Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

reliant on an immigrant family to keep their farm running. The book serves as an entry point into the complex realities of immigration, resistance, and friendship in the 21st century. Return to Sender chronicles the parallel stories of Mari and Tyler, both 6th graders, while making context-specific use of tier 2 words such as prejudice, diversity, misconceptions, esteemed, insistent, undisclosed, ecstatically, enlightened, unanimously, and vigilant. The book also uses tier 3 words like interrobang, immigration, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), la migra , migrant worker, Homeland Security, coyote , and astronomy. The book relies on narrative to address current high-interest topics like immigration, exploitation, and US policy while also exploring the experiences of youth, teachers, and community members. For older students, consider teaching a unit with Serial (2014) , a nonfiction podcast series by journalist Sarah Koenig. In the podcast, Koenig chronicles her and her team’s experiences as they tried to uncover the truth about a man on death row and what happens after his case was brought to the attention of lawyers who try to overturn wrongful convictions. The podcast examines issues of racial prejudice and explores the cultural identities of the characters. The podcast also looks closely at how the legal system treats the main character, Adnan Syed, who is Muslim. In addition to the appealing setting (city, recent, and high school), Serial presents a strong mix of language from conversational to very specific tier 2 and tier 3 words. Godsey’s (2017) website and the lessons he developed for Serial hook the students by having them act as active participants or jury members in the trial. Students experience added buy-in because the event took place at a high school, generating a contemporary connection for young analysts. By inviting students to analyze background, evidence, presentation of facts, and argument in relevant and engaging ways, Serial encourages listeners to think like journalists and detectives. In the first episodes, words like botch, assignation, inquiry, demeanor, heinous, undermine, constraint, excerpt, pantheon, fraught, vindicate, conjure, sustenance, and discrepancy are used, illustrating the rich connection between the contextual and social language of the journalist and her team and the high-utility words or tier 2 words they used to describe their work and research. Also consider garnering older students’ interest with Aisha Harris’ Represent (2016), which discusses movies and TV shows written and acted in by people of color, women, people identifying as LGBTQ, and people with disabilities. The show usually consists of Harris speaking with critics, performers, writers, and producers about current events and popular culture. If teaching with one of the Represent podcasts, be sure to listen to the full episode and heed the content warnings about language use. In the episode Wakanda Forever (February, 2018), Harris spoke with Black Panther’s (Coogler, 2018) producer Veralyn Williams and political correspondent Jamelle Bouie. In the episode, Harris, Williams, and Bouie discuss the plot of the movie, while making connections to current and past actors, events, and popular

Gay advocated for establishing routines and frameworks with varied learning opportunities, engaging regularly in cooperative learning and peer teaching, providing multiple ways for students to demonstrate mastery of content, and acknowledging ways to recognize the values of academic expression and cultural heritage without belittling students’ background (Gay, 2010). Suggested Culturally Responsive Academic Language Practices Best practices in direct vocabulary instruction supported by culturally responsive pedagogy can expand students’ access to and knowledge of academic language (Hollie, 2012; Schmidt, 2016). Practices that create multiple, meaningful exposures to academic language and that resonate culturally and linguistically with students can help students build the academic language needed to meet and exceed college and career ready teaching standards. Teaching with High-Interest Texts as Culturally Responsive Practice Academic language for middle and high school students can be identified in countless publications beyond traditionally taught novels, plays, and poems. When we view texts as literary artifacts and creative representations of 21st century culture, language, and experience, we broaden our students’ access to inventive, current, and authentic uses of language. Students can recommend texts to study and analyze, and collaboratively, teachers and students can design curriculum materials. Once materials are agreed upon, then educators can move into implementing bridging activities that will add to students’ prior knowledge and introduce new concepts and ideas.

Reading Matters Teaching Matters

Figure 1. Recommended high-interest text authors. By studying academic language in high-interest texts, teachers can explicitly draw students’ attention to tier 2 and tier 3 words (Beck & McKeown, 1985). Magazines, blogs and vlogs, podcasts and audiobooks, graphic novels, journal articles, self-published student art, songs, raps, and poems are all high-interest medias and texts that make use of aspects of academic language to which students may feel more connected and more visible. Consider teaching a middle school ELA or social studies unit on friendship, citizenship, or youth resistance using Julia Alvarez’s Return to Sender (2009). The text is a compelling young adult novel about a family in Vermont that becomes

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 45

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS