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Ana Ruiz, Western High School
Ana Ruiz, Western High School
Ana is an English teacher at Wester High School. Ana has fifteen years of experience as an English Language Arts and ELD teacher in Anaheim Union High School District. During that time, she has focused on building a supportive and welcoming environments for students, and scaffolding their literacies in English. As part of her work with Project LEARN, Ana focused on building students' confidence as writers and speakers, and revising her curriculum to support students in leveraging and stretch their plurilingual repertoires.
Unit: The House on Mango Street
Unit: The House on Mango Street
Ana has taught Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street for years, and was pleased with the way her unit invited students to reflect upon their identity and experiences. As part of Project LEARN, Ana revised her unit to provide more opportunities for students to experiment with multilingual and multimodal expression by writing and speaking in languages other than English, drawing and illustrating their ideas, keeping informal journals, and using technology, including Google Slides and Padlet, to build meaning. Ana was impressed by the ways these modifications increased students' engagement and enjoyment in the classroom: they thrived when given opportunities to collaborate and express their ideas in small groups.
Below, you will find directions and student examples of the "Describing Your Home" project.
What Does Home Mean to You?
What Does Home Mean to You?
Early on in this unit, students conducted research about Sandra Cisneros' life, using resources in both English and Spanish. Based on their research, they made connections between her life and the novel, marking themes, symbolism, and figurative language. They also made comparisons between the culture described in The House on Mango Street, and their own identities. Next, Ana engaged students in a thematic exploration of identity and the influence of family and culture.
The slides at right describe Ana's unit, and how she introduced it to students.
Student Examples
Student Examples
The examples below, show how students described their homes and reflected on what home means to them. The projects show students' and willingness to share about a deeply personal part of the lives, and how their homes have shaped who they are. As Ana reflected on students' work, she noticed that while many used multiple languages when planning or discussing their projects in small groups, as well as when presenting their work orally in class, virtually all students chose to submit their final versions in English only. Overall, Ana found that her new emphases on translanguaging encouraged students to experiment with linguistic choice and flexibility, and that students seemed more confident sharing their experiences and challenging themselves to present in English. Ana is still considering whether or how to modify her rubric to encourage students to use their full linguistic repertoire when writing up their work.
Empowered Choices
Empowered Choices
“I have noticed that by [giving students choice] they feel more confident and proud of their work. Students know they have their peers support and challenge each other even more, it’s almost like a competition of who can present better by being a proficient multilingual.”
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