ELA/Literacy and ELD Vignettes
The following ELA/literacy and ELD vignettes illustrate how teachers might implement the CA CCSS
for ELA/Literacy and the CA ELD Standards using the framing questions and additional considerations
discussed in the preceding sections. The vignettes are valuable resources for teachers to consider
as they collaboratively plan lessons, extend their professional learning, and refine their practice. The
examples in the vignettes are not intended to be prescriptive, nor are the instructional approaches
limited to the identified content areas. Rather, they are provided as tangible ideas that can be used
and adapted as needed in flexible ways in a variety of instructional contexts.
ELA/Literacy Vignette
Vignette 4.1 presents a portion of an instructional unit and a closer look at a reading lesson. In
this vignette, the focus of instruction is on close reading prompted by text-dependent questions.
The teacher uses the framing questions in figure 4.21 to plan and implement ELA instruction with all
students, with the addition of integrated ELD for ELs.
Vignette 4.1. Close Reading of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse (Narrative Text)
ELA Instruction in Grade TwoBackground
Each month, Mrs. Hernandez’s class of 35 second graders conducts an author study.
Mrs. Hernandez selects the authors based on the rich language they use and the many
opportunities the literacy texts provide for students to make inferences about ideas and events
in the stories and engage in extended text-based discussions. The compelling plots motivate
the children to read the books multiple times. This month, students are enjoying books by
author Kevin Henkes. Mrs. Hernandez’s class comprises 25 children who are native English
speakers or bilingual children proficient in English, and ten children who are ELs. Two are at
the Emerging level of English language proficiency, six are at the Expanding level, and two are
at the Bridging level.
Lesson Context
Mrs. Hernandez reads some of Kevin Henkes books’ aloud to the whole class. Students then
explore other books by Henkes in small reading groups while their classmates work in partners
or small groups at literacy stations (e.g., the listening station, the writing station, the partner
reading station). During her read alouds, she sometimes code switches between English and
Spanish to provide scaffolding for her two Spanish-speaking ELs who are at the Emerging level
of English language proficiency and are fairly new to English (newcomer ELs). She sometimes
previews the stories for them in Spanish or asks a parent who is fluent in Spanish to do so.
Today, Mrs. Hernandez is working with a small reading group of six children (two are ELs at
the Bridging level, two are bilingual students who are not ELs, and two are native speakers of
English only). They are reading Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. Mrs. Hernandez helps students read
the text closely by thinking about and discussing text-dependent questions. Yesterday, when
the group read the book for the first time, Mrs. Hernandez asked text-dependent questions
focused on literal comprehension. Today, she will stop at strategic points in the text and guide
the children to discuss text-dependent questions targeting inferential comprehension of the
text. The learning target and cluster of CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy and CA ELD Standards in
focus for today’s lesson are the following:Grade 2 Chapter 4 | 341