Tell me your story

1. Tell me your story ALEA Conference Friday July 2019 Dr Janet Dutton Macquarie University (janet.dutton@mq.edu.au) Dr Jacqui D’Warte (J.DWarte@westernsydney.edu.au ) Joanne Rossbridge (jrossbridge@live.com.au ) Dr Kathy Rushton University of Sydney (kathy.rushton@sydney.edu.au)

3. Identity Texts:Supporting students to confirm their identities Respecting students’ linguistic and cultural heritage

4. What are identity texts? Identity texts: • draw on students own stories shaped by their cultural backgrounds • engage with students’ identities and align with the emphases of the Australian Curriculum general capability of Intercultural Understanding (ACARA, 2014). • develop intercultural understanding as students learn to value their own cultures, languages and beliefs, and those of others. • draw on their rich oral language resources in terms of syntax and vocabulary • align with Britton’s (1979) expressive speaking/writing in that they are texts that are close to the self and are a form of discourse that invites experimentation and exploration of ideas.

5. Identity Texts and literacy • The Quality Teaching Framework (DET, 2008) suggests that deep knowledge and deep understanding are best developed when students are supported to become engaged, self-directed, self-regulated learners in a context that focuses on cultural knowledge and inclusivity. • … linguistic and cultural resources students bring to school can be honoured, appreciated and ultimately recognised by teachers as the starting point for the development and mastery of English language and literacy and the confirmation of identity and wellbeing in school settings – especially in light of the fact that learning the home or first language is not supported in all schools (Dutton & Rushton, 2018).

6. Exploring linguistic repertoires: Language mapping as a tool for teaching and learning I want people to know my language because they will know me better, my language is in my head and my heartStudent discussing the importance of sharing his language with his peers “Tell me your story” (p.29) (p.37)

7. Students as researchers“Tell me your story” (p.33) As a whole class students and teachers created the following individual research questions: • How many languages/dialects do we speak? • With whom do we speak those languages/dialects? • What languages are we learning? Where and when with whom? • How do we use technology to communicate? How, why and with what device and in what ways? • Do we translate for others? When, where with whom? • How do we use our bodies to communicate? • Do we change the way we communicate with different people in different places? • When and where do we speak those languages/dialects? Or change our way of communicating?

8. Composing identity texts with recently arrived refugee students • From the outset, shared reading occurred with a range of picture books on the refugee / migrant experience. Students were encouraged to make connections to the experiences of characters. • Picture books about the refugee/migrant experience

9. Students interviewed each other to gather and share information. This was modelled by the teacher and students were able to have such conversations in their first language with support from an interpreter. “Tell me your story” (p.63)

10. Why poetry?Poetry provides a link between spoken and written language • A move along the mode continuum (Hammond, 2001; Martin & Rose, 2008) • opportunities for discussions about all levels of language from structure to grammar and vocabulary. • Huisman (2016) notes the teaching of poetry in primary education often tends to focus on ‘levels of expression and wording’ whereas in secondary education the focus shifts to include ‘semantics and context’ (p.8) • poetry affords the opportunities to teach all of these aspects of language. • “All written or heard language, not just poetry, requires this active construal by the reader/hearer to make sense. But the interpretation of poetry particularly requires a continued close attention to all levels of language.”(Huisman, 2016, p.8)

11. Students may be disengaged with literature and poetry • if they find it difficult to make a link from their own cultural heritage or personal experiences to the texts they are studying. • ‘It’s just something that I’m not really comfortable writing, and so how do I get over that discomfort so that I can teach confidently in a classroom. Because we all know that we teach better when we’re competent with the subject material’ (Weaven & Clark, 2013 p. 209).

12. Paint me proud In the great procession of warriors and poets painted there, I do not see myself or one like me. If anything at all, I am the hawk that clasps the index, whispering war-like in the ear. Or maybe I am the wolf skin tied on the waist, chased, gutted and flayed, taught humility by the snicker of a blade. Or maybe I’m that figure there in clanking silver armour, you’ll never know, my visor snapped shut- my eyes are too precious, my eyes are too fearsome for you. NO. Paint me in new, if you must, among the lunar white faces. Take the brown pigment you used for cloak and kilt, paint me shirtless, paint me brown as a river in a distant latitude, paint me in a sarong, so akin to what you wear, paint me proud as you are, Illuminated by gold. Millefiori P.28-29

13. We are migrants We are migrants between two moons. We are two emigres crouched in space around burning balls of gas. There are other stateless shapes here, word-peddlers who sing of highways, heart-hewers who cut roses from magma. Let us warm our hands for a minute, let us take our time, set origami pirate ships of love-loss-love letter to galactic winds. We thought we were lost to the margins, but now, we place ourselves at the very centre, return to the 2nd century, when the sun revolved around us. Whisper incantations to the diamond stud on my lobe, the calculations of stellar spheres, hemispheres & blind latitudes, planets found, & those that disappeared. Here, beyond language, beyond maps, at last, We belong to each other. Millefiori P.38-39

16. Pre-writing & close reading • Features of the poem which can support student writing • Repeated Theme of clause sentence opener (the bit before the verb) • We, let us • Noun groups with embedded adjectival clauses who provide rich description We are migrants between two moons. We are two emigres crouched in space around burning balls of gas. There are other stateless shapes here, word-peddlers who sing of highways, heart-hewers who cut roses from magma. Let us warm our hands for a minute, let us take our time, set origami pirate ships of love-loss-love letter to galactic winds.

17. Your turn… write your version of “We are migrants” We are migrants between two moons. We are two emigres crouched in space around burning balls of gas. There are other stateless shapes here, word-peddlers who sing of highways, heart-hewers who cut roses from magma. Let us warm our hands for a minute, let us take our time, set origami pirate ships of love-loss-love letter to galactic winds. We are We are ______ who ________________ ______ who ________________ Let us Let us

18. Publications • Loads of practical classroom ready, successful strategies for creating identity text, using creative pedagogy to enhance literacy and well-being. Work samples and exemplar texts. • Also great for Stage 6: EAL/D Module Language, Identity and Module C Craft of Writing. • Order online from PETAA • Dutton, J., D'Warte, J., Rossbridge, J., & Rushton, K. (2018). Tell me your story: confirming identity and engaging writers in the middle years. Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teachers' Association (PETAA).

19. Dutton, J., & Rushton, K. (2018). Confirming identity using drama pedagogy: English teachers' creative response to high-stakes literacy testing. English in Australia, 53(1), 5-14. Free access: https://www.aate.org.au/documents/item/1606

20. Dutton, J., & Rushton, K. (2018). Poets in the making: Confirming identity in English. Scan, 37(3), 1-12. Available here.