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The Multilingual Writing Classroom: A Contact Zone
Negotiating Literate Identities in the Contact Zone
Contact Zone-Based Composition Pedagogy
The Multilingual Writing Classroom: A Contact Zone
As more multilingual speakers enter writing classrooms, linguistic homogeneity becomes even more mythologized (Matsuda 638). Even though various iterations of writing classrooms like “mainstream,” “ESL,” or “cross-cultural” exist, a reality of increased globalization is that students of all kinds of cultural and linguistic backgrounds enter all types of writing classrooms (Matsuda and Silva 253). It is critical, then, that writing teachers, regardless of the type of section they teach, integrate pedagogical strategies that support students and meet them where they are, whether they are in an earlier stage of development with English, learning a new dialect of English, discovering academic English, or all of the above. The US writing classroom is known for its tendency to prioritize US paradigms (Donahue 213) and trying to inculcate white writing practices (Young 68). Despite repeated calls to uphold Students’ Right to Their Own Language, we recognize that, nearly 50 years later, we are still struggling to grant students this Right, both within writing classrooms as well as across the curriculum (Ball and Lardner 473). Contact zone concepts (Pratt 34) are well-suited for responding to this need, helping to enact teaching philosophies that centralize affirming multilingual students’ capabilities and transnational identities.
Contact zone concepts are largely attributed to Mary Louise Pratt’s foundational article “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Here, she defines contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (34). A contact zone framework allows those involved in textual creation and analysis to see linguistically- and culturally-bound struggles that may otherwise be suppressed by more dominant narratives (Pratt 37; McCook). Contact zones give participants the opportunity to redistribute power, enabling broader understandings of sensitive topics and greater respect for their own cultures and those of others. The prospect for allowing students, particularly those who belong to traditionally marginalized groups, the space to express themselves and be respected and heard can be an attractive pedagogical technique to employ in writing classrooms (Key 102).
Because students generally take foundational composition courses in their first year of study, it can be one of the first places that they begin to interact with new ideas, as students intermingle with others from backgrounds different from their own and write about their opinions and experiences. This can be a sort of awakening for students and therein lies the composition classroom’s opportunity to become a contact zone for students to experience and negotiate their own power and responsibilities (Beauvais 35). Within the contact zone, student writers may investigate their lived experiences and learn from others’ stories, analyzing cultural conflicts and sociopolitical inequalities (Miller 145; Lu 482; Beauvais 22). Patricia Bizzell endorses contact zone-rooted pedagogy, explaining that “this new paradigm will stimulate scholarship and give vitally needed guidance to […] undergraduate curricula” (466).
The literature supports writing teachers taking a more proactive approach to incorporating contact zone-informed strategies in their pedagogy. Nora McCook, in her discussion of contact zones and literacy studies, explains that literacy scholarship can come to life through practical application in writing classrooms, making what some perceive to be an abstract concept much more concrete. Scholars agree that writing classrooms are in the unique position of helping students discover the significance of linguistic and rhetorical dynamics and allow them the opportunity to experiment (McCook; Bizzell 464). Katherine K. Gottschalk also encourages this kind of learning, and adds that when working with sensitive subjects of language and culture, “we instructors of writing are often extremely careful to provide our own students with contact zones in our classrooms that are enabling ones, in which all voices are heard” (61). This tenet of approaching with care the discussions within the contact zone becomes critical in its need to be constantly followed, a stricter protocol than Gottschalk’s recommendation of “often,” when working with multilingual writers. Furthermore, following Vershawn Ashanti Young’s discussion of white writing (68), teachers should work to facilitate a safe space where the voices heard are authentic–a concept that can be expanded to many aspects of diversity, such as including students who identify as, for example, disabled or queer, in addition to identifying as racially, culturally, and/or linguistically diverse. The contact zone should promote restorative, liberatory literacies (Pritchard 35; hooks 17) instead of reifying harmful ones.
Concentrating contact zone discussions in multilingual writing classrooms is a step forward in increasing linguistic and cultural diversity and acceptance. Many first-year writing programs utilize the same standards and practices designed for native speakers of English for their multilingual students (Canagarajah 291; Lu 473; Ferreira and Mendelowitz 55). The courses designed for native speakers are sometimes referred to as “mainstream” classes, which creates a dichotomy of those who are in the majority versus those who are marginalized. Although the “multilingual/ESL/international” sections are often praised for having more specialized teachers and smaller course caps, this separation can result in a sidelining of these students with unique needs and can foster a deficit model centered on what English forms multilingual students do not know or struggle with instead of celebrating the unique perspectives that they bring to class (Ferreira and Mendelowitz 70; Canagarajah 99). Pratt writes that “the prototypical manifestation of language is generally taken to be the speech of individual adult native speakers face-to-face […] in monolingual, even monodialetcal situations” (38). These practices deny multilingual writers their sense of agency and right to their own language–problems that underscore the exigency for examining multilingual writers’ experiences and creating a safe space for them.