Rich Language Development
through the
“Lived Experience” in the
Social Studies Classroom
Washington Association of Bilingual Education
April 19 & 20, 2013
Yakima, WA
Margit E. McGuire
Seattle University
mmcguire@seattleu.edu
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We are going on safari…
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Imagination…
Let’s go to Kenya!
Academic language
in context
•Safari
•Invitation
•Map
•Natural habitat
•Maasai Mara Game Reserve
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Build a Word Bank
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Packing our suitcases…
What do we need to know?
• Climate?
• Clothing?
• Equipment?
• Length of stay?
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Reading for information:
What is the best time of year to go to Kenya?
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Creating the Characters: The Photographers
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Investigating the Maasai Mara
• A reason to investigate—questions to be answered
• Building background knowledge
• Tapping into imagination
• Affirming that students know something
• Asking lots of questions to guide their learning
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Visuals to support text
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Making in real…
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Making a passport
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We are on our way…
•Role play
•Narrate the story
•Imagine
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We are
photographers…
Imagination
Context
Learning
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Storypath: Safari to Kenya
Sequence of Episodes
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Creating the Setting
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Learning about Wildlife on the Maasai Mara
The Common Core: Reading and Writing in Context
Animal Reports
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Speaking and Listening
Scaffold the learning
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Researching the Maasai Mara Village
• Academic language
• Researching
• Spatial relationships
• Kinesthetic learning
• Problem solving
• Critical thinking
• Social Skills
The Maasai Village
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The Critical Incident
A Misunderstanding…
• Problem solving
• Social Skills
• Empathy
• Language in context
• Form
• Function
• Efficacy
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What is Storypath?
• Storypath uses story form (narrative) to
create meaningful learning within a context.
• Setting, characters, and plot provide the
structure for the curriculum.
• Key questions problematize knowledge,
encourage substantive conversations and
guide students’ thinking about important
concepts developing language in context.
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Narrative and Imagination
•
“The story form is a cultural universal; everyone
everywhere enjoys stories. The story, then, is not just
some casual entertainment; it reflects a basic and
powerful form in which we make sense of the world
and experience”
(Egan, 1988, p.2)
•
Education … is a process that awakens individuals to a
kind of thought that enables them (students) to imagine
conditions other than those that exist or that have
existed.
(Egan, 2001, p43)
•
“Imagination lies at a kind of crux where perception,
memory, idea generation, emotion, metaphor, and no
doubt other labelled features of our lives, intersect and
interact”
(Egan, 2001, p. 42)
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The Episodes of a Storypath
Creating the Setting
Students create the setting by completing a frieze (mural) or other visual
representation of the place.
Creating Characters
Students create characters for the story whose roles they will play during
subsequent episodes.
Context Building
Students are involved in activities that stimulate them to think more deeply
about the people and place they have created.
Critical Incidents
Characters confront problems typical of those faced by people of that time
and place.
Concluding Event
Students plan and participate in an activity that brings closure to the story.
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ELL Students Speak for Themselves: Identity Texts and Literacy Engagement in
Multilingual Classrooms [1], Jim Cummins, et.al.
…..
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Retrieved: http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/files/ELLidentityTexts.pdf
Storypath & ELLs
• Each child has something to contribute to the story.
• The narrative structure of the Storypath—setting,
character, and plot—provides scaffolding for learning in a
way that is meaningful to students.
• The story has purpose. What will happen next?
• Choices engage children dramatically in “real-world”
dilemmas; they work together to solve the problems.
• Their involvement taps into multiple ways of knowing—
social interaction, role-play, visualizing, kinesthetic
experiences, and the accompanying language activities.
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