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How does infusing art and engineering into Language Arts
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Design Process
Support and Next Steps
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Can infusing creativity increase student discourse?
My driving question was inspired by my desire to incorporate art and engineering. It also sparked reflection and research on who is doing the talking in my classroom. This article about who's doing the talking showed most classrooms have 89% teacher talk vs 11% student talk. This was echoed in the book Visible Learning for Teachers, John Hattie, 2012. I dove deep into studying aspects of creativity and student discourse for the semester. Then considering the data I gathered, I modified my driving question for the following semester in order to better meet the needs of my students as well as respond to the evolution of pandemic virtual learning. With the input of my colleagues and professors, my driving question became: Does cross-curricular instruction combining art or engineering design and English Language Arts change student discourse? This question kept the focus on art and engineering as tools to possibly improve language! 
Way back in my undergraduate studies, the works of great names like Vygotsky and Piaget intrigued me. Then as I began teaching and learned about Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) and Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) I learned about research by trailblazers like Echevarria, Krashen and Collier & Thomas.
Isn't it ironic that those foundational names influenced my research and literature review? |
Does the infusion of arts and/or engineering design activities into standard English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum yield higher percentages of ELL students who demonstrate adequate progress towards being classified as a fluent English speaker, reader and writer?
Background and Need
In the Fall of 2017, the National Center for Education Statistics published that five million English Language Learners (ELLs) were enrolled in public K-12 schools in the United States. Five million ELLs in the United States was 10.1% of the national enrollment at that time. By contrast, California has 19.2% of students were English Language Learners which was the highest percentage in the nation. Texas followed closely at 18% and Nevada with 17.1% (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2017). The data from the 2019-2020 school year for the district studied in this research had 46.3% of its students identified as ELLs (DataQuest, 2020).
Students who are identified as English Language Learners (ELLs) in California are assessed using an evaluation entitled the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPAC) (California Department of Education, 2019) to measure progress with learning English. The ELPAC is sectioned into four domains to measure language progress: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Scores in each domain are ranked using a four tiered system.
Looking at 2018-2019 ELPAC data for first graders, specifically focused on the SPEAKING section of the assessment:
State = 49.68% scored in the lower ranges (levels 1 or 2)
District featured in my research = 40.12% scored in levels 1 or 2
School featured in my research = 95.24% scored in levels 1 or 2
This meant that only 4.76% of the ELLs were making significant progress towards becoming proficient in speaking English at the school of study.
It is clear from the national and statewide data that the English Language Arts (ELA) curricula and methods for supporting ELLs must be modified to support closing the gaps in performance for these students. Marino (2018) found that the achievement gap could be significantly reduced when art education was specifically focused on the needs of English Language Learners. The research also suggested that combining inquiry-based instruction with direct and explicit vocabulary teaching could increase the English Language Learners’ performance in academic language (Kanner, 2020). Additionally, research on the brain suggested that the brain was constantly fostering new neural pathways and that learning was strengthened when the neurons were activated in multiple areas of the brain (Wolfe, 2014).
Students who are identified as English Language Learners (ELLs) in California are assessed using an evaluation entitled the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPAC) (California Department of Education, 2019) to measure progress with learning English. The ELPAC is sectioned into four domains to measure language progress: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Scores in each domain are ranked using a four tiered system.
- Level one: Beginning to Develop, the lowest performance level.
- Level two: Somewhat Developed.
- Level three: Moderately Developed.
- Level four, Well Developed.
Looking at 2018-2019 ELPAC data for first graders, specifically focused on the SPEAKING section of the assessment:
State = 49.68% scored in the lower ranges (levels 1 or 2)
District featured in my research = 40.12% scored in levels 1 or 2
School featured in my research = 95.24% scored in levels 1 or 2
This meant that only 4.76% of the ELLs were making significant progress towards becoming proficient in speaking English at the school of study.
It is clear from the national and statewide data that the English Language Arts (ELA) curricula and methods for supporting ELLs must be modified to support closing the gaps in performance for these students. Marino (2018) found that the achievement gap could be significantly reduced when art education was specifically focused on the needs of English Language Learners. The research also suggested that combining inquiry-based instruction with direct and explicit vocabulary teaching could increase the English Language Learners’ performance in academic language (Kanner, 2020). Additionally, research on the brain suggested that the brain was constantly fostering new neural pathways and that learning was strengthened when the neurons were activated in multiple areas of the brain (Wolfe, 2014).
Research Plan
Two data cycles were conducted over the course of a semester (three months).
A data cycle consisted of collecting student responses about a prompt or specific vocabulary as a "pre" and "post".
"Pre" used only the district issued curriculum.
Student responses were recorded using Seesaw.
Data was analyzed and recorded.
"Post" students received infused learning using art and engineering.
Students were asked to respond to the same prompts as the "pre".
Data was analyzed and recorded.
Then both data sets were analyzed.
The first data cycle was on the topic of learning from informational text about birds.
The second data cycle was from a fictional text about a rainy day.
A data cycle consisted of collecting student responses about a prompt or specific vocabulary as a "pre" and "post".
"Pre" used only the district issued curriculum.
Student responses were recorded using Seesaw.
Data was analyzed and recorded.
"Post" students received infused learning using art and engineering.
Students were asked to respond to the same prompts as the "pre".
Data was analyzed and recorded.
Then both data sets were analyzed.
The first data cycle was on the topic of learning from informational text about birds.
The second data cycle was from a fictional text about a rainy day.
Academic Research Poster