Running head: CULTURE AND WRITING IN THE CLASSROOM 1

Culture and Writing in the Classroom

Sonia Bonavita

EDRE 4860.003

University of North Texas

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Introduction

For many ESL students, lack of culture in the classroom is an issue that surrounds their

everyday life. They are under represented and stripped of their basic ideals that make them who

they are. In this curriculum, I will focus on this issue, but through writing. In many articles I will

discuss, the theme of cultural negligence is often brought up. This is referring to the conscious

actions of teachers to diminish and beat down the identity of many of their students. I will also

discuss how the identity of African-American students is often seen ‘troubling’ and how the

school system often tried to change what and who they are.

ESL Perspective

In Dyson’s article Writing superheroes: Contemporary childhood, popular culture, and

classroom literacy, they focus on the idea that history is told through a ‘winner’s perspective’.

Meaning, the culture that is often focused on is that of the majority. For example, they write

about when learning history- it is mainly told in the European perspective. This is detrimental to

many students because they have never seen their culture and history celebrated or studied in a

similar way. Common terms associated with this idea is Eurocentric, meaning focusing on

European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding

European culture as preeminent, and Westernization which means is a process whereby societies

come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, law, politics, and economics.

When content is taught in this type of manner, it eliminates a student’s cultural identity by

disregarding their entire heritage. It is no longer see as important and that warps the mindset of a

child.
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This sentiment is echoed in Green’s article The problems of learning to think like a

historian: Writing history in the culture of the classroom, he emphasizes the downside and issues

when it comes to teaching children how to write like a historian. Mainly, history is usually told

from one perspective and most of the time- it is not a full picture. Culture is easily lost this way

because children have no framework when it comes to writing from a perspective that

encourages and celebrates their history and their beliefs. Meaning, that when children are given

written assignments- they need to be free to write about they are passionate about. In one of my

pieces for the Multi-Genre project, I created a comic that illustrates this point. It describes two

scenarios, one where a teacher disregards a student who wants to write about the Asian American

influence on the media because it does not follow the TEKS, and another teacher who is excited

for this student to explore this idea and share is with the class.

African America Perspective

Sanchez’s article Hip-hop and a hybrid text in a postsecondary English class: Allowing

students to analyze texts of popular culture in the reading and writing classroom validates

the language and literacy classroom “explores the epistemology present in hip‐hop music

and its reflection in the writing of one African American student in a postsecondary

transitional English class”. Meaning, African American culture in schools if often passed

over or confined to Black History month. It is important to let students express themselves in

a variety of ways- including Hip Hop.

For a more analytical response, Duncan and Morrell’s article Promoting academic

literacy with urban youth through engaging hip-hop culture focuses on the fact that many

schools lack diversity in their teaching staff. This affects writing in the classroom because

many of the classes are led from a Eurocentric point of view, meaning, other cultures and
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histories are not explored as actively as they should be. One emphasis that the article makes

is that in the next few years, it is expected that only 5% of teachers will be from ethnic

minorities as compared to the 41% of ethnic students in the United States.

Conclusion

Incorporating student’s culture in the classroom is vital to student success because in

order to feel complete and successful, a student’s identity must be recognized. By letting

them explore topics that they identify with, the interest level increases because it is relatable

to who they are and their experiences. This ranges from ESL students, to African American

students, to Asian students, and so on. Although the theme of this paper and project is

Culture and Writing- the running idea is acceptance.

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References

Atkinson, D. (2003). Writing and culture in the post-process era. Journal of Second Language

Writing, 12(1), 49-63.

Brumann, C. (1999). Writing for culture: Why a successful concept should not be discarded.

Current anthropology, 40(S1), S1-S27.

Dyson, A. H. (1997). Writing superheroes: Contemporary childhood, popular culture, and

classroom literacy. Teachers College Press.

Greene, S. (1994). The problems of learning to think like a historian: Writing history in the

culture of the classroom. Educational Psychologist, 29(2), 89-96.

Hinkel, E. (Ed.). (1999). Culture in second language teaching and learning. Cambridge

University Press.

Morrell, E., & Duncan-Andrade, J. M. (2002). Promoting academic literacy with urban youth

through engaging hip-hop culture. English journal, 88-92.

Peck, D. (1998). Teaching culture: Beyond language. Yale: New Haven Teachers Institute.

Sanchez, D. M. (2010). Hip-hop and a hybrid text in a postsecondary English class: Allowing