Pausing to Dismantle the Language Police: A Dialogic Intervention for Preservice Humanities Writing Teachers

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: Memory, Community, and Healing Through Writing With Preservice and In-Service Teachers (Table 3)

Abstract

Writing instruction in humanities (social studies and English language arts) classrooms often centers language policing, reinforcing colonial, dominant norms (Chavez, 2021; Flores, 2016). This practitioner research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) examines what happens when pre-service humanities teacher candidates (TCs) use a protocol that asks them to “pause” (Patel, 2014) and critically reflect on theories of language that undergird their writing instruction. We find that pauses can surface and destabilize TCs’ internalized ideologies of language policing and encourage TCs to envision alternative possibilities for anti-colonial language exploration in their writing instruction.

Authors

• Andrew del Calvo, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Amy Guillotte, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author