Project

Deep Diving into Biliteracy

Audience

Grade 4 dual-language learners | Bilingual & dual-language educators

Format

Student-centered instructional framework | Classroom implementation | Professional learning

Focus

Biliteracy, translanguaging, cross-linguistic transfer, and contrastive analysis

Tools

Parallel English/Spanish texts, collaborative language roles, digital annotation, visual scaffolds

Case Study 1

Deep Diving into Biliteracy

Design Challenge

Traditional biliteracy instruction provided powerful opportunities for students to compare languages and make cross-linguistic connections, but the instructional process placed much of the work on the teacher. While implementing The Bridge, I created large English/Spanish charts by hand, gathered students for teacher-led analysis, and guided them through vocabulary, cognates, language structures, and contrastive analysis.

The approach was instructionally valuable but labor-intensive to prepare and largely teacher-directed. Even after I converted the process to digital side-by-side texts that students could annotate on their own devices, I remained responsible for leading the analysis and doing much of the cognitive work.

The design challenge became larger than making contrastive analysis easier to prepare: How could I preserve the rigor of biliteracy instruction while shifting the intellectual work from the teacher to the students themselves?

I developed Deep Diving into Biliteracy, a student-centered instructional framework that moves bilingual learners beyond observing contrastive analysis to actively conducting it themselves.

Students work with parallel English and Spanish versions of the same text, moving between the two languages to construct meaning collaboratively. Within linguistically diverse groups, students contribute according to their language strengths, read and compare corresponding passages, clarify vocabulary, identify cognates and other cross-linguistic relationships, examine differences in meaning and language structure, and use their combined linguistic repertoires to deepen comprehension.

Rather than treating one language as support for the other, Deep Diving positions both languages as academic resources and students—not the teacher—as the language analysts.

Solution

Design Evolution

The Bridge – Teacher led

At Voigt Elementary, I learned and implemented The Bridge through professional training provided by the Round Rock ISD Bilingual Department. Students and I examined English and Spanish side by side through anchor charts I created for contrastive analysis.

Digital Bridge — Interactive & Multimodal

At Ray Elementary, I redesigned the process digitally. Instead of recreating large paper charts for each lesson, I developed side-by-side digital resources and distributed them directly to students. The digital format added visual support, color coding, images, and opportunities to build students’ technology skills while they highlighted, annotated, and recorded cross-linguistic observations as I guided the analysis. The process remained teacher-led, however, with students following my lead rather than independently conducting their own.

Deep Diving - Student-Centered

The next design question was the breakthrough:

Why am I doing all the work?

The HMH bilingual adoption provided an instructional asset: many of the same literary and informational texts appeared in both the English and Spanish editions. I recognized that this made cross-linguistic text study accessible, so I redesigned the experience around students conducting the analysis themselves.

Instead of watching me compare the languages, students opened both books, aligned the texts, read them section by section, discussed across languages, compared meaning, identified linguistic connections, annotated their thinking, and supported one another according to their language strengths.

Student videos presented during the TABE and NABE conference sessions provide direct evidence of two key outcomes: students engaging in meaningful critical thinking about literacy and students making interlinguistic connections across English and Spanish.

Design Innovation

Deep Diving did not replace established biliteracy practices; it redesigned how students participated in them. The innovation was shifting contrastive analysis from a teacher demonstration into a structured collaborative process in which bilingual learners themselves became the readers, language resources, analysts, and meaning-makers.

Deep Diving follows modeling. Students first experience a teacher-led Bridge or Digital Bridge so they understand how to compare languages, notice cross-linguistic relationships, and analyze meaning. Once that process has been modeled, responsibility shifts to students through the Deep Diving framework.

Learning in Action

The most compelling evidence of success was visible in the learning process itself. Student engagement was exceptionally high as learners moved between texts, negotiated meaning, questioned translations, contributed according to their linguistic strengths, and made cross-linguistic discoveries in real time.

One classroom episode later documented in doctoral research illustrates the depth of students’ thinking. Students comparing English and Spanish versions noticed that simple life had been rendered as humilde vida. A student questioned the equivalence, distinguishing the meanings of simple and humilde. Dr. Milmo interpreted the exchange as deliberate use of students' bilingual repertoires to achieve deeper textual understanding.

Professional Dissemination

Deep Diving moved beyond classroom implementation into professional learning.

Julie Black and Fernando Milmo presented Deep Diving into Biliteracy: Translanguaging and Contrastive Analysis in the Dual Language Classroom at TABE 2024 and subsequently at NABE 2025, taking the framework from classroom practice to state and national bilingual-education audiences.

Independent Research Documentation

Deep Diving later became part of the classroom evidence documented as part of Dr. Fernando Milmo's 2025 Ed.D. dissertation, Voices of Resistance: Multilingual Identity Formation Through Translanguaging in Dual Language Bilingual Education.

Dr. Milmo observed Deep Diving during classroom instruction, collected related instructional artifacts, interviewed me and participating students, and documented how students used their linguistic strengths collaboratively. His classroom field notes reported that the Deep Diving contrastive-analysis structure promoted movement between English and Spanish, required both languages to accomplish the learning objective, and supported students in using both languages to clarify meaning.

SELECTED ARTIFACTS — Biliteracy Instructional Design

Framework Design —

Deep Diving Classroom Display

The classroom display made the Deep Diving process visible to students, providing a shared visual reference for comparing texts across English and Spanish and documenting cross-linguistic discoveries.

Skills shown: instructional framework design + visual scaffolding.

Student-Generated Scaffolding —

Students Supporting Their Partners

As students worked, bilingual strengths became resources for the group. Students independently repositioned themselves beside partners to clarify meaning, compare texts, and support one another through the analysis.

Skills shown: collaborative learning + peer scaffolding + student agency + leveraging linguistic strengths.

Student-Centered Contrastive Analysis —

Students Working with Parallel Texts

Students work collaboratively with parallel English and Spanish texts, aligning corresponding passages and using both languages to compare meaning, vocabulary, and language structures.

Skills shown: biliteracy design + translanguaging + shifting cognitive responsibility to students.

Visible Cross-Linguistic Thinking — Student Analysis/Annotated Work

Student annotations make the intellectual work visible as learners identify connections, differences, vocabulary, and meaning across corresponding English and Spanish passages.

Skills shown: literacy analysis + cross-linguistic transfer + evidence of student thinking.