Using the Yellow River Challenge to Integrate Literacy and Engineering in a Multilingual Third‐Grade Classroom: Taking Initial Steps Toward Translanguaging

Abstract

ABSTRACT Engineering design challenges offer a potentially rich site for providing learning opportunities for emergent bilingual and multilingual learners. This intrinsic case study demonstrates how Emily, a third‐grade teacher and co‐author on this article, integrated literacy and engineering during a social studies unit about China. The authors illustrate how Emily facilitated the engineering design process while integrating literacy practices and how she took small steps toward translanguaging and strategies to support students in her diverse, multilingual classroom. Findings demonstrate how Emily took initial steps toward introducing engineering and translanguaging despite being a monolingual teacher with no background in engineering and document where Emily feels she needs to continue developing. The article suggests that teachers can implement engineering design with a translanguaging stance, design, and shifts in elementary classrooms.