by Debbie Abilock, March 2023

In response to a huge influx of refugee students from Central and South America, a librarian's district has developed an intensive English language development program and he has been rapidly adding visually rich bilingual nonfiction and fiction to the collection. However, high school students are confronted with academic language that is dense and abstract, unlike the informal oral language of everyday life. Since these newcomers have not attended any school over the last several years, the librarian realizes that his instruction must address both language acquisition and academic norms.

Because acknowledging information sources is an academic norm in all kinds of presentations—and citations manifest how evidence supports claims in written arguments—he's decided to immerse students in language acquisition activities that include forms of attribution.

Linking Literacy and Attribution

Tackling literacy in a second language is replete with cognitive and emotional challenges. Being aware that "The more elaborately new learning is encoded, the more likely it is to be retained" (Goodwin and Rouleau 62), the librarian decides to use picture books with these dual-language learners. As both visual and verbal communication, these multimodal books can provide an entry point for newcomers.

The school library contains a number of bilingual texts, but our librarian needs a common text that might transcend the translation process. Young Vo has written and illustrated Gibberish, drawn from his own life, about a young newcomer's initial experiences in school. The fully realized drawings of Dat and his mother are jarringly contrasted with the monochromatic "new world" filled with other-worldly, cartoonish inhabitants. Everything people say there is unintelligible. Visually incomprehensible language is shown as dingbats, juxtaposed with Dat's and his mom's feelings and thoughts which are translated for us into English.

Newcomers in high school can read and discuss Dat's universal experiences as they discover how to decode, letter by letter, the dingbat language. They can watch a video interview of the illustrator in which he explains his artistic choices, as well as his own experience learning English (Vo, "P&P Live!").

Learning about Young Vo's career as an animator and illustrator, and his own progression from drawing to reading, leads readers into wondering about careers in art. The Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a time-honored government reference source about careers. The librarian can introduce newcomers to the conventions of a reference source while they acquire practical career advice ("Arts and Design").

In the previous sequence, a librarian can model informal attribution by calling attention to the author and illustrator's name on the title page of a picture book and by pointing to evidence to support an interpretation of feelings in a story or to statistical data during a discussion of careers. This practice lays the groundwork for the ethical use of information within a school community (Abilock, "Adding Friction").

At this point, demonstrating how to create a citation for a picture book with an artist-author, a video clip interview, or a handbook published by a government agency makes sense. Informally acknowledging sources of information verbally when presenting your ideas to others precedes the crafting and use of citations, which is the practice of attribution in academic research and in school projects.

Once newcomers have developed some background about a topic, the concept of research as inquiry makes sense. The librarian can ask students what they're wondering about or model exploratory thinking through questions he develops like:

• What does an animator do? ("Special Effects")
• What expertise does Vo's interviewer have? ("About Me")
• How do dingbats function? ("Dingbats")

After students draw or copy something they've learned and want to share, the culminating product, whether print or digital, should include both their name as creator and the date, as well as an informal parenthetical acknowledgment of the source(s)—peer, text, visual, discussion—of their information.

Linking Vocabulary and Attribution

Another picture book, Crossings: Extraordinary Structures for Extraordinary Animals, enumerates structures (e.g., bridges, tunnels, and overpasses) that engineers have created to safely guide wildlife through habitats that have been bifurcated by human construction (Duffield). These perilous crossings, dramatically illustrated by shifting perspectives, will resonate with newcomers who may have experienced dangerous journeys of their own. Slides, with photographs of these crossings created by an elementary school librarian (Hincks), could inspire these students to investigate animal crossings globally or to conduct interviews with their peers. Research shows that "students acquire new words best when they encounter and use them in a variety of ways" (Goodwin and Rouleau 43).

Like many nonfiction picture books, Crossings presents aspects of a single concept through minimal text, accompanied by expressive double-page spreads vividly rendered, in this case with graphite pencils and Adobe Photoshop. The repetition of prepositions (over, under, across and through) underlines how various animals navigate human barriers worldwide. This incremental approach to vocabulary building is ideal for newcomers who are gradually building the background knowledge that can support reading, research, and writing (Goodwin and Rouleau 42).

The librarian can develop a word wall from a series of activities related to a picture book, clustering words related to a single topic or concept. Vocabulary develops like a Velcro ball—the more words that attach to a single idea, the larger the ball grows and the better they stick.

The library's word wall can be accompanied by a running list of sources that students consulted, introducing them to another type of reference source in the form of print, digital, and visual dictionaries and, perhaps, some encyclopedias. Again, the librarian can display models of both informal and formal forms of acknowledgment on the wall:

• A verbal attribution sentence stem: "I found [information] about [content] in [source]"
• A bare-bones citation for a print or online reference source: "Word or Topic." Title of Reference Book, Publisher, Year, p. #. OR "Word or Topic." Title of Online Reference Book, Publisher, Year, URL.

Linking Reading Comprehension and Attribution

Research shows that "strategy instruction is more effective when combined with step-by-step demonstrations" (Goodwin and Rouleau 52) and spaced independent practice in a variety of situations (95). Various scaffolds can be attached to students' notes or works cited (Abilock, "Models"). A Frayer organizer enriches a student's understanding of important vocabulary and can be used as a formative or final assessment of conceptual understanding.

Another visual approach to conceptual understanding is to list a concept on the first slide of a deck followed by a series of documentary photographs that relate to the concept. Ask students to select one of the photos and describe in the notes field how it reflects some aspect of the concept. Attribution, also in the notes field, should be either a URL or a citation, depending on the student's capacity. Other vocabulary-building strategies are widespread in publications across genres, content areas, and grade levels (e.g., Holbrook and Salinger; Hill and Björk; Xu; Abilock, "Portkeys")

Linking Products and Attribution

Student artwork displays in the library are an opportunity for crediting the creator along with a title and date. If the visual product involves research (e.g., chart, diagram, map, or infographic), ask students to include a citation below their credit line.

When a teacher assigns research, discuss attribution that fits the assignment. For example:

• When an image is used in an essay as a source of information or evidence, a figure caption below the image can include attribution ("How Should").
• In a class museum or exhibition, students can write either wall text or an exhibit label for each physical artifact ("How Do I Cite"; "Write a Label"). For a more robust assessment, students can write an artist's statement explaining to viewers what the image represents and how it has been created.
  • Create a mdel entry for students to download and modify as part of their gallery walk response.
  • If yur goal is to begin teaching annotated bibliographies, assign one exhibited item t each student. Have them read a peer's artist statement, then extract information about the scope and purpose in order to create a contributed exhibit catalog with annotated citations for every artifact or artwork.

(Almost) Frictionless Attribution

Picture books can enrich empathetic and cognitive connections with and among newcomers. Visual sources and projects created by students can support a culture of attribution among these novice library users. Together they create an enduring relationship between the library and learning.

Eventually, you'll want to automate certain "key processes and skills [because they] reduce cognitive demand on working memory" (Goodwin and Rouleau 41). Examples include:

• A WorldCat export that allows students to search by title, author, or ISBN, confirm their source with a digitized cover image, and then populate the fields of a book citation form to create a correct entry.

• A database export that populates digital forms from content from vendors such as ABC-CLIO, FactCite, Rosen, Gale, ProQuest, EBSCO, HeinOnline, Infobase, JSTOR, and Newsbank.

Almost frictionless attribution frees students to turn most of their attention to the critical evaluation and use of source evidence that is central to inquiry research.

References (MLA style)

Abilock, Debbie. "Adding Friction: A Librarian Writes, 'Should I Be Using Citations in Handouts and Other Internal Communications?'" School Library Connection, Mar. 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/content/article/2275028.

---. "Models Can Scaffold Research." Google, 23 Jan. 2023, docs.google.com/document/d/1s_NHSlcJDaE4HsnP3Yx_8KGD2VZ4Ni3PzqYWnie0nio/edit#heading=h.9go7qy4dbl4x.

---. "'Portkeys' to Vocabulary." Knowledge Quest, vol. 35, no. 1, Sept.-Oct. 2006, pp. 8-11, www.researchgate.net/publication/367338777_Portkeys_to_Vocabulary.

"About Me." Minh Lê Books, minhlebooks.com/about-1. Accessed 22 Jan. 2023.

"About the Licenses." Creative Commons, creativecommons.org/licenses/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.

"Arts and Design Occupations." Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 Sept. 2022, www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/home.htm.

"Dingbats." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Dec. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dingbat&oldid=1125152836.

Duffield, Katy. Crossings: Extraordinary Structures for Extraordinary Animals. Illustrated by Mike Orodán, Simon and Schuster, 2020.

Goodwin, Bryan, and Kristin Rouleau. The New Classroom Instruction That Works: The Best Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. ASCD, 2023.

Hill, Jane D., and Cynthia Linnea Björk. Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners, Facilitators Guide. ASCD / McREL, 2008.

Hincks, Kelly. "2nd Grade - Crossings: Extraordinary Structures." Knowledge Quest, American Association of School Librarians, 9 May 2022, knowledgequest.aasl.org/my-favorite-collaborative-lesson-animal-crossings-in-2nd-grade/.

Holbrook, Sara, and Michael Salinger. High Definition: Unforgettable Vocabulary-building Strategies across Genres and Subjects. Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2010.

"How Do I Cite Wall Text Accompanying Artwork at a Museum?" MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 9 Jan. 2020, . https://style.mla.org/formatting-figure-captions/.

"How Should I Format Captions for Figures That I Include in My Paper?" MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 9 Jan. 2020, . https://style.mla.org/formatting-figure-captions/.

"Special Effects Artists and Animators." Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 Sept. 2022, www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/multimedia-artists-and-animators.htm.

Vo, Young. Gibberish. Montclair, Levine Querido, 2022.

---. "P&P Live!: Young Vo : Gibberish with Minh Lê." Interview by Minh Lê. YouTube, uploaded by Politics and Prose, 8 Mar. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl6MyFTgzSI&t=1185s.

"Write a Label: Lesson Plan." Canadian Museum of History, www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/immigration/docs/imy0200/ime907pe.pdf. Accessed 22 Jan. 2023.

Xu, Shelley Hong. Teaching English Language Learners: Literacy Strategies and Resources for K-6. Guilford Press, 2010.