After recent conversations and a book study of En Comunidad by Carla España and Luz Yadira Herrara, I’ve started to think a lot about translanguaging in my classroom community. A majority of my students are multilingual and I want to honor their identities and also provide them with additional opportunities to use their home language(s). I’m on the look out for texts that include translanguaging for the scope of languages that I have in my classroom: Persian, Hebrew, German, French, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. If you know of any titles, please let me know.
I’ve been wanting to introduce and include translanguaging in Writer’s Workshop. My initial thought was that student-created pieces could then live in our classroom library as authentic narratives and texts. I know that interactive read aloud will be a great place to start as we can discuss why an author included the word(s) the way he/she did. For example, in Tía Isa Wants a Car by Meg Medina, why did the author repeatedly include the work “Rrrridículo” when Tía’s brother responds to her? My hope is that with enough exposure and rich discussion, students will feel invited to use translanguaging in their own writing. I am also thinking that it could be added with students to an author’s craft anchor chart. I’m still thinking this through, excited about the opportunities for students, and welcome any suggestions or ideas.
Allie Writes 
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