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At the risk of oversimplifying a summary of Matsuda and Hammill, methods for teaching second language writing depend on each individual student’s preference, communicative competence, and culture, and require instructors be sensitive and tuned into each student. Although taking an intuitive teaching approach sounds a little unsettling to me (one size fits all would be easier to implement in the classroom), I have no doubt the “wealth of diverse cultural backgrounds, values, assumptions, and practices” (270) L2 writers offer the classroom is an exciting opportunity for instructors and classmates.

My primary takeaway from Matsuda and Hammill was to not assume all L2 writers will feel or respond positively to lessons or activities. I appreciated specific suggestions such as:

Providing implicit instructions and expectations to avoid cultural assumptions.

Inviting students to write with their first language during the invention process.

“Focusing on the effects – rather than the rules” (276) in response to grammatical errors.

Asking students to read aloud to catch mistakes.

Using collaborative, interactive activities in the classroom to foster language development.

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I’m really embracing the contact zone concept as an opportunity to meet students where they are and help them develop in ways that aren’t remedial in comparison to norms, but rather develop differently, to write effectively. Canagarajah’s words are getting pinned to my bulletin board: “A contact zone perspective redefines our goal as not preparing these students for conformity with American norms, but to critically renegotiate English for contact purposes” (28).

American centralism never ceases to amaze (and disappoint) me. While I don’t want to believe academia subscribes to the mentality “our American way is the best way” or an American product is superior, Canagarajah addresses these assumptions about teaching ESL students as if this perspective is common. While I’ve always admired multilingual students as brilliant for their willingness to learn and navigate different languages, and like most word nerds I find varied discourses interesting, admittedly, I too would have assumed some of the same approaches to teaching writing that Canagarajah cautions against. So, I’m grateful for the suggestions on what to do:

Use codemeshing to teach writers how to blend their own personal varieties of English with Standard Written English.

Treat genres as evolving to meet objectives and meet the needs of the audience.

Consider autoethnography, which can teach “different voices and rhetorics,” including personal, objective, narrative, argumentative, community and academic discourses (29).

Practice writing about writing.

Read about the ways multilinguals negotiate English. The self-reflection example of “the tension English generates as they struggle to represent their community experiences” (32) is one of many justifications for multilingual contact zone pedagogy.

Incorporate collaboration to help “students learn that meaning is co-constructed” (33), situationally and socially.

Canagarajah acknowledges the pedagogy can challenge instructors. The conflict between an instructor’s inclination toward established discourse norms and a student’s potentially unpredictable and creative multilingual approach requires flexibility. An important reminder within this conflict is that “contact zone writing occurs in contexts marked by power differences and inequalities” (34)… another great quote for my bulletin board.

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CONTACT ZONE AND TRANSCULTURATION | Mary Louise Pratt

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Rather than defensive, Brandt’s response to Ann Lawrence’s investigation of “how the sponsors of literacy concept has been taken up in writing studies and education over the years” (330) is one of illumination. Brandt seems to agree with Lawrence’s assessment other researchers have since narrowed her original definition of sponsors, downplaying the integral premise that sponsors stand to benefit from a subject’s literacy.

In Literacy in American Lives, Brandt systematically compared biographical interviews of the literacy learning recollections of 80 people, to discover what historical and socially-structured forces influenced literacy learning. In comparison to an anthropological and autoenthnographic approach in which subject narratives are individually considered, Brandt’s sociological approach analyzed the common processes and structures of the participant pool. She linked literacy “to patterns of economic and political inequality” (331).

In hindsight, Brandt recognizes “how sponsors can insinuate themselves into language habits, extending their power by fusing their interests with people’s inner and affective states and structuring what people (including researchers) will treat as facts” (333). This said, Brandt does not see rhetoric itself as a sponsor of literacy like Lawrence, as rhetoric must come from a person or entity (of which is the sponsor).

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As Emily noted, the monolingual approach to teaching any subject and not just writing is significantly easier to implement in the classroom than the "intuitive" approach Matsuda and Hammill mentioned. However, this intuitive model of teaching students of various language backgrounds offers much more complexity and discovery in the writing classroom. I work with many students whose first language is not English and while our conversations are sometimes clunky with new-to-country students, it's important for educators to remember that we are all just people living on the same rock floating space. Not to mention the fact that we have access to amazing technology to make communication significantly easier. Now, I'm extremely monolingual despite taking 9 years of Spanish. I have some students in my study hall this semester who don't speak a drop of English yet and even the simplest elements of communication are difficult, but we still have fun. They like to practice Spanish with me and we do a lot of talking using google translate. As they work on their skills, it's important for me to remember that just because I spoke English first doesn't make me better than anyone else. In fact, those who speak more than one language are significantly more equipped to academically succeed than I ever was.

A lot of culturally proficient pedagogy mentions the importance of "tapping into their home language resources" as a means of writing, but Matsuda and Hammill are right that it can backfire in enormously traumatizing ways. This is why having options and different ways of accessing various skillsets are imperative to the success of a diverse writing course.

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When I was teaching Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" a few years ago to some college freshmen, our discussions seemed to be grounded in this "horror" of Igbo cultural norms presented by the main character Okonkwo. I remember talking with students and trying to understand their pure disdain for a culture they knew relatively nothing about, but eventually, we got to the crux of the issue: Igbo/Nigerian culture is different from Minnesota suburban culture and they didn't like those differences. By the end of our discussions, a student said, "I guess what I need to realize is that just because something is different from my life doesn't make it bad, it just makes it different and that's a beautiful thing." That is what I feel about the "Contact Zone" Canagarajah presents. The contact zone might be stressful because it's presenting all these new cultural experiences to everyone involved, but it also allows us to examine the humanity in all of us, which is why I still see value in teaching books that might make culturally American students feel uncomfortable.

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A core theme of Canagarajah’s philosophy of teaching composition is the value of teaching students to adapt their writing style to specific contexts without abandoning their own voice. This is not the first time we have encountered such a philosophy espoused in our readings this semester. For example, Canagarajah’s believes that “students must recognize that there are always dominant norms related to academic genres” but “they must also remember that those norms can be strategically negotiated in relation to their personal agendas and values” (29). While Canagarajah chapter focuses mainly on non-native English speakers in this chapter, this thought feels cut from the same cloth of what Teresa Redd had to say on teaching the conventions of Standard Written English in Chapter 6 of this same textbook. Rather than doing away with the conventions of SWE which - as many of the writers we have encountered this semester have pointed out - can be harmful in the ways it tells students of color that their language is “wrong,” Redd imparts upon her students the role that conventions such as these play in helping writers connect to their audience. Regarding those who speak and/or write mainly using African-American English (AAE), Redd points out that “readers who expect the conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) may not attend to the content of a text because they wrongly assume that AAE is ‘bad English’ and, thus, consider the writer incompetent” (150).

This all comes back to Canagarajah’s idea of the “contact zone” - the area in which the writer’s voice and values interact and conflict with the expectations of an audience. Speaking specifically on what this looks like in the classroom, Canagarajah notes that “though students may initially come with some strong preferences on what to write, they renegotiate their products in relation to the preferences and suggestions of their peers and the instructor” (34).

What I appreciate most about Canagarajah’s idea of the contact zone is that it does not just sum up one of the key (perhaps the key) elements of successful writing, but one of the key elements of how we successfully function in the world at large. Each time we communicate with another person, we humans turn into actors putting on a performance. It does not matter if we are consciously aware of it - we constantly tailor our words and actions to fit what we deem to be appropriate in a given context. A student in Canagarajah’s classroom who has written an essay that includes elements incomprehensible to their peers or their instructor will need to adjust their own voice if they wish to get their thoughts across to a reading audience. A person looking for a new job cannot compose a cover letter using the same language and conventions they might in a text message to their best friend. Two co-workers out for drinks after work may express the frustration they share over their boss’s actions in a way they obviously would not if said boss were sitting at the table with them. A married person who has just received bad news from the doctor will break the news to their spouse in a manner that sounds quite different from the conversation they have with their five-year-old child. The list goes on and on. Each of us lives constantly in the contact zone. It then seems foolish to treat the composition classroom as a place somehow separate from this reality.

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From what I understand after reading Matsuda’s article, overall writing instruction in America is stuck in a strange middle ground when it comes to English Language Learners, where both students and teachers are left out to dry. On one hand, we assume that ELL students will adapt to the dominant language of the composition classroom without providing them the tools and instruction to do so while they are in that classroom. At the same time, we assume that composition teachers will adapt to the unique circumstances present in teaching ELL students without providing them the tools and instruction to do so. Composition teachers are not trained to teach the English language to non-native English speakers, and so non-native English speakers are not going to learn how to speak - and, by extension, write - in the dominant variety of English in the composition classroom.

One of the key ideas Matsuda discusses in relation to the titular “myth” is an existing “assumption that students are by default native speakers of a privileged variety of English from the United States” (639). As soon as I read these words, I knew in my gut it was true, regardless of any further elaboration on Matsuda’s part. All I needed to confirm Matsuda’s claim was to think back on the better part of two decades I spent as a student in the American education system and the last five I have spent as a teacher in that same system. The natural question I needed to ask myself after realizing I have played a part in perpetuating this assumption to one extent or another is “Why?” Why do school systems at large, English departments at universities, and so many individual English instructors assume that their general population of students mainly consists of students who speak this language? As finding objective evidence for a claim as specific as the one I am about to make would be akin to finding a needle in the proverbial haystack, I am forced to make another assumption - I assume that most school administrators, heads of English studies, and English instructors in this country are themselves native speakers of a privileged variety of English from the United States. I also assume that human beings naturally allow their own experiences to shape the world around them. By extension, a writing instructor, unless presented with clear evidence to the contrary, will see themself in their students, and assume that those students will best learn in the manner they did themself. The obvious, albeit non-specific, solution to this problem is to develop composition courses with empathy as a guiding force - to break free of any instinct telling you that your students can/will learn as you have done. I do not know if it is possible to authentically put yourself in the shoes of an English Language Learner unless you have been an ELL student yourself, but in today’s world, it is a dereliction of duty for an instructor to simply ignore the unique circumstances present in a classroom with an ELL presence.

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I was incredibly interested in how Kiramba’s research displays the creative ways in which the titular “emergent multilingual” students in this rural Kenyan village were able to write compositions that code-mix a variety of languages while still presenting clarity of thought and accomplishing their assigned task. Despite my interest in the research and appreciation for the ways in which Kiramba champions this approach to composition, the article left me feeling disappointed - disappointed because I cannot see how these approaches can exist outside of areas in the world where most (or all) citizens absorb and practice various languages at a young age. A composition teacher will not be able to gauge the skill, progress, or needs of a student who implements multiple languages into their compositions unless that teacher is at least as versed in those languages as the student in question, which means that about 80% of Americans are out of luck on this count. I understand that Kiramba’s article is meant to show how this approach to composition pedagogy exists in one specific part of the world and that it is not an argumentative paper advocating for its implementation across the globe - I am just envious that there are some parts of our world where students have the opportunity to learn (and teachers have the opportunity to teach) in this manner.

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In addition to providing compelling reasons for embracing World Englishes (WE) in the composition classroom, I found Canagarajah’s codemeshing examples and pedagogical suggestions invaluable.

To any educator hesitant about pluralizing English beyond Standard Written English, Canagarajah points out how the negotiation strategies multilingual speakers use are just as important for monolingual students to learn in order to effectively communicate in today’s global environment. Honestly, I’d assumed this had been well-established by the article’s 2006 publication date, especially considering the CCCC adopted Students’ Right to Their Own Language (STROL) in 1974. Canagarajah’s break down of the “the dilemmas present in implementing STROL” (596) strengthen the case for codemeshing.

As a codemeshing newbie, I noted the following:

To establish author credibility, structure academic writing with expected codes early on “before introducing the atypical codes later in the writing” (603).

Consider footnoting WE usage to explain the rationale of what readers may consider peculiar.

Thoughtfully incorporate WE for a purpose, such as to represent authentic voice, demonstrate cultural context, or convey ideology or emotion.

Language choice should be motivated by rhetorical strategy and the situation, such as in low- and high-stakes environments.

Refrain from using quotation marks to highlight WE vernacular or dialect. “Using quotation marks would have distanced the author from the language, invoking traditional biases” (604).

Finally, Canagarajah’s thought-provoking assertion that “the assumption that multilingual students are always bound to err in a second language denies them agency” (609) will stick with me.

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I don't know if it's because I've had parent-teacher conferences all week or what, but it took me so long to have a VERY basic understanding of the concept of what "translingual" means in a classroom/language usage context. If I'm understanding it correctly, at it's core translingual dispositions refers to allowing the concept of code-meshing in academic spaces. The problem I see translingual dispositions addressing in the classroom is the classic element of academic gatekeeping. The reason so many students don't see themselves succeeding in college or graduate-level programs is simply because "academic" discourse is so non-inclusive of nonnative (read: nonwhite) English speakers in America. We talk about the concept of code-switching and code meshing in schools because at the core of discourse is simply communication. When you layer complex ideas in inaccessible language, you don't allow for depth or breadth of experience or thought.

Lee and Jenks write, "Doing translingual dispositions, then, does not
simply mean developing an appreciation for texts that incorporate multiple languages or varieties; rather, it means going beyond the conceptual metric of “language” in the traditional sense as
a basis of determining a particular enunciation’s assumed rhetorical appropriateness or social value," (320.) I think of educators I've worked with throughout my career who would refuse to allow what they considered "incorrect" English in the classroom simply because someone told them that communicating in AAVE or southern dialects or nonstandard English languages had no place in school. When we teach black kids that the way they speak at home has no place in school, we're invalidating their entire upbringing. This is why allowing flexibility in communication and encouraging discourse to remain welcoming/translingual is essential to the growth of our society as a whole.

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Brandt’s article is a brief one compared to most others we have encountered this semester, but I felt it was far from simple. On my first two read-throughs, I had a difficult time processing what I felt was a series of conflicting statements where Brandt would critique Lawrence and the idea of literary sponsors in one breath but then praise them in the next. I realized that sponsors were not an “all-or-nothing” issue for Brandt, but I could not pinpoint exactly where the split (or multiple splits) from Lawrence occurred. On my third read, things finally clicked for when I was reminded of a satirical short story by David Sedaris called “Christmas Means Giving.” In this story, two uber-wealthy neighboring families take turns attempting to one-up each other in terms of their respective charitable donations during the holiday season. The narrator and his wife attempt to keep up with the neighboring Cottinghams as their donations (always preserved with photographic evidence) progress from food and money to furniture and appliances to their own children and body parts. For the narrator, no altruistic act was too large - the act of giving to others was always worth it...as long as everyone else in the neighborhood could see just how generous he was.

Though Brandt does not mock sponsors as Sedaris mocks those who publicize their charity, her issue with those who “gain advantage” through the act of literacy sponsorship is a product of the same brand of ethical concern. As Brandt states, “sponsors are entities who need our literacy as much or more than we do. They are investors, cultivators, exploiters, proselytizers, innovators, and they are in competition with other sponsors for the formidable powers and benefits that can come their way via our literacy. Indeed, they often wage their competitions on the grounds of our literacy” (331). Substitute sponsor with the narrator and his neighbor and our literacy with their generosity in the above passage, and you are left with, essentially, the plot summary of Sedaris’s satire.

Of course, Sedaris does not believe that giving to those in need is an act worthy of mockery in itself. Likewise, Brandt does not believe that those who take up the mantle of sponsor are “bad” people. Concerning this brand of researcher, Brandt notes that “they want to leave their participants better off as a result of participating in their studies...they want them to learn something, to be empowered, and to contribute to the shared enterprise of knowledge-making” (332). What Brandt does believe is that while the intentions and actions of literary sponsors may be good, they are certainly not selfless, as the sponsor stands to benefit from the process as well as the participant.

According to Brandt, the lack of selflessness can result from a researcher’s methodological framework. The issue with tackling literacy development from an “anthropological and thoroughly ethnographic approach” is it inherently and heavily relies upon “the perspectives of individual participants” (332). The flaw in this approach is that individual experiences are too subjective to yield consequential findings or lead to consequential developments at the systemic level. Additionally, when taking this approach, the researchers - intentionally or not - place themselves in the role of sponsor, who then become influential characters in the participant’s narrative.

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If the purpose of these readings each week is to help us develop our own composition pedagogies, this is a set we need to take especially to heart. While we have the option to choose which other pedagogies to implement in our own classrooms - hypothetical or otherwise - that is not the case in this instance. As Matsuda and Hammill explain, “second language writing pedagogy is ubiquitous...it is not site-specific” and it is not optional (266). The reasons Matsuda and Hammill note as to why the needs of students learning English as a second language in American composition classrooms have not been properly acknowledged are myriad, but they key factor for these authors is the monolingual assumption, which Matsuda further addresses in his solo essay we had the choice to read this week. As Matsuda and Hammill note, this assumption - that students enrolled in college composition courses come from backgrounds where speaking and writing using the conventions of Standard Written English was the norm - was “more or less accurate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” before significant numbers of ELL students had the opportunity to enroll (267). In other words, comp teachers in America at around 100+ years ago could not necessarily be blamed for buying into the monolingual assumption, as it more or less reflected the reality of their situations. This is obviously no longer the case.

In addition to the grand-scale, historical assumption Matsuda and Hammill caution against as they open the chapter, the idea of avoiding assumptions at the individual level serves as the backbone for the advice they offer throughout the rest of the chapter. In terms of how to approach instructing ELL students in the comp classroom, we cannot assume that any two students will come to the class with the same level of proficiency in the English language; we cannot assume that an ELL student who is proficient in spoken English will be proficient in written English (and vice versa); we cannot assume that what we perceive as errors in a student’s writing conventions are due to a misunderstanding of the “rules” on their part; we cannot assume that an ELL student who has used patchwriting in a research paper is attempting to plagiarize; we cannot assume that each student will come to class with prior understanding of the general modes of operation in a US university classroom.

Overall, Matsuda and Hammill remind us to avoid treating ELL students as a monolith - to acknowledge their individuality by doing all we can to address their specific needs in our classroom. Though the language barrier will be a hurdle for any teacher who is not multilingual, these general steps described in the previous sentence are no different from what we should be practicing in our classrooms every day, regardless of whether we are working with ELL students, native English speakers, or any combination of the two.

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I had ELL instruction thrown in as a 4-week little sub-unit during student teaching. Which, in the midst of working full-time, getting everything edTPA-tastic, observations & what not, to say that I got nothing out of that is an understatement. I think I actually got a D for that unit--oops, & oh well.

This chapter, was far more useful and informative than that part of student teaching. However, more than the other chapters of the book, this feels like a very cursory introduction to ELL or L2 students, and it didn't really mention dual-qualified students [students who are L2 AND special ed qualified]. I am working with dual-qualified students this term, I have 2 on my caseload, and it is incredibly difficult to work through a learning disability with a language barrier.

On page 277, the authors have 5 bullet points listed for "Negotiating Language Differences" and really only go into detail on the last one. What is the "dominant" and "non-dominant forms and functions of language"?--and who's dominancy are we to teach? I assume like last week, that defaults to Midwestern, White, middle/upper class English. Is that right? I don't know, but it does not quite feel right. That's really where I would love to know more.

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In contrast with other articles, I found Doing Translingual Dispositions potentially more useful for its practical classroom application with monolingual students.

Building on Horner et al.’s definition of translingual disposition, an openmindedness “toward language and language difference” (as quoted in Lee & Jenks, 319), Lee and Jenks explore how students can “move beyond preconceived, limited notions of standardness and correctness” (319) of various Englishes through writing critical literacy narratives. “Doing” translingual disposition involves uncovering “rhetorical appropriateness or social value” (320), which Lee and Jenks posit should be considered a critical skill for all composition students for the same global communication competence reasons Canagarajah puts forth in “World Englishes.” Although the Lee and Jenks study involved peer review of essays exchanged between students at a US university and a Hong Kong university, I suspect the findings would be similar with any exchange between students of different language backgrounds.

What I found most fascinating was the assignment component in which even monolingual students were instructed to write about their second language identity, after learning about the World Englishes paradigm. A monolingual native English speaker, for example, wrote about the language of basketball.  In comparing his second language experience to a multilingual peer, he relates similarities and identifies differences that produce an ideal outcome for the exercise: “He is aware of the privilege afforded to him because of his status as a native speaker, but he also recognizes that nonnative speakers may experience hardships while attempting to learn English for use in high-stakes situations and may be marginalized for not speaking a certain way” (333).

A challenge the authors identify with translingualism is assessment. Instructors are cautioned to be wary of grading students on their expressed ideologies, and instead should consider focusing on student engagement and personal reflection with the course material.

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Given the 2-year skill gap that our students have [I mostly have 10th graders, and they are superb 8th graders, especially with their writing] I absolutely love the grading percentages in the appendix for Ch 2.

I think the grading scheme incorporates an emphasis on process, which has been a consistent theme. Drafts & journals together are 45% of a grade; to me, that means almost 1/2 a grade is based on coming to class and putting effort into writing. Which, for most students, I think is where they are at right now. From what I have seen this year, most students have no idea to do school. This would also make class more manageable for them, and scoop up ELL and special ed students at the same time.

The one issue I see with the actual grading of good, satisfactory, and unsatisfactory, is the difference between good & satisfactory is pretty vague and unclear. To me, good & satisfactory are interchangeable terms; I can easily see that being confusing for students who struggle with language. Superior+ or excellent, just something more descriptive, would make the grading distinction and expectations more clear and accessible.

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"From this point of view, speakers don't have to be experts in another variety of English in order to speak to other communities" (593).

I could not agree more with this quote. I always tell my students that expressing their meaning, is more important than being correct (with grammar, spelling, etc) which is a complete anathema to their thought process. Which I can empathize with; we are drilled from the get-go of learning English to be correct. It's no wonder that high school and college students struggle with expressing their meaning, their thoughts.

That challenge is all the greater when you are learning English as a second language. Yes, as Canagarajah points out, there are some basic rules to operating English, but those rules should not be put upon a pedestal of perfection. I see that 'rule perfection' with students in and out of ELL, which is somewhat ironic given they are all obsessed with Grammarly [which I loathe] which does the rules for them. A further irony with Grammarly, is that they still don't proofread or look anything over, the rules are met so move on because the algorithm has got it. They really lose the meaning of their words and thoughts being obsessed with rules, and letting the algorithm do the corrections. I think that robs them of learning how their thoughts and language(s) interact with each other, and how to express themselves in their own words.

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"...the ability to produce English that is unmarked in the eyes of the teachers who are custodians of the privileged variety of English, or...of an audience of native English speakers who would judge the writer's credibility or even intelligence on the basis of grammaticality" (640).

I think we have all been on both sides of this quote. We can all think of a time when our intelligence was questioned based on our writing, and specifically our grammar. We have also done the same, which I think we do because it was learned when we were on the other side of the desk. Being smart or intelligent, does not mean having "good" grammar.

To me, this really drives home how important it is to know your students, and to push them to express their meaning in their writing. Grammar can always be corrected later, meaning and expression need to happen in the moment.

That said, I think there is a fine line between pushing a student, and being the "custodian" of English, and pushing language dominance. When and where that line is, I'm not sure. I think like most things, it depends on the student and the situation. It is something to be aware though.

After reading this article, I wonder how often I'm teaching monolingualism without even realizing it. I'm applying for international jobs next year, and a large component of that will be working with ELL students across multiple languages. More than the other articles, Matsuda has me wondering whose English I will be expected to teach, and how will I fit or not in with that? Not to mention the students.

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Backstory context about me: I went to school for forestry before getting my sped license. I also devour nature/landscape/adventure writing of all kinds. With that in mind, on the "Writing tasks across languages" chart at the bottom on page 121, I noticed the top four assignments for percent of students using mixed language, all involved trees. Maybe I'm reading too far into the tea leaves, but I think that is worth noting.

One, I can think of nothing more multilingual, and interchangeable with languages, than nature-based writing. For example, red pine has multiple common names in English (3, according the Forest Service), a Latin scientific name, and who knows how many different names across various Native American languages. What a fantastic bridge between languages. Most trees, plants, animals, etc, are linguistically like that: several English common names, scientific, indigenous names. For this study, I would imagine that trees in Kenya would have similar interchangeability, contributing to the mixed scripts. The student in the example used 3 languages, which absolutely blows my mind.

Two, we are losing nature words. The Oxford English Dictionary has actually removed some in recent years. Those have been replaced with tech/internet-based words because kids aren't outside like they used to be. Losing the words to describe our world is concerning. In the example, the student names 24 animals, insects, and trees. What happens if those words are lost? What if those words are all replaced with English terms? Would she still be as multilingual?--or to the same extent? I think a thing missing from the monolingualism readings is the profound effect of tech and its leveling (killing?) of language diversity. I would be interested to know about that.