Identity Writing
Empowering Multilingual Students Through Artifacts and Journaling
This last summer I took a trip to central Mexico to study at a language school in Cuernavaca, Morelos. I had decided the school year before that I needed to take this trip because it was hypocritical of me to work with Spanish speaking students and families who were working on their English, and not put in the reciprocal work. And it was work. I spent two weeks taking grammar classes, cultural enrichment classes about Mexico, took tours and trips to Mexican museums and temples — all in Spanish. A gracious Cuernavaca native hosted myself and three Spanish teachers who also attended the language program. Our host made the most delicious food, but I regularly dreaded our meals because I couldn’t keep up with conversation. I was exhausted.
I struggled with my go-to verbs and phrases for those weeks, feeling embarrassed that I could not express myself as I am. I wanted to tell everyone: I’m smarter and funnier than this, I promise! And then, on a particularly difficult day for me, a student of mine sent me an email, asking about my summer. A student who sometimes struggles being herself because of language. And I realized my struggle that summer had so much purpose.
At the end of the two weeks, I had an opportunity to share something I had learned with my teacher group, and I chose to write about my struggle with language. I wrote my speech in English, then translated it to Spanish, then had my roommate proof read it, then practiced reading it in Spanish. I read it to my class with poor pronunciation, and felt more nervous than I had in a long time. Writing that short speech took so much out of me.
So when I came back from Mexico, I started to think about my own experience and how it applied to my students: How can I help Language Learners who feel this same anxiety about writing and speaking? How can I encourage reluctant writers who feel like they are not being understood?
I started to read about “Identity Texts” (Cummins, 2011) and “Artifactual Literacies” (Pahl, 2010). These theories use student lives and physical objects as a the starting point for writing. I decided I would create a space for approachable personal writing in my ELL Study Hall because writing so often seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for many of the students I work with. And the invite in would be items they bring from home that are important to their personal story. I gathered some of my own personal tokens — a ceramic skull from my trip to Mexico, a wooden apple that belonged to my grandmother, an old tin to keep them in. I planned that I would model the idea of an “Identity Text” by sharing my personal items and stories, and then give my students time to explore with their writing every day. I created spaces for them to store their writing journals, hung up a calendar that we could use to track when each person would bring in a new artifact, and written explanations about why we were spending time doing personal writing.
The projected plan: 5 minutes of talking,10 minutes of writing, and time for me to help students with their content writing afterward. We would give each other feedback and choose drafts to revise each quarter.
The reality: Many of my students, especially the ones who need the most practice writing, are still reluctant to write. They worry about or avoid other school work they have, and since my class is considered a “Study Hall” they often fight me on spending time on writing. We have gotten away from my plans for draft revision, usually because revising an essay for History class seems more important. I struggle because my teaching space has to support my students holistically, including support for their core content classes.
I’m still wondering: What happens when multilingual students are empowered to create multimodal identity texts? I’m not done with this work yet, and I think I have to return to my original research questions and ideas as a grounding principal. And I have to remember what it felt like to be lost in language. This type of writing is important, even if students don’t always want to do it, because they may not be given a space to write and talk about themselves in their school day. And I have to remember that my students’ idea of personal writing but not look anything like mine.
