Making multiple literacies visible in the writing classroom: from Cupareo, Guanajuato, to Cal State, Monterey Bay.

• Date: 22 December 2002
• Author: Garcia, Diana
• Published date: 22 December 2002
• Author: Garcia, Diana

DURING MY FIRST YEAR AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, MONTEREY BAY (CSUMB), a Spanish-speaking student told me that when she first came to the U.S., she was surrounded by bird sounds. Bird sounds drifted from teachers' lips and trilled from classmates' mouths. Bird sounds screamed from the radio, hissed from the television. Within those sounds, worlds collided. That first day in school, those first weeks in this new culture, isolated and frightened her. Her family came to this country for the same reason immigrants have made their way to America for centuries: oportunidad--opportunity. She, along with many students with similar histories, was the first-born child, family translator, and interpreter (not only of language, but of culture).

In the first paragraph of CSUMB's Vision Statement, we promise to serve "the diverse people of California, especially the working-class and historically undereducated and low-income populations." Furthermore, we pledge to create "a multilingual, multicultural intellectual community." An equally significant feature of our Vision Statement is its commitment to an assets and outcomes-based education. Developing an outcomes-based approach has entailed a seven-year interdisciplinary effort, aided by various learning communities. We have no comparable communities, however, for articulating our approach to an assets-based education. In response, I developed a pedagogy that uses poetry to access the diverse cultural and linguistic skills, experience, and knowledge our students bring to the freshman writing classroom. This approach enhances students' ability to employ storytelling and code switching, familiar literacy practices for many multilingual, multicultural students. When required to write poems rich in cultura lly specific imagery and details, students produce information that might otherwise elude them as they revise their essays.

I coordinate and teach in a freshman composition program entitled "Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking," the first of two courses that complete a lower division student's English communication requirements. For the course I teach, there are key outcomes. The first is "comprehension/interpretation," the ability to use empathic and critical reading, listening, viewing, and speaking skills to understand information and ideas, to distinguish among diverse genres of communication, to identify a point of view and its explicit support, and to locate significant points of agreement and disagreement among multiple perspectives. The second is "presentation," the ability to use oral and written communication ethically, effectively, and competently. Each outcome includes an identified set of criteria and standards. These outcomes, criteria, and standards are included in our course syllabi. When we develop an assignment for our classes, we analyze which outcomes and criteria a specific assignment addresses and include them in the assignment handout.

My early history as a Spanish-speaking student, followed by my history in the business world, law, and now as a poet, fiction writer, and professor of composition and creative writing, forms the bedrock for my work in teaching freshman composition. Based on my experience over the past 10 years in using creative writing to enhance second-language acquisition, I have developed assignments in which students develop a body of work that draws upon their various cultural and linguistic assets, along with a knowledge of their communities. Students learn to identify and value their respective literacies and learn how to integrate them, where appropriate, into their classroom work and into various research and writing projects.

In the process, I provide students from diverse cultures, especially those from non-English-speaking backgrounds, with a transparent learning environment that not only articulates outcomes, but also validates the assets they bring to the university. Their assets often include a strong interdependence among family members, a respect for culture and tradition, the ability to speak more than one language, a sensitivity to and understanding of more than one culture, a sensory awareness of their environment, and a desire to address the problems that confront their various communities. The impact of these students' multiple perspectives and experiences can be further heightened when collaborative learning is valued within the classroom.

Although a diverse student population offers exciting learning opportunities, the challenges encountered in the writing classroom present complex social and pedagogical issues for teachers and students alike. The primary challenge remains one of encouraging and supporting academically under-prepared students while at the same time enhancing and reinforcing the skills and abilities of better-prepared students.

According to a statistical analysis of undergraduates from 1995 to fall 2002--prepared by CSUMB research analyst, Abe Abrams--slightly over 20% of our incoming freshmen are Mexican, Mexican American, or Chicana-Chicano/LatinaLatino. Some have been in this country for less than five years. Many are from the Tri-County area that includes Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties. Of these, many are first-generation Spanish-speaking students whose parents are farm workers. To survive, these students rely on code switching--shuttling between English and Spanish, sometimes combining the two to negotiate cultural differences. According to what my non-native-speaking students tell me, in high school, few, if any of them were placed in college preparation courses, much less gifted or advanced classes. Many of them never read an entire novel in English; most never wrote a research paper.

At the same time, a few of my students report they attended private high schools that place a premium on college preparedness. For the most part, however, our students fall somewhere in the middle of being adequately prepared for college. According to Abrams' statistical analysis, close to 50% of our university's undergraduates identify as white. Of those, nine percent are from Southern California. In my classes, a growing number of students tell me they are from Southern California--predominantly white, better educated, and middle class. As a result, the students in our freshman composition courses reflect the gamut of lived experiences and skill levels.

As I reflected on my teaching effectiveness, I had to admit that in my early teaching years, I rarely addressed this classroom diversity. Worse, at times my efforts mirrored what Bonnie Lisle and Sandra Mano (1997:12) refer to as the gap between professional talk and professional practice. Unfortunately, although our students are not sure what to expect from a college education, they often anticipate that their histories, experiences, and cultures will be discounted. After all, what does it matter to a freshman composition professor that a student missed much of seventh grade because she or he was arranging child care, enrolling younger siblings in school, and translating medical documents for family members?

Despite subsequent efforts to create a zone of safety, mutual awareness, and respectin my classrooms, I remained painfully aware of how many of the Spanish-speaking students remained silent. I recognize this pattern because I have recreated it in my own life. Part of this is cultural: Latinas and Latinos, particularly those from farm-working and other working-class backgrounds, are taught to remain silent as a sign of respect toward those who are better educated and in positions of authority and/or privilege. Silence can also be a self-protective literacy practice and a form of protest.

Uncomfortable as silence might be in the writing classroom, along with listening, it can also serve as a powerful learning tool. For example, once I listened to and understood the issues and the language being used to discuss an...