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Continue reading →: On the 30th Anniversary of My Immigration30 years ago I left my homeland… Ukraine was in disarray, having just regained its independence from the Soviet Union. My mom knew there was no economic future for me in the country with a shattered economy, on the brink of collapse, and made the most selfless and sacrificial thing…
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Continue reading →: Beyond First, Next, Finally: Sequencing with Action, Place, and TimeLesson Prepared by Ruslana Westerlund, Former WIDA Researcher, co-author of the WIDA ELD Standards, Systemic Functional Linguist Grade: 3rd GradeText: My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel QuinteroTime: 45 minutes Learning Objectives Standards Alignment Materials Lesson Sequence 1. Hook / Engage (5 minutes) 2. Mini-Lesson 1: Deconstruction + Anchor Chart…
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Continue reading →: Read Aloud Lesson Plan with a Functional Approach to LanguageThis blog is dedicated to the teachers in Skokie School District, especially to SA and LN. Book: My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel QuinteroGrade Level: 3WIDA Key Language Use: NarrateFocus: Descriptive noun groups and verb groups Learning Goals Teacher Read-Aloud Script: My Papi Has a Motorcycle Focus: Noun Groups…
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Continue reading →: Condensing Meanings Through NominalizationLet’s talk nominalization in the WIDA ELD Standards. Did you know that in earlier grades nominalization is just vocabulary words students use like evaporation, multiplication, revolution? However, starting in grade 5, students should be explicitly taught how to create more dense writing by nominalizing adjectives, clauses, and verbs? To find…
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Continue reading →: “Opening and Closing Doors for Other Voices”: Teaching the Language of RebuttalsIn March 2025, I had an opportunity to visit Switzerland as a Visiting Scholar in Leysin American School. I worked with Mari McCarville, a phenomenal teacher who teaches English as an Additional Language (EAL) students who speak a variety of languages (Romanian, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean and others) with language…
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Continue reading →: Choosing a Language Focus (Example: Passive Voice)By Dr. Ruslana Westerlund Teachers often ask me questions which language feature to focus on. This question comes from feeling overwhelmed with the student needs and all the options of the language features provided in the WIDA ELD Standards. My response is informed by the following steps: Plastic bottles are…
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Continue reading →: Strategic Translanguaging in Narratives: Bringing Our Cultural Worlds into Writing
When I was writing my memoir “From Borsch to Burgers: A Cross-Cultural Memoir”, I used Ukrainian words intentionally and purposefully. It was a strategy I used to connect with the words of my childhood. My childhood did not happen in English. It happened in Ukrainian. Therefore, the book, though written…
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Continue reading →: Tools for Building the Inner and Outer Worlds of Characters through Actions, Reactions, Interactions, and Descriptions
What I’m about to teach you I learned from Sally Humphrey. I had an opportunity to travel to Sydney in 2016 or 2018, and I’ll never forget our chat in a corner coffee shop where she taught me how to make a complication more complicated (more interesting) by adding phases…
Hello,
I’m Ruslana
Welcome to my blog where I share my ruminations on education, equity, language, and language-based pedagogy, namely Systemic Functional Linguistics.
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