Corrigendum—Supporting English Language Learners’ Writing Abilities: Exploring Third Spaces Free

For the past 10 years, research on writing instruction in the middle grades has focused on sociocultural influences of the writing process (e.g., Ball, 2006; Martinez, Orellana, Pacheco, & Carbone, 2008; Rance-Roney, 2008). Yet, there continues to be a dearth of research on writing with middle grade English learners (ELs) who are mainstreamed into the English only classroom (Fitzgerald, 2006; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012; National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges, 2003; Samway, 2006). Building on our previous research that examined the creation of third space to support writing in three diverse urban classroom settings (Zisselsberger, Assaf, & Singh, 2012), the purpose of is the present study was to examine the ways in which one middle grade teacher created a third space to support her ELs’ academic writing abilities.

Research on the writing process approach in the middle grades suggests that it privileges White, middle class language practices and can confuse ELs about expected norms and appropriate language practices (Souto-Manning, 2010). Too often ELs are not taught how to explicitly integrate their linguistic and cultural experiences within school writing assignments (August & Shanahan, 2006). Yet, there is a great deal of evidence to support that writing is sociocultural (Samway, 2006). Based on a sociocultural perspective, ELs’ writing needs to be examined through social interactions, linguistic and cultural capital, and identity instead of school-based constructs that define acceptable forms of writing and being (Bakhtin, 1986; Dyson, 2001, 2003; Hicks, 2002; Zisselsberger, Assaf, & Singh, 2012).

Third space is often referred to as “a hybrid space created when members of a classroom bring together elements of school culture and home culture to create something new” (Carlone & Johnson, 2012, p. 155). Third space, in theory, fuses first and second spaces to generate new ways of knowing and new ways of being (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Turner, 1997; Moje et al., 2004). Through a third space lens, we examined the complexities and demands of academic language learning where middle grade ELs are mainstreamed in an English only English language arts classroom.

In light of this research, we highlight how Jenae, a seventh-grade English language arts teacher (all names are pseudonyms), created third space pedagogy that honored her ELs’ backgrounds while merging their cultural and linguistic capital with school writing expectations and demands (Gebhard, Harman, & Seger, 2007; Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 2000; Moje et al. 2004).

Informed by a critical sociocultural approaches (Moje & Lewis, 2007), third space incorporates cultural geographic perspectives on social space (Soja, 1996) while emphasizing issues of power, identity and agency in students’ language and literacy learning. Such an approach acknowledges that learning is socially, historically and culturally constructed (Bakhtin, 1986; Vygotsky, 1978). Third space provides a frame to understand how teachers and students fuse students’ unofficial spaces of their lives, home and interaction with friends (first space) with official academic language and literacy spaces found in schools (second space) to create a third space in which the resources of the first and second spaces inform and build upon each other in an effort to advance student learning (Moje et al. 2004). Third space is a hopeful place where students could create positive experiences and new learning with traditionally subtractive experiences in school. Borrowing from notable research that examines third space in navigational metaphors (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Turner, 1997, Moje, 2000; Zisselsberger et al., 2012), we define third space as a bridge that allows individuals to use alternative discourses typically not used in school spaces to reshape language and literacy instruction. This research examines how one teacher traversed across different spaces to provide a transformative writing pedagogy for ELs in the middle grades.

In a third space, the situated knowledge of students inform and intermingle with school-based ideas about language and literacy instruction to form unique classroom spaces (Gutiérrez et al., 1997; Moje et al. 2004; Zisselsberger et al., 2012). It is a hypothetical location where students’ lives, their home interactions with family and friends, and popular culture are used by the teacher to transform the curriculum. Third space can be created when teachers are responsive to students’ cultural and linguistic landscapes and teach in additive ways. Much like funds of knowledge (Moll & Gonzalez,1994), third space has the potential to shape literacy events and identities (Moje, 2004). When students are encouraged to bring resources and knowledge from personal aspects of their lives into the classroom there is the potential that they will learn more deeply in new ways. In this sense, third spaces are transformative because they provide opportunities for teachers and students to authentically engage in learning and teaching that is not set by school mandates but instead by a fusing students’ cultural capital. It is possible that learning within third spaces can accentuate oppositions between the authority and power of academic literacies found in schools with the locally experienced and often marginalized lives of students (Gutiérrez, 2008). Yet, a commitment to third space requires teachers to reject simply binary positions and challenge “the divide between every day and school-based literacies and instead exploit the ways school-based and everyday knowledge can grow into one another” (Gutiérrez et al., 2011, p. 258).

Third spaces can serve as zones for proximal development (Gutierrez, 2008) and mediate academic literacy demands. Much like Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development and theories on scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) third spaces can help students access academic literacies that they may not be able to do alone. The teacher and peers can play an essential role in ELs’ academic writing and can be viewed collaborators and co-learners. Third spaces can help researchers and educators understand how teachers mediate and scaffold the academic literacy demands ELs experience in the middle grades (Zisselsberger et al., 2012).

Building on our previous research (Zisselsberger et al., 2012), we looked to Moje et al.’s (2004) categories of third space to understand how middle grade ELs took up academic writing. The categories include: third space as a bridge built between home and school literacies; third space as navigational, in which teachers and students navigate their home literacies with those of school; and third space as transformational, where the intersection of first and second spaces constructs new knowledge and new ways of being. Several notable studies rely on Moje et al.’s (2004) categories to explore third space with a range of diverse learners (Fitts, 2009; Goodman, 2010; McGinnis, 2007). Fitts (2009) is an example of one such study which examined how teachers in a fifth-grade dual language Spanish program were able to create third spaces to draw from students’ local knowledge of sports to understand statistics; provide opportunities to navigate and develop biculturalism; and transform practice by privileging Spanish dominant students’ explanations for code switching as a way to explore the totality of their language identities. Fitts’ study demonstrated how these practices created “third spaces” for true development of bilingualism and biculturalism. McGinnis (2007) explored how inquiry-based writing projects provided third spaces for her multilingual students to draw on their social worlds and move across linguistic, visual, and physical modes of literacy learning. The projects created opportunities for students to engage in and to navigate their own interests while participating in the academic demands of school-based writing. By using the inquiry-based writing projects, the teacher transformed the divide between social and cultural aspects of an “English only” curriculum while building on students’ cultural and linguistic resources. In another middle grade study, Goodman, (2010) explored the identity and language development of eighth graders who were participating in a video documentary inquiry program. The students created a documentary on teen sex that was screened for their school community. The teacher facilitated a third space by (a) helping students navigate the content of their project based on their own interests and abilities (even though it was controversial and potentially disturbing to school administration); (b) making connections between literacy strategies that emerged from teacher modeling and students’ individual needs; and (c) growing shared understanding about writing, technology, and students’ lives that reshaped the teacher’s pedagogy. Drawing on this body of work, writing in middle grade classrooms should include: (a) building bridges between teacher and students, and between the academic and social worlds of both; (b) teachers who are responsive to the linguistic and cultural heritage of students; (c) opportunities to transform and create new knowledge and curriculum; and (d) teachers who are informed and willing to support students while learning from them. The present study seeks to contribute to this body of research and focuses on how third spaces facilitate the academic writing of middle grade ELs.

The results of the present study document and add to the research on three metaphors for third spaces: (a) third space as bridges between in- and out-of-school literacies, (b) third space as navigation in which students learn to traverse their literacies with those of school, and (c) third space as transformational in which the intersection of literacies leads to new knowledge and new ways of learning (Moje et al., 2004).

Small group discussions and written language were interwoven and used as the target of instruction and as a tool for writing instruction. Such social and academic language use helped students develop new ways of making connections to their experiences, guiding their understanding of previous and new information, and revising their thinking. These third spaces provided Jenae with deeper understandings of her students’ lives and languages that allowed them to merge school networks with local networks (Gutiérrez et al., 1997).

Students also played an important part in the creation of third space. For instance, we noticed that students created third spaces among themselves (Zisselsberger et al., 2012) by sharing family stories and negotiating conflicting ideals related to literature. Through these cocreations, students’ identities and writing abilities shifted. While we have described some of the ways that Jenae and her students created third spaces to build bridges, negotiate, and transform students’ knowledge about writing in the middle grades, it is important to note that this type of instruction requires concerted effort. Throughout the study, we noticed Jenae utilized her power to facilitate discussions and set timelines and expectations without being authoritative all the while, guiding students strategically through the writing process. She offered a safe environment for students to dialogue about language, culture, and differences that often contradicted and challenged the standard curriculum while providing scaffolded instruction that explicitly taught writing strategies and academic language expectations.

The rich discussions and hybrid nature of her classroom created a different kind of writing instruction for the middle grades, one that values students’ local experiences and cultural backgrounds while learning about, incorporating, and changing the official academic knowledge of school (Dyson, 2001, 2003; Gutierrez, 2008; Moje et al., 2004).

The findings suggest third space theories, writing instruction, and academic language learning are integrally connected (Bakhtin, 1986; Vygotsky, 1978) and illustrate how middle grade teachers can cocreate third spaces in order to link local ways of knowing to the academic demands of school (Zisselsberger et al., 2012). Furthermore, this study supports other research that suggests literacy instruction should be grounded in students’ lives and that instructional practice be purposefully situated, and dependent on students’ cultural and linguistic capital (Gutierrez, 2008; Levy, 2008; Moje et al., 2004).