This ethnographic study explores the literacies of bilingual families living in the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border. Murillo argues that immigrant families living on the border play an important role in their children's literacy development, but that their voices are seldom heard in schools due to powerful and persistent deficit views…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…

A series of lesson ideas for school teachers with both monolingual English-speaking and bilingual students in the same class includes 18 cultural and cross-cultural topics. They include: the island of Cuba, the flag of Cuba, the flag of Mexico, the development of Mexican music, Benito Juarez, the flag of Puerto Rico, the seal of Puerto Rico, a…

This material is a compilation of junior high school student-developed stories and games about the way Christmas is celebrated in Portugal, Mexico, and Cuba. The material was developed in the classroom by Portuguese, Mexican, and Cuban immigrant students and by American students who do not have a recent immigrant background, all of whom were…

This videotape and workbook offer a framework for developing curriculum and materials that speak to the most basic and most pressing issues in English language learners' lives. They are based on the belief that English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and literacy classrooms could and should be settings where adults find opportunities to develop…