Cultural Modeling: Leveraging Bilingual Skills for School Paraphrasing Tasks

In this article, the authors use and further elaborate a cultural modeling framework to juxtapose two distinct yet analogous literacy practices: 1. The out-of-school practice of translating and interpreting across languages, or "para-phrasing" 2. The cross-disciplinary and school-based practice of paraphrasing or summarizing written texts Data are from field notes based on two years of ethnographic observations conducted in the homes and classrooms of 18 fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade students; the students' journals about their translation experiences; focus group discussions with the students; audiotapes of para-phrasing interactions that involved written text; interviews with the students' teachers; and audiotaped process-focused literacy assessments that provided insights on how children read and interpreted two different kinds of texts, putting both in their own words. Through grounded theorizing, the authors first analyze the skills involved in the everyday para-phrasing or translation activities performed by immigrant youth. They then identify analogues between these skills and those required for practices of translation, interpretation, and paraphrasing as they are enacted across disciplines and in an array of discourse practices. Finally, they examine classroom practices to identify points of leverage between home and school practices. The authors contribute to the elaboration of the cultural modeling framework by exploring a set of language and literacy practices that frequently occurs in immigrant communities and yet has been little explored to date, and by considering how schools can better engage the skills of bilingual youths.