"Porque Tengo Que Siempre Ayudar a Mi Familia": Critical Literature Discussions With Emergent Plurilingual Children

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Cultural Resilience and Bilingual Literacies: Supporting Multilingual Learners (Table 2)

Abstract

This case study draws on translanguaging theory and a critical literacy orientation to examine how bi/pluri/multilingual second graders and their teacher grapple with key themes in a text about a child migrant farmworker during literature discussions in the named language, Spanish, yet within a linguistically flexible discussion space. Findings suggest that the children and teacher drew on their bi/plurilingual repertoires to negotiate meaning and that the children grappled with and attempted to rationalize the experiences of the child farmworker. Findings contribute to a growing body of literature that simultaneously disrupts the pervasive monolingual gaze in education policy and practices and invites bi/multi/plurilingual children to move beyond scripted curricula and pre-determined goals and engage instead in critical literacy/reading the world.

Author

• Amy Clark, DePaul University