English 495: Tuesday, April 5

"It is a reflection of an understandable bias in certain circles that the black vernacular is permitted, glorified in certain composition circles, but WE is not tolerated in academic writing," writes Canagarajah (603). This is but one extremely interesting, thought-provoking quotation from this week's readings. There are numerous times when reading a piece of literature written in the African American dialect in the classroom is perfectly acceptable. Yet, until this semester, I thad rarely even heard of about World Englishes and the different dialects that come along with them--and I can't remember one literary work written in such a dialect. I find that extremely sad and wonder now what glorious works written in those other dialects of English  I have been missing and have not been allowed a center place in any classroom that I have been in.

Still, I don't think that we can dismiss the AAVE has having an easy time of it, either. I believe that students need to be exposed to numerous different kinds of works and authors that speak to them, that they can see themselves in. However, I do wonder about allowing those different dialects to transfer onto the written page--specifically in the high school formal writing context. I can see creating writing assingments which allow the students to utilize their own vernaculars--low risk assignments I believe they are called. Yet, allowing those students to bring in those same differences into a formal writing paper in an English class would simply be doing them an injustice unless the implementation of those dialects somehow was neccessary for their topic. That is not to so that I am all for keeping the standard dialect of English in the classrooms--far from it. However, the students in the secondary context are going to be continously judged on their ability to write standard English when they leave my classroom. My short-term goal would be to make sure that they can do that--and not be judged by some as having a lack of ability for bringing in a piece of their identity. I think that this implementation in a high school classroom can take place as long as the students can also successfully write in that standard english dialect-because I know that the students will be judged if they cannot, and I would never want that of a student.

I am also extremely intrigued by the concept of code meshing, of the teacher Tom in the "Multilingual academic literacies" article who encouraged the students to speak in Spanish in order to negotiate the meaning in English. The fact that he is privileging the content knowledge over English while still allowing the students ample opportunity to learn the language is fantastic. Unfortunately, a classroom like that is somewhat unrealistic for most second language learners in the United States--especially those at the secondary level in content-area classes. We want to avoid the "English-Only" movement in the classrooms, yet that movement may sometimes be inevitable if the teacher cannot understand the first language of the child. I would be up for allowing my students to use their first language in some assignments, but I would always worry what they were writing if I couldn't actually understand any of that. And truly, knowing high school boys, they may just write something extremely inappropriate knowing that I couldn't read it. So-- I ultimately see a problem here. We want students to be multilingual in the classrooms and utilize both L1 and L2, yet we also have most teachers who then could not understand or create scaffolding for them when working in this multilingual arena. What to do?

English 495: Tuesday, March 29

As each week goes by, I find more and more connections with the current articles and things that have been discussed or have been read in other classes/at other times. This Tuesday's readings were no exception. The articles based around China's decree of teaching presented one such instance. "Thus the shift towards computer/network-based courses with a clear emphasis on content-rich subject matter maps out a concrete curicular infrastructure for achieving the new literacy," writes You (193). The use of this content-rich subject matter harkens back to the book that I am reading for our book review, The Content-Based Classroom. In this book, the authors discuss injecting meaninful content in the classroom instruction, content that connects with students and allows them to use the background information that they come to school with...regardless of how much or how little cultural awareness they may have of classroom methods, techniques, and culture in the United States.

Unfortunately, You paints a relatively bleak pictures of how those English reforms were doing a few years later. The topics used touched little on Chinese life, something that has apparently strayed from the content-infused approach discussed in the previous paragraph. The decree also spoke of creating a student-centered classroom, one that we have continually read about and one that gives the students the opportunity to discuss and learn by doing. Yet, these English classroom, especially for writing, appear to be merely a pipeline from teacher to student. Simply feeding students the answers and having them regurgitate them does little good.

As I read Lei's article discussing the writing strategies of two Chinese college students studying English, I found myself, whether ironically or not, in the work. These two students were working to successfully write in a different language, implementing a multitude of different strategies to do so. Yet, if teachers are to strive to find some commonality amongst their diverse students, I can see how writing strategies may be a place to begin. When I write, I utilize the internet, other social connections, my own notes, my own experiences, my own motivation to achieve in English writing--much as these two students do. Regardless of the L1 language, some similiarities in how people write--at least in English--do exist, and teachers should embrace these. Clearly, I do not utitlize my first language when writing English because, obviously, English is my first language; so, one difference does exist there, and, as so many authors that I have read this semester assert, teachers must be aware of how L1 literacy plays a role in the l2 writing of students...so yet another connection to other readings is made.

English 344: Tuesday, March 29

I felt rather naive reading Wong Chapter 5 last night, a familiar feeling that I've had throughout this semester. Throughout much of my life, I can honestly say that I've taken for granted what I have been given and the status that I have been granted in society simply because of my background. Before this semester, I had never really given much thought to the push for English-only education in the United States. When I was taking English education classes and going through student teaching, I assumed that this monolingual policy was simply the way to go. Now, however, I realize that "erasing" someone's first language also means erasing their culture, erasing a huge part of their identity.

DuBois' concept of double consciousness was especially interesting to me. "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity," wrote DuBois in 1961 (172). I have never been a hyphenated American, by DuBois' and much of the United States' standards. I have not been Caucasion-American; rather, I have just been American. Yet, minorities in this country always seem to get that hyphen attached to their name, qualifying them as something else and simply citizens of this country as I am. These actions in itself appear to be an accepting of that racism discussed in today's readings.

Much of the teachings in these readings can easily be transferable to the classroom context, if only for teachers to be more open-minded and aware of the diverse backgrounds of students in a classroom. Perhaps one of our jobs as teachers is to help students (re)discover those collective memories of indigenous discourses, of discourses from their past, so that we can reevaluate that dominant discourse that many unhyphenated Americans are not even aware exists so strongly. I do agree with Wong that there will always be a tension for teachers between that diversity and creating a common ground for her students. Students, regardless of their backgrounds, need to feel a part of the classroom group as well as a part of their own culture. This balance may be hard to achieve, but, as teachers, we must always try to do this.

English 344: Tuesday, March 22

I always enjoy learning a little about history, so I found much of this chapter of Wong pretty fascinating as it spoke about some of the historical philosophical roots of Critical Pedagogy. Some of the things that the philosophers discussed seemed a bit out there to me, a bit over my head (for example, the talk of "the sign" in regards to Bakhtin; I'm not really sure what exactly it is). However, other points in the readings made perfect sense and could easily translate into classroom lessons of today.

Mao's belief in knowledge from practice is one such idea. A student can never fully learn if a teacher simply lectures to them all of the time, and they take notes (or pretend to). Rather, each one needs to be engaged in an activity in order for that learning to be more fully activating. In regards to the subject of math, this transition can easily be made. In English classes, it may seem a little more difficult, but discussions, group works, and other activities in regards to literary activities an serve this purpose. The "banking pedagogy" is something that all teachers should strive for-- that teacher-student relationship that emphasises mutual discovery and exploration. The simple fact that we can be labeled teachers in no way means that we know everything; rather, we can learn from the insights and backgrounds of our students just as much as they can learn from us.

I also found the discussions on reading extremely interesting, particularly because I am intrigued by the task in regards to second language learning. The text discussed how reading can be in social forms--from read alouds to shared reading--so that social interaction helps stimulate the activity. I have also read that one could consider the relationship between the person and the text itself to be a sort of social interaction, so independent reading could potentially fall under the social category, as well. To many people, reading is viewed as a solitary activity, but this activity can easily be placed within socially significant and culturally aware contexts in order to connect to the identities of the students and foster a better learning environment in the classroom.

English 495: Tuesday, March 22

"An enormous disparity might exist between their disciplinary knowledge and sophistication and their ability to write in English," the authors write of international graduate students (Leki 38). Braine's article connects to this point, as well. Of a friends who was an international graduate student with him, he writes: "One who had taught English for years in his country was traumatized with embarrassment when he was told that his English proficiency was low..." (60). This friend, this person holding status in his own country, was then forced to enroll in ESL classes.

I cannot even imagine how hard it must be for graduate students from other coutntries here. I have been surrounded by English all of my life, have used the language as part of a full-time job even, but I often struggle through writing still, hitting those blocks at times and coming to a complete stop. Doing the same work that I am doing, but doing it in one's second language, is just amazing to me. Still, this process of succeeding in graduate school is not just about the writing, and Braine emphasizes this point in his article. As the study by Schneider and Fujishima suggests, one needs a grasp of social graces, social realties, and integrative motivation to succeed, as well--another reason why social interactions seem so important for any aspect of language learning/succeeding. Without that social support system here, that vacuum of simply writing and doing all of that other graduate student work would be become horribly overwhelming I suppose.

This concept of "vacuum" also brings me to Canagarajah's article. In this, the author emphasizes that writing itself essentially cannot be written in a vaccuum; within the decontextualized approach, the influenc of social condition and cultural diversity are lost. I believe that writing is an incredibly social event. Take, for example, today's typical high school students in the United States. Asking them to write a summary of a story or something of that sort with no context or no purpose for them will illicit numerous groans; they simply do not want to write. However, they will spend hours each night writing to their friends on facebook or text messaging them because this writing is entirely social and meaningful to them; they are willing to write, but it has to be on their own terms. The task of teachers is to make those writing assignments in regards to content-area learning meaningful to students, as well, to give that writing context and a purpose

English 344: Individual Field-trip/Beginning of Annotated Bibliography

Thanks to my readings and some ideas randomly coming to me, I have decided to change my paper topic to one that specifically deals with identity of the ESL learner as it relates to reading. What role does identity play in learning to read in a second language? How can the teachers in the K-12 context implement texts that are culturally relevant to their students in order to promote comprehension and fluency? Can the act of reading these authentic texts help their language acquisition, as well?

Block, David. “The Rise of Identity in SLA Research, Post Firth and Wagner (1997).” The

                Modern Language Journal. 91. Focus Issue (2007): 863-876.

                Block starts and bases his article on the 1997 article of Firth and Wagner, written ten years before the publication of his own article, and their description of they saw as the narrow view of identity that underlay most second language research at that time: “The fact that NS [native speaker] or NNS [nonnative speaker] is only one identity from a multitude of social identities […] is, it seems fair to conclude, a nonissue in SLA. For the SLA researcher, only one identity really matters, and in equal measures throughout the duration of the encounter being studied” (863). Since that article by Firth and Wagner, there has been an increase in the publications based on the assumption that L2 learning and identity are, in fact, interrelated (a common theme that runs through many of my chosen sources here, which is why I chose this article specifically focused on just identity research in order to get more of a background on this subject).  A few other issues from this article are especially pertinent to my paper topic. First, Block writes that “when individuals migrate from one geographic or sociocultural context to another, their sense of who they are transformed and recreated” (869). One’s identity is never fixed, but fragmented and contested in nature; there may be struggle and destabilization when this change in environment occurs (864). For English Language Learners in K-12 classrooms here, that identity struggle likely takes place every day, as they wonder where they fit in in this new environment. Also, this article mentions other sources of power relations that could affect individuals and their l2 identities in the classroom; from economic and cultural status to social and symbolic capital (such as prestige and fame), these all help cause an internal identity struggle for individuals.

Devitt, Sean. “Interacting with Authentic Texts: Multilayered Processes.” The Modern

                Language Journal. 81. 4 (1997): 457-469.

                In this article, Devitt discusses reading processes as potential catalysts for second language acquisition; most literature on L2 acquisition, the author notes, does not consider the involvement of reading. He links the two fields of L2 input/interaction research and L2 reading “in a way that enables the insights from each to fertilize the other” (459). The article concentrates on interaction studies within second language acquisition studies, noting many interpersonal interactions with SLA “can be made with equal force for reading,” that is, by looking at the interaction between the reader and the text—and interesting way to look at interaction if I might add (457).  Within this interaction between the reader and the text, emphasis is placed on making sure that those said texts are authentic L2 texts. As Krashen noted in his Monitor Theory, reading authentic texts provides the comprehensible input needed for acquisition. These authentic texts can be items such as newspapers—or perhaps text that relate back to the student’s culture and identity.  I feel that this article is relevant to my research because it discusses the concept of identity in relation to the literacy practice of reading, asking the interesting question of whether reading can fuel language acquisition itself.

Leeman, Jennifer, and Lisa Rabin. “Reading Language: Critical Perspectives for the

                Literature Classroom.” Hispania. 90. 2 (2007): 304-315

                This theoretical article looks at what the authors say is a lack of critical perspectives on language. Focused in postsecondary language classrooms, the authors write that there is a movement in the foreign language department to create literacy-based program reform and, in turn, to understand the cultural and historical contexts of the texts themselves. Instead of keeping a split between the “language” courses and the “content” courses, critical language educators stress the role of language in the production of knowledge, culture, and identity; here this language and all that comes with it would be permeating from the literature being read in those “content” classrooms. Thus, a pedagogy involving this critical language awareness (CLA) would be an approach to educational research and practice that emphasized education in disseminating social and political ideologies, working with students to examine various hierarches arising from those structures. Within this CLA approach, pedagogy can be grounded in students’ lived realities, promoting critical engagement in shaping social worlds and helping students consider the effect of language ideologies on subordinated groups. These students can also reflect on their own experiences learning to read and write in their L1 or L2 languages. They can understand that “standard” language varieties are inevitably assigned greater moral and intelligence worth than other linguistic varieties simply because it is that standard, dominant dialect.

While this article focuses on postsecondary foreign language classrooms, I find much that can transfer into teaching reading to ESL students at the secondary level. These ESL students can gain a lot by having a curriculum that is geared toward not only helping them gain literacy but allowing them to consider their own identities within the words. I wonder about reading instruction taught with no context; perhaps, when students are given the chance to connect with literature at a personal level, they would be more successful in reading English.

Mosenthal, Jim, Marjorie Lipson, Susan Torncello, Barbara Russ, and Jane Mekkelson.

“Contexts and Practices of Six Schools Successful in Obtaining Reading Achievement.”

The Elementary School Journal. 104. 5 (June 2010): 343-361.

The researchers, in this study, examined the contexts and practices of nine Vermont schools, six whose students met or exceeded the standards set for performance on statewide readings tests and three whose students did not. These schools were not upper-class, well-to-do schools, but rather urban schools with diverse populations. In these contexts, the researchers wanted to know 1. What practices and school factors promoted increased student performance in reading? and 2. Do factors that influence success and promote excellent performance vary among successful schools? The researchers wrote that “an analysis of fifty years of research suggests that the different kinds of classroom instruction and climate had nearly as much impact on learning as the student aptitude categories” (Mosenthal 345). The reseachers  found factors common to all of the successful schools, including a commitment to literacy that had been in place for eight to ten years, a focus on the school community, knowledgeable teachers able to articulate their work, and ample opportunity for students to read and discuss books.  I find the use of culturally-responsive instruction to be especially intriguing, those course materials that can help connect to a student’s identity, along with one of the conclusions that there is no evidence that low-socioeconomic schools cannot achieve success in reading with the right motivation from the adult support group around the students.

English 495: Monday, March 14, Discussion Handout

I have copied and pasted the discussion handout for tomorrow here. If anyone is interesting in viewing it early, here you go!

Second Language Writing in First-Year Composition: Generation 1.5

Some main points from the readings…

Leki, Chapter 3: Undergraduate Writing

·         The bulk of L2 writing research has been focused on this group

·         What writing courses should these students be in?

·         Where should L2 writing concentrate?

·         Issues concerning “gatekeeping” entrance and exit exams

·         Do the needs of L2 writers match the writing center’s ideology?

·         Issues of plagiarism

·         Some studies now focusing on: Feelings, attitudes, and perceptions in relation to L2 writing, writing courses; personal goals for learning to write in English; specific pedagogical approaches for L2 writing

Leki, “The Legacy of First-Year Composition”

·         The issue: First-year composition as a (nearly) universally sanctioned institution in the United States

·         But, the plus:  L2 writing courses also to exist for credit at universities because of this

·         Usually focus on writing rather than any other language skill

·         L2 students may need oral or reading skills more than writing skill

·         English department genres are privileged in these courses:  “Elitist high handedness” (63)

·         Are students drawn to plagiarize because they must write about topics they know very little about?

·         Because first year comp ends in a year, academic support for L2 writing also ends then in many universities

·         Two types of learning transfer: Specific, near transfer and general, far transfer

·         L1 faculty continually try to think through first-year composition: Do away with? Make it optional? Other substitutions?

Matsuda, “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composision

·         Unidirectional English monolingualism accounts for the relative lack of attention to multilingualism in composition scholarship.

·         The myth of linguistic homogeneity: The image of the typical composition students as native speakers of a privileged variety of English

·         Concomitant policy of linguistic containment: Exclude from entering higher education, ignore language issues if minority is small, use placement procedures

·         Brief history of ESL students in U.S. higher education

o    1784: Yale hosted a student from Latin America

o    Latter half of 19^th century: First sizable influx of international students

o    Early 20^th century: Second influx

o    1911: Michigan creates first English course specifically designed for international students

o    1933: Good Neighbor policy brings students from Latin America

o    1941: ELI at Michigan

o    Conclusion of World War II: Another influx

o    1953: About 150 institutions had established English as a Second Language programs for international students

·         No program can completely contain language differences, so why “fight” it?

·         Placement options should not be abandoned; some students need and want this.

And some discussion questions (partly inspired by a few key quotations)…

1.     “Institutions of higher education doom first-year composition programs to fail by making writing courses compulsory, by making English departments responsible for first-year composition, by providing so little funding for the courses that they have to be staffed by indentured servants (TA and instructors) with the least clout and, for TAs, the least experienced, […], by assuming writing gets learned in a year of first-year composition.” (“Legacy,” 59)

a.     What is your reaction to this quotation?

b.     Does it relate at all to your experiences as teachers here? Where, if at all, do you find commonalities?

c.     If this quotation is even partly true, how do we begin to teach L2 learners in this described environment?

2.     “Yet a semester or two of extra language instruction was often not enough to help students fit the dominant image…” (Matsuda 647)

“Yet, beyond whatever help L2 students can get in writing centers, because first-year composition     ends in a year, so does academic support for L2 writing at many universities.” (“Legacy,” 67)

a.     Why does composition have to take place during the freshman year?

b.     How can writing be given more support throughout academic careers?

c.     What other options could be created for students… other than simply in the freshmen year?

d.     Do you see upsides to this writing taking place during freshmen year for ESL students? What?

3.     “One of the persisting elements of the dominant image of students in English studies is the assumption that students are by default native speakers of a privileged variety of English from the United States.” (Matsuda 639)

a.     How do you see this “myth of linguistic homogeneity” enacting itself in college classrooms?

b.     Once teachers realize that college composition classrooms cannot be a monolingual space, what can they do to update their teachings and give space for all cultures in the room?

4.     “In these we see the focal students […] finding their identities constructed for them by teachers and institutions as first and foremost ESL students” (“Synthesis” 33).

“Isaac Leon Kandel, for example, wrote that international students did not benefit as much from the instruction not because of their lack of ability but because “courses were organized primarily with the American student […] in mind”” (Matsuda 645).

a.     How do we go about not simply labeling students ESL or native speakers, but rather look past that one label often liberally given in order to help the other identities of students come forth?

b.     How can the assignments in the composition classroom contribute to helping Generation 1.5 students find their own identities there?

c.     The United States was founded by immigrants, yet, as Matsuda says, continues a policy of containment. How do we create classrooms that don’t simply have “the American student in mind”?

5.     “We view writing as so important that we must devote a year of first-year composition to studying it and since all students devote a year to studying writing, writing must be very important.” (“Legacy,” 66)

a.     Why do you think writing is so privileged a language skill for ESL students?

b.     How can we implement oral and reading skills into the curriculum, as well?

c.     What if the students need other language skills more than writing skills in order to succeed in their chosen fields?

6.     “Only first-year composition has an impact on virtually all students” (“Legacy,” 63)

a.     If you were given the opportunity to design—or redesign—the first-year composition program in regards to ESL students, what is one thing you would do?

b.     Why would you make that change?

c.     What kind of placement of the students would you use… if you would use any?

d.     What kind of measure would be used to assess the ESL students’ writing ability at the beginning of the semester (or before even enrolling in a course)?

English 344: Tuesday, March 15

In Chapter 3, Wong states that several second language researchers are moving away form "acquisition" for learning a language and to the metaphor of "participation," that learning a new language is not simply internally acquiring it but rather learning through social interactions. This dialogic problem posing calls on teachers to not simply transmit knowledge to the students through various teacher-led lectures and discussions. Instead, the students learn collaboratively by working through problems. Essentially, as I look at these main ideas of this chapter, I find that I can easily make connections to other works I am reading this semester, backing up some points in the teaching of ESL students that I am already  thinking about. I cannot help but write about some of those said connections here in the hopes of fleshing out some ideas even more...

Problem-posing through the dialogic approach sounds very similiar to content-based instruction, of which I am reading about in Snow and Brinton's The Content-Based Classroom. In that CBI approach, ESL students do not simply learn a language; instead, they are exposed to language while also learning the content of their various content-area classes. The ESL classroom is not some place for students to go to be told the main ideas of their Biology homework; rather, it is a place where the students work together and the teacher gives them strategies to help them learn to read those texts themselves. These strategies could easily include problem-posing, giving students a question to work on and consider in groups then come back to the class to discuss their answers.

Vygotsky and his ideas are given much space in this chapter, and the central idea in regards to what I am working on seems to be that language is affected by social contexts, that language and culture are not mutually exclusive things. Whether I am reading about teaching writing or teaching reading, the idea of culture permeates through. Connecting the material to the personal interests or background of one's students is so important, as both CBI and the Dialogic approach espouse. If one want to improve the reading fluency of an ESL student, letting that student read a book that connects to his culture and his interests will probably get the job done much better than having them read passages prepared by a test-prep service. Wong gives some advice to students teachers that goes along with those lines of thinking:  Tap into the prior knowledge of your students. This seems simple enough, but many teachers are forced to put this by the wayside if simply "teaching for the test."

As I consider the dialogic approach and the content-based instruction, I endlessly consider just how to transfer these methods to the content-area, mainstream classroom--because many ESL students can be found their nowadays. These classrooms are often dominated by teacher-led discussions fueled by euphemisms, etc. How can the teacher effectively implement these student-centered approaches in order to better work on reading and writing with his or her students? The core of this question appears to be culture, what the students already know. If you give them content that interests them and content that they know a little bit about already, the chances of success appear to be far greater.