Creating a Translanguaging Space in a Community-Based Literacy Center

• In Event: Using Out-of-School Time as an Anchor for Social Capital and Community Development

Abstract

In this presentation, I share my experiences with the ongoing language and literacy practices and pedagogies of a bilingual, community-based literacy center located in South Philadelphia’s Italian Market. This literacy center - one in a network of sites across Philadelphia - targeted bilingual, Latinx children from ages 7 to 17. The center had an afternoon academy that ran from Mondays to Thursdays between 3:00 and 6:00PM and offered a variety of writing workshops in the evenings, on Saturdays, and during the summer. Framed as an ethnographically-grounded, but community-engaged case study, I share how I implemented a series of writing workshops that promoted translanguaging with young children.

Author

• Stephanie Lynn Abraham, Rowan University