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Language Power
Foreword by Pauline Gibbons
Here, at last, is every K-8 teacher’s playbook on the critical role academic language plays in content learning and student achievement. The best part? It comes jam-packed with ready-to-use resources.
- Grade Level: PreK-12
- ISBN: 9781506375519
- Published By: Corwin
- Year: 2017
- Page Count: 296
- Publication date: March 16, 2017
Price: $32.95
Review Copies
Review copies may be requested by individuals planning to purchase 10 or more copies for a team or considering a book for adoption in a higher ed course. To request a review copy, contact sales@corwin.com.
Description
Because explicit language instruction serves ALL students
Here, at last, is every K-8 teacher’s playbook on the critical role academic language plays in content learning and student achievement. What exactly is so different? Margo Gottlieb and Mariana Castro distill the complexities of language learning into four key uses through which students can probe the interplay between language and content, and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. It’s as straight-forward as that.
Best of all, Language Power is jam-packed with hands-on, replicable resources to help you seamlessly integrate academic language into your daily routines: targeted examples, activities, and templates. Along the way, you’ll learn how to
- Identify, plan, assess, and implement academic language instruction using the Discuss, Argue, Recount, and Explain conceptual tool
- Utilize language within and across domains and content areas
- Apply the inquiry cycle to the theme of academic language use
- Expand stakeholders to include students other families
No matter who your students are, no matter which discipline you teach, the research reads the same: school achievement depends upon effective communication. Read Language Power, implement its resources, and soon see for yourself what a powerful tool language is in realizing this goal.
“This thought-provoking and very practical book will be welcomed by all educators who are striving to provide a more equitable curriculum for students. As Gottlieb and Castro suggest, this endeavor requires classroom teachers to think critically about the language they use with students, and develop the knowledge and skills to provide students with explicit and well-planned support for the development of academic language. Language Power will assist educators to make these endeavors a reality.”Pauline Gibbons, Author of Scaffolding Language,
Scaffolding Learning, Second Edition
Key features
- Designed to guide educators in systematically focusing on students’ academic language development as part of their classroom routines.
- Helps simplify the complexity of language by focusing on four key uses (or communicative purposes): Discuss, Argue, Recount, and Explain.
- Provides a step-by-step methodology for identifying, organizing, and presenting key uses to students and their teachers within and across language domains and content areas.
- Includes an array of valuable resources such as charts, graphs, and checklists for use by a variety of stakeholders.
- QR codes linked to BrainPOP resources including videos and text resources for use as a jumpstart for thinking about and illustrating academic language use in classrooms
Author(s)
Margo Gottlieb
Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is a staunch advocate for multilingual learners and their teachers. As co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, Margo has helped design and contributed to all the editions of WIDA’s English and Spanish language development standards frameworks and their derivative products. Being a bilingual teacher, facilitator, consultant, and mentor across K-20 settings, she has worked with universities, organizations, governments, states, school districts, networks, and schools in co-constructing linguistic and culturally sustainable curriculum and reconceptualizing classroom assessment policy and practice.
Margo’s passion has always been assessment in its many forms, starting with her dissertation, a K-12 multilingual test in Spanish, Lao, and English that integrated content and language. Since then, she was appointed to national and state advisory boards, served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and was honored by the TESOL International Association in 2016 for her significant contribution to the field. In her travels, Margo has enjoyed keynoting and presenting across the United States and in 25 countries. Having authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 100 publications, including 20 books and guides, Margo's 3rd edition of her best-selling book, Assessing Multilingual Learners: Bridges to Empowerment, is the latest addition to her Corwin compendium.
Mariana Castro
Mariana Castro, Ph.D. is Director of Standards for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin- Madison, where she has also served as Director of Academic Language and Literacy Initiatives and Director of Teaching and Learning. Mariana is, foremost, an educator, having taught science, ESL courses, and bilingual classes in K-12 systems. As an educator, she also lead professional development for ESL and bilingual educators at her district. Mariana has also taught undergraduate and graduate courses at UW-Whitewater and Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband, Andy, and three children, Amy, Andrés and Diego. During her career as an educator, she worked with multilingual students, students with significant cognitive disabilities, and students with limited or interrupted formal education, and collaborated with educators and administrators in and out of the classroom. It was this work that has provided the foundation and inspiration for her career.
Over the last ten years, Mariana has worked with in-service teachers and administrators across the US and abroad on building capacity related to instruction and programming with a focus on language development. She has also presented at national conferences, including TESOL, Learning Forward, NABE, La Cosecha, ASCD, AERA, AAAL and at many regional and local conferences across the country. Internationally, she has worked with educators in Mexico, Dubai, Thailand, and Argentina in designing spaces for meaningful participation and multilingual development for language learners.
Mariana’s service to the field include serving as an expert in policy and theory-to-practice panels related to the education of English learners, being an active member of the Second Language Research Special Interest Group at the American Educational Research Association, and serving as a reviewer for the South African Journal of Education and the TESOL Journal. She participated in the development of the Framework for English Language Proficiency Development Standards corresponding to the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards and in the development of a variety of standards, including WIDA English Language Development Standards, K-12; WIDA Spanish Language Development Standards, K-12; and WIDA Early Language Development Standards for children 2.5 through 5.5 years old, in English and Spanish. She has also lead the development of multiple publications derivative of the aforementioned standards. Mariana has also served as Principal Investigator for a variety of grants and research related to early language development, English language development, Spanish language development, data literacy, and family engagement. Mariana’s research interests also include translanguaging and social justice in education.
Mariana’s publications include a co-edited volume Common core, bilingual and English language learners: A resource for educators (Guadalupe Valdés and Kate Menken), Formative language assessment for English learners: A Four-Step Process (MacDonald, Boals, Cook & White), a chapter in Intersectionality and urban education: Identities, policies, spaces, and power (Mancilla & Boals), and articles in Language Magazine, Soleado, and the WIDA Focus Bulletin series.
Table of Contents
FOREWORD
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Purposes for the Book
Organization of the Book
Features of the Book
How to Use This Book
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
The Inquiry Cycle
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
CHAPTER 1. EXAMINING KEY USES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
DISCUSS
ARGUE
RECOUNT
EXPLAIN
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
CHAPTER 2. IDEAS AND INSPIRATION: PLANNING FOR INTEGRATING KEY USES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
CHAPTER 3. ATTAINMENT AND ACHIEVEMENT: ASSESSING KEY USES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE ACROSS THE CONTENT AREAS
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
CHAPTER 4. EFFICACY AND EQUITY: IMPLEMENTING KEY USES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
CHAPTER 5. COLLABORATION AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH: INVOLVING STAKEHOLDERS IN KEY USES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE
ASK
EXPLORE
APPLY
REFLECT
TAKE ACTION
GLOSSARY
INDEX
Reviews
"As educators strive for equitable, collaborative classrooms inclusive of all students in an uncertain educational and political landscape, Gottlieb and Castro focus on students who may find themselves marginalized or otherwise left out due to their developing grasp of academic language. This timely book provides educators with accessible, research-based tools for students to learn the power of language. They have taken a complex, nuanced concept and synthesized it into an easy-to-access framework chock full of authentic examples that teachers across all disciplines can easily implement into their instruction. Through its careful construction framed around an inquiry cycle, the book easily lends itself to a wide audience from K-12 through post-secondary educators. I’m definitely integrating Gottlieb and Castro’s framework into my future professional development!"
Diane Staehr Fenner, President & Corwin Author"As educators strive for equitable, collaborative classrooms inclusive of all students in an uncertain educational and political landscape, Gottlieb and Castro focus on students who may find themselves marginalized or otherwise left out due to their developing grasp of academic language. This timely book provides educators with accessible, research-based tools for students to learn the power of language. They have taken a complex, nuanced concept and synthesized it into an easy-to-access framework chock full of authentic examples that teachers across all disciplines can easily implement into their instruction. Through its careful construction framed around an inquiry cycle, the book easily lends itself to a wide audience from K-12 through post-secondary educators. I’m definitely integrating Gottlieb and Castro’s framework into my future professional development!"
SupportEd
“Language Power is helpful not only for teachers who want to adapt materials for English learners, but also for all teachers, no matter what content area, who want to move their students beyond the comprehension level. It breaks down the notion of academic language to four key uses--discuss, argue, recount, and explain--identifies the language associated with those uses, and offers practical examples for classroom instruction. With handy charts to apply to your own situations, and examples of scaffolds and supports, this book is a practical guide that highlights the language students need in order to access, engage in, interact about, and demonstrate learning of content in school. We’re very proud at BrainPOP to provide content for the examples used in this valuable resource for teachers.”
Bev Fine, Editorial and Outreach Director“Language Power is helpful not only for teachers who want to adapt materials for English learners, but also for all teachers, no matter what content area, who want to move their students beyond the comprehension level. It breaks down the notion of academic language to four key uses--discuss, argue, recount, and explain--identifies the language associated with those uses, and offers practical examples for classroom instruction. With handy charts to apply to your own situations, and examples of scaffolds and supports, this book is a practical guide that highlights the language students need in order to access, engage in, interact about, and demonstrate learning of content in school. We’re very proud at BrainPOP to provide content for the examples used in this valuable resource for teachers.”
BrainPOP ESL
"For the first time, Drs. Gottlieb and Castro move beyond a theoretical description of the critical role of academic language to describe key uses, tools, and strategies that facilitate the instruction and acquisition of academic language across content areas and relevant assessment resources to capture students' performance level. This is a powerful resource."David Nieto, Executive Director
BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, University of Colorado Boulder, School of Education
"Language Power is a compelling resource for educators in 21st century schools. Through skillful use of the inquiry cycle and practical tools for application, Gottlieb and Castro empower teachers to support learners in multilingual and multisemiotic classrooms. Understanding key uses of academic language helps teachers unlock opportunities for their multilingual students. With a commitment to social justice and integration of technology, Language Power challenges teachers with a forward-thinking perspective on how we can serve multilingual students who must navigate today's globally interconnected learning environments."
Jon Nordmeyer, International Programs Director"Language Power is a compelling resource for educators in 21st century schools. Through skillful use of the inquiry cycle and practical tools for application, Gottlieb and Castro empower teachers to support learners in multilingual and multisemiotic classrooms. Understanding key uses of academic language helps teachers unlock opportunities for their multilingual students. With a commitment to social justice and integration of technology, Language Power challenges teachers with a forward-thinking perspective on how we can serve multilingual students who must navigate today's globally interconnected learning environments."
WIDA at University of Wisconsin-Madison
Review Copies
Review copies may be requested by individuals planning to purchase 10 or more copies for a team or considering a book for adoption in a higher ed course. To request a review copy, contact sales@corwin.com.