The Future of L2 Writing

I thought that the discussion about ideology and critical thinking in Ch. 6 of Cassanave's book was interesting. I agree with the argument that all writing is social, political, and ideology. It seems patronizing and offensive to me to say that L2 students are "not ready" for critical thinking and that women are uncomfortable with it. That argument just serves to maintain a status quo which marginalizes minorities and women. Moreover, I don't think that EAP can be excused from social, political, and ideology issues. Critical thinking  is an expectation in many academic disciplines, so it is required for successful writing in that community. Critical thinking may be more of a Western concept (I'm not entirely convinced of this) but without it international students would have to accept all of the other Western ideas learned in a U.S. education without questioning them. I believe that we should lay out the opportunities of critical thinking to our students but let them decide what their specific learning goals are. Instruction needs to be more of a negotiation.

As for the future of L2 writing scholarship, I think that there is more than one pathway to becoming an L2 writing specialist. Studying in a PhD program under any of the scholars mentioned would be a great learning opportunity, but I don't think that it is necessary. There are many excellent practioners in all levels of education preparing themselves by searching out the research and strategies that will best meet the needs of the students before them. I believe that L1 and L2 scholars need to work more closely together to meet those student needs and to offer more heterogenous learning experiences. I don't think that the categorizations of students into language categories is particularly helpful. Rather, teachers should work together to change instruction so that it can meet the needs of diverse students in the same classroom in ways that students can learn from one another and develop the communication skills necessary for living in a global society.

Writing Centers

I thought Thonus' article was very interesting. I appreciated the transcripts of actual tutor/student conversations. Although I have never worked in a writing center, I thought that her suggestions would be very helpful for writing center tutors working with diverse groups of students. I also think that her suggestions would transfer well to other situations such as for general education teachers in K-12 classrooms who conduct writing conferences with their students. I agree that it is important to consider the specific needs of L2 writers in writing conference situations, but I question her grouping of all 1.5 generation students into one general category. I am always uncomfortable with monolithic categorizations of students, but I realize that there is a need to consider the needs of particular groups of students and to have some guidelines for appropriate instruction. Perhaps more careful language such as "many 1.5 generation students" would help teachers to remember that there is great variation in any given group of students. Matsuda & Cox alluded to this in their article when they warned that overgeneralization should be avoided. I think that their approach of balancing accommodationist and separatist stances allows for more flexibility in working with individual students rather than applying the same techniques to all L2 writers.

World Englishes and Code Meshing

I am absolutely fascinated by Canagrajah's article. He makes so many convincing arguments about the value of language diversity. It is also inspiring to think of the possibilities code meshing can open up for students so that they can resist and change dominant structures that might be holding them back or blocking their voice. However, I think that asking students to be subversive in their writing can also be risky. I think that it is great for teachers to offer a space in which students can code mesh and to hold up examples of successful instances of codemeshing. But this should be an invitation rather than a requirement because this sort of writing requires a lot of bravery. I think teachers have to acknowledge that within the best intentions of "giving" students a voice, there is the risk of rejection within the academic community.

I was also excited to see code meshing discussed in the context of an early childhood classroom because much of the research that I have read focuses on  code switching in a way that often deems children's home languages as inappropriate for school. The Michael-Luna article sent me searching for other work on codemeshing at the primary level, but I didn't find much else. According to Google Scholar, the article has only been cited once. I'm a little confused about why this issue isn't being picked up by literacy scholars to a greater extent. If anyone knows of any other work on code meshing, I'd be interested in hearing about it.