I began the Building Field lessons with a text entitled “What is an Immigration Amnesty?” (http://www.eHow.com) (see Appendix H). This text provided three brief, paragraph-level definitions and explanations of amnesty and framed the current debate surrounding this issue. The three paragraphs, or mini-texts, were written by three different scholars and professionals in the field of immigration and immigrants’ rights.
To prepare students for reading this first text, I verbally summarized the entire text in everyday, commonsense language (Martin & Rose, 2005; Rose & Martin, 2012) that all students could understand. I explained that the one-page text included three mini-texts of one paragraph each, written by three different authors. These authors defined the term amnesty and explained the act of giving amnesty. I further explained that reading each text would help students to understand what amnesty has to do with undocumented immigrants as well as why the idea of granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants is an issue about which many people in the United States currently have strong feelings.
I stated that I would read the first author’s text while students read along silently and that students would then read the second and third mini-texts with a partner. I asked students to mark any words, phrases, or sentences that they didn’t understand as I read. After listening to and reading the first mini-text, the students required “everyday language, commonsense explanations” (Martin & Rose, 2005; Rose & Martin, 2012) for the following words and phrases: amnesia, in the context, status, unlawfully, recipient, overlooks, the textbook example, undeniable, and the act’s core provision.
with reading instruction. That is, I first focused students’ attention on identifying a specific word, affirmed the response, and elaborated. Although classroom discourse was not the focus of this instructional intervention, I provide the example below to illustrate the way that the reading strategies embedded in the Reading to Learn framework were employed throughout the Building Field lessons to support both reading comprehension and language learning.
Teacher Focus Which word in the sentence, “Amnesty provides a simple, powerful undeniable benefit to the recipient,” means a person who receives (I wrote the word receives for students to see). Student Identify I think recipient.
Teacher Affirm That’s correct.
Elaborate A recipient is “a person who receives something.” For example, Kaw Poe (pseudonym) was the recipient of a scholar/athlete award last year for being such a great student and an awesome soccer player. He received an award for his academic and athletic skills, so he was the recipient of the award.
After working through the other words and phrases that the students had marked in a similar manner, the students read the other two mini-texts with a partner while again noting confusing words or phrases. These words and phrases included wiping the slate clean, the term is loaded, law-abiding society, advocates, political hot potato, and proponents. I used the Focus- Identify-Affirm-Elaborate strategy when sensible to do so and provided direct elaborations (Rose and Martin, 2012) for the other words and phrases.
After guiding students through reading and unpacking the vocabulary and concepts about amnesty in this text, students worked with partners to develop written answers to five questions about the text (see Appendix I) while I circulated to answer students’ questions or provide further elaborations. This literacy and language learning task provided students with more
engagement around the vocabulary and key ideas in this text through guided joint practice (Rose & Martin, 2012).
For instance, to complete this task students were asked to define amnesty in their own words, to imagine how amnesty could be a “simple, powerful, and undeniable benefit to the recipient,” and to consider whether the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 encouraged or discouraged undocumented immigrants from continuing to enter the United States. In addition, students were asked to explain whether the second author’s statement that “We are meant to be a law-abiding society, but we are not really playing by our own rules” would be considered a statement for or against amnesty. Finally, students were asked to brainstorm a list of other political hot potato issues currently debated in the media.
The following responses, written by one of the focal students, Htoo, a ninth grade Burmese male, and his partner illustrate the way that students understood the concepts and vocabulary in this text. Htoo and his partner wrote that amnesty means, “Become a legal person even though you come unlawfully.” This pair of students explained that amnesty benefits undocumented immigrants as, “It will change them from illegal person to legal person and they can be permanent in the country.”
Htoo and his partner also decided that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 “encouraged many immigrant to enter U.S. illegally because they expect to become legal immigrants.” These two students identified the statement “We are meant to be a law-abiding society, but we are not really playing by our own rules” as against amnesty “because following the laws is important in the society and undocumented immigrants already breaking the law.”
gay rights, “if you can have gun or not,” which I renamed as gun ownership, taxes, and “getting the gas from ground,” which I restated as gas drilling or fracking. One student, who was enrolled in an elective class on women’s studies suggested, “What about if women can decide if they want to try not to have baby or if they want to keep baby when they are pregnant?” I renamed that issue as abortion rights or reproductive rights.
To elaborate further and to introduce Knowledge About Language (KAL) into the lesson, I asked students to imagine holding a very hot potato in their hands and to say what they would do with that steaming hot potato. Students responded, drop and throw, and I explained that the expression political hot potato was a metaphor for issues that people and politicians don’t want to hold onto long enough to solve. These issues are tossed around or debated with the result that people often do not reach agreement about how to deal with these issues, as is the case with amnesty for undocumented immigrants.
I complimented the students for having understood an initial text about the issue of amnesty and why it is a currently debated political hot potato in the United States.