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Continue reading →: Cohesion: the glue that holds the text togetherCohesion is the glue that holds the text together. Collaborative teams have cohesion. They may have members with different ideas but they are united by the common vision and mission. In some families, there is that one person who holds the family together and knows how to work around the…
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Continue reading →: How to Create Content-Language Objectives Using the WIDA Language Functions and Features
I recently saw a question from a teacher about creating objectives that combine content and language. To be helpful to the teacher with a question, I actually created a set where content and language are integrated. I used the new edition of the WIDA ELD Standards which we wrote as…
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Continue reading →: Making Language Visible in a Social Studies Classroom
Making Language Visible is a remarkably effective book that helps social study teachers become educators who can make disciplinary literacy apparent and useful to their students. I know it will improve my own classroom instruction. In 2024 Sharon Besser and I wrote a book on doing disciplinary literacy in a…
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Continue reading →: An Invitation to Rethink “Comprehensible Input”by Dr. Ruslana Westerlund Are we providing kids with language development? I’m not opposed to language supports, but it’s not the same as language development. … One of the reasons the [achievement] gap isn’t closing is because we’re not closing the language proficiency gap. Language supports provide access to content due to [students’] limited English proficiency. In theory they’re supposed…
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Continue reading →: What does it mean to ask How does Ukrainian compare with Russian?
by Ruslana A. Westerlund Ruslana A. Westerlund is an immigrant writer, linguist, speaker, and author of From Borsch to Burgers, A Cross-Cultural Memoir. In her memoir, she chronicles her journey of becoming a transcultural person spanning both worlds and forming her new ever-evolving identity as a proud Ukrainian-American. In this…
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Continue reading →: What Does Sourdough Have to Do with Pre-Teaching Vocabulary?
By Dr. Ruslana Westerlund, a linguist, a former teacher, researcher, and sourdough baker I admit it. I finally gave in. I finally succumbed to the ubiquitousness of sourdough and its temptation from Facebook pictures that made me drool. I joined many others in their pursuit of COVID-induced frenzy of house…
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Continue reading →: Meaning is not Created with Language Alone: The Power of Language in Email Communication During COVID-19.
By Ruslana Westerlund, also see http://ruslanawesterlund.com/ Since the first days of COVID-19, language in written communication has become more powerful and more noticed than ever before. As a person who analyzes language for a living and in my daily life and writes about it here, I have become aware of…
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Continue reading →: Review “Foregrounding the disciplines” Moje 2008
Originally posted on The Nerdpress: Reference: Moje, E.B. (2008). ‘Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change.’ Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96-107. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database (EBSCOhost). {EDIT: another SecEd student has responded to two Moje articles @Synergistic Bonding in…
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Continue reading →: The Language of Balance v. The Language of Absolutes
The Language of Balance and The Language of Absolutes by Rob Westerlund & Ruslana Westerlund When it comes to politics and the mass media, it’s the rabid dog that barks the loudest. News agencies make their profits by having a large audience watch their newscast and commercials. Every journalist worth…
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Continue reading →: Halliday on Spoken and Written Language
This blog serves as a repository of my favorite quotes and a few notes on Halliday, M. A. K. (1989). Spoken and written language. Oxford University Press and Language and Education, Volume 9 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday, (2007). Both Vygotsky and Halliday came to the same conclusions about the role of…
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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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