Marginalization Through Curricularization of Language Teaching: Creating and Exposing Deficits in an Adult Language and Literacy Program

2021 ◽  
pp. 238133772110306
Author(s):  
Jim Sosnowski
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Language Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literacy Program ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Language And Literacy Instruction

Research supports the premise that adult language and literacy instruction should build on prior linguistic knowledge and the lived experiences of the students. Despite these widely held tenets, classroom practices often do not reflect these ideals, instead providing learning opportunities that are decontextualized and isolated from the students’ lives. Drawing on 18 months of qualitative data and based on principles of participatory action research, this ethnographic case study of a peer-taught, prison-based, adult language and literacy program, situated in a state-run, medium security prison in the Midwest of the United States, focuses on the role language ideologies played in shaping classroom practices and the marginalization of both students and instructors. This study found that language ideologies contributed to a curricularized approach to language and literacy instruction focused on teaching discrete linguistic features and lexical items. This curricularization of language positioned students as linguistically deficient and shaped deficit perspectives of the students in the classroom. Additionally, the curricularized approach in conjunction with racialized understandings of “native speakerism” marginalized instructors through influencing who was perceived as a viable language model in the classroom. These findings emphasize the need to move away from reified understandings of language and build on the situated ways students use language. Additionally, moving toward a curriculum focused on situated language practices provides opportunities for students and instructors to critically examine issues of power and privilege related to language.

scholarly journals Effective language and literacy instruction: Evaluating the importance of scripting and group size components

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 256-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorthe Bleses ◽  
Anders Højen ◽  
Philip S. Dale ◽  
Laura M. Justice ◽  
Line Dybdal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Language And Literacy Instruction

scholarly journals Teen Culture, Technology and Literacy Instruction: Urban Adolescent Students’ Perspectives

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Li ◽  
Catherine Snow ◽  
Claire White
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Adolescent Students ◽  
Use Of Technology

Modern teens have pervasively integrated new technologies into their lives, and technology has become an important component of teen popular culture. Educators have pointed out the promise of exploiting technology to enhance students’ language and literacy skills and general academic success. However, there is no consensus on the effect of technology on teens, and scant literature is available that incorporates the perspective of urban and linguistically diverse students on the feasibility of applying new technologies in teaching and learning literacy in intact classrooms. This paper reports urban adolescents’ perspectives on the use of technology within teen culture, for learning in general and for literacy instruction in particular. Focus group interviews were conducted among linguistically diverse urban students in grades 6, 7 and 8 in a lower income neighborhood in the Northeastern region of the United States. The major findings of the study were that 1) urban teens primarily and almost exclusively used social media and technology devices for peer socializing, 2) they were interested in using technology to improve their literacy skills, but did not appear to voluntarily or independently integrate technology into learning, and 3) 8th graders were considerably more sophisticated in their use of technology and their suggestions for application of technology to literacy learning than 6th and 7th graders. These findings lead to suggestions for developing effective literacy instruction using new technologies.

‘So yo creo que es un proceso evolutivo’: Language ideologies among Puerto Ricans in southeastern Pennsylvania

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Shenk
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Publicity Campaign

AbstractThis article examines the perspectives of Puerto Ricans living in the United States in response to a publicity campaign that focuses on the correction of linguistic features that appear in some Puerto Ricans’ spoken Spanish. The campaign addresses phonetic, morphological, lexical, and syntactic features, including a specific set of words or phrases that are named as lexical and semantic borrowings from English. Participants were invited to respond to the content and ideologies present in the campaign by means of semi-structured interviews. Through a framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and language (de)legitimation, the article analyzes the ways in which interviewees (de)legitimize loanwords in Puerto Rican Spanish. A Critical Discourse Analytical framework allows for the mapping of spoken and written texts (e. g. the campaign texts) onto discourses

Living Dialogues in One Neighborhood: Moving toward Understanding across Discourses and Practices of Literacy and Schooling

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Rogers ◽  
Cynthia Tyson ◽  
Elizabeth Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Instruction ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discourse Communities ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
School Based ◽  
Inclusive School ◽  
Theoretical Frame

Drawing on a critical discourse perspective, we examine the “living dialogues,” or the complex interplay between discourses, in one neighborhood to recontextualize the often polarized debates about literacy instruction within education. Focusing on three children, their families, teachers, and classrooms, we argue that the creation of more inclusive school literacy practices requires a consideration of how discourses function within and across homes, communities, and schools. Thus we focus less on the merits or limits of one instructional method than on how living dialogues reflect particular and situated beliefs about language and literacy practices. Within this theoretical frame, classrooms arise as contextualized spaces where the living dialogues of unique discourse communities intersect, and where the relational discourses that shape and reflect classroom practices have the potential to open up or close down instructional spaces for children. A critical discourse perspective re-situates debates around literacy instruction and allows us to engage in complex ways with the dilemmas and possibilities of school-based literacy practices. Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word. For if the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison, and destroy. - Ralph Ellison

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document