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Joanna Peters, Dale Junior High
Joanna Peters, Dale Junior High
Joanna is a former English Language Development (ELD) teacher and current Assistant Principal at Dale Junior High, where she plays a vital role as the administrative support for ELD within the Anaheim Union High School District. Her responsibilities include oversight of the ELD programs for 7th and 8th grade students, and specifically students at the very beginning of their journey towards adding English to their linguistic repertoire. The following examples are from one of Joanna's ELD 1 classes during the 2021-22 academic year, and illustrate her approach to scaffolding students' narrative writing and use of their authentic, plurilingual voices.
Using Comfort & Complexity to
Further Classroom Discourse and Community
Using Comfort & Complexity to
Further Classroom Discourse and Community
As a teacher and teacher leader, Joanna is always thinking about how to both stretch her own practice, and also support her colleagues in experimenting with new pedagogies. In the following slides, which she has presented to teachers and administrators throughout her district, Joanna illustrates her approach to supporting plurilingual students in leveraging their full linguistic repertoire, a process she describes as moving from a "pedagogy of compliance" to a "pedagogy of voice and agency."
Scaffolding Student Writing
Scaffolding Student Writing
When introducing narrative writing, Joanna encourages students to use their authentic, plurilingual voices. By focusing on brainstorming, detail, and story development rather than grammatical "correctness" or fluency in English, Joanna supports students in unpacking important personal memories, and preparing to write detail-rich narratives.
Joanna Scaffolding Writing.pdfStudent Writing Samples
Student Writing Samples
The images below show how Warren (the student Joanna describes in her presentation) moved through the writing process, from brainstorming to rough draft to final draft. Throughout, they use translanguaging to construct their narrative, leveraging both English and Spanish to convey sensory details and authentic dialogue.
Student Writing Example A.pdf"Being a part of Project LEARN helped me grow professionally. Prior to my participation in the program I felt like my students needed additional support or strategies to help make curriculum accessible as they are adjusting to life in the US. I found that by my participation in Project LEARN I found new and creative ways to build upon my curriculum that empowers students to take academic risks and to feel confident in exercising their voice. I felt that once I adopted the concepts presented, I was able to develop more meaningful units of study for my students."
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