Putting Translanguaging Strategies and Differentiated Assignments into Practice
Blogpost: How might you incorporate differentiation and translanguaging strategies in using/teaching one of Tovani’s reading strategies?
After our class on Thursday, I really felt that I got a sense of what translanguaging really is and not just the definition that I have remembered from past classes. "Translanguaging in Curriculum and Instruction" lays out some real concrete strategies that really put it into perspective for me. One of my favorites was the word walls (pg 133). I have heard of word walls in the past but never thought of using multiple languages and different cognates to help emerging bilinguals VISUALIZE the connections between the words. I kept connecting back to myself to think of myself learning Spanish and how helpful having these visual aids displayed in the classroom at all times would be extremely beneficial. Therefore, in my group we came up with the idea of having an 'on-going' chart that students could have in their notebooks, maybe a special folder for it that they will continue to add to when a new word arises. This led me to think about how we could take this translanguaging strategy to then apply it to a reading strategy.
A way to implement this strategy with one of Tovani's reading strategies is the 'Double entry diaries' strategy. I personally have used this in my middle school years and find it a great way to break down information in a clear and concise way. For those not familiar, you take a sheet of paper and fold it the long way (hot dog) and on the left side you would write a direct quote with page numbers from a text, whereas on the other side you would put 'thinking options'. Thinking options in this scenario is sentence starters like, "This reminds me of...I wonder....I infer...This is important because... etc. However, I thought this would be a great way to incorporate a combination of the word walls and the double entry strategy. Keeping the format of the double entry diaries, I thought when dissecting a text that is not in their first language, this method could allow students to focus on a direct quote or line from a piece that they may not understand. On the right side of the paper that was titled thinking options could be a 'what they know' section. This is where they identify key words or use the language they are most comfortable with to describe what the line is conveying. This activity could be done in groups, pairs or even done as classroom activity. It breaks down the information and with the help of a word wall in the classroom, they can find easier ways to decode and comprehend the text they are reading. This assignment could also be done the opposite way. If you provided multiple translations of a text in multiple languages, they could do the assignment as described previously, but could take the direct quote and translate it into English. Either way, I think this assignment would be a great aid to any emerging bilinguals.
After our class on Thursday, I really felt that I got a sense of what translanguaging really is and not just the definition that I have remembered from past classes. "Translanguaging in Curriculum and Instruction" lays out some real concrete strategies that really put it into perspective for me. One of my favorites was the word walls (pg 133). I have heard of word walls in the past but never thought of using multiple languages and different cognates to help emerging bilinguals VISUALIZE the connections between the words. I kept connecting back to myself to think of myself learning Spanish and how helpful having these visual aids displayed in the classroom at all times would be extremely beneficial. Therefore, in my group we came up with the idea of having an 'on-going' chart that students could have in their notebooks, maybe a special folder for it that they will continue to add to when a new word arises. This led me to think about how we could take this translanguaging strategy to then apply it to a reading strategy.
A way to implement this strategy with one of Tovani's reading strategies is the 'Double entry diaries' strategy. I personally have used this in my middle school years and find it a great way to break down information in a clear and concise way. For those not familiar, you take a sheet of paper and fold it the long way (hot dog) and on the left side you would write a direct quote with page numbers from a text, whereas on the other side you would put 'thinking options'. Thinking options in this scenario is sentence starters like, "This reminds me of...I wonder....I infer...This is important because... etc. However, I thought this would be a great way to incorporate a combination of the word walls and the double entry strategy. Keeping the format of the double entry diaries, I thought when dissecting a text that is not in their first language, this method could allow students to focus on a direct quote or line from a piece that they may not understand. On the right side of the paper that was titled thinking options could be a 'what they know' section. This is where they identify key words or use the language they are most comfortable with to describe what the line is conveying. This activity could be done in groups, pairs or even done as classroom activity. It breaks down the information and with the help of a word wall in the classroom, they can find easier ways to decode and comprehend the text they are reading. This assignment could also be done the opposite way. If you provided multiple translations of a text in multiple languages, they could do the assignment as described previously, but could take the direct quote and translate it into English. Either way, I think this assignment would be a great aid to any emerging bilinguals.
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