The social justice potential of critical reflection and critical language awareness pedagogies for L2 writers

How Does the Language Control of L1 and L2 Writers Develop Over Time in First-Year Composition?

“…On the other hand, their regression in grammatical accuracy may be symptomatic of a larger problem in which FYC is essentially built to serve monolingual English writers by ignoring concerns about language. Either way, a writing program that intends to enroll L2 students must reckon with these results and determine whether and how to build an inclusive experience for diverse multilingual writers, one that promotes inclusivity while also supporting students' access to the power of dominant linguistic forms (Britton & Leonard, 2020).…”

“…Nevertheless, celebrating linguistic diversity alone is not enough. Plurilingual perspectives also acknowledge that certain dominant linguistic forms exist that students must use in many situations to access certain social power (Britton & Leonard, 2020). Ignoring or overlooking grammar instruction among L2 writers who legitimately need it does not respect diversity nor offer inclusivity but rather assumes a level of linguistic homogeneity that serves more to divide L2 writers from their L1 peers than include them (Matsuda, 2006b).…”

“…Early inclusivity and diversity initiatives sought to acknowledge at least some of these differences in the form of the Students’ Right to Their Own Language Resolution in which composition teachers were encouraged to affirm students’ language varieties and tolerate variance from standard edited English (Perryman-Clark et al, 2015). These initiatives have evolved to encompass (critical) language awareness pedagogies (Britton & Leonard, 2020), translingualism (Horner & Tetrault, 2017), linguistic justice (Johnson et al, 2020), and plurilingual pedagogies (Marshall, 2020). A common thread running through these theoretical frames is that language is an asset and that learning a second language should be an additive rather than subtractive process (Ovando, 2003; Scanlan, 2007).…”

“…A common thread running through these theoretical frames is that language is an asset and that learning a second language should be an additive rather than subtractive process (Ovando, 2003; Scanlan, 2007). Thus, although students should be encouraged to use their full linguistic repertoires for social justice, they must also learn “dominant linguistic forms” in order to gain “access to the social power that accompanies these forms” (Britton & Leonard, 2020, p. 1).…”

Developments in classroom-based research on L2 writing

“…The first research theme has addressed a range of pedagogical focuses in L2 writing classrooms, that is, teaching of coherence (Lee, 2002), teacher conferences (Ewert, 2009), peer review instruction (Min, 2006), literacy narrative instruction (Harman, 2013), genre-based instruction (de Oliveira & Lan, 2014; Worden, 2018), summary-based instruction (McDonough et al, 2014), metaphor-oriented intervention (Wan, 2014), dialogical pedagogy for helping students construct voice (Canagarajah, 2015), use of models in academic writing instruction (Macbeth, 2010), critical reflection and critical language awareness pedagogies (Britton & Leonard, 2020), and multimodal authoring pedagogy (Unsworth & Mills, 2020). Such pedagogical approaches have broadened the field of investigation to address not only how teaching can help students write better, such as through a focus on textual coherence (Lee, 2002) and genres (Harman, 2013;de Oliveira & Lan, 2014;Worden, 2018), but also how explicit instruction can empower learners to take greater responsibility for learning, for example, through conducting effective peer review (Min, 2006).…”