English 391: Multilingualism and Literacy in Western Massachusetts (spring 2022)
Course Description
This course explores literacy in the lives of adult language and literacy learners in the communities surrounding UMass. Grounded in the field of Literacy Studies, an area of English Studies that examines the practice of community-based, non-academic writing, the course connects “school” literacies to the “everyday” literacies that impact all of our lives. Beyond exploring what “literacy” and “multilingualism” mean in our current moment, we will examine the following questions:
- Why is literacy understood to be important and why does that understanding persist?
- How is literacy in English the same or different as literacy in multiple languages?
- How do people come to be praised or condemned for their literacy practices?
- How does a diversifying society define literacy as effective, creative, or failing?
Community Engagement
This class is an opportunity to participate in a community-university collaboration on literacy and language learning. In the second half of the semester, our class will partner with several community organizations and engage in several possible projects: 1) supporting community students through tutoring writing 2) writing curricular, logistical, or creative materials for the International Language Institute of Massachusetts; 3) joining a writing workshop with UMass’ Partnership for Worker Education. The course is a designated “Service-Learning” course, is endorsed by the office of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning at UMass, and fulfills a service-learning requirement for the UMass Certificate in Civic Engagement & Public Service (CEPS).
Learning Goals
English 391ml aims to be useful, providing writing support for community partners and community engagement experience for UMass students. But it also aims to be important, complicating commonplace assumptions about literacy, applying such complications locally, and helping all of those involved develop more nuanced understandings of literacy’s impact on local communities:
- Students understand how literacy impacts individuals and communities; students understand how community learning can shape that understanding.
- Students participate in the reality of literacy learning outside the classroom.
- Community members and students connect to each other’s life experiences through literacy.
- All participants connect literacy as skill with literacy as cultural, economic, and political force, demonstrating knowledge of the root causes of literacy’s problems and promises.
Required Texts
Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy: Latino Migrants Crossing the Linguistic Border by Tomás Mario Kalmar
Buying Into English: Language and Investment in the New Capitalist World by Catherine Prendergast
American by Paper: How Documents Matter in Immigrant Literacy by Kate Vieira
Scholarly articles on literacy, multilingual writing, service learning, and community engagement
Optional Texts
Writing and Community Action: A Service Learning Rhetoric by Tom Deans
Writing Communities: A Handbook with Readings by Steve Parks
From the Community, to the Community: A Guidebook for Participatory Literacy Training by Elsa Auerbach
Course Assignments
Literacy Analysis (1000 words)
An analysis of literacy beliefs. The goal of this paper is to critically examine how scholarly understandings of literacy are or aren’t compatible with everyday understandings of literacy. Choosing one of three analytic options—literacy beliefs in immigration news, in your family, or online—you will explain what you think the consequences are of how literacy is understood beyond our classroom.
Connection Paper (1250 words)
An analysis of literacy theory in practice. As we explore several theories of multilingual literacy—the standard language myth, language subordination, rhetorical attunement—this paper asks you to consider these concepts in light of your experiences working with or for multilingual writers. The goal of this paper is to “connect” theory to practice, critically examining how scholarly understandings of multilingual literacy play out in action.
Community Engagement and Materials (variable length)
Around mid-semester, you will begin dedicating two hours per week to a community project that we will organize together. Depending on the project you participate in, you will craft written materials for use by your community partner.
Critical Reflections (8 online entries)
About once per week, you will be writing ungraded reflective analyses of readings and responses to community experiences in a Moodle forum. Reflection entries should be 200-250 words (no more) and are due at midnight the night before they appear on the syllabus. These reflections are the generative writing for your papers as well as a log of your community experiences that will serve as data for your literacy philosophy.
Literacy Philosophy (1000 words)
Drawing from your reading, thinking, reflections, and papers from the entire semester, you’ll write a reflective literacy philosophy that illustrates where you now find yourself among the competing social and academic understandings of literacy explored in the course.
Participation and Writing Workshops
In order for a small course like this one to work, you need to come to each class meeting prepared and be an active participant when you’re here. Speaking up during class isn’t natural or easy for everyone, but in this class there will be a variety of opportunities to participate in different modes and in differently sized groups. Further, research suggests that the instructor is not always the best responder for student ideas and writing, so writing for a variety of readers that aren’t me helps your thinking and writing grow. That means you need to cultivate good intellectual relations—respectful and open, adhering to UMass’ Code of Conduct—with your classmates, and you need to be present to do so. Being “present” may also mean a variety of things as we continue to navigate tumultuous semesters, so know that I will always foreground all of our well-being with flexible/adaptable approaches to how we show up.
Commitment to Linguistic Inclusivity
The ability to communicate in multiple languages or varieties of English is a valuable asset. In this course, you are encouraged to draw on your varied linguistic and cultural resources to meet your own communication goals. Although we will generally employ English(es), including Standard Written English (SWE), in class discussion and writing, you may call on your other languages, dialects, and rhetorical practices at any point. Definitions of effective writing and communication differ depending on culture, experience, and background. Therefore, in this class, you’re invited to explore, reflect on, and use your full repertoire of personal, familial, professional, and academic language skills.
Resources
If you’re having difficulty meeting the demands of this course, come talk to me. Your success in this class is important to me. If you have a disability or particular circumstance that may have an impact on your work, please contact me early in the semester so that we can work together to adapt assignments to meet your needs and the requirements of the course. UMass Amherst maintains a helpful comprehensive list of resources here: http://www.umass.edu/disability/campus.html
Tentative Course Calendar
Please note that the calendar is “tentative,” which means it is subject to change. It’s difficult to predict how any class will go (pandemic understatement), so things may be altered if I think changes will better facilitate learning. All assignments listed on a given day should be completed for discussion on that day.
| Week 1 | T | 1/25 | Introduction to course and to one another | ||
| Th | 1/27 | Discuss Brandt | |||
| Week 2 | T | 2/1 | Discuss Deans (Freire, Gee, Scribner) “What is Literacy”
Due: Reflection 1 |
||
| Th | 2/1 | Discuss Kalmar chp. 1 or chp. 2 | |||
| Week 3 | T | 2/8 | Discuss Kalmar chp. 3 or chp. 4, epilogue
Due: Reflection 2 |
||
| Th | 2/10 | Visit from ILI Executive Director Caroline GearDiscuss Vieira chp. 1 | |||
| Week 4 | T | 2/15 | Discuss Vieira chps. 3, 4
Due: Reflection 3 |
||
| Th | 2/17 | Discuss Vieira chp. 5 | |||
| Week 5 | T | 2/22 | No class, Monday schedule | ||
| Th | 2/24 | Writing workshop
Due: Literacy Analysis Draft |
|||
| Week 6 | T | 3/1 |
Discuss Morton
Due: Final Literacy Analysis |
||
| Th | 3/3 | Discuss Carney, Rabin | |||
| Week 7 | T | 3/8 | Discuss Perry, Shah
Due: Reflection 4 |
||
| Th | 3/10 | Community Work | |||
| Week 8 | T | 3/22 | Discuss Lippi-Green, Watson
Due: Reflection 5 |
||
| Th | 3/24 | Community Work | |||
| Week 9 | T | 3/29 | Discuss Lorimer Leonard, Alvarez
Due: Reflection 6 |
||
| Th | 3/31 | Community work | |||
| Week 10 | T | 4/5 | Discuss Alvarez & Wan, Lam
Due: Reflection 7 |
||
| Th | 4/7 | Community work | |||
| Week 11 | T | 4/12 | Writing workshop
Due: Connection Paper Draft |
||
| Th | 4/14 | Community work
Due: Final Connection Paper |
|||
| Week 12 | T | 4/19 | Discuss Auerbach, Monberg
Due: Reflection 8 |
||
| Th | 4/21 | Community work | |||
| Week 13 | T | 4/26 | Discuss Marko et al.
Due: Literacy Philosophy Draft |
||
| Th | 4/28 | Community work | |||
| Week 14 | T | 5/3 | Course wrap-up
Due: Final Literacy Philosophy |
||
| T | 5/12 | Due: Community Project Materials | |||