The Agentive Writing Practices of Refugee Writers in an ESL Classroom

• In Event: The Writingworld: Power Dynamics in Language, Literacies, and Pedagogies Across Contexts

Abstract

Writing in second language composition classes is often presented as decontextualized activities that are disconnected from students’ lives, experiences, emotions and personal histories. In fact, the types of writing that students are often invited to engage with at post-secondary levels are associated with the Anglo- American essayist literacy standards (Farr, 1993; Lillis 2002; Scollon et al., 1981; Trimbur, 1990). These traditional types of essays are usually formulaic in nature and they do a disservice to bilingual, war-affected learners by not offering true opportunities for reflection and healing.

This paper reports on the results of a practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lyttle, 2009) carried out in an ESL programme which consisted of Ukrainian refugees who were fleeing the war in Ukraine. The inquiry aimed to address the following question: In what ways can an L2 composition teacher create room for war-affected bilingual writers to freely share their different thoughts and experiences?

In response to moments of dissonance (Ballenger, 2009; Pincus, 2001), the educator involved in this inquiry took steps to modify the delivery of the writing curriculum. Drawing from a critical expressivist pedagogical framework (Roeder & Gatto, 2015), the educator mobilized Weekly Musings (adopted from Cameron, 2002; Ogilvie & Fuller, 2016) as a class activity, a space where war-affected, bilingual students could write without preoccupation about form, genre or grammar. A critical expressivist pedagogical framework encourages writers to use their personal experiences, values and beliefs not only as a starting point for their writing but also to engage in critical reflection on their own assumptions and biases. This framework places the writer at the center of its pedagogy and prioritizes the writer’s imaginative, psychological, social, and spiritual development.

A qualitative textual analysis (Smith, 2017) was applied to the final written products of the Ukrainian refugees.The findings indicate the following: (1) that Weekly Musings served as a powerful outlet where war-affected, bilingual students could safely express a range of difficult emotions including disappointment, sadness, fear, hope, and joy; (2) that war- affected bilingual students drew on a range of semiotic resources including text, photographic images and drawings to share their experiences; (3) that Weekly Musings also served as a translanguaging space for war- affected, bilingual writers. These findings underscore how a critical expressivist approach to writing fosters authentic expressions, thereby disrupting the doxa of the Writingworld.

This inquiry adds to the body of work aiming to understand the pedagogical potentials of a critical expressivist approach to writing in the second language classroom. It also adds to the body of work on bilingual refugees who have experienced the trauma of war, relocation, loss and grief and gives insight into how they express and resolve their feelings through writing. The results suggest that curriculum developers and educators should challenge the doxa of the Writingworld by decentering dominant writing pedagogies and opening opportunities for low-stakes writing activities as spaces that allow for students to convey profound life experiences and emotions.

Author

• Renee G. Davy, McGill University