In some of the First Year Writing (FYW) classes I teach, I invite students to translanguage, that is, to write in multiple languages. Early in the semester, we read Gloria Azaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and 1-2 articles by Geneva Smitherman. As the semester progresses, I introduce Hip-hop texts from diverse parts of the world. In our reading of all these texts, I ask students to identify strategies used by the writers to compose in multiple languages. One way of helping students identify the strategies is to ask them to think about parts of the writing/text that helps them understand what…
Author: Jennifer Eidum Zinchuk
Esther Milu
Jennifer is currently a composition instructor at the University of Washington. She will complete her doctoral work this spring, focusing on the role students’ metacognitive practices and confidence play in writing success in college--especially for multilingual and non-traditional students.