Common Core, Bilingual and English Language Learners: A Resource for Educators

Common Core, Bilingual and English Language Learners is for pre-service and practicing administrators, teachers, staff developers, instructional coaches, leadership teams, and policymakers who are working to implement college- and career-ready standards equitably in contexts of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Valdés, Menken, and Castro, along with 130 experts, provide brief, pedagogically sound, practical answers to 95 questions that educators are asking about CCSS and English language learners (ELLs) and emergent bilinguals (EBs). Educators can...

• Turn to this guide as a quick reference
• Use expert responses for syntheses of critical issues facing educators today, with suggestions for concrete action steps
• Focus and sustain professional learning about content, language, and literacy instruction for bilingual and English language learners
• Guide site-based projects on curriculum development, language policy and planning, and authentic assessment and accountability systems for diverse learners
• Turn to additional resources on the Caslon Community to support their work.

Be sure to go to the table of contents to see the list of questions and experts—it's a veritable who’s who in the field!

Guadalupe Valdés is a professor at Stanford University. She is also a founding partner of Understanding Language, an initiative that focuses attention on the role of language in subject-area learning, with a focus on helping English language learners (ELLs)/emergent bilinguals (EBs). Valdés’ work over a period of 30 years has focused on the English–Spanish bilingualism of U.S. Latinos and on discovering and describing how two languages are developed.

Kate Menken is an associate professor of linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a research fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is also co-principal investigator of the CUNY–New York State Initiative for Emergent Bilinguals, which develops the knowledge base of school principals and staff to transform language policies and practices in schools enrolling emergent bilinguals (EBs).

Mariana Castro is the Director of Academic Language and Literacy Initiatives for the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium, a consortium of 35 states and territories that have joined together to develop standards-based resources and assessments to support the language development and academic achievement of English language learners (ELLs)/emergent bilinguals (EBs). Throughout her career, Mariana’s work at the school, district, national, and international levels has focused on the roles of educators in supporting student learning. Her passion for education is energized by the amazing work of teachers who draw on the linguistic and cultural resources of students and communities in diverse contexts.

Assistant Professor Department of Teacher Education Dickinson State University Dickinson, ND