This section provides an overview of the Discovering Our Experiences: Studies in Bilingual/ESL Education Project and its publications. Each volume is presented as a dedicated feature within separate sections, encompassing summaries of articles and edited versions of some of the original pieces. The PowerPoint slide presentation below includes the front cover and TOC images of the volumes (8 ½” x11”), with the Fable Writing Project publications also included. Each publication is accessible in a PDF file following the slide presentation.
Technological advancements have enabled us to disseminate this work to a wider audience than ever before. We are honored to have the opportunity to showcase the contributions of our school teachers, students, administrators, university students, and faculty.
Overview
Thirty-four years ago, as part of a team of university researchers, we initiated a collaborative project between the university and a local school district. Our goal was to address the substantial challenges educators faced in reversing the academic setbacks experienced by language minority students. While our vision was clear, the specific tasks were in the early stages of development. We focused on broad, yet manageable dimensions, rethinking and exploring a research model at a grassroots level. This involved identifying our roles, establishing relationships with teachers, administrators, students, and determining the relevant, major components of theory-based knowledge and essential practitioner details of our desired outcomes. At the forefront of this project was a strong desire to publish our work and create a platform for exchanging ideas and fostering dialogue based on action research. We welcomed the opportunity to share best practices research, promote teacher and student voices, and encourage others to engage in similar collaborative research endeavors.
In a matter of weeks, we chose a title for our project, “Discovering Our Experiences: Studies in Bilingual/ESL Education,” and determined that we would commence publishing our research within a year. Although we eventually published our inaugural volume, “Leadership for Change in Bilingual/ESL Education,” in the fall of 1993, the entirety of our project remained confined to the experiential phase. In this volume, we published the interviews of elementary and secondary principals, as well as a state education official. These interviews utilized their platforms to emphasize the pressing and deteriorating educational challenges while simultaneously advancing innovative ideas for school reform and transformation.
Upon identifying three project goals, including two research areas and a third goal of promoting the project and inviting reader collaboration, the final product began to take shape. The two research areas, teacher research and transformative and mediated instruction, were combined to create a synergy of topics. These topics encompassed teacher research reframed as unconventional and unconstrained, mediated/transformative literacy, and the Funds of Knowledge for Teaching.
The four volumes, each thematically organized, act as a time machine, magnifying the comparison of various trends, ideas, concerns, and practices of the present with the past. Indeed, an in-depth, comparative analysis of the content may yield surprisingly similar as well as dissimilarities between then and now. The volumes are as follows: Volume 1 (1993): Leadership for Change in Bilingual/ESL Education; Volume 2 (1995): Reflective Practice for Teacher Change; Volume 3 (1996): Transforming Ourselves Through the Power of Mediated Instruction; and Volume 4: Critical Knowledge Beyond the School: Teachers as the Ones Who Learn. The friendly, magazine-style design was intentionally crafted to showcase the content as both scholarly and professional, while simultaneously ensuring its accessibility to a broad audience. This project spanned from 1993 to 1996.
The third objective, which aimed to foster teacher engagement in practitioner action research and facilitate dialogic exchange among diverse stakeholders, did not achieve the anticipated outcomes and results. However, it was posited that its realization could have been achieved had the project been subsequently continued.
The Fable Writing Project
The initial of two writing projects involved the collaboration between university researchers and graduate students with fourth and fifth graders and their teachers in three Houston Independent School District (Houston ISD) schools. The project culminated in the publication of a book (also 8 ½” x11) titled “Cuéntame una fábula” in the fall of 1996. This book comprises 76 fables written by the students in both Spanish and English.
The second writing project, titled “Cuéntame más fábulas,” encompassed five elementary school classrooms within Houston ISD. The students were enrolled in first, third, and fourth-grade bilingual education classrooms. This volume included 73 fables authored by the children in both Spanish and English.
