Writing Outside the Lines: Reimagining Writing Instruction Through Multilingual Students’ Speech Bubbles

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Abstract

U.S. public schools often take a narrow approach to academic writing that disconnects multilingual students from their everyday language and literacy practices. This study explores a more inclusive vision of writing instruction – one that welcomes multilingual, fourth-grade students to use multiple languages and modalities. Through a qualitative analysis of student writing samples and interviews, I examine how students used speech bubbles in their work. Students used speech bubbles to enact translingual practices grounded in their everyday lives – from the ways they talk to the ways they layer meaning across languages. This study offers a nuanced understanding of how a specific multimodal element shapes student expression and highlights what becomes possible when schools expand the kinds of writing they value.

Author

• Megumi Takada, Stanford University