explanation Response to Literature

Summary

Response to Literature

PurposeDescribingComparing and ContrastingExplaining- sequential and causalPersuadingInstructingRecounting

Kindergarten

Starfish have arms, but no legs. Starfish have feet, but no toes. They glide and slide on tiny tube feet. They move as slowly as a snail.

Tiny brittle stars hide under rocks on pools by the sea.The mud star hides in the mud.When a starfish is hungry, it hunts for mussels, oysters, and clams.

Starfish by Edith Thacher Hurd

Kindergarten

Starfish have arms, *but no legs. Starfish have feet, *but no toes. They glide and slide on tiny tube feet. They move as slowly as a snail.

Tiny brittle stars hide under rocks on pools by the sea.The mud star hides in the mud.When a starfish is hungry, it hunts for mussels, oysters, and clams.

Starfish by Edith Thacher Hurd

*don’t have

First Grade

Pumpkin plants don’t stand up tall. As the stems grow longer, they sprawl all over the ground. Before long, twisted, tangles vines cover the pumpkin patch. Soon, flower buds appear on the vines. After each bud opens, its orange petals grow bigger and bigger. They look like bright orange umbrellas.

From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer

First Grade

Pumpkin plants don’t stand up tall. As the stems grow longer, they sprawl all over the ground. Before long, twisted, tangled vines cover the pumpkin patch. Soon, flower buds appear on the vines. After each bud opens, its orange petals grow bigger and bigger. They look like bright orange umbrellas.

From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer

Second Grade

Turn over a good-size brook boulder and look closely at the wet surface. Chances are you will see a tiny aquatic insects crawling on it. The nymphs, or beginning stages of mayflies, stone flies, and other stream-borne flies, live on submerged rocks, where they feed on microscopic organisms. Nymphs’ flat bodies allow them to crawl under and not be crushed by the heavy stream boulders.

The Brook Book: Exploring the Smallest Streams by Jim Arnosky

Second Grade

Turn over a good-size brook boulder and look closely at the wet surface. Chances are you will see tiny aquatic insects crawling on it. The nymphs, or beginning stages of mayflies, stone flies, and other stream-borne flies, live on submerged rocks, where they feed on microscopic organisms. Nymphs’ flat bodies allow them to crawl under and not be crushed by the heavy stream boulders.

The Brook Book: Exploring the Smallest Streams by Jim Arnosky

Third Grade

Outside the glass, the water evaporates and spreads throughout the room as vapor. In time, the drops disappear. In the glass, water also evaporates, but the vapor is trapped. The air inside the glass becomes humid, which means that the air is full of water vapor. And that vapor condenses back onto the water drops as quickly as water molecules can evaporate. Therefore, the drops remain.

A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick

Third Grade

Outside the glass, the water evaporates and spreads throughout the room as vapor. In time, the drops disappear. In the glass, water also evaporates, but the vapor is trapped. The air inside the glass becomes humid, which means that the air is full of water vapor. And that vapor condenses back onto the water drops as quickly as water molecules can evaporate. Therefore, the drops remain.

A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick

Horses move in four natural ways, called gaits or paces. They walk, trot, canter, and gallop. The walk is the slowest gait and the gallop is the fastest. When a horse walks, each hoof leaves the ground at a different time. It moves one hind leg first, and then the front leg on the same side; then the other hind leg and the other front leg. When a horse walks, its body swings gently with each stride.

Fourth Grade

Horses by Seymour Simon

Horses move in four natural ways, called gaits or paces. They walk, trot, canter, and gallop. The walk is the slowest gait and the gallop is the fastest. When a horse walks, each hoof leaves the ground at a different time. It moves one hind leg first, and then the front leg on the same side; then the other hind leg and the other front leg. When a horse walks, its body swings gently with each stride.

Fourth Grade

Horses by Seymour Simon

Fifth Grade

The Martian ice cap has canyons that plunge as much as three thousand feet beneath the surface. The canyons are formed by winds cutting through the ice and by the evaporation of water in the atmosphere. Scientists believe that an ocean with ten times the amount of water in the ice cap once existed on Mars. They think that the remaining water not in the north polar ice cap is stored below the surface and in the much smaller south polar cap, or else it has been lost in space.

Destination Mars by Seymour Simon

Fifth Grade

The Martian ice cap has canyons that plunge as much as three thousand feet beneath the surface. The canyons are formed by winds cutting through the ice and by the evaporation of water in the atmosphere. Scientists believe that an ocean with ten times the amount of water in the ice cap once existed on Mars. They think that the remaining water not in the north polar ice cap is stored below the surface and in the much smaller south polar cap, or else it has been lost in space.

Destination Mars by Seymour Simon

Activities to Support Student Understanding and Use of Language Features

• Text Analysis• Theme-Rheme Analysis• Sentence Deconstruction• Sentence Reconstruction • Text Reconstruction• Building Complex Sentences

How can teachers incorporate language analysis into instruction?

SHARED READING

1. Use familiar text- no “cold” reads Read and discuss the “gist” of the text first Discuss overall organization, text features, the big idea

2. Introduce one feature at a time Explicitly call students’ attention to the feature and teach the function Analyze one grammatical feature at a time- highlight the form and use

guiding questions to discuss its function

3. Analyze the text sentence-by-sentence/clause-by-clause.

4. Deconstruct and analyze the text in small chunks- one sentence/paragraph/page at a time

5. Incorporate language analysis activities

How can teachers incorporate and explicitly teach language analysis in writing instruction?

Explicit Instruction and the Curriculum Cycle (Gibbons, 2001)

Stage 1Building the Field

Activate background knowledge of the topicRead and discuss the “gist” of the text-Shared Reading approach

Stage 2Modeling the Text

Highlight/teach organization & structureHighlight/teach grammar features & functionsAnalyze textEngage students in activities to practice the target language formsModel writing a text of the genre

Stage 3Joint Construction

Co-construct a text of the genre- teacher and students contribute

Stage 4Independent Writing

Students write their own text

How can language analysis support student reading comprehension?

• It supports reading comprehension by providing access to the deeper meaning of the text• It heightens their awareness of the language of the

genre/text type• It slows students down, making them focus on the

details of the information which is realized through the language• It helps students focus on the macro and micro levels

of academic texts (discourse, text type, structure & organization, form) and gives them metalanguage to talk about academic content

How can language analysis support student writing?

• It scaffolds writing by raising awareness and focusing on the language features and structures of the text types students have to produce

• It expands their linguistic repertoire and gives them the resources they need to write in the content areas

• It allows for practice using the language features in context of an academic task

In the absence of an explicit focus on language, children from certain linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds continue to be privileged and others to be disadvantaged in learning, assessment, and promotion, perpetuating the obvious inequalities that exist today.

Schleppegrell, 2004