Academic Language Brick and Mortar Words
Essential Practices inTeaching Academic Language
Academic Language A way of reading, writing, speaking and listening that reflects valued knowledge and effective communication skills.
Types of Capital • Social Capital: • Interaction with adults, siblings, peers • Cultural Capital: • Travel experiences, education of parents, wealth, television, music • Knowledge Capital: • Information gained from computers, reading, being read to, travel, conversations about the world • Linguistic Capital: • Quality and quantity of language used by parents, peers, on television shows/movies, in regionaldialects
Registers • Adjustment of language to situation and audience • Ability to use distinguishable language with different audiences
Invisible Criteria Students fail when… • Assessments depend heavily on • things that have not been taught • non-school experiences • the teacher’s own cultural values • Certain ways of talking about the text and expressing ideas are invalidated
Teachers positively impact academic language when they • intentionally include the teaching of brick and mortar words. • repeatedly expose studentsto brick and mortar words. • regularlyutilize word-learning strategies to help students use brick and mortar words.
Workshop Objectives • To define academic language, i.e., brick and mortar words • To give examples of academic language, i.e., brick and mortar words • To demonstrate several ways to teach brick and mortar words
Brick Words • Content-specific terms/vocabulary • Technical words • High-yield words that play a key role in the lesson • Tools for understanding the lesson • Words in big, bold-faced print
Examples of Bricks • ELA irony, theme, conflict, thesis • Soc Stu emancipation, democracy, revolution • Math reciprocal, proof, matrix, polygons • Science meiosis, gravity, evaporation • Phys. Ed. tee, tip, shotgun, love, butterfly stroke
Teachers Already Use Bricks With Literacy Strategies • Frayer Model (HISD literacy strategy) • Organizing Grid (HISD literacy strategy) • Analogies (Marzano) • Comparison Matrix (Marzano) • Combination Notes (Marzano)
Additional Ways toTeach Bricks Verbal and visual associations Right Away activities Kinesthetic, auditory, and tactile connections
Verbal Associations • Activities that connect learning to oral, vocal, unwritten, or spoken tasks The teacher gives students a quick verbal definition and several examples of the brick. Then she/he moves to visual associations so that students can begin to associate the brick with an image.
Visual Associations • Activities that connect learning to pictures, illustrations, and other non-verbal representations draw or use a picture show a video use a graphic organizer make a web map demonstrate with a real thing
Right Away Activities • Activities that give students immediate engagement with the new word Have You Ever…? The teacher poses a question that forces students to activate their personal experiences and prior knowledge in order to connect to and describe the brick. Have you ever critiqued a movie? Describe what happened. Now watch the hands go up!
Right Away Activities Idea Completion The teacher uses the brick in a sentence stem but does not finish the statement; students complete this fragment based on the lesson. Responses can be either oral or written. • Because of the density of the black hole,… How ironic that it is raining and…
Kinesthetic, Auditory,and Tactile Connections • Activities that include ways to experience, hear, or touch the new word Teacher and/or students act out the brick in the form of hand motions, role plays, music or chants, or real items. Teachers can combine several bricks in one activity.
Mortar Words • General academic words that are common terms in everyday communication • Words used across a variety of domains • Utility words that define and hold together “bricks” • Subtle words or expressions that connect bricks
Examples of Mortar Words • ELA implies, contains, reflects, represents, supports • Soc Stu consequently, therefore, consists of, factors • Math if…then, derive, why, calculate suppose, equals, balance, isolate • Science variable, infer, dependent, why, balance, what happens when • Standardized tests & instructional tasks contrast, differ from, analyze, led to, ramifications
Dialogue Using Brick and Mortar Words in Math • At the end of this hand-out, note the underlined brick and mortar words that the teacher uses to build the student’s academic language of balancing an equation in algebra. • 2(7x-4) + 3(2x-1) = 2(9x-2) – 3(4x-7)
Teachers Already Use Mortar Words with Literacy Strategies • S-W-B-S Somebody-Wanted-But-So Name_________________________________________Date_________________________ SOMEBODY WANTED BUT SO GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
Additional Ways toTeach Mortar Words • Teacher’s use of and drawing attention to mortar words in the lesson • Connectives: therefore, however, because, maintain, require, tend, correspond, represent • Prepositions: inside, between, without • Pronouns: each other, themselves, it • Verbs: explain, examine, develop, show, prove, discuss, trace, simplify 1) Think Alouds 2) Highlighting
Dialogue UsingMortar Words in Science • At the end of this hand-out, note the underlined mortar words used as connectives to explain the function of a squid’s two long tentacles.
Three Benefits ofAcademic Language • Students gain new words, new terms, a new language. • Students develop mental skills: Comprehension Skills Summarizing Questioning Predicting Connecting to Background Thinking Skills Classifying Comparing Inferring Synthesizing Evaluating Analyzing
Three Benefits ofAcademic Language 3. Students become more proficient in the language of school. This skill prepares students for graduation and lays the foundation for their becoming valued employees in the workforce, distinguished military personnel in the Armed Forces, and/or successful students in college. Regardless of the path taken in life, students will be able to compete realistically in their chosen careers.
Reference Zwiers, Jeff. Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Grades 5-12. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.
Reflections How will this workshop on brick and mortar words impact your classes? What else would you like to learn about brick and mortar words?
