Ken Pransky
Francis Bailey
To meet your students
Research has shown how where they are, first
attention to cultural mismatch may
be a key to equitable school you have to find
achievement. This article presents
a series of case study vignettes to them: Working
assist practicing teachers.
with culturally and
linguistically diverse
at-risk students
By 1992, I (Ken Pransky, first author) was growing less and
less confident in my teaching abilities. Since 1987 I had seen
a clear split within my case load. A small number of [English
as a Second Language (ESL)] students thrived in our school
community. They were children from professional families or
families affiliated with the local colleges who attained gradelevel academic proficiency within one to three years, regardless of the amount of English they knew upon entry into
school. The larger number were children from Cambodian
refugee families. Their academic progress was much more
problematic, even with a Khmer transitional bilingual education (TBE) program. Our Latino students also faced academic
challenges.
I’d tended to look at these students as having “deficits,”
stemming from a “weak” first language or “family issues.” I
had made many adaptations and changes in my program that
dealt with “strengthening” these students’ academic abilities
and “filling holes,” which certainly made some improvements,
but to no satisfactory effect. Progress in reading in particular
was a major area of concern. I started wondering whether the
lack was my own, that in spite of my training in whole language, graduate training as an ESL teacher, the success and
confidence I’d had as a teacher, and the cross-cultural awareness I’d gained from 10 years living and teaching overseas, it
was I and my school who were unequipped for my students,
not vice versa. And while I knew that bilingual theory posits as
many as eight years or more for ESL students to attain gradelevel proficiency (Ramirez, 1991), I was afraid of the fatalistic
perspective this would give me. I felt, if I could only figure
out how to think differently....
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T
his article explores the “different thinking” that Ken developed as an approach
to working with at-risk ESL students.
We believe that the teaching and learning process
is much improved when teachers critically inquire about their own and their school’s values
and assumptions about education. Building upon
these insights, teachers can create a truly culturally sensitive learning environment to support
the academic success of students who are placed
at risk (Cummins, 1989). We use the term at risk
to include students who are at risk academically
due to cultural and linguistic differences.
The need to create culturally sensitive
(multicultural) classrooms is not a new idea.
Traditionally this has been understood by classroom teachers as giving different foods, music,
visuals, and literature prominence in a classroom
community. Although these certainly make
classrooms more welcoming, they do not necessarily affect fundamental learning dynamics.
We propose that learning is primarily a social and cultural process (Genesee, 1994;
Vygotsky, 1986). We do not mean to diminish
the role of the individual; however, individual
thinking is strongly influenced by cultural
December 2002/January 2003
©2002 International Reading Association (pp. 370–383)
assumptions and beliefs—even as yours is as
you read and consider the hypotheses in this article. Because all communities do not think, believe, or learn in identical ways, there may still
be much, even in otherwise “culturally sensitive” classrooms, that is confusing to or misunderstood by children with language, culture, and
socioeconomic differences (Delpit, 1996; Heath,
1983). Teachers must be willing to learn not only
who their students are but also who they, themselves, are as cultural beings and how that
strongly colors their teaching (McKeon, 1994).
Through a series of classroom vignettes, we
explore the nature of mismatches between home
and school that place students at risk. We document Ken’s efforts as he tries to identify the underlying reasons why his students are struggling
and creates new teaching practices that are designed to meet his students where they are. Our
goal is not to recommend prescriptive methods
of working with students but rather to give a
wider perspective for looking at ourselves, our
students, and our classrooms. And though not
all the vignettes take place during reading
instruction, the ideas presented are equally ap-
plicable to all teaching contexts, reading included.
Inquiry
We approach our work with at-risk students
through an ongoing process of inquiry (Zeichner
& Liston, 1996) based in teacher research, an
important tool for teachers wishing to improve
their practice in the flow of “real-time” teaching
(Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Freeman, 1998).
Reflective process
To us, the spirit of inquiry is best embodied
in a reflective process (Kolb, 1983). Often complex and subtle, we reduce it to its bare essentials
in the following four steps (see Figure 1).
Step 1. Awareness. A teacher notices a breakdown in communication or an inability (or unwillingness) of a student or group of students to
perform adequately on an academic task.
Step 2. Inquiry. The teacher examines the
nature of the lesson and begins to identify cultural assumptions that may negatively affect atrisk students. The teacher may need to draw
Figure 1
Reflective process
Lesson
Reconceptualization
of learning context
Awareness of academic
difficulty
Inquiry: Real time or meta
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
371
upon professional literature, the perspective of
someone who is familiar with the home cultures
of the students (e.g., educators, parents), and any
previous inquiry experiences. This could also be
termed “meta-inquiry” and is illustrated in case
studies 1 and 4.
Step 3. Reconceptualization. With this new
information, the teacher reconceptualizes his or
her perspective on the students, lesson, curriculum, or school culture. In case study 5, we describe a lesson that revealed a new insight on our
students and the nature of academic tasks.
Step 4. Lesson. A lesson is revisited, revised,
or restructured, and one’s instructional decisions
change based on that new conception.
Of course, what we learn through this
process expands our awareness, thereby transforming our teaching. As one develops more
awareness, knowledge, and experience with a
cultural perspective on learning, one is better
able to reconceptualize and then redirect or refocus one’s teaching within the flow of the lesson (shown in case studies 2– 4). This might be
termed “real-time inquiry.” In real-time inquiry,
especially, it is important to engage in dialogue
with students to try to discover the understandings they have of the lesson task or interaction.
The authors of this article, Ken, a public
school teacher, and Francis, a teacher educator,
have collaborated to capture, through video- and
audiotaping and observation notes, examples of
this process as it unfolds in the classroom. The
inquiry framework and teaching practices that
emerge have had a powerful effect upon student
school success, and we discuss evidence of this
in the article’s conclusion.
Case study vignettes
The following five classroom vignettes illustrate several mutually reinforcing theories that
support our reflective practice. In our conclusion,
we show how these ideas fit as a whole. All students’ and teachers’ names are pseudonyms.
Case study 1: What’s going on?
In a first-grade ESL inclusion classroom, the
classroom teacher, Laurie Hickson, and Ken sit
in front, with the children sitting on the floor or
on chairs around the back of the group. The lesson is about working with positive and negative
behaviors in preparation for a heterogeneous
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Vol. 56, No. 4
group project. When Seiha Krouch, the
Cambodian Title I (a federally funded program
for at-risk students) paraprofessional enters, the
Cambodian American students eagerly get up to
sit with him in the back.
Laurie and Ken had been struggling with an
important question over the years: Were all students fully able to participate and advocate for
their own learning needs in heterogeneous
groups? Their experience suggested otherwise.
While observing heterogeneous group interactions in their inclusion classes, they’d found that
issues such as gender, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and academic standing intruded on group
interactions, significantly affecting the ability of
at-risk students to access the learning of the
group. These issues arose regardless of how the
groups were structured (Cohen, 1994). In other
words, no methodology, such as cooperative
learning in this case, guarantees equal access to
learning by itself. Just as important, Laurie and
Ken also saw that if a mediating adult was not
nearby, the students did not feel empowered
enough to speak out. Laurie and Ken realized
that they had to tackle these issues explicitly if
their classes were really to be inclusion classrooms in more than name only.
In the lesson, most of the children took great
delight in pointing out mistakes Laurie and Ken
were intentionally making and telling them how
they could behave and cooperate better. For the
Cambodian children, however, it was a different
experience. They would whisper with Seiha
from time to time but never raised their hands
to participate as they often would when they
were able to process their ideas with him first.
Laurie and Ken wondered why the
Cambodian children weren’t willing to participate. Finally they hammed it up. Laurie yanked
work out of Ken’s hands, saying something like,
“Give me the book! You’re too slow!” and then
asked the Cambodian students what they
thought. They spoke with Seiha, then looked
down in apparent embarrassment. Laurie and
Ken gently prodded with a couple of questions
and allowed significant wait time, but there was
no response. They wondered if the students did
not know which behaviors were positive and
which were negative. Did they not have the language to explain it? Why did they appear so
discomfited?
December 2002/January 2003
Analysis. This vignette highlights the ways
that cultural assumptions about teaching and
learning affect the educational process. In order
to gain insight on this first vignette, we draw
primarily upon two ideas: the concepts of
Discourse Community (Gee, 1990) and mismatch theory (Delpit, 1996; Pease-Alvarez &
Vasquez, 1994; Shultz, Florio, & Erickson, 1982).
Discourse Community and mismatch theories. One of the main challenges for many at-risk
students is bridging the gap between their home
cultures and the culture of the public school. For
students who are raised in middle-class or affluent homes, this gap can be more easily overcome
even if the surface features of the home culture
(e.g., food, language, religion) differ. However,
for many of the children that we have been
working with, home life and culture are not
closely aligned with school culture at all, making
these children’s prospects for success in school
much more precarious (Delpit, 1996; Genesee,
1994; Heath, 1983; Philips, 1983).
We draw upon Gee’s concept of Discourse
Community as a way to understand the challenges these students face. Gee (1990) used
Discourse to mean a socially accepted association among ways of using language, thinking,
feeling, believing, valuing, and acting that can be
used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group (p. 143). We are all members of a variety of Discourse Communities
(e.g., ethnicity, job, families, religion, sports).
Each Discourse Community has its own particular rules and culture and uses language in ways
that reflect and reinforce its norms and values.
Children are trained to think, feel, believe, value and act in ways that identify them as members
of their particular Discourse Communities.
School is a Discourse Community. At Ken’s
school, the majority of the students and teachers
are white and middle class to affluent. The majority of the students have been well prepared for
interacting in their community’s school culture
through socialization (Heath, 1983). We can say
that these students are empowered within their
school community. Their primary discourse at
home and that of school are very similar.
However, students from home cultures dissimilar to the school’s are often at a distinct disadvantage, coming into classrooms with quite
different understandings of school success, literacy, appropriate interaction between student
and teacher, and so on (Delpit, 1996; Fine, 1987;
Payne, 1998). Thus, they are disempowered.
Even with attempts to make the classroom a
more comfortable, accepting place, the academic progress of at-risk students can often be compromised unless they are “initiated” into the
cultural rules and language use of the school
community.
In this first vignette, cultural assumptions
about the nature of the teacher/student relationship strongly affect the lesson, based as they are
on a world where it is permissible to critique
one’s elders. However, according to Seiha, the
Cambodian American children come from a culture where this is very inappropriate. To actively participate in this lesson, they had to negotiate
a cultural maze of assessing and balancing conflicting identities. Viewed in this light, the fact
that they were reluctant to participate was not
surprising.
Often teachers view student failure as the result of essential characteristics of the individual
(e.g., laziness, lack of intelligence, learning disability) or some deficiency in the students’
homes or communities (e.g., lack of bedtime
reading, parental indifference, too much television). Students are then viewed as having
“deficits,” requiring remedial work to make
them whole. However, we have found it more
productive and empowering for children when
teachers inquire about the cultural assumptions
underlying classroom lessons and interactions.
Reflection on Discourse Community mismatch
takes the onus of breaking the learning impasse
off the student and puts it on the teacher, where it
belongs.
The wide variety of instructional events in a
school day—such as sharing time, reading
group, math lesson, and morning meeting—
involve complex uses of language and draw
upon an array of cultural assumptions about the
nature of teaching and learning (Bloome &
Bailey, 1992; Cazden, 1988; Michaels, 1981).
Each type of lesson has its own particular structure: who can talk and when, the explicit or implicit goals of the lesson, and how learning will
be assessed or demonstrated (Hymes, 1974;
Mehan, 1979). The cultural background of many
at-risk children may limit their ability to fully
participate in classroom activities. It is not that
they come to school ill-prepared or culturally deprived but rather that they simply have not had
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
373
some or even many of the same experiences as
their mainstream classmates.
Reconceptualization and lesson. When the
Cambodian students became uncomfortable and
did not participate, Ken and Laurie did not try to
assume the cause. They spoke with Seiha afterwards to get a clearer understanding of the problem. They then understood that the lesson
structure itself was a barrier to participation, as it
challenged an important value in the children’s
home Discourse Community: a prohibition
against criticizing adults, particularly teachers (cf.
Erikson & Mohatt, 1982; Phillips, 1983). To use
this information to enhance these students’ learning, Laurie, Ken, and Seiha took the opportunity
to instruct the children about the school’s expectations for good students, making the implicit assumptions of the school explicit, thereby allowing
the students to join in the school Discourse
Community. The paraprofessional helped the students see it really was safe to act differently at
school from how their home community had
trained them, especially if they were following the
teachers’ lead. In other words, the result of Laurie
and Ken’s inquiry was to shift the main lesson focus for those students. They learned explicitly that
it was not wrong, at least in this case, to act differently in school than their home culture norm
suggested, as well as how to act differently; and
they learned implicitly that their school success
will partly be premised on applying this same
concept in the future. Laurie and Ken deliberately revisited the same type of lesson on the following day. This time the Cambodian children
happily participated. The process of meta-inquiry
led Laurie, Ken, and the students to a mutually
satisfactory conclusion.
5. Sophea & Penh: T...t!
6. Ken:
Oops, what happened? Can you listen
when you’re talking?
7. Chantha:
No.
8. Ken:
That’s right. It’s important to listen, right?
9. Group:
Yes.
Their automatic choral response to his
“throw-away” question made Ken pause. He
suddenly wondered, what did they really understand about listening? Listening in class was a
chronic issue not only for these particular students but also with other at-risk students from
similar backgrounds. This awareness caused
Ken to inquire more deeply into this dynamic,
instead of continuing with the lesson as planned.
10. Ken:
11. Chantha:
12. Ken:
13. Chantha:
Apparently listening was primarily associated with good behavior at least for Chantha, if
not the others. At Ken’s school (and probably
most schools), while the exhortation to listen is
often outwardly associated with behavior, the
value listening has in the learning process is often left implicit, though considered more important. Ken wondered if these students understood
this more important, implied function of listening in their school. This real-time inquiry led
him to continue this avenue of dialogue.
14. Ken:
Well, I guess you can be good if you listen.
Why is it good?
15. Sophea: Listening is good.
16. José:
Good.
17. Ken:
Why?
18. Penh:
Because it’s important.
19. Chantha: ’Cause you, you be good if you listen!
20.
... (dialogue pattern repeated several times)
21. Ken:
But why? Why is listening important, Chantha?
22. Chantha: (pause) I don’t know.
Case study 2: No listening, no learning!
In early fall in one of his first-grade inclusion classes, Ken’s reading group was exploring
the concept of sound-symbol correspondences
using the letter t. They were making the transition into a “mystery box” guessing game. The
children, three Cambodians and a Latino student,
were very excited at the prospect of playing a
new game.
1. Ken:
Now we’re going to play a new game
so you’ll have to
2.
listen for the directions....
3. Sophea & Chantha: T...t! (exuberantly)
4. Ken:
But we have to listen, right? Now I’m....
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Why is it important?
It’s important.
Yeah, it sure is.... Why?
(pause) Because you be good.
None of the students apparently had any idea
why listening was important beyond “being
good.” They had been impulsively calling out
answers throughout much of the discussion.
Now for the first time, at least one of them was
really monitoring his thinking: Chantha knew he
did not know the answer. Ken used this admission to focus the group’s attention on the fact that
in school, listening was connected to learning,
December 2002/January 2003
and lead them to a slogan that encompassed the
idea, “no listening, no learning.” This was his
lesson, reconceptualized and refocused. Ken also
incorporated this slogan (and others) into his
teaching, posting it on the wall and revisiting it
as the need arose.
The next day, Ken further explored their understanding of listening. When he asked what
part of their body they listened with, they immediately said “eyes” and then “bodies,” before
“ears.” Apparently, when they heard common
teacher phrases like “Listen, eyes up here!” and
their teachers’ exhortations to point their bodies
toward the speaker, they connected their concept
of listening as good behavior with doing literally
what the teacher said. As this all became clarified, Ken was able to tie “no listening” to “no
learning” specifically via thinking. One could
use one’s ears, eyes, and body to listen at school,
but if the brain wasn’t thinking about what it was
hearing, one still would not be listening. In other words, when teachers said, “listen,” they were
also really saying, “think.”
Discussion. This second vignette illustrates
how cultural norms, assumptions, and learning expectations inevitably color the learning environment. We approach a deeper understanding of
these via the key concept of constructivism, which
expands our understanding of how Discourse
Community issues affect classroom learning.
Constructivism is a theory of knowledge and
learning, one branch of which has gained particular prominence in U.S. education over the
last decade (Brooks & Brooks, 1999) and informs the teaching practices of many teachers
at Ken’s school. Many “constructivist” practitioners define the key tenet of constructivism in
terms such as “children construct their own understanding of the world.” Therefore, a teacher’s
job is to create appropriate learning contexts so
students can construct, and take responsibility
for, their own understanding of academic concepts (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; Vygotsky,
1986). The power of this idea is that it subordinates teaching to learning and places the student
at the heart of the learning process.
Ken probed the understanding these children
have about a common word, listening. His attempt to understand what students know or are
thinking is a defining act of constructivist teaching. After getting a better sense of what they
thought, Ken was able to scaffold their learning,
in this case through a questioning process, and
then directly teach them about the school culture’s meaning of “listen.”
Students are always trying to build meaning,
but we need to explore the foundation upon
which meaning is being constructed. It is natural that teachers assume that their students understand their instructional language and lessons
in similar ways. However, as we consider the
concept of Discourse Community, we realize
that meaning rests not in the words themselves
but in the shared understanding of their meaning in the social contexts in which they are used
(Gee, 1990). Constructivist thought should help
us see that while children indeed construct their
understanding of the world, it is only within the
parameters of a familiar sociocultural environment. This vital expansion of the concept that
“children construct their own meaning” forces us
to focus on the sociocultural context of learning
when working with at-risk students.
The children in Ken’s group had constructed
their understanding of “listening at school” on
the basis of their different home culture experiences. There are a myriad of valid social learning
experiences in these students’ home Discourse
Communities that differ from those of the dominant Discourse Community. The learning behaviors and practices any one Discourse
Community values and expects are not objectively “the best” and “most natural” ways for all
children to learn.
For instance, a key concept in “constructivism” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999) is that students
take responsibility for their own learning as a
means to becoming independent learners. This
concept fits into middle-class cultural norms in
the United States but is not universal. The
Cambodian American children at Ken’s school
looked for continued strong adult guidance,
modeling, and structured practice—quite the opposite of “becoming an independent learner.”
Actively working toward “independence” from
adults might be seen as an act of disrespect in
their home Discourse Community. In other
words, “independence” in and of itself is neither
good nor bad and certainly has no universal value; it draws value only from the particular sociocultural context.
Teachers naturally build off their own
Discourse Community learning expectations. In
some cultures children are trained to learn more
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
375
holistically (“top down”), more deductively, extracting meaning from the learning environment
and situation, while in other cultures children are
trained to learn in a more sequential, linear, inductive way (“bottom up”) (Hollins, 1996;
Lantolf, 2000). The culture at Ken’s school,
which we would guess is quite similar to other
schools serving predominantly middle-class or
affluent populations, assumes children learn
more holistically. However, Ken’s experience
with his at-risk ESL students suggests that they
do not approach learning tasks in that way without significant teacher guidance and support.
Fundamentally, constructivism is a theory
that helps explain how learning occurs. It does not
champion the best ways to learn (because cultures
are different), nor was it intended as a teaching
methodology. Activities that emphasize a holistic
approach to learning, quite typical of “constructivist” classrooms now, are not in and of themselves “constructivist” activities. Rather they are
activities based in a particular cultural perspective
on learning that comfortably supports and enhances the process of learning for many students
in a wonderful way—but not all students.
Cultural assumptions underlying the form
and structure of academic tasks, the expected
knowledge and experiences on which those tasks
are built, the expected process of learning, and
the implicit language of the dominant Discourse
Community all must be considered. There must
be explicit teaching where mismatches exist,
otherwise the playing field is kept unbalanced,
even in so-called “constructivist classrooms.”
Constructivist practice in diverse classrooms that
does not actively account for cultural mismatch
throughout the learning process is incomplete.
Reflective process summary. Ken had been
aware that listening was problematic for his students. That led him to talk with his students about
their understanding. Their response caused him to
inquire more deeply about the particular function
listening has within the classroom culture. The
general “shared meaning” of listening includes
quiet bodies, eye contact, active focus, and active
thinking. It is also expected that students will ask
questions as an extension of their listening because
listening is an implied function of learning. To
deepen this “meta-inquiry” and check his conclusions about a mismatch, he consulted with Seiha
and some parents, who confirmed that in the
Cambodian community listening to adults does
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Vol. 56, No. 4
not have nearly as much of an interactive (i.e.,
give-and-take) component as school listening
often does; adults are more directive in their use
of language. When learning from adults,
Cambodian children are expected to watch adult
modeling, with the goal of copying it later.
These conversations were a pivotal point in
the evolution of Ken’s awareness. He recognized
the possible misconceptions and misunderstandings both he and the students might be holding
about one another and the school about even the
most obvious things and how often he would
need to apply this new awareness in the future by
reflecting on the importance of the social and
cultural context to constructing meaning. Rather
than assuming what children “should” or “must”
already know, Ken would try to coconstruct a
mutual understanding with his students whenever possible, letting the learning dynamic and
his growing awareness guide him more than instincts, assumptions, or methodology.
Case study 3: Know what you know
This vignette took place later in the year
with the same group of children as in case study
2. They were working on predicting words from
pictures and initial consonant sounds. The children were reading as a group, sometimes reading
chorally, sometimes answering Ken’s questions,
and sometimes calling out answers. In this case,
they were reading a book about trucks. The
group was talking about the picture above the
following sentence: Trucks carry dirt.
23. Ken:
24. José:
25. Ken:
What do you think this truck is carrying?
Sand.
That’s right. It’s sand. Or it’s something
that looks
like sand. Let’s read.
26.
27. Group (following
Ken’s finger):
Trucks carry sand.
28. Ken:
But look at my finger. It’s pointing to the
last word,
29.
isn’t it? Let’s see if this word is “sssand.” What
30.
letter is it under?
31. Savun:
Sand. The truck is carrying sand.
32. Ken:
What was my question? Listen. What
letter is my
33.
finger under? (taps with finger)
34. Savun:
Sand? (looking very confused)
Ken did not expect the group to see independently that sand was incorrect because of the
December 2002/January 2003
initial d in the text, as they still needed external
reminders to trigger their internal awareness of
sound-symbol correspondences. Students also
must be aware of the metalinguistic distinctions
between sound, letter, and word to understand
this reading strategy. Was Savun not aware of
these distinctions? The students had worked on
these distinctions previously, so it was puzzling
to Ken that Savun was unable to even pick up on
the simple questions on lines 29–30 and 32–33.
Perhaps Savun heard Ken say “That’s right”
to José (line 25) but ignored his follow-up comment. “That’s right” was not the most skillful way
to respond and may have led to Savun’s confusion. As Clay (1985) pointed out, using clear, specific language is particularly important during
reading instruction with at-risk readers. However,
when Ken was referring to the picture, sand was
certainly a reasonable guess. At the point Savun
became confused, the focus had switched to the
word in the text (dirt). In any case, rather than assuming anything about Savun’s understanding of
the academic content of the lesson, Ken wondered
if Savun was focused on something else, perhaps
the nature of the group interaction or the school’s
expectations of how students should relate to academic material.
35. Ken: Remember letters? (sings) A-B-C-D.... (children
join in)
36.
Now think, I’ve got my finger under a letter. What
37.
letter is it under?
38. José: It’s a d!
39. Ken: Good for you, José! It’s a d. What sound does d
40.
have?
41. José: /D-d-d/
42. Ken: Right! And does “ssssssssand” start with a d?
43. José: (scrunches up face and looks at Ken) No?
Because of Ken’s increased awareness of his
students, he saw that a very important new issue
had just surfaced. Instead of stating his answer
with confidence, José questioned Ken about his
answer even as he said it. But Ken knew he had
no real confusion about the sounds for s and d,
as he demonstrated on line 38. Ken wanted him
to take ownership of his answer, not merely have
the right answer. Ken tried to keep focused on
both of these lines of inquiry (Savun’s confusion
and José’s “questioning answer”).
44. Ken:
45. José:
46. Ken:
Well, José, are you asking me or telling me?
(looking intently at Ken’s face) Yes?
José, I’m asking you to think. Think of your answer,
47.
48. José:
49. Ken:
50.
then tell me. Does “sssand” start with a d-d-dee?
(makes a serious face) Mmmmm...no....
All right, José! Sand does not
start with a d. But the word in this book does.
Hmmm....
51.
What’s something that’s like sand, but starts /d-d-d/?
52. Savun: I know—dirt!
So Savun knew how to predict words accurately from initial consonant sounds after all!
Then what problem was he having?
Analysis. On the surface, Ken was clearly
conducting a lesson emphasizing sound-symbol
correspondences. Yet if we examine the transcript
carefully, we see that much of the time was spent
not working on the academic content but rather
on what we call “academic learning behavior.”
Assistance should be offered to learners at the
limit of what they can do by themselves (Tharp
& Gallimore, 1988). Following Vygotsky (1986),
we call the gap between what they can do independently and do with assistance the “zone of
proximal development” (ZPD). Ken’s attempt to
understand how the students were thinking about
the academic task and what their understanding
might be based on was in the students’ ZPD.
The concept of ZPD focuses the attention of
the teacher on identifying exactly where students
need assistance or “scaffolding” (Applebee &
Langer, 1983) in order to accomplish academic
tasks. At times this may involve typical teacher
actions such as supplying a word or definition,
rephrasing language, or filling in background
knowledge about a concept. At other times, the
teacher may need to work with a student’s attentional focus or some understanding of the instructional event itself. We believe that when working
with at-risk students, teachers must give precedence as a ZPD to any point at which Discourse
Community experience or expectations diverge
between students and the school culture. For
younger students in particular, this ZPD often
deals with “academic learning behavior.”
Much of these students’ previous academic
successes in the classroom had come from an external focus on choral answering, “reading” facial expressions, chiming in milliseconds after an
answer was begun by another student, copying
what another student did, or “reading” the flow
and form (inflection or rhythm) of a teacher’s language. These strategies helped them survive in a
social and cultural context where they were
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
377
unsure of the rules that applied and did not see
themselves as empowered. Though understandable, that reinforced an internal passivity around
monitoring their own understanding and learning.
When this dynamic is not understood, teachers
and students may work at cross purposes. And
while it is true that the behaviors described above
may be typical of many young learners, we emphasize that these behaviors may become the
predominant vehicle for at-risk students’ learning
and classroom functioning early in their school
careers.
Reflective process summary. In this vignette,
one strand of Ken’s real-time inquiry probed
why a student who had already had a lot of structured practice with sound-symbol correspondences did not see how sand could not be a
reasonable guess when looking at the word dirt.
The appropriate ZPD for the lesson thus needed
to shift from the academic content to academic
learning behavior, and the lesson was refocused
accordingly, rather than returning to more practice with sound-symbol correspondences. At the
same time, Ken probed José’s external focus
(lines 42– 43). As it turned out, both Savun’s and
José’s difficulties stemmed from the same overriding sociocultural need to listen and think carefully, attend to their own learning internally, and
answer questions they really know with confidence. Subsequent lessons dealt directly with
these issues. Ken realized that the group really
needed to work most on how to learn in the
school Discourse Community, and he restructured the lessons accordingly.
The learning breakdowns in this vignette are
examples of common academic learning behavior patterns we have observed in different groups
of at-risk students (cf. Feuerstein, 1980).
Because Ken’s awareness of this phenomenon
has grown, much of the instructional time he
now spends with this population in early elementary classrooms is in this “academic learning
behavior” zone. He recognizes the need to shift
to this ZPD when he sees children responding
more to external factors than to actual language
content. His lessons are now likely to “morph”
into diverse avenues of inquiry. His teaching has
itself become a process of “real-time” inquiry.
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Vol. 56, No. 4
Case study 4: Thinking skills—school
versus life
Ken formed a reading group in a secondgrade class at the behest of the teacher, a number of whose students had difficulty with reading
comprehension. The group of children consisted
of three Cambodian Americans, an African
American, and a European American. At one
point the group started to read an appropriately
leveled short story entitled, “A Day When Frogs
Wore Shoes” (Cameron, 1986).
Ken’s initial objective in the academic ZPD
was to work on students’ posing of skillful questions as a key to reading comprehension. He
wanted to base the lesson in their understanding
of the story’s underlying structure: the introduction and resolution of a problem as the plot develops. The characters included a set of bored
children heading out to visit a father at his mechanic’s shop, but the father did not like to be
around bored children. A good reader would
wonder if the children will get into trouble when
they visit the father, which increases interest in
the story. Ken initially assumed that the students
would have no difficulty with either interpreting
the story structure or with that simple inference,
and that the group could get to work on forming
and answering questions about the text.
However, they hit a bump and were unable to
push beyond a surface reading of the text. The
students could not see what problem the children
might have if they visited the father.
December 2002/January 2003
53. Ken:
Again, the kids are bored. They’re going to see
their
54.
dad but the dad doesn’t
55.
like bored people sooo....
56. Sokna: They went to their dad’s.
57. Ken:
They went to their dad’s because he doesn’t like
bored
58.
people?.... What did the author tell you about the
kids?
59.
That they’re....
60.
(Three second pause)
61. John: Bored.
62. Ken:
Bored. The kids are bored. What did the author
63.
tell you about the dad?
64. John: That he didn’t like {bored people.
65. Chorus: (overlapping)
{bored people.
66. Ken:
Where are they going?
67. Sokna: To their dad’s place.
68. Ken:
So what problem is there going to be? What prob69.
lem do the kids have?
70. Chindra: Why aren’t they going there?
There were multiple rounds of this type of
discussion with simplified and rephrased language and with Seiha present to help clarify
meaning, yet the children were unable to articulate the possible ramifications of the problem
and its possible effect on the characters. Without
being able to do that, how could they pose skillful questions about the characters and plot?
Ken now moved to a different academic
ZPD for the lesson—drawing inferences. He had
been working within the context of the story and
ESL modifications to language. The conversation was certainly within their level of language
proficiency. It really appeared as if making inferences was beyond their grasp.
However, the full meaning of an academic
ZPD involves not just the set of discrete academic skills necessary to perform a particular task
but also the social, cultural, and linguistic context of that task, with which a student may be unfamiliar. So rather than just stop there and make
a negative judgment about the students’ ability to
make inferences, Ken decided to explore this
concept further as the next step in his real-time
inquiry.
Teachers will sometimes say of an at-risk
reader, “Student X can not make inferences (or
think abstractly, or think critically).” In other
words, teachers may see a student’s inability to
perform well on academic tasks as a sign of a
learning disability or cognitive deficiency without considering the role that home/school mismatch may play. We feel such judgments do not
honor the full range of cognitive abilities or life
experiences children bring to a classroom. They
also do not take the situated nature of cognition
into account (Sternberg & Wagner, 1994). Ken
wanted to extend the discussion to more familiar social and cultural contexts. He tailored an
example for each child, such as the following:
71. Ken:
72.
Chindra, let’s try this. You got dirty outside playing.
Your dad doesn’t like you to have dirty clothes,
[he] gets
73.
angry if you have dirty clothes. You are about to
see your
74.
dad. You’re walking in the house. Your dad is
right there.
75.
What’s your problem going to be?
76. Chindra: Uhh, I’m going to get in trouble.
The students showed that they could make
and articulate inferences concerning their own
real life situations. Starting there, the students
began to learn to connect this skill to their own
reading. But Ken wondered why they couldn’t
do that independently from the beginning.
Reflective process summary. This vignette
weaves together many of the issues we have
raised in this article. A breakdown in communication and academic performance triggered the
necessity for inquiry, both during the lesson and
after. We spoke to the classroom teacher about
the students’ performance, read journals the students had been keeping, and spoke with Seiha
to see if the students had shown the ability to apply inferencing skills in other academic contexts.
We found that across the board, the more the
lessons were grounded in the students’ life experiences, the more likely we were to read inferences (in journals) or hear them make
inferences. However, this question remained:
Why couldn’t they independently apply their
proven inferencing skills to this more abstract,
formal context of reading?
Of course, because there were ESL students
in the group, we first had to consider whether
language was a barrier. However, because their
level of oral proficiency was quite strong, we
eliminated this consideration. We also gave no
credence to a “cognitive deficiency” hypothesis. We then examined two reasonable possibilities. An important characteristic of the reflective
process is recognizing the need to generate multiple hypotheses.
First, we considered the nature of the instructional event and the language that encoded
it. Ken had seen throughout his work with these
students that they and the school had mismatched conceptions of “reading.” The author’s
words in print had less primacy for them than
their own feelings or ideas about that text. While
teachers want children to relate text to their own
ideas and experience, they expect students to
give primary meaning to the author’s words, and
certainly not to substitute the former for the latter. Teachers also expect good readers to consider possible outcomes to a plot conflict
actively. These implied assumptions about good
reading are often woven into the sociocultural
fabric of reading lessons. Was an unfamiliarity
with one or more of these the cause of the students’ apparent inability to make the “obvious”
inferences asked of them?
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
379
Second, we wondered if the students did not
see that their home and life experiences could
be applicable to many academic tasks (see
Delpit, 1996; Heath, 1983). This could be caused
by feelings of disempowerment within the classroom Discourse Community or by an inability to
identify with, or make connections to, the characters and situations in the texts.
To this day, we are unsure exactly what
caused their difficulties in making inferences
about stories in print. However, a teacher’s willingness to think flexibly, explicitly connect
school learning to children’s own life experiences, and differentiate between cognitive skills
and the particular social and cultural context in
which those academic skills are set can often
yield good results. In this case, the good results
were the following: (a) Ken confirmed that the
students had well-developed inferencing skills
that they could articulate in English; (b) the students began to build a new awareness that their
home experiences could be transferable to academic contexts; and (c) with continued modeling,
grounding, and practice, the students were able
to internalize this awareness and skill to apply
independently to their own reading. In practical
terms, this meant even more vigilance by Ken
as to when he needed to break down and clarify
reading tasks, give them more concrete reading
strategies and tools to use to become successful
readers, and ground students’ understanding in
their own life experiences.
Case study 5: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
In the second year of a first- and secondgrade “looping” ESL-inclusion classroom (i.e.,
the students and teachers moved to the next grade
together), Ken and Laurie designed a long-term
unit around a read-aloud of The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 2000, HarperCollins). They wanted to familiarize the ESL students with this cultural icon and create activities
to help develop and strengthen problem-solving
and critical thinking skills stemming from the
events in the story. They wanted to highlight the
connection between real-life critical thinking
skills and academic contexts at school.
The first activity concerned Dorothy’s running away (which they explained was an event
from the movie, not the novel). The students had
to pretend they were Dorothy and make a list of
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Vol. 56, No. 4
10 things they would take that could fit into a
small suitcase.
The students went off to make their lists.
The Cambodian children, as usual, sat with
Seiha. They had a very animated discussion and
were busy writing and talking. When the time
was up, the class met as a large group for the students to share their lists. Two very interesting
things happened. First, the Cambodian students
very eagerly and confidently raised their hands
to participate. Although they’d been getting
more comfortable speaking and offering their
ideas in the large group, they still did not always
volunteer to speak in whole-group lessons.
Second, their lists differed markedly from those
of nearly all the other students.
The mainstream students’ lists were filled
with toys, dolls, and computer games. With
some prodding, a few children had remembered
to add a change of clothes and food (most often
cookies). The Cambodian students’ lists included matches, small bags of rice, flashlights and
batteries, coats and changes of clothes, and other
food. All things being equal, Ken and Laurie
could easily have concluded that the Cambodian
students’ critical thinking skills were clearly “superior” to anyone else’s.
What was going on? Why did the Cambodian
students independently and confidently demonstrate strong critical thinking skills that Ken and
Laurie did not often see from them in classroom
activities, at least not without a lot of assistance?
Discussion. This lesson highlights an idea
central to our understanding of the learning and
teaching process. That is, the nature of the task
and the cultural context determine, in many
ways, the type and degree of student participation. In this example, the Cambodian students,
born and raised in a community of successful
survivors of war, severe oppression, and refugee
camps, knew a lot about the practicalities of
“running away.” The children were well aware
of their families’ experiences and could make sophisticated choices within that realm of experience. For this particular classroom assignment,
their backgrounds were well aligned with the
school task, in contrast to the many times where
academic tasks were not always so clearly connected to and supportive of their background
experiences.
The vast majority of students have a full capacity for critical thinking. However, the types of
December 2002/January 2003
thinking expected, how they will be demonstrated, and the sociocultural context of the learning—
including the kind of background experiences on
which the new learning is based—flow mainly
from majority Discourse Community norms. So
while it may appear at times that at-risk students
are not as academically proficient as other students, it is not due to a cognitive deficiency, a
“lack of thinking ability,” or diminished “academic potential.” It may be one element or a combination of elements of the sociocultural fabric of
the lesson (see Figure 2) that are confusing or not
readily connectable to a student’s experiences.
Teachers must carefully consider all aspects of
this equation, make the implicit explicit, and be
prepared to support students in those areas in
which they struggle.
This lesson worked well, and knowing why
is very useful. First, the task and lesson content
reflected the children’s home culture knowledge
and built off their strengths and experiences.
Second, with Seiha they were in a safe, supportive Discourse Community, creating a cocoon of
empowerment within the larger class. In feeling
empowered academically and socially, they
could demonstrate their full competence with
confidence.
Cumulative positive effects
The cumulative effect of the various interventions described in this article on the academic
Figure 2
ZPDs in the teaching/learning process: A conceptual framework
Nature of task
Learning expectations
classroom
cultural/life
experiences
personal attitudes
skills needed to
perform task:
academic
cognitive
cultural
language
Instructional event
(academic ZPD)
language
interactions:
(student-student,
student-teacher)
academic learning
behavior
empowerment
empowerment
making meaning
context
Social norms
language use/codes
performance expectations
interactions (student-student,
student-teacher)
the “-isms”
(i.e., racism, sexism)
empowerment
To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them
381
progress of Ken’s at-risk ESL population has
been very positive. Because many variables affect academic performance, both at school and at
home, it is hard to isolate the specific effects of
any particular one. We have both test results and
observational evidence to support our conclusion
of enhanced academic performance. It must also
be emphasized that the most improvement we
have seen has been in the context of ESLinclusion classroom experiences.
First, of the 15 fourth-grade ESL students at
Ken’s school who have taken the very challenging Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System test (given to fourth, eighth, and tenth
graders) since it was first administered in 1998,
only three students—who also received special
education services—have failed the Language
Arts section. Across the state, ESL student failure rates are over 50%, and in some districts with
high percentages of at-risk ESL students failure
rates have been over 90%. Second, classroom
teachers have observed the increased participation and quality of academic work by this population compared with their experience with
earlier groups of similar students. In addition,
overall, we note the steady movement toward
grade-level performance year-by-year in the
aggregate test scores (Qualitative Reading
Inventory, Gates-McGinitie, Terra Nova) of
those at-risk ESL students with inclusion classroom experiences. This is in sharp contrast to the
academic performance of the school’s at-risk
populations before the inclusion model and
Ken’s and other teachers’ shifts toward inquirybased teaching. Anecdotally, many classroom
teachers have commented on the increased participation and performance of this population.
Finally, and most important to us, Seiha—the
one who knows the Cambodian students best—
tells us that he sees the students doing better and
that the students feel they’re doing better.
Looking beyond our beliefs
and practices
Teachers are so overwhelmed as it is, who
wants to add yet another “new thing” to their
load? One advantage of inquiring into the learning process from a cultural perspective is that this
does not add quantitatively to our work but instead
qualitatively transforms that which we already do.
We teachers need only look more deeply and care-
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Vol. 56, No. 4
fully into what is already in front of us, connecting it to ideas, experience, and theory beyond our
culturally, personally, and even professionally informed beliefs, values, and assumptions. This is
the process of reflective practice.
Our main premise is that learning is fundamentally a social and cultural process. In this
sense, instructional tasks are social and cultural
tasks in which students make meaning based on
their previous life (and school) experiences,
Discourse Community training, and understanding of language. Understanding this forces us to
look at ourselves, our students, and our classrooms in a different light and acknowledge the
actual learning dynamics in our schools.
Students who are not members of the dominant
community often are at risk when the social and
cultural fabric of their classroom learning interactions are foreign, uncomfortable, or confusing.
The challenge for teachers is to accommodate
these students’ needs in mainstream classrooms
where, in the end, all students must learn to work
confidently, productively, and successfully.
Each of the vignettes in this article highlighted one or more interventions or differing
perspectives in working more effectively with
this community of learners in the context of an
important melding of constructivist and mismatch theory. Figure 2 (on page 381) shows how
these factors affect instructional events. It visually represents their influence on the sociocultural fabric of the classroom that binds all
instructional events.
In Figure 2, the inner circle is our academic
focus. The darker outer circle is the sociocultural
context of the lesson, or school Discourse
Community norms, which we have divided into
the categories of nature of task, learning expectations, and social norms. In the boxes under
these headings are various issues that may arise
as stumbling blocks for some students. These are
possible primary ZPDs for any lesson, for these
students in particular, or even the whole class as
necessary. We saw that the lesson in case study
5 was successful because it positively addressed
all three categories in the diagram. Of course, the
boundaries of these various ZPDs are not sharply
defined during one’s real-time teaching, but
clear demarcations are not important. Careful
attention and the willingness to question are.
Although not all of the vignettes looked at
reading instruction, the theoretical and practical
December 2002/January 2003
elements of our framework apply equally to all
learning interactions. However one views the
reading process, it is important to understand that
reading tasks must also be seen as social tasks because expectations around the acts of instruction,
giving symbols meaning, interpreting text, and
demonstrating understanding are defined within
any given Discourse Community, thereby making them social and cultural tasks. That being the
case, if one is working with at-risk readers, one
must consider how a mismatch among any of the
three categories in Figure 2 may be contributing
to poor reading performance.
In the end, by avoiding hasty assumptions
and carefully attending to the reality of what unfolds both in front of us and within us, we can
make our classrooms more accessible, comprehensible, comfortable, and successful places of
learning for all our students. By accepting the
challenge to know ourselves and our students better, and to work toward a more equitable learning
environment, no one loses and we all gain.
Pransky is an ESL teacher at Fort River Elementary School in
Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. He may be contacted at 46
Pondview Drive, Amherst, MA 01002, USA. Bailey teaches at
the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont,
USA.
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