Teaching Writing with Latino/a Students: Lessons Learned at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

by Cristina Kirklighter (editor), Diana Cardenas (Editor), Susan Wolff Murphy (Editor)

This groundbreaking collection brings together the eclectic voices of two-year and four-year writing teachers at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) throughout the United States to explore the complexities of teaching writing with Latino/a students. Made up of narratives, qualitative studies, and conversations, the book presents the theories and practices of these experienced teachers. Its strength lies in the diversity of perspectives and methods used by these teachers to address many of the issues central to teaching Latino/a and other minority acknowledgment of difference, respect for diversity, student identity, students' right to their own language, and the valuing of home and school literacies and languages.

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Bruce Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to the environment, culture, some history, and prospects for teaching writing to Latino/a students in the community colleges and four-year institutions. The volume is unbalanced, unfortunately, with some chapters providing little to the conversation about pedagogy or composition studies that is not already understood; some of the discussion fails to distinguish between effective writing pedagogy for Latino/a students and any working class group.

The most informative chapter is Affeldt, “The Politics of Space and Narrative in the Multicultural Classroom” where -- after multiple other authors claim that Latino/a narrative is more "oral" or "narrative" than the European model -- he explains why narrative is a legitimate form of discourse in college writing, and how narrative construes reality by Latino/a minority students within the dominant academic discourse.