7 “Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing”
7 “Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing”
Sara P. Alvarez; Amy J. Wan; and Eunjeong Lee
Overview
The steady increase of movements of people around the world has trans- formed the face, potential, and expectations of the US writing classroom.* These intersecting shifts have also contributed to critical discussions about how writing educators should integrate students’ linguistic diversity and ways of knowing into literacy instruction. This chapter’s central premise is to share with students how the work that they already do with languages has great value. Specifically, the chapter introduces terms, concepts, and strategies to support students in identifying how their own multilingual workin’ of languages contribute to the making of academic writing. Our goal is to support students in recognizing the value of their own language practices and to provide strategies that students can use to rethink their own relationships with writing. Orienting practices around translingual- ism and envisioning students’ language work as that of “language architects” creates opportunities to uplift, value, and sustain students’ rich language practices, as well as ways to critically understand their academic writing experiences.
When you think about writing for school, you’re probably imagining composing “formal/academic writing” where you are trying to make yourself sound like an expert, putting on an objective “academic” tone that can often feel far removed from your own voice. You might have the experience of “cleaning up” your voice to make yourself sound “appropriate,” aware that people who read your writing might make assumptions about how much you know based on what words you use. Because you often move in and out of different languages (beyond English) or lingos—how you communicate with your best friend vs. how you communicate with your coworker at the local electronics store, for instance—you might be trying to filter out variations of your voice for those different ways of communicating. Doing this work, essentially trying to silence your voice, can be exhausting. And honestly, this reduction of your voice can make writing feel difficult, irrelevant, and monotone (aka boring).
The three of us, too, have wrestled with questions like, “How do I bring my own voice into academic writing,” and “How does who I am matter in my writing?” Over the years, we have developed a number of writing strategies and approaches that help us shift away from our own self-doubts and writing hurdles. What if you didn’t have to turn off who you are when you’re writing? What if we shared with you that the different ways you use languages in your everyday life can fortify your writing as you design your academic voice? As we show in this essay, we have gained critical practices to embrace all of our languages as part of who we are, shifting our writing from what’s “appropriate” or “standard” to thinking of our language vision, playfulness, and voice as part of what it m