THE PRACTITIONER INQUIRY SERIES Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan L. Lytle, SERIES EDITORS ADVISORY BOARD: JoBeth Allen, Judy Buchanan, Curt Dudley-Marling, Robert Fecho, Sarah Freedman, Dixie Goswami, Joyce E. King, Sarah Michaels, Luis Moll, Susan Noffke, Sharon Ravitch, Marty Rutherford, Lynne Strieb, Diane Waff, Ken Zeichner Family Dialogue Journals: School–Home Building Racial and Cultural Competence in the Partnerships That Support Student Learning Classroom: Strategies from Urban Educators JOBETH ALLEN, JENNIFER BEATY, ANGELA DEAN, KAREN MANHEIM TEEL & JENNIFER OBIDAH, EDS. JOSEPH JONES, STEPHANIE SMITH MATHEWS, JEN MCCREIGHT, Re-Reading Families: The Literate Lives of Urban ELYSE SCHWEDLER, & AMBER M. SIMMONS Children, Four Years Later Raising Race Questions: CATHERINE COMPTON-LILLY Whiteness and Inquiry in Education “What About Rose?” Using Teacher Research to ALI MICHAEL Reverse School Failure Making Space for Active Learning: SMOKEY WILSON The Art and Practice of Teaching Immigrant Students and Literacy: ANNE C. MARTIN & ELLEN SCHWARTZ, EDS. Reading, Writing, and Remembering The First Year of Teaching: GERALD CAMPANO Classroom Research to Increase Student Learning Going Public with Our Teaching: JABARI MAHIRI & SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN, EDS. An Anthology of Practice A Critical Inquiry Framework for K–12 Teachers: THOMAS HATCH, DILRUBA AHMED, ANN LIEBERMAN, Lessons and Resources from the U.N. DEBORAH FAIGENBAUM, MELISSA EILER WHITE, Rights of the Child & DÉSIRÉE H. POINTER MACE, EDS. JOBETH ALLEN & LOIS ALEXANDER, EDS. Teaching as Inquiry: Asking Hard Questions to Democratic Education in Practice: Improve Practice and Student Achievement Inside the Mission Hill School ALEXANDRA WEINBAUM, DAVID ALLEN, TINA BLYTHE, MATTHEW KNOESTER KATHERINE SIMON, STEVE SEIDEL, & CATHERINE RUBIN Action Research in Special Education: An Inquiry “Is This English?” Race, Language, and Approach for Effective Teaching and Learning Culture in the Classroom SUSAN M. BRUCE & GERALD J. PINE BOB FECHO Teacher Research for Better Schools Inviting Families into the Classroom: Learning from a Life in Teaching MARIAN M. MOHR, COURTNEY ROGERS, BETSY SANFORD, LYNNE YERMANOCK STRIEB MARY ANN NOCERINO, MARION S. MACLEAN, & SHEILA CLAWSON Jenny’s Story: Taking the Long View of the Child Imagination and Literacy: —Prospect’s Philosophy in Action A Teacher’s Search for the Heart of Learning PATRICIA F. CARINI & MARGARET HIMLEY, WITH KAREN GALLAS CAROL CHRISTINE, CECILIA ESPINOSA, & JULIA FOURNIER Regarding Children’s Words: Acting Out! Combating Homophobia Teacher Research on Language and Literacy Through Teacher Activism BROOKLINE TEACHER RESEARCHER SEMINAR MOLLIE V. BLACKBURN, CAROLINE T. CLARK, Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the LAUREN M. KENNEY, & JILL M. SMITH, EDS. Teaching of Writing Puzzling Moments, Teachable Moments: Practicing ROBERT E. BROOKE, ED. Teacher Research in Urban Classrooms Teaching Through the Storm: A Journal of Hope CYNTHIA BALLENGER KAREN HALE HANKINS Inquiry as Stance: Reading Families: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation The Literate Lives of Urban Children MARILYN COCHRAN-SMITH & SUSAN L. LYTLE CATHERINE COMPTON-LILLY (continued) PRACTITIONER INQUIRY SERIES, continued Narrative Inquiry in Practice: Inside City Schools: Investigating Advancing the Knowledge of Teaching Literacy in the Multicultural Classroom NONA LYONS & VICKI KUBLER LABOSKEY, EDS. SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN, ELIZABETH RADIN SIMONS, Writing to Make a Difference: JULIE SHALHOPE KALNIN, ALEX CASARENO, & Classroom Projects for Community Change THE M-CLASS TEAMS CHRIS BENSON & SCOTT CHRISTIAN, WITH Class Actions: Teaching for Social Justice in DIXIE GOSWAMI & WALTER H. GOOCH, EDS. Elementary and Middle School Starting Strong: JOBETH ALLEN, ED. A Different Look at Children, Schools, and Standards Teacher/Mentor: PATRICIA F. CARINI A Dialogue for Collaborative Learning Because of the Kids: Facing Racial and PEG GRAHAM, SALLY HUDSON-ROSS, CHANDRA ADKINS, Cultural Differences in Schools PATTI MCWHORTER, & JENNIFER MCDUFFIE STEWART, EDS. JENNIFER E. OBIDAH & KAREN MANHEIM TEEL Teaching Other People’s Children: Literacy and Ethical Issues in Practitioner Research Learning in a Bilingual Classroom JANE ZENI, ED. CYNTHIA BALLENGER Action, Talk, and Text: Teaching, Multimedia, and Mathematics: Learning and Teaching Through Inquiry Investigations of Real Practice GORDON WELLS, ED. MAGDALENE LAMPERT & DEBORAH LOEWENBERG BALL Teaching Mathematics to the New Standards: John Dewey and the Challenge of Relearning the Dance Classroom Practice RUTH M. HEATON STEPHEN M. FISHMAN & LUCILLE MCCARTHY Teacher Narrative as Critical Inquiry: “Sometimes I Can Be Anything”: Rewriting the Script Power, Gender, and Identity in a Primary Classroom JOY S. RITCHIE & DAVID E. WILSON KAREN GALLAS From Another Angle: Learning in Small Moments: Children’s Strengths and School Standards Life in an Urban Classroom MARGARET HIMLEY WITH PATRICIA F. CARINI, EDS. DANIEL R. MEIER Family Dialogue Journals School–Home Partnerships That Support Student Learning JoBeth Allen, Jennifer Beaty, Angela Dean, Joseph Jones, Stephanie Smith Mathews, Jen McCreight, Elyse Schwedler, & Amber M. Simmons From the Red Clay Writing Project Foreword by Luis C. Moll berkeley, ca Published simultaneously by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 and the National Writing Project, 2105 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720-1042 The National Writing Project (NWP) is a nationwide network of educators working together to improve the teaching of writing in the nation’s schools and in other settings. NWP provides high-quality professional development programs to teachers in a variety of disciplines and at all levels, from early childhood through university. Through its network of nearly 200 university-based sites, NWP develops the leadership, programs and research needed for teachers to help students become successful writers and learners. Copyright © 2015 by Teachers College, Columbia University All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmit- ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available at loc.gov ISBN 978-0-8077-5628-7 (paper) ISBN 978-0-8077-5629-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-8077-7364-2 (ebook) Printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Foreword(cid:25)Luis C. Moll vii 1. Why Use Family Dialogue Journals? 1 The Rationale for Family Dialogue Journals 2 What Have Other Teachers Done? 5 Ethical and Logistical Concerns 10 FDJ Study Group Process 12 Introducing Ourselves and Our Classrooms 13 2. Getting Started: Focusing on Learning, Dialogue, and Relationships 18 Multiple and Evolving Purposes 18 Multiple Teacher Roles 20 Student Roles 32 Family Roles 33 Necessary Support Structures 34 3. Generating Journal Entries 37 Generating Letters and Questions 37 Questions That Elicit Strong Responses 44 Evolving Processes During the Year 46 4. Going Home: Families Read, Discuss, and Respond 53 Family Response Processes 53 Creating Dialogic Threads 60 v vi Contents Why Didn’t Someone at Home Respond? 65 The Starfish 70 5. Sharing Responses: Bringing Family Voices into the Classroom 72 Sharing Routines 72 Why Share? 77 Make Your Purposes Known 81 6. Creating Connectional and Critical Curriculum 84 Incorporating Family Funds of Knowledge 85 Developing Critical Lenses 93 Bringing Families into the Classroom (Literally) 105 7. Creating and Deepening Relationships 107 Student–Family Relationships 107 Student–Teacher Relationships 116 Family–Teacher Relationships 118 Expanding the Circle of Relationships 121 8. Learning from Students and Families 122 Family Perspectives on FDJs 123 Student Perspectives on FDJs 127 Thoughts on Using Journals Over Time and Across Grades 129 Going Forward 133 References 137 Index 141 About the Authors 147 Foreword It was with great interest that I read Family Dialogue Journals, which de- scribes a novel way of establishing communications and fruitful social rela- tions among teachers, students, and parents for pedagogical purposes. And it is a pleasure to write this foreword for a book that spotlights teachers’ transformative practices. That the work was inspired, at least in part, by our research on funds of knowledge is most satisfying. And indeed, the Fami- ly Dialogue Journals (FDJs) work shares several principles with the funds of knowledge approach—namely, establishing social relations with families that come to serve as assets for instruction, thus creating favorable and use- ful representations of families and students. But as in other such projects, there are changes in methods and practices as ideas are adapted, as well they should be, to various local circumstances that include different situations, constraints, and affordances. When my colleagues and I initiated the studies based on the idea of funds of knowledge, conducted in Tucson, Arizona, we designed the project as a collaborative venture with teachers (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). We modeled the design on a study with a similar ethnographic intent of learning from the families, but with a focus on home literacy practices that Stephen Díaz, Henry Trueba, and I had conducted previously with a dozen or so teachers in San Diego, California (e.g., Moll & Diaz, 1987). However, we had to make strategic adjustments for the work in Tucson. At first, and as in San Diego, the university-based researchers conducted the household visits and shared the findings with the teachers in a biweekly study group at which we would discuss pedagogical innovations based on what we were learning collectively. In Tucson, the teachers did accompany us during our first household visit to the homes of their students, and we were impressed by how well and willingly the families received us. These were obviously special visits, and the teachers were honored guests. We benefited greatly from the mutual respect displayed during those visits, which made it much easier to earn the families’ trust and facilitated greatly our subsequent re- search visits to their households. It took us only a few visits to realize that the teachers would make in- sightful household researchers. We modified our design in subsequent stud- ies so that teachers could participate as co-researchers, collecting their own vii viii Foreword firsthand data for analysis and interpretation, in case-study fashion, rather than relying on any secondhand information we could provide. It also made the relation between teachers and researchers much more symmetrical; the teachers could now reason and argue based on their own data. The study groups with teachers, which is also an important feature of FDJs, became a special setting, a “mediating structure,” as I have called it—a space for presenting and reflecting on findings, developing a common theoretical vo- cabulary, solving logistical problems, and conceptualizing and scrutinizing any instructional innovations that resulted from our joint documentation of funds of knowledge (Moll, 2014). These study-group settings also became a place to address ethical issues and watch out for damaging stereotypes, which are abundant, especially regarding low-income families and children. No one is immune to these stereotypes and to related social and language ideologies; they are always in the air. As JoBeth Allen and colleagues write, their best advice is “to reflect constantly, seeking to recognize the inherent power differentials in the ways that society and institutions and we as teach- ers position families, teachers, and students” (p. 4). This point is indeed well taken. Rather than conducting household visits, the FDJ participants, in varied ways depending on the teacher, used the frequency and openness of written exchanges to establish the relationships that led to integrating parental and student interests, experiences, and opinions into each classroom’s academic agenda. A key to the work was the openness of the communications, as they write: “We asked students and families to share personal details about their lives, experiences, and opinions. It would not be a true dialogue if we were not willing to do the same, and therefore, the openness of the teacher in her responses was integral to the implementation of FDJs” (p. 27). This form of communication is difficult, as they acknowledge, and it requires tact and authenticity but also candor—not an easy combination. It also has its risks and, as such, must be monitored carefully. It is easy to misunderstand intent in written communications, as users of email can readily attest, and this is a problem. Therefore, the development of confianza, as we call it in Spanish— the sort of mutual trust central to conducting household visits—also became important in exchanging written messages and in creating frank and useful communications. But what is most powerful is that one can come to think of FDJs not only as tools for facilitating communications and enhancing trust but also as tools for generating new funds of knowledge for all participants about family life, cultural practices, student interests, and academic routines and activities. This is quite an achievement. The diversity of teacher experiences in using FDJs but also their re- sounding success in creating a social matrix for learning and advancement in school are also impressive achievements. The use of FDJs created a dy- namic model system that supported the students academically, while per- sonalizing the relationships among participants. Family members who did Foreword ix not write in English were encouraged to correspond in their home language and, whenever necessary, students or other teachers and community mem- bers helped with translations. The students and parents became, we could say, subjects instead of simply objects of learning; in many ways the FDJs helped the participants cocreate the teaching and learning activities in each classroom setting. The collective work of these educators, rather than sim- ply seeking to accommodate the students to existing didactic practices, came to challenge the status quo in these different classroom settings by offering alternatives that were both meaningful and rigorous for all participants. There is definitely much to learn in the pages that follow. —Luis C. Moll REFERENCES González, N., & Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Moll, L. C. (2014). L. S. Vygotsky and education. London, England: Routledge. Moll, L. C., & Diaz, S. (1987). Change as the goal of educational research. An- thropology & Education Quarterly, 18(4), 300–311.