Towards translingual and transcultural practice: explorations in a white-majority, rural, Midwestern elementary classroom

Abstract

New Literacy Studies and related scholarship on the use of digital tools in classrooms support the argument that literacy practices can be understood as translingual and transcultural practices within the context of an otherwise monocultural and monolingual setting. Pushing for broader conceptions of 'mono' settings and arguing for homing in on the unit of study as a means by which to unpack literacy practices, this paper makes the case conceptually as well as by offering insights from a recent classroom ethnography in a white-majority, English-only, highpoverty, rural sixth-grade classroom in the Midwestern United States. The paper considers the challenges of rural poverty and the complexities of using digital tools by examining the role digital tools, placed resources [Prinsloo, M. 2005. "The New Literacies as Placed Resources." Perspectives in Education 4 (23): 87-98], play in marginalised settings. The data highlighted offer insights about how researchers and teachers might support and approach 'mono' elementary classroom literacy practices as drawing from across spaces as students engage with digital tools and global partners in what should also be understood as transcultural practice with the potential for translingual practice. ARTICLE HISTORY

Enactment of a Translingual Approach to Writing

“…The participants in most of the reviewed publications were students and instructors with multilingual and multicultural backgrounds (refer to Table 1 for the courses and genres on which these studies focus). Among the 42 studies, two (4.8%) investigate the writing processes of monolingual/English‐only college students (Hanson, 2013) and sixth‐grade students (Panos, 2017) from a translingual approach. Two studies (4.8%) explore the writing processes of writers who write in languages other than English, such as Filipino (Mendoza & Parba, 2018) and Spanish and Mandarin (Severino, 2017).…”

“…Table 3 shows that 16 of 42 studies (38.1%) focus on instruction with translingual pedagogies. Among these 16 studies, two (Hanson, 2013, and Panos, 2017) concentrate on the teaching of English to English‐only students and one (Mendoza & Parba, 2018) focuses on Filipino writing instruction to heritage language learners. The other 13 studies investigate how a translingual approach affects the teaching of EAL writing.…”

“…Table 3 shows that 16 of 42 studies (38.1%) focus on instruction with translingual pedagogies. Among these 16 studies, two (Hanson, 2013, andPanos, 2017) concentrate on the teaching of Canagarajah, 2011Canagarajah, , 2013cGonzales, 2015;Hanson, 2013;Hartse et al, 2018;Jain, 2014;Krall-Lanoue, 2013; J. W. Lee & Jenks, 2016;Malcolm, 2017;Mart ınez et al, 2015;Mendoza & Parba, 2018;Pacheco et al, 2019;Panos, 2017;Velasco & Garc ıa, 2014;Wang, 2017;Zapata & Laman, 2016 Writer agency (5) Ayash, 2016;Canagarajah, 2006;Canagarajah & Matsumoto, 2017;Lorimer, 2013;Tannenbaum, 2014 Writing practice (7) Fraiberg, 2017;Kaufhold, 2018;Kiramba, 2017;E. Lee & Canagarajah, 2019;Pacheco & Smith, 2015;Severino, 2017;Smith et al, 2017 Teacher training (3) Arnold, 2016;Flores & Aneja, 2017; Writer identity (3) Milu, 2018;Schreiber, 2015;Zheng, 2017 Writing and reading (4) Dur an, 2017; Hwag & Hardman, 2014;Kiernan et al, 2017;Sohan, 2014 Digital writing (4) …”

Discourses of the Rural Rust Belt:

“…As a regular part of our analysis we probed our roles as researchers-for Alex as a participant in the data, and for Jenny as data outsider. In addition, following the construction of the findings, the lead researcher shared findings with participants, which led to additional collaboration and work on schooling, place, and poverty (Panos, 2017(Panos, , 2018.…”

“…In this article, we frame educational inequities in the broader rural midwestern context in which industry abandonment and population decline affect the local availability of educational resources and personnel (Jimerson, 2005;Panos, 2017;Seelig, 2017)-including educator shortages in the right-towork state where Stewartsville is located. We also acknowledge that teachers might contribute to such stories of damage (Tuck, 2009) while working hard within rural locales to educate children.…”