English skills: Not just for English class

Since 1996, the UW–Madison National Research Center for English Learning and Achievement has engaged in multidisciplinary research with several other universities in New York, Oklahoma and Washington to investigate the many complicated contexts in which students learn to write and read. According to CELA director Martin Nystrand, “English is not just for English classes anymore. Increasingly, teachers in social studies, math, science and other subjects are recognizing that their jobs require attention to the idiosyncrasies of writing and reading in their disciplines.”

To that end, CELA researchers are engaged in projects which will illuminate how complex the acquisition of literacy is, and how ingrained it is within broader contexts.

• Today’s children may be Hooked on Phonics or into ebonics. Whatever form the introduction to reading takes, Deborah Brandt, UW–Madison professor of English, is interested. Drawing on 80 life story accounts from Wisconsinites born between 1900 and 1980, Brandt found that acquiring literacy has come to necessitates greater expenditures of time, money and ingenuity as the 20th century has progressed.
• “A New American Literacy” by CELA researcher John Duffy, explores the quest for literacy within one of Wisconsin’s newest immigrant groups, the Hmong of Laos. Duffy’s study looks at motives for immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment have influenced the Hmong’s acquisition of writing skills.
• By analyzing writing samples from Native American students, CELA researcher Karen A. Redfield found their writing skills frequently reflect a domestic rhetoric — storytelling style — that all too often puts them at a disadvantage in preparing college essays. Redfield found that training students in contrasting rhetorical styles can heighten the students’ self-confidence and provide strategies for writing success.
• The development of literacy appears to be a highly dynamic process, according to research by Anne Egan-Robertson, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction. Egan-Robertson has discovered that seemingly unrelated out-of-school activities enhance literacy to the extent that teachers validate and incorporate children’s’ extracurricular experiences.
• The Project on Academic Language Socialization is scrutinizing the way secondary-school students manage the multiple roles in their lives. Investigators Jane Zuengler, professor of English and Ceci Ford, associate professor of English, are examining how students coordinate these roles, and how this coordination effects classroom interaction.
• Improving student achievement at the elementary level is the focus of research by Susan McMahon, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction. Specifically, McMahon is working with area teachers to devise ways of integrating language arts and social studies to achieve a quality, in-depth curriculum.

“In all these projects, CELA researchers are learning about the importance of the dynamic contexts in which learning takes place,” Nystrand says. “Writing is not a static skill, but instead varies significantly from class to class and context to context.”