Óscar's English Writing Sample

Óscar's Spanish Writing Sample

Óscar's Writing Analysis

I sat with Óscar as he wrote one of his many stories in Spanish during our 30-minute writing block. For several months, students had been learning to write short personal narratives (1 or 2 sentences). Recently, we learned how to write a story across several pages. Óscar decided to write a story about a time when he wanted to play video games at home. I would categorize his writing in Spanish as being at the “Phonetic Stage.” He has a clear idea and message for his writing, and he is able to articulate it through writing almost all of the letter sounds he hears (instead of just one letter per syllable). When writing words that contain sounds which are made by multiple letters, Óscar often substitutes an incorrect letter for the correct one. For example, he writes, “eya” for the word, “ella” since the consonant /y/ makes the same sound as the consonant /ll/ in Spanish. He also writes “ce” for “que” and “cunputadora” for “computadora” since this is what he hears when he says these words out loud.

In analyzing his writing sample, Óscar appears to be a very strong writer in Spanish. He enjoys hearing stories read aloud to him and pays close attention to print when he reads. His mom has read him books in Spanish since he was a baby. As a result of all this exposure to written text in Spanish (as well as his own motivation to write creative stories), I believe Óscar demonstrates such strength in his writing. I know he will continue to grow in becoming a successful writer as he simultaneously develops his skills in speaking and reading in Spanish.

In terms of the ideas for his writing piece, Óscar chose a topic that is appealing for many kindergarteners—video games! It is evident that this story personally happened to him because he had a lot to say about it. The vocabulary he uses in his story is developmentally appropriate for a student his age (ie: “yo,” “mami,” “papá,” etc.). He also attempts longer words (ie: “cunputadora”) as well as brand names (ie: “Xbax” = “Xbox”). Most of his sentences are grammatically correct with proper syntax. It is interesting to note that he incorporates quotation marks in his own writing (“Puedo usar la cunputadora”). (As a class, we have been discussing quotation marks and rayas as we observe them in various texts.) Óscar accurately spells almost all of the words in his writing, with some errors in the words with sounds that are represented by multiple letters (as mentioned above). He continues to work on spacing between words and punctuation.

When conducting a miscue analysis of Óscar’s writing, I notice that he engages in some code-switching. For example, he writes, “So yo le dije a mi papá…” He uses the English word, “so,” as a transition for his next sentence. I notice that he wrote the letter “i” (“and”), but then edited by crossing it out and writing “y.” This tells me that he initially listened for the sound he heard (a spelling approximation) but then remembered that he knew how to write the word for “and” in Spanish.

Óscar begins his story with “primero,” and then he continues to write one long sentence across three pages. He connects all of his ideas with the word “and” (“y”). This, coupled with the informal tone of his piece, is very characteristic of writing in Spanish (as defined by María Rosario Montaño-Harmon).

It is very interesting to read Óscar’s writing in English and to make comparisons between his writing in Spanish. Óscar worked on his English writing piece with an English-dominant substitute teacher in my classroom. He wrote about his trip to the circus over the past weekend.

In English, I would categorize Óscar at the beginning part of the “Phonetic Stage.” He was able to come up with an idea for his story and he wrote it independently in English. He continues to “stretch out” his words and write multiple sounds for each word. Interestingly, he did not produce as much writing in English as he did in Spanish, even though he had the same amount of time. It seems as though this proved more challenging for him.

Once again, Óscar chose to write about a topic that involved him personally and which he found exciting (“the circus”). He has many more spelling approximations in English than he did in Spanish. He definitely uses his knowledge of letter sounds in Spanish to assist him in writing the letters in English. For example, he writes, “dey” for “day,” “tu” for “to,” and “de” for “the.” The vocabulary he uses involves simple, short words. He also experiments with writing the word, “srces” (“circus”). His grammar and syntax are accurate in the sentence he wrote—he uses the past tense appropriately. He also structured his sentence in a basic, coherent manner.

Óscar’s writing piece in English begins with an opening (“oun dey” = “one day”) and it is a short sentence. The tone feels slightly less personal than his story in Spanish, perhaps because he did not include any dialogue or detail. I think he may not have written as much in English because he is not accustomed to writing stories in English. All of the writing we do in our classroom is in Spanish. He may have felt “stuck” in his writing and did not know what else to write or how to write it.

Oral Language Development

Óscar seems to be a sequential bilingual student. Both of his parents speak to him in Spanish, and his step-father occasionally speaks to him in English. He began learning English through a Head Start bilingual preschool program. For a kindergartener, Óscar is very strong in his oral speaking in both Spanish and English. Since he spent the first few years of his life only hearing and speaking in Spanish with his parents, his oral language is more dominant in Spanish.

I video-recorded Óscar speaking in Spanish in our DLI classroom. We had a conversation about the things he enjoys doing at home with his family. In terms of linguistic complexity, Óscar understood all of my questions in Spanish and carried out fluent, detailed responses with a variety of sentence lengths. He used comprehensible and appropriate vocabulary to convey his ideas. With regards to language control, he had occasional grammatical errors (ie: "Entonces esa persona tiene que decir, -quién le gusta algo asqueroso?-" instead of, "A quién le gusta algo asqueroso?") He also explained a videogame and said the main characters "Estaban moridos" instead of "Estaban muertos." These errors may also simply be typical developmental errors for any five-year-old in his/her dominant language. Overall, I believe Óscar is at about a Level 4 ("Expanding") on the WIDA Speaking Rubric in Spanish.

In addition to recording his speaking abilities in Spanish, Óscar's Science teacher also recorded his oral language development in English. During the activity, students were experimenting with writing and coloring on different types of paper to see which ones were easier to write/color on. Óscar was excited about this "experiment" and had a lot to say about it! He appears to be developing (Level 3 on the WIDA Speaking Rubric) in his linguistic complexity, vocabulary usage, and language control. He understands questions and responds appropriately in English using both simple and expanded sentences. During the activity, he did not revert to Spanish; however, he did use some semantic expressions/false cognates (ie: "I'm gonna paint it" instead of "I'm going to color it"). All of his sentences were comprehensible and he has acquired quite a bit of informal language in English (ie: "gonna"). Occasionally, he made some syntactic errors (ie: "You have to paint it and see how it looks like") as well as semantic errors (ie: "This is a really tricky question-- you can't paint all of it so fast"). I know that Óscar understands and appropriately uses the word "pregunta" in Spanish, so it is interesting that he misused this same word in English. It is equally fascinating that he included the adjective "tricky" in his sentence-- here, he accurately describes the challenging task of coloring on corrugated cardboard!

Óscar appears to have a positive attitude towards speaking in both Spanish and English. He is very in-tune to the dominant languages of his peers and often accommodates for them by switching between English and Spanish. For example, if he has a question for an English-dominant peer, he will often ask him/her in English (and vice versa for Spanish-dominant peers). When speaking to me (his "Spanish" teacher), he only uses Spanish. When speaking to his "English" teachers, he only uses English. Óscar has many Spanish-dominant and English-dominant friends, and he interacts with all of them fairly equally.

Presentando a Óscar

Este semestre me gustaría trabajar con Óscar-- uno de mis estudiantes bilingües. Óscar está en mi clase de kinder en Leopold Elementary School en Madison, Wisconsin. Nació en los Estados Unidos. Su mamá nació en México y su papá es de Nicaragua. Al principio del año escolar, sus padres le inscribieron en una clase de kinder en donde la maestra habla inglés. Después de un par de días decidieron cambiar del programa y le pusieron en el programa de doble inmersión porque querían que él aprendiera a hablar, leer y escribir en español. Óscar tiene muchos amigos en nuestra clase y es un líder para todos. Es muy inteligente y está en un nivel avanzado de la lectoescritura. Le interesa el fútbol, los videojuegos, mirar películas, leer y jugar en el parque con sus amigos.