Disciplinary Practices with Multilingual Learners in the Content Areas: Investigating Grasp of Practice in Fifth-Grade Science

Contemporary conceptions of content learning that emphasize disciplinary practices offer opportunities to see and hear multilingual learners’ (MLs’) participation in new ways. However, research on disciplinary practices with MLs has primarily targeted those practices traditionally considered language intensive, such as explanation and argumentation. As this research expands to disciplinary practices less familiar to language educators, it may benefit from cross-fertilization with research in content area education (e.g., science and mathematics) and, specifically, the constructs and frameworks those fields have developed to characterize effective participation in disciplinary practices. This study used the construct of grasp of practice to investigate MLs’ participation in the science disciplinary practice of modeling. By enhancing its current repertoire of constructs and frameworks with those developed by disciplinary colleagues, research in language education can capture a broader spectrum of what is valued in content learning and, in doing so, refute deficit views of MLs in content classrooms.