Although existing research examines how pre-K–12 teachers understand everyday translanguaging and enact translanguaging pedagogies in their literacy classrooms, considerably less research explores translanguaging pedagogies in literacy teacher education. Drawing on García, Johnson, and Seltzer’s theorization of translanguaging stance, design, and shifts, we redesigned a university-based literacy methods course to encourage both English-medium and dual-language teacher candidates (TCs) to engage their full linguistic repertoires in writing. In this study, we used qualitative methods to explore how TCs in our course experienced translanguaging pedagogies in coursework and enacted them with students in fieldwork settings. Findings illustrate that TCs experimented with language within our university classroom, drawing on their full linguistic repertoires in course assignments and countering the dominance of English in course activities. They also showcase how TCs began enacting translanguaging pedagogies in their fieldwork placements, planning intentionally for translanguaging in lesson plans, and tapping into the translanguaging corriente in everyday teaching and learning. Ultimately, this study offers insights into the potential of enacting translanguaging pedagogies in preservice literacy teacher education for English-medium and dual-language educators alike.

Translanguaging pedagogies support student writers in expressing themselves using their full language repertoires, writing for authentic audiences, and connecting to their identities. However, many teachers, particularly those who identify as “monolingual” and teach in English‐medium classrooms, may not know how to introduce translanguaging into their writing instruction. This study explores how three pre‐service teachers enrolled in a writing methods course enacted translanguaging pedagogies in their English‐medium student teaching classrooms. Drawing on case study methods, this article highlights entry points to translanguaging pedagogies in writing instruction, suggesting that teachers can foster translanguaging by crafting invitations to compose bilingually, choosing topics and genres intentionally, using strategic supports, and pushing themselves to step beyond their comfort zones. Ultimately, this article argues that all teachers of writing can begin to invite their students’ languages into their writing classrooms, creating spaces where children draw on their full language repertoires as they make and express meaning.

Family literacy programs are potential spaces of empowerment for transnational families, yet often draw from deficit logics that fail to acknowledge the rich language and literacy practices of Latinx communities. We brought together theories of critical literacy and theories of mothering as critical work to document how transnational Latina mothers in an intergenerational storytelling workshop reshaped the space toward their own goals. We explored how mothers in the workshop served as critical literacy pedagogues by writing, reading, and redesigning the workshop space in ways that asserted agency, fostered intergenerational learning, and pushed back against deficit narratives. We offer insights from the workshop experience to suggest ways in which educators, both in family literacy and K–12 settings, can learn from and partner with transnational parents.

Teacher-as-writer experiences, in which teacher candidates engage deeply in their own writing and consider its implications for their pedagogies, are common features of writing methods courses. However, most existing research on these assignments has focused on the experiences of educators who write and will teach exclusively in English. We explore the experiences of bilingual teacher candidates who engaged in a teacher-as-writer assignment in our writing methods course, which we redesigned through the lens of translanguaging pedagogies (García et al., 2016). Drawing on theories of translanguaging (García, 2009) and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015), we describe how two teacher candidates experienced invitations to compose across languages in ways that were simultaneously empowering and complicated. Ultimately, through this article, we seek to bring needed recognition of linguistic and racial diversity to discussions of teacher-as-writer experiences and to highlight the pedagogical potential of translanguaging in writing teacher education.

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