Enhancing Two Units of 8th Grade U.S. History Curriculum to Support the Development of Experienced Multilinguals’ Usage of Oral and Written Academic Language

Inspired by a group of middle school experienced multilinguals (EMs), this capstone project sought to take an asset-based approach to redesigning two units of U.S. history curriculum so that the strong oral language skills of these students could be used as an educational tool for practicing academic language in speaking and writing. To complete this project, the researcher first studied the importance of using asset-based language and referring to this group of students as experienced multilinguals in lieu of long-term English learners. The researcher also examined theoretical frameworks such as Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism that support the usage of the speaking-writing connection in target language instruction. This work led to the implementation of the Instructional Framework for Experienced Multilinguals (Huynh & Skelton, 2023) and Weissberg’s (2006) General Scheme to embed speaking opportunities and other collaborative, multimodal learning activities into units on the Three Branches of Government and World War One.