Types of Scaffolding to Use with English Learners

I am student teaching in a ninth grade history/sociology/psychology classroom at Berkley High. Most of my students are African American with a sprinkling of Latino/a students. I have observed my cooperating teacher use three types of instructional scaffolding methods that are especially salient: modeling, bridging, and schema building.

Modeling: In my classroom the students are in the beginning stages of writing a creative story about an issue(s) that affect teens. Many of the students are struggling to envision what this story looks like. Thus, my cooperating teacher provided students with an example of a creative writing piece about a teen issue. The short story was written by my cooperating teacher. My cooperating teacher is stressing that the students use dialogue, descriptive language, and follow a story-arch. In addition to his paper, my cooperating teacher also gave out a sheet on how to write an effective short story. The last time my cooperating teacher did this project with another class the stories all ended at the height of the conflict. He wanted to ensure that this did not happen hence his use of his own story and the visual aid. I think modeling is an important teaching method. However, it is important that teachers make students aware that the model being shown is accessible and makes sense to the students. For English language learners I think modeling is an especially powerful tool because such students may not have the cultural background to independently visualize a concept or project.

Bridging: While I have not observed my CT employing bridging as a tool in the most traditional way he does draw on the students' experiences quite often. For example, last week each day was devoted to the idea of conformity. Each night the students were asked to write about in what ways they had conformed or not conformed that day. They were also asked to observe others around them and they ways they conformed and did not conformed. Students were asked to share their thoughts in class. This allowed the students to gain a fuller understanding of a meaty idea like conformity. They became keenly aware of issues of conformity, issues that they never before noticed. I thought it was powerful. They were also required to fill out a chart and decide if their observations were examples of good or bad forms of conformity. Again, I think this is a wonderful teaching tool for all students. Everyone has life experiences. Unfortunately I was not in the classroom the day my CT first brought up conformity so I am not sure how he went about defining it for the class. That would have been interesting to see and given me more insight into how this assignment affected ELL students.

Schema Building: My CT quickly realized that he could not expect his students to go home and write a rough draft for their teen story, even with the model of a story in hand. He would have to scaffold more. Thus, my CT gave each student a double-sided piece of paper that assisted them in organizing their thoughts. It basically worked as a rough draft. It guided the students through the process of writing a short story. It forced students to write down their main characters, the setting, the conflict, the resolution, etc. Again, a great teaching tool for EL students. I believe the more scaffolding done the better. Especially given the fact that my CT had received papers in the past that did not meet his standards and it was due to his failure to scaffold well. It cannot be assumed that adolescents, let alone EL students, know what a creative writing piece looks like or how to write one. I think this exercise was key for my students.