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Workshops Focusing on English Language Learners

Understanding and Honoring the Value of First Language and First Culture

First Language Matters

How important, really, are our students’ first languages? Join us in a gallery walk that spotlights passages both from published authors and from our own students—and we’ll come up with our answers together. What are the implications for our own teaching and for conversations with colleagues?

Child Translators: Honoring Their Abilities, Building on Their Skills in the Classroom

Children of immigrants often assume the role of translator to help parents in medical and legal transactions—as well as in daily living. They translate words, negotiate social dimensions, and join parents to become a performance team. How can teachers build on the sophisticated abilities of these students? This session will share both research and practice.

Honoring Variations of English in Students of African Descent

Children of African descent arrive in our classrooms from places like Belize, Nigeria, Ghana, Georgia and South Los Angeles. They bring with them English influenced by family and community languages. This workshop will explore the linguistic and cultural factors that influence their English and share ways to honor home language while helping students write and read mainstream English.

Expanding the Canon: Many Voices, Many Eyes

Including different cultures in our everyday study of literature serves many purposes: valuing our students and their home cultures and languages, as well as exposing all students to rich literary experiences. This workshop will discuss strategies and literature from many American cultures and show clips of authors discussing their works with middle and high school students.

The Writing of English Learners—and Speaking Too

Paying Attention to the English Writing of Those in the Middle

We search for engaging, relevant passages and craft writing prompts that seem accessible. We guide students through their reading. We teach strategies to help students write essays that capture their intentions and communicate their stance to readers. As we look at the first full drafts, what do we see? Join us as we pay careful attention to the writing of advanced middle and high school English learners.

Beat the Clock:  Helping High School English Learners Grow Dramatically in Their Writing

High school English learners have lots to accomplish—mastery of content knowledge in a new culture and advanced proficiency in a second (or third) language. Using the University of California’s Analytical Writing Placement Exam as a centerpiece, we’ll see how teachers can scaffold challenging text and help students decipher prompts. We’ll also look at student writing and pinpoint areas of promise and next steps for teaching and learning.

Helping Writers Improve Draft by Draft

Your students have completed a first draft of a multi-draft essay. While students can be of great use to their peers, the expertise of teachers is essential. What do you say to students who have errors in every line, who don’t yet understand how to introduce an essay, who have some brilliant ideas but also have sentences that are not intelligible? We’ll engage in discussions of student work and come up with more than one answer.

Race, Culture, Identity: Opportunities to Go Public With Our Stories

English learners often struggle to understand race and culture as they grapple with issues of identity at school and in the community. This workshop will focus on strategies that can be woven into the curriculum to support English learners as they think, talk, read and write about matters of race, culture and identity. It will also share the details of the UCLA Writing Project’s Writing Event and the opportunity for students and teachers to publish their writing.

Coaxing the Voices of English Learners

English learners often spend their school days in silence. As teachers, we need to provide opportunities for students to speak the language they are acquiring. During this workshop we’ll explore strategies that can coax student voices out into the English speaking world. We’ll look at specific texts and activities that have helped students gain confidence and voice in their second (or third or fourth) language. We’ll also discuss the importance of developing a “presence” in any language.

Drawing on the Appeal and Power of Teen Culture

The Soundtracks of My Life: Composing Autobiography Through Music & Writing

What’s one promising way to guide English learners in writing their autobiographies—one bite at a time? See how one high school class analyzed song lyrics and explained how these lyrics connect to significant experiences in their own lives. We’ll look at student writing samples and listen to a few snippets of their chosen songs.

It’s a Rap: Metaphor and Simile in the Urban Ode

Participants will analyze the genre of rap and consider its historical and political arena. We’ll examine the rhetorical devices within an urban ode, paraphrase for meaning, and create our own ode—incorporating beats, rhymes and rhythms.

High School English Learners—First Days, Months in U.S. Schools

Write From Day One:  Help Beginning English Learners Use Their Own Language & Skills to Develop Writing Fluency in English

How can secondary teachers help students break through the language barrier and engage in written discourse from the very first day of school? Learn about alternatives to fill-in-the-blank exercises. We’ll explore how beginning English learners can build cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) and compose right from day one.

Developing Cultural Competence in Culturally Diverse Classrooms

Help your students develop academic abilities as well as respect for people of different cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds. Find out how students can work in cooperative learning groups, take Cornell notes and use the internet to conduct inquiry into their classmates’ home cultures.

Academic and Analytical

High Stakes Don’t Have to Be Such a Gamble:  Teaching Analytical Reading and Writing

How do middle school English learners gain the confidence and skills to write that on-demand analytical essay?  Students start by engaging in carefully scaffolded classroom activities—with engaging passages and carefully crafted prompts. They embark in a writing process that includes revision. We’ll look at passages, prompts and the work of advanced English learners—some in ESL classes, others in the mainstream.

Academic Protocols

English learners need to learn everyone’s second language—academic language and academic writing. This workshop will focus on academic protocols—language that makes writing “sound” sophisticated and cohesive—and strategies to use these protocols with your students.

English Learners in the AP English Classroom

In this interactive session, participants will learn strategies to help support English learners in AP and Pre-AP classes. Visual texts, choral reading, revision and style exercises help English learners gain access to challenging texts and write analytically about them. We’ll consider good choices for classroom texts and, together, will name the challenges the AP Literature and AP Language examinations present for English learners.