Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

1. The problem

Bilinguals who are able to converse entirely in one or the other of the two languages they speak often switch back and forth between these languages for various social reasons. Many of these language switches occur at sentence boundaries, but others occur in mid-sentence within a smooth stream of speech. Examples of such code-switching between Spanish and English are given in (1) through (7).

1. I put the forks en la mesas. (McClure (1977)) ‘I put the forks on the tales.’
2. Todos los Mexicanos were riled up. (Pfaff (1979)) ‘All the Mexicans were riled up.’
3. No van a bring it up in the meeting. (Pfaff (1979)) ‘They are not going to bring it up in the meeting.’
4. El hombre who saw the accident es Cubano. (Gingras (1974)) ‘The man who saw the accident is Cuban.’
5. En Puerto Rico he would say que cortaba cana, even though tenia su negocio, you know. (Sankoff and Poplack (1980)) ‘In Puerto Rico he would say that he cut cane even though he has his own business, you know.’
6. La onda is to fight y jambar. (Pfaff (1979)) ‘The in-thing is to fight and steal.’
7. Estaba training para pelear. (Pfaff 1979)) ‘He was training to fight.’ ¹³

When students code switch in this way, perhaps it is simply because they cannot think of the English word or they do not know the translation of the word. The point of code switching in this unit is to bring attention to it, and simply have students recognize that they are doing this (whether intentionally or not) and to show them that book characters to it too. Word choice is important, as we discussed in seminar because it speaks to the author’s purpose for writing the essay.  This unit will show students how to use their language, to the best of their abilities to improve their writing. Students should have opportunities to speak freely, and in the language they feel most comfortable with.

Maxine Hong Kingston felt most comfortable speaking when reading because she didn’t have to think of what she wanted or needed to say. She felt miserable at school when she had to speak, the feeling of misery remained even when she was silent. Imagine the feeling our English learners feel when facing that same reality. It would be huge injustice not to teach this unit, as all students could benefit from it, not just bilingual or monolingual students. Richard Rodriguez, who wrote the essay “Aria” shares that feeling. His concerns were, “Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home.”¹⁴ When reading this essay to the students, it is important to discuss why the author feels this way and do perhaps they feel that way as well. During seminar, we discussed the author’s public point and if an essay should even have one or not. It was agreed that while all essays should have a public point, sometimes that point is not made very clearly or explicitly stated in the essay. Students could practice searching for the public opinion in the essays discussed whole group, or the children’s books that will be paired with the essay.