Building a Better Workshop: Centering Bilingual Latinx Students

• In Event: 31.090 - Radicalizing Writer's Workshop: Disrupting Monolingual Language Ideologies Through Multimodal and Multilingual Practices

Abstract

Research on writing and research on bi/multilingualism have often been developed in isolation from one another, with the result that many important insights into writing pedagogy were generated from a monolingual perspective. In an influential and lasting critique, de la Luz Reyes (1992) outlined some of the significant ways that process and workshop approaches were not “one size fits all”. Rather, writer’s workshop approaches designed for monolingual students do not necessarily lead to meaningful or powerful learning opportunities for bilingual students. However, while an uncritical application of monolingual approaches to multilingual contexts may be dangerous, at the same time, rejecting process or workshop approaches entirely may also perpetuate inequity, falling into a larger pattern in which affluent (and predominantly White) students have access to intellectually demanding and meaningful instruction, and working class students of color have access to direct instruction, memorization and “the basics” (Anyon, 1980). Likewise, although there is evidence that writing workshop or process approaches can be powerful, and that many writing teachers have adopted them, teachers vary greatly in what practices they consider to be constitutive of a workshop or process approach (Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2006; Whitney et al, 2008).

All of this together suggests the need to further specify the conditions under which bilingual students are receiving instruction which supports their growth as writers, leverages their cultural and linguistic resources, and respects their intellectual capacities. This paper revisits some of the limitations of writing workshop for bilingual students, and considers contemporary empirical examples of how the structure might be adapted, and what is worth preserving. In particular, this examines and reimagines the assumptions about process approaches critiqued in de la Luz Reyes’ (1992) foundational work: 1) English is the only legitimate medium for learning and instruction; 2) linguistic minorities must be immersed in English as quickly as possible to succeed; 3) a “one size fits all approach” is good for all students and 4) error correction in process instruction hampers learning (p.430). Drawing on examples from a case study in a contemporary first grade classroom, this research further elaborates the conditions in which process and workshop approaches can serve bilingual Latinx children: when Spanish, English and translingual writing are all valued and cultivated; where biliteracy and bilingualism are the desired outcomes, where cultural and linguistic pluralism are integral rather than peripheral to the design of instruction; and where students receive individualized feedback and scaffolding.

Consistent with this year’s theme, this paper integrates formerly disconnected insights about writing and bilingualism. Moreover, by looking across time at the intersection of theory and practice, this paper offers insights into how pedagogies developed by scholars who study composition can and should be modified to reflect the insights of bilingual children and teachers.

Author

• Leah Durán, The University of Arizona