Getting to What Is: Poetry as a Genre of Access for Multilingual Learners

• In Event: 34.078 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 34.078-17 - Approaches for Teaching and Assessing Bilingual Students

Abstract

Grounded in an understanding of poetry as a genre of access for both teachers and students, this paper explores the poetry writing of 15, urban high school multilingual, ninth graders to construct a practitioner framework for analyzing language output of multilingual learners (MLs). We asked how poetry—read as a specific, situated discourse—reveals linguistic and cultural competence among MLs. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, poetry itself emerged as a pedagogy providing practitioners access to students’ lived realities, what we term "What is." We conclude that poetry offers strong potential as a vehicle for engaging students in literacy production, challenging preconceived notions about MLs’ proficiency in a variety of literacies, and affirming linguistic diversity as an asset.

Authors

• Joelle Pedersen, Boston College

• Chris K Bacon, Boston College

• Audrey A. Friedman, Boston College