Beyond what we've discussed already....

If I were to try to name one common thread of the four pieces I read for class this week, I’d have to say it was “Beyond World Englishes.”  While we’ve read about plurality of languages – many different kinds or types of English – it seems as if this week’s readings are pushing us beyond regional or geographic pluralities to a resistance of even those abstract understandings. Each of these articles or chapters challenge and move beyond what we’ve been discussing. For example, while I felt I was being “linguistically correct” or “linguistically sensitive” in using a term such as NNES, I find that, really, we shouldn’t even be using such terms. As Mangelsdorf suggests, “Even a seemingly benign term such as ‘English Language Learners’ renders students’ other languages invisible” (124). Thus, we need to not be content with current theory and work toward moving even further (and, at the same time, challenging the pedagogical application, hoping practice will attempt to keep up with theory). Each of these articles this week challenged me to think beyond what I’d recently learned.

Mangelsdorf’s article on Spanglish struck a memory chord with me from my student-teaching days in the early nineties in Springfield, Illinois. The high school at which I completed my semester of student-teaching was described to me by town residents as the “moderately dangerous” high school in town. I was not placed in the school with the students from the west side of town (the more affluent side); nor was I placed in the “roughest” high school (the northeast side of town). Instead, I was placed in the high school with the kids on the southeast side. This school had a large number of African American students; and, for the most part, I was unfamiliar – and uncomfortable. I was a bit fearful for my safety: I was not accustomed to having to pass through and show my ID to a school resource officer. I grew up in a small, non-diverse town and my experience with a diverse population came at the U of I where I sat in class and boarded with a wide range of people of different backgrounds. But, my student teaching experience was with a slightly different population than the one at my university.  The text most problematic for me to teach was Huckleberry Finn with its commentary on slavery, civil rights, racism, etc. In each of the five American Lit class periods, I decided to ask the students how they wanted to “deal” with the word “nigger” in the text (we read the text aloud. We had to. These students were not going to read it on their own nightly, according to my supervising teacher). One class wanted to just say the word “nigger” as they read. Another wanted to substitute “n-word”. Yet another wanted to substitute “African-American”. I had to keep this all straight from class period to class period. Yet, it did strike me as odd that different classes had different ways in which they wanted to address this as we were reading.

I was reminded of this while reading Mangelsdorf’s narrative that some of the students were ashamed of Spanglish and that others embraced it as “their own” language. Some of her students felt that they should be free to use it as context dictated, while others viewed it as being a subaltern dialect to the subaltern Spanish language. Language attitudes definitely differed, and this is important to keep in mind so that we do not make decisions that rely on generalizations.

Another point that I’d like to follow up on with this article is Mangelsdorf’s connection of language dialects (Spanishes) with identity with her example of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera narrative (which I have on my reading list for the semester break). I’d like to explore this relationship among the concepts of languages, narrative, and identity.

The article I chose in the Cross-Language Relations in Composition text is “Resistance to the ‘English Only’ Movement: Implications for Two-Year College Composition” by Jody Millward. In this chapter, Millward reviews what was discussed in the first section of the book and then applies it to the unique culture of the two-year college. She states, “Clearly, two-year students evidence complex identities shaped by the intersections of class, working status, ethnicity, and language, and two-year college teachers struggle to find ways to address these complexities in their classrooms” (222). Because of this diverse culture, instructors at two-year colleges (as well as those teaching any FYC course) should, ideally, be prepared to teach multilingual composition courses (Matsuda in Millward 223). Millward proposes that community college faculty employ such concepts as full multilingualism, language shuttling, guanxi, and other concepts to guide their pedagogy.

Millward provides several concrete, practical examples of assignments community college teachers can implement in their classrooms. One that she mentions encourages students to examine their own language experiences in the form of the personal narrative (226). She also encourages four-year institutions to join with two-year colleges for research and practical application (228).

Alim discusses building language and cultural awareness with students as well. I actually e-mailed this article to my son’s high school English teacher and World Studies teacher as they are discussing the book Race: A History Beyond Black and White. Apparently, yesterday in their World Studies class the teacher shared her own experience teaching students who used a form of BL. The class also discussed lyrics of hip-hop and rap songs As this article had actual practical applications, I wondered if perhaps high school teachers could modify them for the high school level (either they’ll appreciate my sharing gesture or they’ll think I’m the batty mom telling them how to teach – either way, I was excited to share). At any rate, what Alim is doing in this article is reviewing some of the relevant theory behind language and identity connections, tensions, and classroom practices and then proposing a base of practical classroom projects – suggestions to increase instructors’ and students’ linguistic awareness. And did anyone else notice the code-meshing? See page 173, “To keep it real with our students, …”.

A challenge I see with Alim’s assertions, though, is that it is easy for him to be within – sort of – the culture he’s discussing. While his investigation is primarily emic (he’s inside the culture he’s looking at), I , for example, would have a hard time knowing what I was talking about with BL or CHHLPs.

I saved Pennycook’s article for last as it is the most complex and challenging. Hopefully I’m grasping this accurately. What I think Pennycook is challengins us to do is to move or progress further in our valuation of other languages to the point that we do not see them as being contained by regions. And, while he supports the direction proposed by opposing a “monolingual mindset,” he insists that true change will come only after we go so far as to challenge the ideological assumptions underlying those monolingual mindsets in the first place. In other words, we need to treat the illness and not just the symptoms (?). His translingual model of language commands language use to be viewed “among interlingual resources (what language resources people draw on), colingual relations (who says what to whom where) and ideolingual implications (what gets taken from what language use with what investments, ideologies, discourses and beliefs” (30.6). I’m looking forward to discussing this article further in class. I understand what Pennycook is saying (I think), but sometimes such theory is better discussed in a group (?).

Digital Literacy and L2 Learners

While I've been generally unable to critique much of the content of Hyland's SLW text, I found myself disappointed with Chapter 6, "New technologies in writing instruction." Understanding the root of my disappointment did not take long, and I do not take issue with Hyland. These "new" technologies he speaks of in this chapter are no longer "new", which is a quality inherent in technology as a whole. Very little time passes, yet technology becomes obsolete very quickly; thus, this book -- published in 2003 -- is already outdated in regards to technology. Reading this chapter did uncover a curiosity to explore more recent research in using technology to help NNES develop their English-literacy skills as well as their digital literacy skills (see Hawisher and Selfe's book chapter below).

As we know, though, practice often lags behind theory by a matter of years. Hyland mentions several technology uses that still appear familiar. One strategy is to use closed internet chatrooms to peer-edit writing and explore writing topics. I know that these chatrooms are being used in L1 high school classrooms to explore subject matter, and I think this strategy could aid L2 learners in the same way. We've discussed how L2 learners often have a difficult time with writing prompts/topics that are unfamiliar to them. Closed internet chatrooms to discuss a variety of topics, with the students pooling their knowledge and discussing with each other before they write, may be helpful.

Hyland discusses synchronous and asynchronous writing environments. I found his ideas intriguing on both, but I felt uneasy reading about real-time writing environments. Hyland asserts that "students appear to value peer support while actually composing, rather than simply receiving comments on written products" (F. Hyland, 2000). I'd like to take time (sometime...) to read this particular article. Just within my L1, I myself would feel uncomfortable composing on-the-spot with my peers reading my work in real time -- as I write. Writing is a very personal act, in my opinion, even though it is social. To me, it is this merge of private-public that I feel could make synchronous environments uncomfortable for some people. Often, we write in private and choose how and what to share to the public. I think such peer-review environments would succeed best with students who are very comfortable writing in their L2 and also comfortable with the critique of their peers. Hyland does not include this potential disadvantage in his list on page 154, Table 6.2, and I believe this is a major oversight.

Chapter 3 in Cross-Language Relations in Composition was exceptionally interesting. I've already been exposed to work by Cynthia Selfe in Dr. Ball's Multimodal Composition course (as well as work by her husband Richard). While this chapter did not discuss up-to-date technological innovations, what we do realize here is the interdependence of the English language and the culture of technology. The two scholars Hawisher and Selfe write about have digital literacies that were and are strongly influenced by their English literacy backgrounds while their English literacies were heavily shaped by their technology literacy backgrounds.

My take-away from this chapter is that the cyberspace world is constantly in flux with emerging and growing languages as well as disappearing languages, while it is influenced constantly by technological innovations, cultural values, national policy, the economy, and education. Cyberspace is never static and, surprisingly, it appears that is is also becoming less "predominantly U.S. utilized". 

The thread of guanxi ran through this chapter. At first, I was a bit unsure of a specific definition for this word. However, the authors succeeded in defining the term through illustrations of how the scholars networked and connected with others through their use of technology. This networking not only supports advancement in education and career development, it also creates space for different identities. Hawisher and Selfe state, "...young professionals like Lu are inventing their own identities thorugh their interactions with others on-line, thus making of themselves, as Sherry Turkle observes, 'multiple, distributed' identities (Turkle qtd. in Hawisher and Selfe, 64). I'm interested in exploring how digital literacies and the notion of guanxi role-play within the narratives of language/cultural immersion. In addition, I'm convinced that I now need to include some digital literacy questions in my interviews with my "writing buddy".

Bridging Research with Practicality Via Teacher-Researchers

What Hyland does with this week’s readings – both at the end of their respective texts – is provide a call-to-action to his audience, which includes L2 teachers as well as researchers. In SLW he offers a special invitation to “teacher-researchers” to view their classroom centers as research laboratories, arenas that offer up observable and measurable, collectible, relevant data that others may (definitely would) be interested in. And, instead of overwhelming teacher-researchers with a chapter that includes everything one would learn in a university research course, he touches on practical applications of relatively simple research methods and interpretation for teacher-researchers to consider. In this way, Hyland does what few others are willing to do: bridge the gap between research and application.

In his Genre text, Hyland calls L2 teacher-researchers to consider researching genres in order to assist their L2 students with writing tasks. I love how he admits that “teachers may believe they have enough to do already without adding text analysis as well, and they may even feel apprehensive at the prospect of it” (194) but then goes on to encourage teacher-researchers with the promise that they will produce informative results and will prove “a practical activity” (194). While reading this chapter, I had in the back of my mind that, this week, I was going to read critically. And so, as I did, the little question in my head kept saying, “Yes, but can we really do this with students who are struggling with learning a second language?” I thought I had Dr. Hyland here. But, of course, on page 211, he addresses this question of practicality: “But to ask L2 writers to learn genres in this way is perhaps asking a lot as they are simultaneously grappling with a second language and using that language in real contexts.”

However, in thinking of my research with my student, there is much to apply with both of these chapters, and researching/analyzing genres is a key part:

1.     “Estevan” is writing scientific research papers and must include abstracts, discussion sections, analysis, etc. I need to know what a scientific abstract looks like (the main linguistic features) so that I can show him and we can compare his with what is expected with the genre. That includes examining how his scientific abstract is a contributing voice in the social conversation of his discourse area.

2.     My own research of him as an exchange student studying for a year here at ISU requires me to figure out which data-collecting methods would work best. Right now, I’m developing interview questions, conducting a linguistic analysis of his writing, and developing my own narrative of diary information I’ve informally gathered. Hyland’s chapter gave me many practical ideas as well as encouragement.

3.     The reminder of ethical considerations is a good one. Where do we stand on an IRB for our class and what comes after if we wish to pursue these projects further?

However, I found several parts of Hyland’s chapters overwhelmed me, and I imagine that was not his intent. For example, he lost me with his explanation of corpus analysis. How important is it that I incorporate some of this in my research? Or can this be done on a much smaller scale? What if L2 teachers are intimidated by the technicalities of corpus analysis? I’m very interested in discussing these topics in class on Thursday.

World Englishes

The readings this week, which focused on pluralization of English (World Englishes) and the politics and ideology surrounding second-language writing instruction  brought up so many controversies and questions in my mind that it will be difficult to address them all in one blog entry. Casanave’s article – with all of the arguments, counter-arguments, and counter-arguments and corollaries to the counter-arguments – made my head spin.

And so I begin discussing World Englishes in Canagarajah’s and the Matsudas’ articles. The Matsudas explain what “World Englishes” (WE) are, the point out pedagogical implications with WE, and what teachers can do to accommodate and incorporate WE in their writing programs. As we’ve discussed most of the semester, Standard Written English is a concept that is neither stable nor easily definable. Not only can we not “fix” it into an unchanging entity, but when we try, we succeed only in reinforcing the binary opposition between something that is difficult to define and constantly changing and something (WE) that is also constantly changing but ever increasing in scope and presence in composition classrooms. Grammar and composition texts reinforce this codification by attempting to assign definable rules to something indefinable (Matsuda & Matsuda 2010), and when writing teachers teach “proper grammar”, they are at risk of also “reifying” this dominant variety of English, essentially distancing and marginalizing other varieties of English (Matsuda & Matsuda 2010). Matsuda & Matsuda admit that the pedagogical implications of WE are highly complex and that teachers essentially need to maintain balance in teaching (whatever we think is) Standard Written English (SWE) in such a way as to include awareness of the dominance and power of SWE while also accommodating WE in order to put students in a position of speaking and writing in the dominant discourse when necessary (when they would be at a disadvantage not to do so) and maintaining and utilizing their own variety/varieties of English, as we know language and identity are inextricably intertwined. Their suggestions for teachers in this short article then, include the following (2010):

·      Teach the dominant language forms: In order to empower students in speaking and writing in the discourse so that they are not at a disadvantage, teachers need to teach whatever we think SWE is. Matsuda & Matsuda state that “To not make the dominant codes available to students who seek them would be doing a disservice to students, leading to their economic and social marginalization” (2010, p. 372).

·      Examine and study non-dominant varieties of English and discuss how these varieties came into existence.

·      Discuss dialectical variations vs. errors.

·      Discuss rhetorical situations that warrant non-dominant usage versus situations in which the student will have better success using SWE (think of Smitherman in Canagarajah); keep the reader’s perception, the writer’s credibility, and intentionality in mind.

·      Ensure students understand the risks involved in utilizing a non-dominant variation of English.

Canagarajah dives into the idea of accommodating  WE in the classroom a bit more in-depth than Matsuda & Matsudea do, however, in speaking of the almost infinite number of variations of English. An interesting projected statistic he presents is that by 2050, the number of people using English as a second or additional language will outnumber those who use it as their only or first language (2006). What that means for English classrooms – SLW as well as L1 – is that more and more multilingual students are going to be in our education system (from Kindergarten all the way through graduate school).

An interesting perspective – and one that Canagarajah can credibly argue – is the use of languages as tools or power and of resistance. In speaking about how Englishes change in response to colonial efforts, Canagarah shows not only the instability of Englishes but also that they can be vehicles of power in addition to being identity markers.

WE have implications not only for the classroom but also for the arena of the Internet. Both Canagarajah (2006) and Casanave found that bilingual students often take on different identities when communicating in online spaces: for Canagarajah, Almon; for Casanave, Shuuichi. Both students were able use their home-language as a base and try on and then adopt different identities online. In the case of Shuuichi, power issues were explored and played out during the various discussions, and this provided eye-opening realizations for all three participants in Casanave’s study.

While it’s interesting to note these identity transformations (additions?), power equalization, the huge mass of information available to all with Internet accessibility, and the enhanced reading/writing interactions that are possible during Internet writing space exercises, Casanave reminds us that there are serious considerations regarding the politics of Internet technology that instructors should examine:

1.     Dominant English varieties and Western concepts of visual and textual forms are taken for granted as THE default language/rhetoric of the Internet (making the Internet a virtual tool of colonializing), and

2.     Hardware and software are not equally accessible around the world. Thus, some cultures may be using outdated or obsolete technology. Casanave states that “hardware, software, and the kind of education that helps students think critically about power and justice need to be equitably accessible to all learners and teachers” (216).

It is interesting, also, that Casanave lists “the kind of education that helps students think critically about power and justice” as a common right among “students in such a world [one with almost-global access to technology]. Earlier in the chapter, she illustrates the argument on whether SLW teachers should aim to teach L2 students how to think critically in conjunction with the second-language writing instruction. She presents both sides, but here it seems as if she is joining the “teach critical thinking skills” group (which I find I belong with as well). And, I think that this technology-rich world demands that all students be taught through example and/or illustration what critical thinking in reading and writing looks like. Often, when something is not easily defined by telling what it is, we can define it by examining what it is not. Through both avenues, I think there is space to examine how to teach critical thinking (what it looks like and what it doesn’t look like) in conjunction with careful incorporation of technological tools in the SLW classroom (as well as L1 classrooms with multilingual learners).

In closing – and quite disjointed, I guess, from the rest of this – I would like to comment on Canagarajah’s illustration of Smitherman’s careful use of her WE Toolbox in her article for CCC. I think this would be an excellent illustration of how students (especially graduate students who speak non-dominant varieties of English) can incorporate those varieties into academic writing with good rhetorical effect. The concept of “code-meshing”, as Canagarajah calls it, definitely needs an illustrative example such as this to demonstrate just how to employ it.

Second Language Writers Coming Into Voice

As we learned from all three of these readings this week – as well as readings in the weeks prior – writing is both a social and a cultural activity. Thus, L2 writers – who inherently possess identities and voices in their L1 society and culture as writers – find themselves having to negotiate to find their voices in their L2. As writers in a non-native language, in a non-native culture, they must find their space as composers in their L2.

Ivanic and Camps speak of “voice types,” which refer to the many different ways in which a writer situates him/herself with ideas (ideational positioning), with him/herself and the audience (interpersonal positioning), and with the text he/she is composing (textual positioning). Ivanic and Camps go into great detail when analyzing the syntactical and lexiconic choices the six Mexican graduate students in their study make in their academic writing, as Ivanic and Camps assert that these linguistic choices carry positioning value in how writers construct voice. These students – as all L2 writers have to do to at least some extent – have to construct their identities as writers in their L2.

One of the positioning consequences of these students’ syntactical and lexiconic choices involves values regarding how knowledge is produced. Ivanic and Camps explain that writers demonstrate their beliefs about the production of knowledge in how they create space for knowledge, to whom they attribute knowledge, and how they make that attribution in their text. Writers will discuss knowledge in a way that hits somewhere on a continuum between knowledge as subjective and situated in local experience to knowledge as objective and universally true (18). Upon this continuum, composing choices may demonstrate knowledge as impersonal, or the writer may give agency through actively crediting those who participate in the creation of a certain knowledge. In addition, authors can recognize their own agency (however, as Ivanic and Camps admit, this choice risks the author appearing as asocial) (19). Ivanic and Camps use as an example an assignment by Germán, who variably positions himself within the same assignment; at one point, he gives attribution to the researcher he is crediting with knowledge, while at another he references himself as evaluator, and later he positions himself as constructor (20).

One interesting aspect of this article I’d like to touch on is that of appropriation. On page 24, the authors quote Evodia as saying that she will give her instructors what they want; she will create texts as they tell her to do. However, when she gets a chance to express herself, she will take it. Ivanic and Camps discuss this as a reticence to taking authority in her writing. I can truly see how this is an issue of power with an L2 writer, but I can also position L1 composition students in this same situation, especially when the audience is an academic or instructor whom we think or assume knows more than we do. Admittedly, though, it is more complex for an L2 writer to create authorial presence than an L1 writer. Thus, when earlier in the article Yamile is – as Ivanic and Camps put it – “positioned by the discourse,” absorbing “the way” in which her voice should sound in her writing, she is perhaps being appropriated by those she’s attempting to imitate – or please.

Ivanic and Camps state that “’identity’ is typically not unitary but multiple, and hence texts are often polyphonic, or many-voiced” (30). I would go so far as to say that they are then also intertextual, as our voices as writers are complex amalgams of everything we’ve previously written or read. Thus, reading academic articles in an L2 is a common technique L2 writers employ when attempting to create their voice or identity in the discourse of their L2. What I love about the article by Hirvela and Belcher is that they use the term “architecture of voice” to describe the dimensions of a writer’s composing self. The terminology echoes the concept that a writer’s many voices are constructed through the interplay of culture, discourse, genre, self-representation, and other factors. Hirvela and Belcer remind us that L2 writers are not voiceless; they possess a set of L1 voices, and usually are very successful, confident writers in their L1. They already have the experience of “being,” of positioning themselves as an author within a rhetorical situation, and we cannot forget these writers’ “life histories,” as Ivanic calls them (Hirvela and Belcher 89). They are multilingual writers already owning at least one writerly voice, and an academic voice in their L2 (in this case, English) can simply be an extension of their existing writerly selves. Thus, as Hirvela and Belcher wish L2 composition teachers to view this as a process rather than a product, they invoke Cummins’ idea of “voicing”:  the activity of engaging with their L2 academic community in their discourse field.

The three case studies in Hirvela and Belcher’s article remind me of my “writing buddy.” As Hirvela and Belcher note (citing Peter Elbow), “’we do no favor to L2 students who want to prosper in an individualistic culture’ by denying them the opportunity to acquire those elements of ‘academese,” which lead to success as writers within that culture and which they actively seek” (Elbow qtd. in Hirvela and Belcher 98). As my writing buddy wants to be a successful academic writer in his L2 (English), he will need to construct part of his identity to accommodate those elements into his voice toolbox– to come into his own voice in his L2 writing. Thus by reading about the voicing process (as expounded upon in the three articles we read this week), perhaps I can help guide my writing buddy toward developing his own identity as a scientific writer in English. However, I have to be careful in generalizing too much, as Hirvela and Belcher remind us that “it is difficult to generalize about NNS university students with respect to voice when they bring such widely varying backgrounds to the voice equation” (104). So, in applying this week’s concepts on voice to my own project, I will begin this week diving deeper into my writing buddy’s background: his L1 voices, including his strengths and weaknesses composing in his L1.

In Shen’s article, I appreciated that he dove so deeply into the history of Chinese composition (he references to a time two-thousand years ago). And, I especially like his conclusion at then end, that when he composes in English he feels as if he is “slipping into a new ‘skin’” (132). His explanation of why Chinese writers write the way they do (generally, although we have to be careful that we don’t generalize too much) is helpful, as it causes me to wonder how my writing buddy’s L1 composition might have similarly entrenched roots calling for a varied rhetorical form.