The sociopolitical implications of response to second language and second dialect writing

4. Research in Teaching Writing

“…Benesch (1993) responded to Santos, suggesting that all forms of ESL instruction are ideological, that neutrality is a myth, and that Santos's pragmatic position supports the status quo. Severino (1993) also responded to Santos, arguing that L2 writing pedagogy is just as ideologically charged as L1 writing pedagogy, though not as openly articulated and discussed. Allison (1994), in response to Benesch (1993), denied any necessary connection between pragmatism and an accommodationist ideology and challenges what he sees as Benesch's "ideologist" discourse.…”

Teaching Writing

“…Recent studies of curriculum innovation have provided information about introducing a process approach in Hong Kong (Pennington, Brock, and Yue 1996), eliciting student opinions in oral and written work in Norway and the USA (Dysthe 1996), examining teachers' attitudes to innovation in pedagogical practices in Canada (Shi and Cumming 1995), teaching multicultural issues in United States colleges (Lisle and Mano 1997, Reichelt and Silva 1995, Sadarangani 1994, and contrasting U.S. college classes using student-produced text with those focused on published multicultural texts representing the student population (Severino 1997). Grabe and Kaplan (1996) provide an example of an "idealized" writing curriculum, accompanied by the apt caveat that local situations produce their own constraints (261-265); the influence of such constraints on curriculum planning is discussed by Raimes (1995).…”

“…For those who see writing instruction as going beyond the pragmatic and functional, many other options are available. They can use literature, particularly multicultural texts (Gajdusek and vanDommelen 1993, Lisle and Mano 1997, Severino 1997, Vandrick 1996; require students to discuss the content of source texts, whether fiction or nonfiction (Leki andCarson 1997, Spack 1993); design prompts for students to respond to (Reid and Kroll 1995); or work with their students on constructing texts and knowledge by investigating community issues such as language use and narrative and exploring individual experience in relation to, for example, historical events, work, and the American Dream (Kutz, Groden and Zamel 1993).…”

“…One dichotomy teachers face in considering their own responses to student writing is summed up in the exchange between Reid (1994), who urges "directive teacher response" (285), and Hall (1995), who raises the specter of students then perceiving that "no decision about organization and audience is valid until the teacher says it is valid" (162). Again, practicing classroom teachers will need to examine their own students, teaching contexts, and ideologies to consider whether they see their responses to written texts as representing an assimilationist stance (join the dominant discourse community), a separatist stance (transform the discourse community and celebrate diversity), or an accommodationist stance (acquire new discourses) (Severino 1993). Whichever stance they select, their comments are likely to have an effect on revision and on the quality of the finished piece of writing.…”

Alternatives in TESOL Research: Descriptive, Interpretive, and Ideological Orientations

“…Developing a form of critical ethnography, Canagarajah (1993) has taken up the long-overdue topic of student resistance in ESL, arguing that, in trying to mediate between the threat English poses to their cultural integrity and the importance of English for socioeconomic mobility, his Sri Lankan students unwittingly participated in their own domination. Other interesting work includes Severino's (1993) exploration of the sociopolitical implications of different responses to L2 and second dialect writing, Walsh's (1991) study of how Puerto Rican students face a complex struggle to negotiate a voice in English, and Auerbach's work (e.g., 1993; and see next section) promoting participatory action research and community literacy. Finally, whereas Phillipson (1992) and Tollefson (1991) have been focusing on the global spread of English predominantly at the level of language planning and policy, my own work has attempted to understand what a critical pedagogy of ESL would look like given what I have termed the worldliness of English in its many contexts (see Pennycook, 1994).…”