Navigating the Tensions of Translingual Writing and Identity in a Middle-Grade English Language Arts Class

• In Event: (Re)Imagining English Language Arts Through a Critical Translanguaging Lens: Practical and Epistemological Insights on Teaching "English"

Abstract

Objectives
In a time when discriminatory policies around curriculum and texts abound, this paper examines bilingual sixth graders’ narrative writing in an English-medium classroom that reveals the impact of culturally sustaining pedagogy. We explore students’ bilingual writing identities, and the decisions around translations and topic selection for expressing their tensions with their expanding language repertoires and navigating the immigrant student and family dynamic. This paper also examines the implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and professional development for teachers of language-minoritized students.

Theoretical framework
Our analysis of student writing uses translanguaging theory (García & Wei, 2014; Author 4, 2017) and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015). Translanguaging, for these sixth grade writers, was highly contextual as they drew from their entire linguistic repertoire of Spanish from the Dominican Republic and Mexico, and English from New York City. Translanguaging was situational and “without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages” (Otheguy et. al., 2015, p. 283). This study expands on raciolinguistic ideologies from the students’ perspective as they navigated their perceptions of their writing and identities as bilingual writers.

Methods & Data
This ethnographic case study examined the narrative writing of bilingual (Spanish-English) sixth graders in an English as a New Language (ENL) class. Data included class observations, student writing artifacts, and interviews across the five-week narrative writing unit of instruction. Open-coding of the data (Charmaz, 2010) facilitated observations across the different types of data collected: written artifacts, audio of class sessions, and interviews. The themes that emerged included students’ metalinguistic awareness; tension around language use informed by family and school goals; family connections; and bilingual identity.

Results
This study revealed how students navigated the tensions of their bilingual identity in an English writing workshop. For Oscary, there was a sense of shame coupled with self-advocacy as she reflected on her growth as a writer and in expressing herself in English. For Ana, writing using her entire linguistic repertoire meant maintaining a connection with her mother who remained in the Dominican Republic. Genesis expressed pride in her Dominican Spanish and her progress in English, while always translating each writing piece. Emiliano described a strict language separation and switch between his home and school life, associating discomfort when these lines were blurred.

Significance
The findings from this case study highlight the importance of writing instruction that validates the linguistic demands that are met by racialized bi/multilingual children when they read translingual texts, and write their own. This paper has implications for English curriculum, pedagogical methods, teacher professional learning, and future research on how English Language Arts classes can be a liberating learning space for all children.

Authors

• Carla España, Brooklyn College - CUNY
  Presenting Author

• Luz Yadira Herrera, California State University - Dominguez Hills
  Presenting Author