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One school scraps picture books, goes for novels for English Learners
- 06-03-2010
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By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego
Stuck in a race against time to prime high schoolers fresh to the United States for the high school exit exam, Jessica Vargas and her fellow teachers realized that simple books meant for small children wouldn't cut it. So they stepped it up. San Ysidro High School, in the sparse, industrial stretches of Otay Mesa, took the books and readings meant for English learners at the advanced level and gave them to students in the middle level this year. They handed the middle books to kids in the basic level. And so on. Teens once would have been assigned a simple picture book with painted illustrations and a single sentence on each page. Now, they are given paperbacks loaded with complex sentences like, "The short blade was curved like a scythe, its fat wooden handle fitting snugly in her palm." (more...)
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