"It's a Language of Mine...Not My Language": Preservice Teachers Navigating Tensions Surrounding Bilingual Writing

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers and Adults as Writers: Sociocultural Approaches

Abstract

Although “writing teachers must write” is a guiding principle in literacy teacher education and professional development, teacher-writers routinely experience tensions between their writerly practices and pedagogies (Woodard, 2013). Less is known, however, about the tensions experienced by bilingual writing teachers, who may be asked to compose across languages in professional learning. In this qualitative study, we explore how bilingual teacher candidates navigated a “teacher as writer” assignment in a literacy methods course. Framed with theories of translanguaging (García, 2009) and literacies (Collins & Blot, 2003), we discuss how their tensions resonated with and extended beyond those in the existing literature, complicated by issues of power, identity, and perceived proficiency. Ultimately, we bring needed recognition of linguistic diversity to discussion of teacher-writers.

Authors

• Emily Machado, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Grace Cornell Gonzales, University of Washington - Seattle