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ABSTRACT
Lippitt House Museum developed its Immigration & Change in Rhode Island’s Golden Age program to benefit the literacy learning goals of adult English Language Learners (ELL) while furthering the mission of the museum to contribute to the community as a source of public education and civic engagement. This article focuses on the steps we took to create a meaningful visit to Lippitt House Museum for adult ELL classes. Techniques and methods that we used include: using scaffolded information, inquiry, and object exploration to illuminate key themes; providing students opportunities to practice speaking, reading, and writing in English; and encouraging students to make connections between the past and present while considering the actions they can take to become civically engaged in their own communities. This program proved mutually beneficial in engaging new audiences for the museum and providing unique learning opportunities for ELL students.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank from Lippitt House Museum: Carrie Taylor, Director, for her visionary leadership; Jackie Delamatre, former Curator of Education, for laying the educational foundation; Katie Vogel, former Intern, for prototyping and piloting new activities; and Steve Levine, Docent, for his experience working with adult ELL. We also could not have done this work without the tremendous staff of Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative: Chris Bourret, Program Coordinator, who facilitated all the classroom partnerships; Anna Cousins, Instructor, who gave us crucial feedback on our final curriculum drafts; and all the other instructors who let versions of this program be tested in their classrooms. We would also like to thank the students who allowed us to try out a new program and gave us invaluable feedback while always remaining encouraging and enthusiastic about working with us!
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
About the Authors
Cathy Saunders has spent three decades providing children and adults with experiences, knowledge, and tools to enable them to be their own advocates and their own agents for change. She holds an MSEd in Museum Education Leadership from Bank Street College. Cathy has held education leadership positions at Providence Children’s Museum and Science Museum of Minnesota. She is a member of the board of directors of New England Museum Association. Currently, she is an independent consultant based in Providence, Rhode Island and Curator of Education at Lippitt House Museum.
Samantha Hunter is the Education Outreach Manager at the Rhode Island Historical Society and worked as the Curator of Education at the Lippitt House Museum during the field-testing phase of this program. Samantha holds a BA in History and an MA in History with a concentration in Public History from American University in Washington, DC. She has previously worked with the Concord Museum, the Historical Society of Washington, and the White House Historical Association.
Notes
1 The period of 1865–1900 was one of tremendous economic and population growth in Providence and often is referred to as the city’s “Golden Age.”
2 Simon, “The Art of Relevance.”
3 Lippitt House Museum, “Mission,” Accessed June 18, 2018. https://www.preserveri.org/support-lippitt-house-museum.
4 Lippitt House Museum vision statement, approved May 2018.
5 The role of educator for this program may be filled by a Lippitt House staff person (e.g. the Curator of Education) or by a docent or an intern; The three contacts with students by Lippitt House educators are supported by other readings in the classroom and at home done in between contacts. These readings scaffold and repeat information that make visits clear and meaningful in their intentions.
6 The 2016 pilot was a foundation to draft, field test, and finalize a program curriculum informed by student surveys, ELL instructor feedback (identifying what their students responded to, aspects of the program the students seemed to enjoy most, and components that reinforced ELL classroom objectives), and Lippitt staff members debriefing amongst themselves.
7 The authors were brought on to the project in 2017; Cathy Saunders was contracted as curriculum writer for the summer and fall of 2017, and Samantha Hunter worked as the Curator of Education during the final field testing of this program in fall 2017. In the article, “we” is used for activities that the two of us were involved in.
8 Dewey, Experience & Education, 45.
9 US Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education, Adult English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education, 1 and 3.
10 Each ELP anchor standard is divided into five proficiency levels. We focused on the intermediate levels because that is the level of the classrooms the program will be implemented with. Within each anchor standard, each proficiency level has a descriptor. We looked for program alignment in components of the descriptors.
11 RI Family Literacy Initiative, “About Us,” Accessed May 8, 2018. http://www.rifli.org/about-us/.
12 Falk and Dierking, Learning from Museums, 135–148.
13 The Zone of Proximal Development is the distance that learners can perform beyond their current level; the point at which they learn new information; Crain, Theories of Development, 244–247.
14 Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary can be found online at: http://learnersdictionary.com/.
15 Delamatre, “Mapping a New Vision for Docent Tours.”