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Abstract
We examine how culturally sustaining pedagogy that fosters linguistic and cultural pluralism might be taken up in writing instruction. Using data collected through semistructured interviews with nine urban elementary and middle school writing teachers, we document teachers’ conceptualizations and enactments of culturally sustaining writing pedagogy. Findings indicate that these teachers tended to make space for explicit discussions of language, culture, and power in the writing curriculum and to problematize expressions of dominant culture, such as an emphasis on official languages. We also explore the tensions that these teachers experienced in their pedagogy while engaging in culturally sustaining methods; for example, we documented teachers’ sense that writing needed to be more formal than speech and instances where their critical practices put them at odds with stakeholders in their schools. This work represents an emerging understanding of how culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy might be implemented in practice.
Thanks in part to an “asset pedagogies movement” beginning in the 1990s (e.g., Garcia, 1993; Lee, 1995; Moll & González, 1994), the notion that teaching and learning must acknowledge students’ social, linguistic, and cultural assets is becoming more widely accepted today, particularly in urban education. Numerous such pedagogies, including Ladson-Billings’ (1995, 2014) theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and Paris’ (2012) updated iteration of culturally sustaining pedagogy attempt to value and extend the cultural resources of students who are traditionally marginalized in schools.
In an attempt to better understand how writing educators “make teaching and learning relevant and responsive to the languages, literacies, and cultural practices of students across categories of difference and (in)equality” (Paris, 2012, p. 93), our research team spent a year interviewing and observing nine Chicago elementary and middle school teachers who had been identified as enacting culturally relevant pedagogies. We draw from their stories about how they implement principles of culturally relevant pedagogy in their literacy classrooms to identify and name ways that their practices might be considered culturally sustaining, elaborating on two such practices in this article. These writing teachers (1) made space for explicit discussions of language, culture, and power in the writing curriculum and (2) problematized dominant culture (both “official” curricula and languages). While engaging in these methods, the teachers we spoke with also experienced tensions in their pedagogy and practice, some of which we explore here.
Culturally Sustaining Writing Pedagogy
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Culturally relevant pedagogy, as Ladson-Billings (1995) conceived it, aimed to empower students in academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness (p. 474), but the misappropriation and widespread uncritical uptake of this work led Paris (2012) to suggest that the field of education may be ready for a newer version of culturally relevant pedagogy—one that addresses its ubiquity and foregrounds its critical ideology.
Thus, culturally sustaining pedagogy aims to “perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling” (Paris, 2012, p. 93). From a culturally sustaining perspective, all students engage with multiple and shifting cultural groups rooted in shared histories, interests, or perspectives, and cultural dexterity is encouraged and celebrated as a valuable skill. Rather than encouraging children and youth to master dominant discourses while maintaining “cultural integrity” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 476), this approach encourages shifting between ways of making meaning to communicate with multiple communities.
Culturally Sustaining Literacy Pedagogy
A growing community of scholars has begun to theorize and examine how culturally sustaining pedagogy might be enacted in school settings (e.g., McCarty & Lee, 2014). However, prior to very recent work—including volume 24 of the journal Voices from the Middle and Paris and Alim’s (2017) forthcoming edited collection, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World—only a small body of empirical research has documented culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy. Zoch (2015) examined culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy in elementary school classrooms, documenting how teachers used, among other things, text selection and critical conversations to support students’ cultural competence in an era of high-stakes testing. In his contribution to Voices from the Middle, Bomer (2017) attempted to articulate his own instantiations of culturally sustaining English Language Arts (ELA) curricula, such as an appreciative stance toward students, deliberate inquiry into everyday literacies, mining students’ personal lives to better understand culture, centering students’ home communities as audiences for writing, understanding and critiquing culture and power, and decentering White English (pp. 13–14). In similar explorations of culturally sustaining literacy pedagogies, Behizedah (2017) describes her curricular design of a summer writing class to support African-American middle school students to “employ their primary languages and dialects as resources in writing and to understand the value of code-meshing” (p. 56), and we document the pedagogical moves of one teacher attempting to encourage cultural and linguistic plurality and hybridity in student speech and writing (Machado, Vaughan, Coppola, & Woodard, 2017). Such research is beginning to delve into explicit aspects of the writing curriculum (e.g., topic choice, audience, genre, grammar, text selection, assessment) that must be transformed to move from culturally tolerant to culturally sustaining pedagogy (see Bomer, 2017, p. 13).
Other research highlights tensions and challenges of implementing culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy. For example, we use McBee Orzulak’s (2015) construct of linguistic ideological dilemmas, or the idea that “teachers who take up linguistically responsive positions that value student language variation still struggle in the moments of enactment due to expectations that they serve as gatekeepers for ‘standard’ English (es)” (p. 176), to describe how the ELA teachers featured in this analysis sought to teach grammar in ways that value linguistic and cultural diversity (Machado, Woodard, Vaughan, & Coppola, in press). Puzio et al. (2017) use narrative analysis to similarly explore the “creative failures” of ELA teachers who tried to enact culturally sustaining lessons that failed in some way, claiming that “because of the cultural disconnect between some teachers and their students, culturally sustaining pedagogy is likely to involve many mistakes” (p. 231). We contribute to these initial forays into culturally sustaining writing pedagogy, attempting to heed Zoch’s (2015) call to give more attention to “how a CSP framework translates from theory to practice” (p. 3).
Method
Data Collection
This investigation is part of a broader, multiple-case study examining how urban elementary and middle school literacy teachers conceptualize and enact culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies. In this article, we primarily examine one data source from that study: semistructured interviews about writing pedagogy. We recognize that relying on interviews alone is a limitation. However, since completing these interviews, we have conducted case studies in the classrooms of three of the teachers (Andrew, Greg, and Jamie), and we currently work closely with four of them (Aaron, Andrew, Greg, and Jamie) in an inquiry group where we regularly discuss these topics. We believe that this work from our larger study, although not included in the findings due to space limitations, has helped to substantiate this analysis.
Interview participants were initially identified based on the recommendations of faculty members in a university-based urban teacher education program and later identified through snowball sampling (see Table 1). The nine teachers represent eight schools in and around Chicago. As they were recruited through connections to the same university-based teacher education program, many of the teachers share ideological commitments to equitable and critical ELA education. However, they expressed that doing this kind of work is isolating, as many of them do not have the official support of their administrators or a school-based network of colleagues.
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Table 1. List of Interview Participants.
We are three phenotypically White females who represent diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds; each has either a parent or spouse who is an immigrant and, in addition to English, languages such as Spanish and Hebrew circulate in our lives and homes. We share background experiences with the teacher participants as urban educators with interests in equity pedagogies and writing, formerly teaching elementary, middle school ELA, and/or out-of-school education in New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles.
We conducted nine interviews with the teachers over 5 months. Interviews were scheduled at times and locations that were convenient for the teachers (e.g., in their classroom after school, on the university campus). Interview questions addressed seven categories: (1) experiences with culturally relevant pedagogy (e.g., What are some important events that brought you to culturally relevant pedagogy?); (2) classroom implementation of culturally relevant pedagogies (e.g., Can you give an example at the unit- or lesson-level of how you enact culturally relevant pedagogy?); (3) writing instruction (e.g., How do you teach grammar?); (4) assessment and evaluation (e.g., What student goals are most important to you in your writing instruction?); (5) student identity as writers (e.g., How do you encourage students to see themselves as writers?); (6) engagement with families and communities (e.g., How are family members involved in writing development?); and (7) conception of self as a writing teacher (e.g., What would you say are your main jobs as a writing teacher?). The interviews, which ranged in duration from 27 to 78 min, were recorded and transcribed for analysis.
Data Analysis
Data analysis first included descriptive coding of interview transcripts for various aspects of the writing curriculum (e.g., grammar, feedback, topic choice). Next, we began a process of open coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), identifying descriptions of teaching strategies that we believed approached cultural sustenance (e.g., encouraged cultural and linguistic plurality; see Bomer, 2017). We spent a lot of time trying to unpack what makes a practice “sustaining.” Although most teachers we interviewed did not have an articulated culturally sustaining pedagogy, to some extent we think they all reported engaging in practices that “value and maintain” a “multiethnic and multilingual society” (Paris, 2012, p. 93). For some time, we considered presenting the practices the teachers reported as a continuum moving from foundational (e.g., recognizing/acknowledging, drawing/capitalizing on) to increasingly radical practices (e.g., critiquing power, sustaining nondominant forms). We were dissatisfied with this approach, however, for a number of reasons. First, even “foundational” pedagogical moves might be considered radical in certain school contexts (e.g., numerous teachers reported “getting in trouble” for supporting students to draw from their own languages in instruction). Second, most of the practices identified could be implemented in sustaining or nonsustaining ways (e.g., topic choice can be relatively restrictive [choose a country to write about] or open [choose a topic and performance style for a spoken word poem]). Finally, individual teachers simultaneously described both radical and traditional moves; many experienced tensions in their writing instruction. In other words, no teacher or practice could always be described as “sustaining” or “not sustaining.”
Each member of the research team independently coded three of the interviews. We then grouped codes based on similarity and named each group. We found that they largely fell under two umbrellas: (1) centering language in the writing curriculum and (2) problematizing dominant culture and official curriculum (see Table 2). We use these codes to structure the findings, elaborating on them with illustrative descriptions of practice. Although we interviewed the teachers specifically about teaching writing, many of the illustrations they used in interviews pertained to oral discussion and reading (e.g., text selection). We take the stance that reading, writing, and talk are intimately connected in the writing curriculum, while acknowledging that even more explicit probing about composing processes and products would be useful.
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Table 2. Culturally Sustaining Practices and Strategies Described by Writing Teachers.
Findings
Teachers enacted sustaining practices in their writing pedagogy through numerous strategies, ranging from acknowledgement of culture to critique. They centered language in the writing curriculum by fostering metalinguistic awareness, encouraging linguistic plurality, acknowledging that language is not neutral, and valuing communication over performance of Dominant American English (DAE). They problematized dominant culture and the curriculum by using texts by authors of their students’ backgrounds and by recognizing nondominant forms of cultural capital. Their pedagogical strategies also raised numerous tensions that—although not the primary focus of this analysis—we attempt to highlight.
Centering Language in the Writing Curriculum
In their writing instruction, especially in teaching grammar, these teachers paid explicit attention to the intersections between language, culture, and power. They recognized their students’ multiple languages and dialects, encouraged linguistic plurality through attention to “appropriate” language choices and acknowledged that language is not neutral. A few teachers also attempted to sustain students’ heritage and popular languages by valuing communication as much as or more than the performance of DAE.
Fostering metalinguistic awareness
Teachers provided students with the opportunity to compare and critique languages and dialects during writing instruction. For example, Jeremy, a seventh-grade ELA teacher, described how, while teaching students about pronouns in his grammar instruction, he engaged his students in a discussion about the word “y’all.” Although this word is prominent in southern dialects, it is often framed as “incorrect” usage in writing instruction:
…We have a…pronoun unit…[and we talk about how] we don’t in the North have a plural for “you.” It’s just “you [individual] go to the store” and “you [all] go to the store.” But if we look at it culturally, the South is actually up on us…for me, I think it’s intelligent and smart to have a “you” and a “y’all.”…And then I’m like, “y’all” is…just as acceptable as “you”
Jeremy’s strategy of opening up his writing classroom as a place to discuss nondominant words and their usage attended to place, culture, and history. He also positioned the usage of such nondominant words as “acceptable” and sometimes even preferable to DAE. This approach might be considered a descriptive grammar pedagogy that attempts to systematically analyze and describe language, rather than a prescriptive grammar pedagogy that endorses a set of rules—typically those associated with the language of power used by middle class White speakers—for how one should speak and write (Gartland & Smolkin, 2016; Machado et al., in press).
Megan, a second-grade English/Spanish dual language teacher, described similar attention to metalinguistic awareness:
You have to teach kids where they’re transferring over that like the question marks in Spanish look different than the question marks in English. We talk about the dialogue, how it looks different in English and in Spanish. So we talk about comparing languages, so that they recognize it in both.
In this example, Megan encourages descriptive attention to languages. Supporting students to examine, compare, and discuss languages was an important way that the teachers in this study fostered metalinguistic awareness in their writing pedagogy.
Encouraging linguistic plurality
Many teachers went beyond awareness of language difference in an attempt to legitimize students’ use of multiple languages and dialects across various contexts. One way that they encouraged linguistic plurality is through acknowledgment that “appropriate” language varies across contexts (see also CCSS ELA Language Standard 3). In many examples, the teachers suggested to students that their registers could be more relaxed in speech than writing, which had to be more “proper” and follow conventions of DAE. For example, Jeremy—the seventh-grade teacher who framed “y’all” as “smart” and “acceptable”—suggested to his students that the word “finna,” which is used in African-American English (AAE) to mean you are “fixing to” or “about to” do something, was more appropriate for speech than writing. Elizabeth, a first-grade teacher, similarly described how she intentionally used “slang” in her speech but encouraged “correct” and “proper” usage in writing. Although these teachers acknowledged that language use differs across contexts, they seemed to still uphold DAE as more “proper,” “serious,” and/or “correct” (see Woodard & Kline, 2016).
Jamie, an eighth-grade ELA teacher who is still involved in this project through an inquiry group, talked about more explicitly critiquing DAE—recognizing it as a privileged form, but not better than her students’ everyday language:
A lot of [my students] speak African American English when they enter my classroom…And we talk about the conventions of that…and what they mean by what they’re saying, too. So I mean we speak African-American English in my classroom, they speak it…though we do have conversations about what’s privileged and where it’s privileged, especially when it comes to standardized tests. So when we speak in here, we have an understanding of the conventions of this language, both you and I, cause you’re teaching me.
Jamie’s approach goes beyond discussions of “formal” versus “informal” or “casual” versus “proper” to situate language use in culture, race, and power dynamics. She also strives toward a more descriptive pedagogy to help students understand conventions of multiple grammars, not exclusively DAE. However, like the other teachers, she also described a form of code-switching between oral and written language. We think translanguaging approaches that encourage students to draw from their “full linguistic toolkits” to make and convey meaning in writing, not primarily or exclusively in speech, offer significant potential for further consideration in culturally sustaining writing pedagogy (Orellana & Garcia, 2014, p. 386; see also Zapata & Laman, 2016).
Acknowledging that language is not neutral
Like Jamie, sometimes teachers did attempt to explicitly critique the power dynamics embedded in our ideas about “correct” or “standard” English. For example, Andrew, a seventh-grade ELA teacher who has also been extensively involved in this inquiry over multiple years, discussed the multiple forms of communication he encourages with his students:
[There’s] the idea that there is a discourse of power and privilege in society. So there’s a tension that we have to appropriate this language to the best of our ability in the classroom because that’s what we’re charged to do, right?…But, there’s a lot of opportunities for oral discussion in the class, because I think a lot of cultures celebrate the oral tradition. Many times, the writing for the day is actually talk. It’s not a written product, it’s something that’s spoken. And we have a unit that we do on spoken word poetry…. They write spoken word poetry and they’re allowed to use whatever conventions for grammar that they feel are appropriate. They’re more judged on the style of the language as it assists the audience members to construct meaning.
Andrew’s words and pedagogy reflect an explicit critique of the power embedded in DAE and Delpit’s (1988) notion that we have a responsibility to teach into codes in the “culture of power”—a sentiment that was shared by many teachers. Andrew also described multiple unit- and lesson-level instantiations of how he taught students about language, culture, and power. For example:
In The People Could Fly [a collection of American Black folktales by Virginia Hamilton], I remember this came up: a couple White students were like “Why do they talk like that? That’s weird.” And I’m like “Let’s explore that idea. What makes that weird?” Sort of like, having students come to the realization—not me telling them—that it’s weird because it’s different and unfamiliar. Is it wrong? No, it’s just different and unfamiliar. And how would you feel if somebody looked at the way you spoke and said, “That doesn’t sound right.” Well, that would probably make me feel really bad about myself. So then, I bring in different texts that explain the whole idea…How African-Americans were forcibly brought over from different countries in Africa. They didn’t have a common language, and so looking at—to some degree—the language they were able to create without education…is actually a pretty powerful document of like, a superior intellect, right? And sort of really making them grapple with these ideas that are part of the folk knowledge…that idea that standard English is superior.
This story—like Jeremy’s description of how he talked to his students about the word “y’all”—inverts prejudices that students may have about language. Just as Jeremy positioned “y’all” as an “intelligent and smart” word to have in one’s arsenal, Andrew planted the seed to his students that the evolution of AAE demonstrates a “superior intellect” and challenged them to reconsider the colonizing history of DAE. But this potentially critical approach to grammar and language instruction was not without elements of resistance. Andrew recounted:
It’s funny, because I had this debate with a parent all last year. She sent me emails and spoke to me about my register—that I shouldn’t be teaching the students because I moved in and out of informal and formal language. And her daughter didn’t feel like I was a competent English teacher. And then, I explained to her that culture is fluid—the way that I speak is a part of the relationships and affiliations that I have cultivated over like, my entire life. Trust that I have a strong command of English—I’m an English major. However, I appreciate and value language…. And she brought it up to the principal and tried to sort of get me sanctioned for my language [use]…
This story encourages us to consider the potential backlash and repercussions teachers may face when using a critical pedagogy in writing instruction and language usage—from students, parents, colleagues, and administrators.
Valuing communication over performance in DAE
In a similar critical pedagogy vein, some teachers explicitly stated that performance/facility with DAE and grammatical “correctness” was less important to them than communication—their ultimate goal in teaching writing. For example, Jamie, the eighth-grade teacher who talked about her students’ use of AAE and which languages are privileged on standardized tests, said, “In my classroom, I look for ways to make things clear, but I don’t correct grammar…I’m not in the article saying, ‘Well you didn’t capitalize this letter, or you didn’t put a comma there.’”
Jeremy similarly described attempting to place less emphasis on evaluating DAE grammar in writing in favor of communication, something he struggled more with:
That’s the hardest part for me in an essay. I’m not the kind that would ever take off points for each error…I generally judge grammar, and I tell them that based on clarity and flow. In the sense of, ‘Do I know what you’re saying? And do your mistakes impede my understanding?’ But if your grammar mistakes impede my understanding, then that’s a necessary thing that you need to fix.
We see Jamie’s description of AAE as the norm in her classroom, and her resistance to evaluating students’ writing primarily on their mastery of the conventions of DAE, as a potential way to sustain students’ heritage and popular languages. To a different extent, the emphasis on communication and understanding over DAE grammar rules and conventions expressed by Jeremy and multiple other teachers in the study seems like a potentially sustaining pedagogical practice as well.
Problematizing Dominant Culture and Curriculum
The teachers also problematized dominant culture in various ways—most frequently by recognizing, appreciating, and centering elements of their students’ heritages, languages, or interests, and sometimes by pushing back on or subverting official curricula. They emphasized the use and appreciation of texts that are not typically welcomed or honored in traditional classrooms; for example, noncanonical books and poems, websites and TV shows about which their students were experts, and current events that touched their students’ lives. Teachers were aware of the tensions (and potential costs) present in the incorporation of these texts at the expense of prescribed curricula.
Use of texts by authors representing students’ ethnic backgrounds
There has long existed a canon of literature deemed appropriate and important for K–12 students, and it notoriously lacks the work of women, writers of color, and other underrepresented groups (Wortham, 2006). However, the teachers in our study recounted moments where they intentionally looked to the work of these underrepresented writers for inclusion in their classrooms. For instance, Efrain, a third-grade teacher in a bilingual school, said:
There should be Latino writers being published for Latino readers. You don’t know how many times I’ve picked up a book in there to read to the kids, and it’s a White person…. And sometimes, I will even just purposely take out a book just because the writer is Hispanic.
Elizabeth, a first-grade teacher of African American students, describes the way she talks about authors’ use of nondominant forms of English. She says:
Let’s say I’m using a poem from an African American author who uses strong Southern dialect, or Southern tones in writing and spelling. I’ll show them that and then I’ll show them—you know, where that came from. Why they use “y’all.” Or you know, things like that…. And then I’ll show them the correct form. But let them know that when you’re writing and using poetry, that specific genre allows you more freedom.
Similar to Jeremy’s teaching around the word “y’all,” Elizabeth explores the historical and geographical context, as well as racialized associations, of the term with her students. Such work seems to suggest that these teachers value a descriptive grammar education.
However, there is a tension reflected here in Elizabeth’s practice when she says, “And then I’ll show them the correct form.” Perhaps when Elizabeth does this, it works to promote metalinguistic awareness, or perhaps it reifies existing thinking about what language is and is not acceptable in school. As we only conducted an interview with her, it is difficult to know what exactly her practice looks like. However, these examples (along with the examples from the previous section, which demonstrate a maintained focus on “correct” or “proper” English and emphasis on code-switching between “formal” and “informal” registers) reflect the reality that these teaching choices come with tensions.
Recognizing nondominant forms of cultural capital
At other times, the teachers we interviewed talked about their recognition of their students’ knowledge and interests. For example, Aaron, a third-grade teacher, also talked about his use of students’ knowledge to engage with those who may otherwise be categorized as “struggling”:
You couldn’t tell who’s who when the conversation is culturally relevant. Because if I have [student name] and his reading level is below grade level, but if I mentioned anything about wrestling or Star Wars, you would think he had his Ph.D. in it. Because he can explain, he’ll argue back and forth. So it’s like being culturally relevant allows me to level the playing field…It complicates the notion of what reading is. You can read words, you can read what’s on the TV, you can read situations. So being culturally relevant allows you to complicate what reading is, and by complicating it you can make the students’ knowledge valuable. Anything they bring in is valuable.
Aaron recognizes the value of his student’s knowledge about wrestling and Star Wars and its potential for “leveling the playing field.” In a writing context, this may pertain most directly to topic choice. If topics and themes are inscrutable or irrelevant to students, it is unrealistic to expect that they will be able to engage in writing about their topics as experts in the way this student did when discussing his interests.
Other teachers recalled the difficulties associated with discussing contentious moments in current events or with dropping an assigned class period to discuss something that may be personally traumatizing or upsetting for students. Jeremy described this event in his seventh-grade classroom after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri:
So for instance, when Ferguson was going on last year, my kids wanted to talk about it. And I dedicated a class period to it…. And for me, I thought it would be fine for a class, a week, a day—dropping the curriculum and going with it. But my colleagues—nothing against them—they’re just not comfortable with that.
In this case, Jeremy did not have to deal with official repercussions for his decision to temporarily abandon his literacy curriculum. He did, however, have to go against his school’s norms, which could be socially problematic for him among his colleagues. However, sometimes resistance to official curricula did come with official sanctions. This was the case when Andrew told us about one of his students’ parents reporting him to the principal for his nondominant language use. As teachers problematize and critique dominant culture and language, they may run into push back and official consequences from parents, administrators, and community members.
Discussion
The major aim of this article was to articulate how nine teachers reported their enactments of culturally sustaining theory in the context of teaching writing. We asked ourselves: What themes and practices could we identify across teachers’ similar but unique pedagogies? What tensions do teachers express, both in their practices and in their ideologies? What aspects of writing theory, pedagogy, and research, specifically, require particular attention when engaged in culturally sustaining work?
To that end, we named some common pedagogical moves in the writing instruction of these teachers that seemed sustaining. Similar to Bomer’s (2017) description of his own culturally sustaining literacy instruction that focused on understanding and critiquing culture and power as well as decentering White English (pp. 13–14), many of the teachers in this study engaged in writing pedagogy that centered language in the curriculum and problematized dominant culture. They did this in a variety of ways including but certainly not limited to the ones we have specified here. Many of their examples highlighted the complex and dynamic interplay of talk and reading in the writing curriculum, as exemplified in Andrew’s contention that “many times, the writing for the day is actually talk.” For writing theory, research, and pedagogy, this suggests continuing to explore and describe writing—or composing—in broad, generous ways that highlight its multimodal and social nature. It also suggests the utility in explicitly bridging languaging, literacy, and culturally sustaining theories (e.g., bringing together translanguaging, biliteracy, and culturally sustaining pedagogy; see Machado, 2017). Finally, it suggests the need to center the critical analysis of power, race, and culture in our studies of writing, teaching, and learning.
However, we also documented a number of tensions for teachers, too, including a common notion that informal language is okay in speech but not writing, which had to be more “proper” and follow conventions of DAE; an acknowledgement in grammar instruction that language use differs across contexts while also upholding DAE as more “proper,” “serious,” and/or “correct”; a desire to critique the power embedded in DAE, while also teaching into its “codes of power”; a primary focus on code-switching rather than broader translanguaging practices; resistance and repercussions from students, parents, colleagues, and/or administrators when using a critical pedagogy; the ability to move beyond the curriculum assigned by their school only once they have gained the freedom to do so through their students’ high standardized test scores; and difficulties dropping content in a planned class period to discuss something that may be concerning the students. While we did not document struggles or “mistakes” due to cultural disconnects between teachers and students (Puzio et al., 2017), we did document some disconnects in the linguistic ideologies of teachers, parents, and administrators. Some of the tensions also highlight the linguistic ideological dilemmas (McBee Orzulak, 2015) that equity-oriented teachers may struggle with “due to expectations that they serve as gatekeepers for ‘standard’ English(es)” (p. 176). These tensions showcase the significant challenges—and potential danger—teachers face when they attempt to “fracture the cultural monolith that schooling usually becomes…” (Bomer, 2017, p. 15), especially without significant structural and administrative support.
Implications for literacy researchers include continuing to document and theorize what culturally sustaining practices might look like in relation to the content, processes, and products of the writing curriculum (e.g., broadening notions of composing, attending to audience, resisting prescriptive grammar instruction) as well as addressing the tensions in such work. Our ongoing work on this research project has suggested that there is potential to counter the tensions and isolation experienced by the teachers in this study through the development of partnerships between researchers, administrators, teachers, and families that support the systemic implementation of culturally sustaining pedagogy, perhaps through action research or design-based research. We see the creation of such spaces and cultivation of such partnerships as a critical work for engaged scholars interested in culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy.
Conclusion
Joining a recent chorus of voices heeding Zoch’s (2015) call for greater understanding about how culturally sustaining pedagogy is implemented in practice, we present the strategies articulated by these teachers as an early exploration into how writing instruction can be culturally sustaining. Though these teachers also experienced tensions and contradictions, these interviews provide one entry point for thinking about culturally sustaining writing pedagogy in concrete terms. The work that these teachers are doing to center language and problematize dominant culture in their writing curricula is as needed as ever in an era where the insidious effects of systemically endorsed nationalism in our political and educational spheres threaten “linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling” (Paris, 2012, p. 95).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biographies
Rebecca Woodard is an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She researches equity writing pedagogy, with attention to both students’ and teachers’ linguistic, literature, and cultural resources and communicative repertoires.
Andrea Vaughan is a doctoral student studying literacy, language, and culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is interested in equity writing pedagogies among elementary aged students.
Emily Machado is a doctoral candidate studying literacy, language, and culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She researches equity-oriented writing pedagogies in linguistically and culturally diverse elementary school classrooms.
