Creating a Transnational Space in the First Year Writing Classroom

During the first twenty years of the new millennium, many scholars turned their attention to translingualism, an idea that focuses on the merging of language in distinct social and spatial contexts to serve unique, mutually constitutive, and temporal purposes. This volume joins the more recent shift in pedagogical studies towards an altogether distinct phenomenon: transnationalism. By developing a framework for transnational pedagogical practice, this volume demonstrates the exclusive opportunities afforded to freshmen writers who write in transnational spaces that act as points of fusion for several cultural, lingual, and national identities. With reference to recent works on translingualism and transnationalism, this volume is an attempt to conceptualize effective writing pedagogy in freshman writing courses, which are becoming more and more transnational. It also provides educators and first year writing administrators with practical pedagogical tools to help them use their transnational spaces as a means of achieving their desired learning outcomes as well as teaching students threshold concepts of composition studies. This volume will be particularly useful for first year writing faculty at colleges and universities as well as writing program administrators to create a more effective curriculum that addresses these needs in classroom settings. All scholars with a doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition, English as a Second Language, Translation Studies, to name a few, will also find this a valuable resource.

List of Figures and Tables
Abstract
Introduction

Part 1. Creating Transnational Spaces through Ethnographic Reflections

Chapter 1 Erasing the Idea of Monolingual Students in Translingual Spaces: A Study of Translingual Pedagogy in First-Year Writing
Norma Denae Dibrell
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Chapter 2 Translanguaging and Academic Writing: Possibilities and Challenges in English-Only Classrooms
Abu Saleh Mohammad Rafi and Professor Anne-Marie Morgan
Jame Cook University

Chapter 3 Language, Home, and Transnational Space
Naoko Akai-Dennis, PhD
Bunker Hill Community College

Part 2. Creating Transnational Space through Pedagogical Designs Focused on Genre

Chapter 4 A Confluence of Xings: A Nested Heuristic for Developing and Networking Individual, Programmatic, and Institutional Spaces of Transnational Work
Andrew Hollinger and Colin Charlton
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Chapter 5 All Writers Have More Englishes to Learn: Translingual First-Year Composition Classes’ Promotion of Composition’s Threshold Concepts
Asmita Ghimire and Elizabethada A. Wright
University of Minnesota Duluth

Chapter 6 Translingual and Transnational Pedagogies Enacted: Linguistic and Cultural Trajectory Narratives in First-Year Composition
Demet Yigitbilek
Illinois State University

Part 3. Creating Temporary Transnational Space through Assignment Design

Chapter 7 Learning by Writing: Possibilities of Tele-Collaborative Transnational Education In and Beyond a First-Year Writing Classroom
Mari Houston
Texas A&M University
Ekaterina Gradaleva
Samara State Technical University

Chapter 8 Investigating Translingual Practices in First-Year Writing Courses: Implications for Transnational Composition Pedagogies
Phuong Minh Tran, Kyle J. Lucas, and Kenneth Tanemura
Purdue University

Afterword
Author Biographies
Index

W. Ordeman is Lecturer of Business Communications at the University of North Texas and teaches a course in First Year Writing at a community college in north Texas during his summers. He is currently a graduate student in the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design program at Clemson University. Ordeman is originally from a border community where transnationalism and pluralism played a significant role in shaping his worldview after having witnessed the values of two distinct cultures create an altogether unique border rhetoric. Through a transnational framework, he has seen the benefits of taking a pluralistic approach to seemingly competitive/polarizing ethical claims. As a teacher, Ordeman believes polarization has disincentivized students from actively participating in the study of rhetoric. He believes teaching pluralism and ethics in a writing class can help remedy polarization and encourage students to listen to one another. His students’ writing has illuminated transnational structures that deserved a unique pedagogical approach. This has prompted his pursuit towards a means of using these ecologies to increase students’ effectiveness as rhetoricians.

language difference, mestizo, multinational, nationalism, freshmen composition, English composition, writing classes, literacy, homogeneity, college writing, L2 writing, multiculturalism, multicultural, rhetorical ecologies, ecologies, meaning-making, FYC, threshold concepts, digital literacy, pedagogy