Leveraging Students’ Culture and Language in the Writing Classroom: One Teacher’s Call Toward More Responsive Teaching

• In Event: Leveling the Language of Multilingual/Multicultural Students: Toward Pluralizing Definitions of Academic Language and Humanizing Pedagogy

Abstract

Several studies examine the importance of the classroom as a sociocultural context that influences language and literacy learning in culturally responsive ways (Lee, 2007; Martinez, Orellana, Pacheco & Carbone, 2008; Razfar & Rumenapp, 2011). These studies call for challenging existing deficit notions of multilingual and multicultural students’ language use and identify the need to examine students’ linguistic and cultural tools as strengths (Gutiérrez, Zitlali Morales & Martinez, 2009; Michaels, 2005). The purpose of this paper is to present how one teacher’s leveraging of students’ language and culture contributed to multilingual/multicultural students’ apprenticeship into critical thinking and discourse.
Drawing from the research on language ideologies and its role in understanding the educational contexts of multilingual and multicultural students (Razfar & Rumenapp, 2011; Canagarajah, 2006; Gutiérrez, Zitlali Morales & Martinez, 2009; Horner & Lu, 2007) cultural modeling (Lee, 2006, 2007), and systemic functional linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Schleppegrell, 2004), this paper attempts to show how students’ linguistic and cultural repertoires were privileged in ways that allowed them to make sense of academic tasks while continuing to merge their linguistic and cultural identities within those tasks.
This study is based on a nine-month ethnographic case study of five culturally and linguistically diverse students (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995), in which the author examined the dynamics between the teacher and students and how this interaction influenced the students’ writing development. Data sources consist of (a) classroom observations, including videotaped observations of the student-to-student group conferences, (b) student writing samples, as well as (c) transcripts of interviews with the students. Iterative, multiple re-readings across various data sources led to the identification of themes, questions and impressions (Dyson & Genishi, 2005; Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Findings demonstrate how the five students were able to take up their own purposes for learning discourse features of persuasive writing and code-mesh while drafting and composing. Utilizing responsive teaching methods and cultural modeling, the classroom teacher, Ms. B., was able to make use of students’ cultural and linguistic repertoires (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Lee, 2006; Martínez, Orellana, Pacheco & Carbone, 2008) to inform her instructional decision-making; however, she also struggled with the tension and pressure of requiring the use of “academic English” in final drafts. Sample transcripts and students’ writing will be shared in order to demonstrate the tensions and resolutions that were reached throughout the unit.
In order to create truly democratic citizens, we must recognize the multilingual nature of language (Canagarajah, 2006; Razfar & Rumenapp, 2011; Young, 2010) and take advantage of students’ full range of linguistic and cultural tools in language and literacy learning. This study seeks to answer the call about how to leverage students’ heritage in teaching more “standard” written forms, and offers an example of the delicate balance needed to create a more equitable, humanizing pedagogy for all students that truly levels the playing field in educational contexts (Bartolomé, 1994; Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010).

Author

• Margarita Zisselsberger, Loyola University Maryland