Multilingual Analysis in Social Studies: The Trail of Tears

Leonel Ramirez-Valadez, Lexington Junior High School

As a middle school social studies teacher at Lexington Junior High School, Leonel was skilled at implementing a student-centered curriculum that established a strong classroom comunidad. However, during his first years in the classroom, he found himself teaching almost entirely in English; something he describes as a product of his own educational socialization. As a child, Leonel spoke fluent Spanish. After arriving the United States, however, English was prioritized in his classes and those experiences left him feeling like his Spanish fluency was "insignificant. " As a teacher, Leonel didn't want his own students to lose or silence their native languages, but found it challenging to meaningfully incorporate plurilingual pedagogies. Leonel brought this challenge to his colleagues, and found the support he needed to shift his approach. He began by making small shifts: offering occasional translations, adding multilingual classroom decor, strategically leveraging his own bilingualism, and inviting students to use their full linguistic repertoires when taking notes or brainstorming. Leonel found that when he was intentional about the ways he framed a lesson, students were more willing to stretch their own languaging, and better able to demonstrate their learning.

Lesson: The Trail of Tears

In this lesson, Leonel focused on encouraging students to consider how their own cultural and linguistic perspectives prepare them to think critically about important historical events. Throughout, he scaffolded students' developing content knowledge and critical analysis through a DBQ (Document Based Question) that investigated why the Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homelands. At each stage of the process, he encouraged to use their full linguistic repertoires to take notes, analyze artifacts, and plan their essay.

The Trail of Tears: Why Were the Cherokee Removed?

Trail of Tears.pdf

Trail of Tears DBQ

The Essential Question for this lesson that Leonel sought to have his students answer was "Why were the Cherokee removed?" To do so, Leonel adapted a lesson from The DBQ Project with five short texts about the Trail of Tears. While the texts were only available to students in English, Leonel implemented numerous scaffolds and supports to assist students in their comprehension of each text. Each text was read aloud in class, and students worked individually and collectively to analyze the texts and respond to their accompanying questions.

Scaffolding Historical Comprehension and Analysis

Throughout this lesson, Leonel provided numerous models and scaffolds to support students in developing their historical thinking and writing skills. As seen in the accompanying slides, one core scaffold included annotating each of the five texts to build students' comprehension. Some annotations included were circling new or unfamiliar words, creating multilingual hashtags that summarize each paragraph, marking important details with an exclamation point, and drawing stars next to reasons why the Cherokee were removed. As students made they way through each of the texts, Leonel explicitly encouraged them to use their full linguistic repertoires to complete their annotations and answer the guiding questions.

Trail of Tears DBQ

Student Examples

The examples below provide insight into how students leveraged their full linguistic repertoires to help them make sense of each DBQ text. Many of their annotations were written in languages other than English, yet their responses to the guiding questions (written entirely in English) demonstrate their clear understanding of the text.

Student A: Hindi and English

Student_1.pdf

Student B: Thai and English

Student_2.pdf

Student_FP.pdf

One-Pager

After reading and analyzing each of the five DBQ texts, students each created a One-Pager that answered the lesson's Essential Question. Students were able to complete this summative One-Pager using any language(s) they chose. As seen in this example, this student completed their One-Pager in both Spanish and English. Their response to the Essential Question is detailed and complex, and directly incorporates evidence from the DBQ to support their claim, "The Cherokee Nation was removed by political reasons."

Transforming Classrooms

"If we want our students to explore their linguistic identities, we, as educators, must invite them [in] with the way we teach. Just this year alone, with the shifts I made to my teaching, I’ve seen students willing to participate and accept the challenge of leveraging all of their languages." - Leonel Ramirez Valadez

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