The multilingual poetry task: Innovating L2 writing pedagogy in the secondary classroom

Abstract

This multiple case-study explores how a multilingual poetry task can be used to support multilingual writers in mainstream U.S. high school English language arts (ELA) classes. The purpose of the investigation is to closely examine the affordances of a multilingual poetry task and discuss its innovative pedagogical aspects in terms of the results that the task achieves—the learning it promotes—as well as highlight interdisciplinary collaboration between (English as a second language (ESL) and ELA teachers. I argue that the multilingual poetry task can innovate L2 writing pedagogy, address common problems that multilingual writers and their teachers face, and provide resident immigrant learners with affordances such as innovative developments in multilingual writing techniques, an understanding of compositional aspects of writing via open poetic forms, and an opportunity to explore humanistic aspects of language learning. A qualitative evidence-based approach is applied to analyze samples of multilingual poetry from two resident immigrant writers of diverse backgrounds (e.g., Belarus and Myanmar). This analysis is offset with learner immediate post-course and delayed interviews, learner reflective writing, and classroom observations and interactions. Finally, utilizing data from post-course ELA teacher interviews, the article discusses how interdisciplinary ELA-ESL teacher collaboration can better support emergent multilingual writers and move the field of second language writing forward.