A New Writer's Journey, Keep Revising and Revising...

How fast has the time flown? The path I traveled along is at the end of the journey as a renewed learner of this writing course — a reflection of what I have learned.

'In awe' are the words I continue to react when reading every single assignment in this course. Dr. Johnson surely has picked greatest reading assignments. I have not found any reading assignment that I find very dry or dull. I learned a lot each time. I have the ‘supposed to be for Quick Write’ journal that Dr. Johnson handed to me on the first day of the class. This journal now has a full of notes I treasure and reflect on for years to come. This journal is once again something I will cherish forever.

What I wrote:
Linda Christensen has full wisdom of teaching. The takeaway list:

• She teaches from the heart. 
• She empathizes every student’s learning struggles.
• She believes in the students’ abilities to be writers. 
• She encourages the students to do their best at their best.
• She pulls the students away from the traditional English instruction and pushes them into liking or loving to write more and forget about scary red markers. 
• She has a rigorous expectation of each student. 
• She has coolest teaching tools. 
• She makes time for each student. 
• Grading isn’t my thing either. I grade based on efforts and give credits when due.   
• Malcolm X’s quote is powerful. Even back in the 1960s, he has foreseen something that still rings true today. I love to read Malcolm X books when I was young, and I have always had respect for Malcolm X. 
• Shaughnessy’s teaching tool that I like is to be a scientist and find the patterns of grammar errors in each student. 
• Have the student master the most straightforward convention and then move on to the next one.
• Always do mini-lessons for grammars.
• Recognize the home language in each student’s writing rather than correct them as a grammar error. 
• Remember to praise the students’ writing before finding faults. 
• As a teacher, teach the writer, not the piece. 
• Finally, a perfect closure. Ask myself this question, “Will my words keep them writing or send them scurrying for cover?” 

Another familiar tool I learned is 6 Traits are what I used10 years ago, and it is good to see that it is still useful.

Another excellent teaching tool from Danling Fu has continued to amaze me. Speaking of the familiar parallel between Danling Fu’s Four Stages of Writing Development and Kristin DiPerri’s Bedrock Literacy Curriculum I mentioned in the previous blog, I saw Kristin DiPierri last week. I asked her if she was familiar with Danling Fu’s work. She replied that she has no idea and after listening to what I thought, she is so interested in reading Fu’s work.

Hybrid of two languages: I thought about the word: ASLish. To me, the word looks like it is ‘nearly ASL’ instead of two languages combined: ASL and English. In the definition of -ish, I find many ways to define ASLish: “belonging to”; “after the characteristic of”; “addicted to”; or “inclined to.” I prefer to keep these languages separate. Hybrid is out of the question when it comes to ASL. Meshing is not possible at all, either, when it comes to the language, but it is possible to mesh cultures between the Deaf and the hearing.

Something to keep in mind, Fu reminds that the students can get carried away with learning the second language and wean out the native language. As Deaf person, it is impossible to wean out ASL while I learn English.

In closing, I would like to point out that it is a real shame that the monolinguists believe that losing the native language is a price the immigrants have to pay for wanting to live in the United States. It is embarrassing to say that it is something our U.S. President, Donald Trump, would probably tweet, “Resounding Yes! It is a price to pay for coming to the United States.”

The Rigorous Classroom, a High Expectation for my students

The Stewart readings were not as pleasant as the previous readings. Don’t get me wrong. It is not because I don’t like what I learned. I am merely overwhelmed with the complicated information. What makes it so complicated is DHH students, whose first language is American Sign Language, do not read, write or speak foreign languages. Most of DHH students didn’t learn their native language because they couldn’t hear their families speaking the language on a daily basis. Not only this but also, most of the time the parents didn’t know the sign language in their countries, either. As a teacher, I am trying to figure out how to integrate the valuable information I learned from Stewart in DHH classroom. I certainly have to figure out how to make the multilingual and multicultural work in this unique situation. I will not dismiss the importance of integrating the culture, language, and community into my lesson plans, but I find myself feeling challenged trying to process the information and make sense out of everything.

Stewart’s Keep it R.E.A.L has a great, simple, yet complicated teaching tool. In the areas of relevant and engaging, he pointed out that we, as teachers, cannot assume we know what students are interested in and be sure to make them feel engaged in learning. I agree with him that we have to ask questions and lead a discussion to see what they are interested in. As a contemporary ELA teacher, I believe in asking students questions and discussing with students at the beginning of the year to see what their interests are and what will motivate them in to write and read before I decide the year-long curriculum. Also, I often ask them questions after every unit or lesson plan to collect pros and cons feedback.

Stewart’s bilingual theory is very helpful because it reminds me to ask students who came from other countries questions about their language and culture. I agree that it will make them feel included in my classroom. What challenge me is how to integrate the “bilingual’ concept into my lesson plan because they are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Their first language usually is American Sign Language. They may not feel included culturally and linguistically at home because they didn’t have a good communication with their own families. However, I believe that the students should have the opportunity to learn everything that they may have missed at home.

I agree with Stewart when he emphasizes we still need to affirm students’ culture and language identities. I can only imagine how lost the DHH students feel because they feel like they identify themselves as Deaf persons away from their own cultural and linguistic identities. I could help to bring them back to where they really belong to and at the same time, they can appreciate the multilingual and multicultural learning experience. Pahl and Roswell’s Conceptualizing Artifactual Literacies are amazing perfect tools for DHH students to be able to share their own cultural background and experience through their artifacts. DHH students rely on visual aids, and this is a perfect way to ‘elicit stories to open up the students’ home experience and enable the teachers to access communities that may not be visible within schools.’ (Stewart). Anything to link the motivation in writing, reading, learning, and communicating is the way to go!

The reader response theory is something I want to make a habit to use in my classroom every day. I truly believe it is the best way to elicit the DHH students into writing, thinking, signing, and reading. Stewart made it clear that reader response is a foundational principle of R.E.A.L. Instruction so the theory definitely is a takeaway. I admire Louise Rosenblatt’s metaphor about including contemporary literature with the classics in order to connect to reader’s experiences, “the poem”. When she said it is important to continue and evaluate our curriculum library and assignments with a critical eye, I feel relieved because that is what I do every year. I often wonder if I am on the right path. Thanks to Rosenblatt, I am on the right path.

The word I learned from the professional development workshop I attended at the beginning of the school year was ‘rigorous’. Our school’s new Curriculum and Instruction principal is awesome because she brought something I strongly believe in, a high expectation for all of the students. She used the title, “Rigorous Classroom” and explained what the word, “rigorous’, really meant. Many of us thought of it as strict, but in fact, it means high expectation. Likewise, in the Stewart Chapter 2, the statement from Beers and Probst strikes it true, “Rigor is not an attribute of a text, but rather a characteristic of our behavior with the text… [It] resides in the energy and attention given to the text, not the text itself.” Another point Stewart made is right, we cannot allow students to get by or get away because these lessons might be difficult. We need to encourage them to keep going writing and reading constantly including doing homework with high expectation attitude.

My philosophy related to homework is I don’t believe in giving homework because students have their own lives at home. They need a break from 8 hours of schooling. Why should I add more hours to their personal time? However, because Stewart made a good point about consistency of practicing, I need to reconsider my philosophy of homework.

Teaching the students the ability to engage in critical thinking, evaluating ideas, creatively expressing thinking using linguistic repertoire in motivating and articulate ways are the key components I will carry close to my heart. I also like Stewart’s 5 simple rules and finally, nothing is too complicated about the rules. If I want my students to do things I expect of them, I have to be a role model. Above all, despite the confusion and complications, I may face, all of these tools I learned definitely are worth my time and energy. 

Bilingual English: ASL and English

Danling Fu hits it on the nose when introducing Four Stages of ELL’s Writing Development. It is exactly what the teachers of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) need to learn. The parallel between the Fu’s Four Stages and the idea of how to teach DHH English Language are similar. The only difference is that Fu focused on foreign students only.

There is no research to prove that Fu’s Four Stages are exactly what works for DHH students. However, through the experiences, I have been working with DHH students and the pieces of training I received from the Bedrock Literacy founder, Kristi DiPerri, I can see clearly that is what works best for DHH students. (www.bedrockliteracy.com)

The way Kristin DI Perri has taught me through the training I received from her using the Bedrock Literacy Curriculum is incredibly similar to Danling Fu’s Four Stages of ELL’s Writing Development. For example, Kristin Di Perri believes in allowing the students to be able to write expressing their thoughts freely through their first language, American Sign Language. Because ASL is not a written communication, there are symbols that can be used to help to write down what they already know how to sign but don’t know how to spell the word. It is called ASL Classifiers.

ASL Classifiers are signs that use handshapes. For example, to sign, “tree”, the handshape is 5 with an arm bend into L shaped and the elbow sitting on the back of the palm of another hand. The hand with CL:5 moves in a half arc back and forth quickly. See this video for visual aid. https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/TREE/5405/1.

For more information about ASL classifiers, check out athttps://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/classifiers/classifiers-frame.htm.

In writing activities such as quick write and/or daily journal, if a student knows the sign for a word, but she doesn't know how to spell it, she writes down, “I see CL:5 and it is so big.” Also, the students can draw a picture of the handshapes. When students complete their writing activities, the teachers have a mini one-to-one conference with the students. When they sign the words they don’t know how to spell, the teachers will help with the spelling. Then the students write down the words in printed English as part of vocabulary list activity.

For example: CL:5 = tree.

The cool thing about this activity is that the students can use reference by looking back to their previous vocabulary list for specific words they learned earlier.

The samples of a Deaf student’s quick write:

September 2017

December 2017


Like Fu’s Stage 2 of Writing Development: Code-Switching or Mixed-Language, the DHH students have proven successful at making the transition from using their first language using ASL classifiers into prints English words. As for Fu’s Stage 3: interlanguage, the students’ English syntax is still in the first language-mode, but the students are in progress in learning how to put them in order through daily mini-grammar lessons.

Not only this but also, there is another method I used with my students who are fluent in American Sign Language than in written English. As Fu mentions, the students express themselves better in their own native language. Also, by allowing them to use their native language, it reduces the cognitive demand when they write. I encouraged my students to do video clips in ASL first. Then, I have them watch their videos and translate them into written English. They can easily rewind and pause anytime they want when writing down what they said in the video clips. In the video clips, I see their full cognitive thinking process.

Before I read Danling Fu’s textbook, I have had my own doubts if these methods I learned from DiPerri and the idea of using ASL video first to help with writing skills ever worked. Right now, thanks to Fu, I can see that these methods are effective, regardless of requiring a lot of work and time-consuming. The results speak by themselves in the long run. There is no proven evidence to support the claim that DiPerri knew Fu's four stages, but it appears their research and conclusion align strongly.

The research related to teaching English to the DHH in Deaf Education is very limited. Many researchers on teaching strategies to the DHH are either not effective or not accurate. This has pushed me into wanting to find the best way to teach the DHH students English. I have tried so many things in four years of my English teaching experience. Through this course and reading Danling Fu’s Four Stages of ELL’s Writing Development, I see that there are many important points that strike true for the DHH people. For example, Fu mentioned that some students may have limited first-language literacy. They are called Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE). Many DHH did not have a strong first language, either. They were mostly language deprived at an early age. Fu’s SIFE fits perfectly to identify DHH students’ educational backgrounds. Using Fu’s Four Stages of Writing Development is the way. Another point that I take away with me is that Fu discussed children need to have oral language proficiency first before they can express ideas in writing. BINGO! The parallel is the same as the Deaf Education. Although they don’t do oral language, they do sign language. Once the DHH students have sign language proficiency, then they will express ideas in writing better as well.

Fu’s advice, to start with the students can do and build the content knowledge through learning and writing in the first language, no matter what age or grade level they are in, is exactly what I do every day as a Bilingual English teacher. I strive to find the best tools in hopes to see the breakthrough in Deaf Education. I strongly believe I have found the answers I have looked for through Danling Fu’s textbook. Maybe I have discovered the golden key to the door of teaching English to the DHH students.

I believe I have rambled way too much on my thoughts on the reading of Danling Fu.

I want to add that the Martinez article is heart-touching and makes me feel angry at the racists all over the world. It is very cruel, inhumane of anyone, especially, the educators, to put their students down. Their job is supposed to teach and promote their students, not destroy them. Shame!

I will be sure to keep in mind to support my diverse students all the way like Martinez suggested. I definitely will be sure to ensure that all of my students have full self-confidence and strong self-esteem.