preparaciÓn de la glena

1. What was the potential effect of the genre-based Reading to Learn instructional approach on adolescent ELLs’ ability to write persuasive essays?

2. How did adolescent ELLs perceive the effect of the genre-based Reading to Learn instructional approach on their writing development?

3. What were the unique challenges of developing and implementing the genre-based Reading to Learn instructional approach with public high school ELLs in the English as a Second Language classroom?

Functional linguistic text analysis (Christie, 2012; Fang & Wang, 2011; Macken-Horarik, 2006b; Schleppegrell, 2006) was used to analyze and score participants’ written persuasive essays. Subsequently, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used to analyze these scores in order to address the first research question. Data obtained from a brief post-instructional unit survey (Yasuda, 2011) completed by all participants as well as follow-up interviews with six focal students were analyzed to address the second research question. An ethnographic approach (Walford, 2008) was used to address the third research question.

I designed the instructional intervention around the central question, “Should amnesty be granted to undocumented immigrants?” a relevant topic for adolescent ELLs. As the genre of focus, I chose the persuasive argument essay. Reading and writing in this genre are particularly challenging for adolescent ELLs (Schleppegrell, 2006; Macken-Horarik, Love, & Unsworth, 2011) and competence in writing an academically-valued persuasive essay is and important skill for all high school students to acquire in preparation for post-secondary studies (Schleppegrell 2001, 2004). Thus, the central purpose in this instructional intervention was to support a group of adolescent ELLs in the development of advanced literacy practices (Colombi & Schleppegrell, 2002) through the deconstruction and production of persuasive argument essays.

The instructional intervention and data collection that informed this study took place between April 11 and June 4, 2012. In alignment with the genre-based Reading to Learn framework (Martin & Rose, 2005, 2008), the instructional intervention comprised a set of phases: Preparing to Read, Detailed Reading, Joint Rewriting, and Individual Construction. In turn, each phase had a specific focus with a series of lessons designed to support these foci. I provide a brief description of each of these phases in the following sections.

3.1.1 The preparing to read stage

In the Preparing to Read stage, the teacher verbalizes the sequence of a text’s field (e.g., content) as it unfolds through the typical discourse patterns of the school-based genre of focus. It is important for the teacher to conduct this summary using commonsense terms (e.g., everyday language) that all students can understand (Martin & Rose, 2005).

The reading task is further decomplexified as the teacher reads the text aloud to the class. Martin and Rose (2005) claim that this oral reading by the teacher as students follow on their own copy of the text allows weaker readers to attend to the words without having to decode words on their own. Additionally, as the text is read orally, the struggle to figure out what is going on in each wave of information that builds the discourse is removed.

Through the strategies employed in the Preparing to Read stage, students are supported in developing an understanding of the overall meanings of a text and prepared for understanding the deeper meanings within each sentence (Martin & Rose, 2005; Rose & Martin, 2012). That is, the support provided at the levels of discourse and graphology in the Preparing to Read stage reduce

3.1.2 The detailed reading stage

In the Detailed Reading stage, the teacher further supports students in understanding the text by reading it together sentence-by-sentence as the teacher provides meaning cues. With these meaning cues, students actively identify key wordings in each sentence (Rose, 2005).

To provide meaning cues, the teacher first paraphrases the meaning of the whole sentence in commonsense terms and clarifies its connection to the context or preceding text. Second, the teacher directs students to identify and name a key wording in the sentence (e.g., “Which word in this sentence means . . . ?”). Third, the meaning of this key wording is elaborated upon by defining its technical or literate meaning, using explanations or metaphors, or by linking the key wording to students’ relevant experience (Martin & Rose, 2005).

Martin and Rose (2005) identified these moves of the Detailed Reading stage as a cycle of Prepare, Task, and Elaborate. The use of this scaffolded interaction cycle further enables the teacher to draw students’ attention to the language features in a text. Thus, the teacher carefully plans which language features students will attend to, how students will be prepared to identify these features, and how each feature will be elaborated on or explained (Martin & Rose, 2005). As the teacher moves through the Prepare, Task, and Elaborate cycle, students highlight the key wordings and language features of the genre of focus on their own copy of the text.

In short, this interactive text deconstruction allows “every learner to read a text that is appropriate to their age or grade, with fluency and comprehension, no matter how weak their independent readings skills may be” (Martin & Rose, 2005, p. 259). In the instructional intervention designed for this investigation, the Detailed Reading stage strategies were followed by those that comprise the Joint Construction stage.

3.1.3 The joint construction stage

Having read the text accurately and annotated key wordings and important language features through guided interaction in the Detailed Reading stage, students are prepared to use the language patterns of this focus text to construct a new text in the same genre.

In the Joint Construction stage, the teacher directs students to use the highlighted key wordings and language features marked on the text that was deconstructed in the Detailed Reading stage as a scaffold for employing new wordings while adhering to the same language features and discourse patterns of the genre of focus to construct a new text (Martin & Rose, 2005).

Thus, the teacher again engages students in a scaffolded interaction cycle to support them in imagining and jointly constructing a new text. This guided joint construction includes a critical discussion of the way the author of the original text employed the language features and discourse patterns of the genre of focus in order to guide students to reconstruct a similar text (Martin & Rose, 2005).

This negotiated joint construction helps to prepare students to write their own texts in the genre of focus in the Individual Construction stage.

3.1.4 The individual construction stage

In this final stage of the Reading to Learn framework, students are afforded the opportunity to apply what they have learned through guided interaction with the teacher about the language

Martin and Rose (2005) posit that, over time, repetition of all of the strategies and supports embedded in the Reading to Learn framework with other texts in school-based genres can prepare students for engaging in independent research and writing in any field and genre.

Specifically, I developed the current instructional intervention that employed the strategies of the Preparing to Read, Detailed Reading, Joint Construction, and Individual Construction stages of the Reading to Learn framework in order to investigate the use of this genre-based framework in an instructional unit about the reading and writing of academically- valued persuasive argument essays. In the following section, I provide an overview of the instructional intervention.

3.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUCTIONAL