Curriculum Integration: An Overview
Current Issues in Middle Level EducationWall, Amanda; Leckie, Alisa
2017
Curriculum integration is a tenet of middle level education. "This We Believe," the position paper of the Association for Middle Level Education, advocates for curriculum that is exploratory, relevant, integrative, and meaningful for young adolescents. Teachers can integrate curriculum across content areas by anchoring units of study in issues and themes that are determined along with students. Researchers have studied curriculum integration in different capacities, and further research can continue to explore the impact of this approach to curriculum.
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Preparing English Language Learners for Academic Writing: A Functional Linguistic Approach
Georgia Southern UniversityLi, Jinrong & Alisa Leckie
2017
In this presentation, we share a unit of lesson plans for teaching academic writing to middle school English language learners. Based on functional perspectives of language development and social practice theory, we illustrate how game-based activities can be structured to help ELLs move from less-literacy demanding, context-rich tasks to more literacy demanding, de-contextualized tasks in order to assist their development of academic vocabulary and understanding of theoretical concepts in writing such as audience and purposes. Implications for classroom structure and scaffolding for ELLs are discussed and demonstrated.
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Writing as Active Participation in STEM Discourses
Student Success in Writing ConferenceSchreiber, Joanna & Alisa Leckie
2016
The presenters advocate one way to address sometimes problematic relations between STEM experts and diverse public audiences. By incorporating an active participation heuristic into current STEM writing initiatives (beginning with middle school), they prepare experts to participate reciprocally with public audiences.
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The need for speed: A critical discourse analysis of the reclassification of English language learners in Arizona.
Language PolicyLeckie, A., Kaplan, S., & Rubinstein-Ávila, E.
2012
Several states, including Arizona, have enacted English-only legislation, within the past decade, impacting the schooling of students who are identified as English language learner (ELLS). As a result, ELLS in Arizona are assigned to a prescriptive program—apart from their fluent English-speaking peers—for 4 h a day, during a time “not normally to exceed 1 year.” The ultimate goal is to reclassify ELLs to fluent English proficient (FEP) status, exit them from the program and integrate students into “mainstream” classrooms, where no additional support services are offered. Since language policies are dictating the instructional policy decisions regarding assessment and reclassification of ELLS, the authors argue that it is necessary to critically examine how English-only policies—especially the discourse of policy making—contribute to the shift in the definition of reclassification, its process and ultimately, the consequences for students. Thus, the paper unpacks the shifts in reclassification policy and process; our critical discourse analysis of the legislators’ meetings, based on the work of van Leeuwen (Discourse Commun 1(1):91–112, 2007), show that although Arizona’s ELL Task Force set out to develop an educational policy to prepare ELLS linguistically and academically within one school year, the timeframe (or time limit) took precedence to the academic preparedness of newly reclassified students—a population that is academically vulnerable.
The impact of English-Only Legislation on Teacher Professional Development: Shifting Perspectives in Arizona
Theory into PracticeKaplan, S. & Leckie, A.
2009
Language minority students represent an increasing percentage of the school-age student population in the United States. Because the number of English language learners (ELLs) is on the rise nationwide, some states have enacted English-only legislation that impacts the educational experiences of ELLs and the teachers who work with them. Many teachers are now responsible—for the first time—for the linguistic and academic success of this student population; therefore, many states and districts have mandated teacher training. The authors' work as co-staff developers over the past 7 years has highlighted the cyclic trends of teachers attending the workshops and the need to maintain a positive stance and ground training sessions in real classroom practices and experiences. As such, the interactive Structured English Language (SEI) training deepens the professional knowledge and strengthens the instructional skills of all certified teachers who attend the workshops and training sessions.
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