English 495: Tuesday, March 1

“Of all the contexts in which L2 writing occurs, high school is probably the most fraught and the most complex,” writes Leki (17), and I could not agree more. High school is likely a strenuous time for even L1 learners, a time of coming of age and of finding oneself. Having to navigate this world when you don’t know the “school scripts” and don’t know what culture you fit into can be even more of a challenge.

I found the readings in Leki for today incredibly interesting, partly because of the interesting points made like the  above. She notes that the drop out rates are extremely high for English language learners. But huge questions lingers: Where do they belong? When should we mainstream these students into the content-area classrooms? I have seen examples of students who have been mainstreamed too soon and students who have not mainstreamed at all—both to the detriment of the student. A few students were put into a freshman level biology class in which most L1 learners were struggling with the content. They simply could not handle the academic rigor and had to be pulled. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum In the high school in Rockford (where I am from) housing the ESL student, teachers have told me that ESL students continue to do poorly on purpose so that they can stay with their friends when they are fully capable of doing the work there.

I also found it interesting that she mentioned how mainstream teachers often work to find experiential relevance so that their students can connect to their lesson plans. I cannot even imagine how many times I used jokes, sarcasm, etc. in the classroom with ESL student there. I now realize that most of those culturally-specific  and went way over there heads.

In one final note, I want to mention something from Wallace’s article. I found it interesting how the religious identity of the students was mentioned as being so powerful. I do agree that religion is absolutely an identity builder for people. I went to a private, religious school from 6^th to 12^th grades, so religion was freely mentioned in each class regardless of the content. However, in the U.S. public schools, that matter is much more tricky. Thanks to separation of church and state, etc., I would be wary about asking students about their religious preferences or lack there of despite the importance of the subject to their identities.