ELA/Literacy and ELD Vignettes
The 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 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 7.3 demonstrates how a teacher might implement the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy and the
CA ELD Standards in tandem during ELA instruction (in which ELD is integrated into instruction using
the CA ELD Standards). Students consider the history and impact of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
by reading and interacting with primary source materials and the nonfiction book Bury My Heart at
Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown.
Vignette 7.3. Reading, Analyzing, and Discussing
Complex Texts in American Literature
Integrated ELA/Literacy, ELD, and History in Grade ElevenBackground
Ms. Robertson teaches eleventh-grade English in an urban high school. She meets regularly
with the other English teachers, the eleventh-grade U.S. history teachers, and the English
language development and special education specialists at her school during collaborative
planning time to ensure that all their students understand the connections between the literary
and informational texts they are reading in their English and history classes. Hearing more
about what the students are learning in their U.S. history class also gives Ms. Robertson an
opportunity to reinforce understandings of important historical concepts and events in her
English class. The current interdisciplinary unit explores the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
In U.S. history class students learn, among other things, to interpret past events in their
historical context; identify authors’ perspectives and biases; evaluate major debates among
historians regarding interpretations of the past; and show connections between historical
events and larger social contexts. In both their U.S. history and English classes, students
examine primary and secondary sources and engage in conversations and writing tasks about
the topics at hand. Before examining the unit’s featured text, Bury My Heart at Wounded
Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown, the history teachers make sure
students understand the historical context in which it was written. The book was published
in 1970, shortly after the founding of the American Indian Movement (AIM), the group that
occupied Alcatraz seeking to reclaim Native American land. In U.S. history, students learn about
how Indian activism during this period was situated in the context of the broader Civil Rights
Movement and how this activism led to the passage of important civil rights policies (e.g., the
1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, the 1972 Indian Education Act, the 1975 Indian Self-Determination
and Education Assistance Act). To gain a better understanding of the historical events leading
up to the American Indian Civil Rights Movement, students also view and discuss portions
of the PBS documentary We Shall Remain (http://www.pbs.org/search/?q=we%20shall%20
remain&producer=PBS) in their history classes.792 | Chapter 7 Grades 11 and 12