Inventing a Classroom : Life in a Bilingual, Whole Language Learning Community

Crowell, Caryl G., Whitmore, Kathryn F.

ISBN 10: 1571100024 / ISBN 13: 9781571100023

Published by Stenhouse Publishers, 1994

About this Item

Former library copy. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # 38841152-6

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Inventing a Classroom : Life in a Bilingual, Whole Language Learning Community
• Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1571100024
• ISBN 13: 9781571100023
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 1.003 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

What are the patterns of teaching and learning that make a classroom holistic? How do children invent oral and written language? How do they create the culture and curriculum of a classroom? How does the spirit of community and collaboration develop among children and teachers? What are the relationships between literacy, schooling, and socialization as they form among the children? These are a few of the broad questions that Kathy Whitmore and Caryl Crowell answer in this absorbing portrait of Caryl's third-grade classroom, the Sunshine Room. Over the span of a school year, we watch the students in this bicultural classroom within a bilingual, working-class neighbourhood work and develop together as a community of learners. It is the story of how the Sunshine Room, like many whole language classrooms, invents itself; and how in this process the children themselves are continually inventing oral and written language, culture, and curriculum. In two separate collaborative voices, the authors carry readers through several critical events in the life of the classroom: the process through which the children and the teachers negotiate the curriculum, the creation of a theme study about the Middle Ages, and a vicarious experience of the Middle East war through children's literature and discussions. On an individual level, the deep friendship between Seaaira, an English-speaking child from the volunteer community, and Lolita, a bilingual Latina from the barrio, is symbolic of the bicultural experience fostered in the Sunshine Room.

About the Author

Kathryn F. Whitmore (Ph.D. University of Arizona) and her coauthor, Caryl G. Crowell (M.Ed. University of Arizona) have many characteristics in common. They are both working mothers and whole language teacher-researchers who work to challenge the status quo in educational institutions. Kathy teaches in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Iowa. Caryl teaches third grade at the Borton Primary Magnet School in Tucson, where this story takes place. Exploring issues related to cultural and linguistic diversity, advocating for their own children as students, writing in a variety of genres, and an appreciation for desert dwelling are a few of the interests Kathy and Caryl share. Together they invented themselves as collaborative researchers in this study.