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Melissa Reichard
Dr. Sherry
TCSS
21 November 2013
Student Writing Archive Project: S.W.A.P.

How can a teacher provide feedback that sensitively takes into account students' cultural and
linguistic backgrounds?

As I continue to study and work with my students at Wizardly High School, Ive come to
realization that many of my students find it hard to take interest in writing because a.) theyre
battling so many bigger issues outside the classroom, b.) theyre struggling to find the help and
support at home, and c.) they cant find the balance between maintaining who they are in their
writing as opposed to whats expected of them.
In my study of their papers, I found that there was little variation between written and
spoken usage and the variation that did exist was clear evidence that they werent sure how to
find the balance between their home dialect and the language of the public discourse (Standard
American English). Majority of the comments from my co-teacher resonated what a formalist
would say: grammar and maintaining proper MLA guidelines/structure. When I first received
the papers and started looking at them, I immediately picked up on the patterns in plurality,
tense, and possession. I was so fascinated and said to my co-teacher, This is amazingthis is
exactly what I learned about when we read about and discuss the concept and practice of
codeswitching with students. To my surprise, he had no idea what codeswitching was, so I
briefly (he was about to start teaching) pointed it out to him. I told him that the students are
writing in their home dialect, rather than SAE and codeswitching helps them adapt the language
that is appropriate to the communicative context. But most importantly, theyre not mistakes
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and/or bad grammar. Theyre a part of an entire language; a language that has patterns and
consistency, at which point, I pinned plurality, tense, and possession for him to see. I was really
excited when I felt his excitement for it too.
For my S.W.A.P., I wanted to focus on Option 4: How can a teacher provide feedback
that sensitively takes into account students cultural and linguistic backgrounds? I came to the
conclusion that there is a gap. Teachers arent sure what to do and/or how to recognize the
patterns that exist in students written and spoken usage, nor are they sure how to go about
dealing with it and as a result, they mark it off as bad grammar. This approach to feedback is
problematic because not only does it lack in guidance for students, but its also extremely
harmful and detrimental to students self-esteem and efficacy. According to the creator of
codeswitching Rebecca Wheeler, and Rachel Swords, English teachers routinely equate
standard English with grammar, as if other language varieties and styles lack grammar, the
systematic and rule-governed backbone of language. Yet, the child who speaks in a vernacular
dialect is not making language errors; instead, she or he is speaking correctly in the language of
the home discourse community. (471).
Because the practice of codeswitching was a later phenomenon, many older teachers in
the biz arent sure what its all about, nor do they know how to teach students how to switch
between different written and oral situations. Not knowing how to deal with this, leaves students
wondering what theyre doing that is classified as bad grammar and how they can fix what
teachers are writing off as poor writing. In the sample below, my co-teachers feedback is
very positive; however, it is also very short, rather than detailed and specific. I realize that its a
little difficult to see, but in the grammar mistakes, my co-teacher has circled certain patterns
including the continued use of parent rather than parents, demonstrating plurality, the use of
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the to be verb and keep, demonstrating tense, and the use of parent as opposed to parents
or parents demonstrating possession. These patterns demand close attention as well as specific
feedback in helping students realize whats going on and how they can transition between formal
and informal contexts. His additions and circles dont do much other than highlight what it
should be according to the communicative context. Wheeler and Swords believe that if
Teachers can draw upon the language strengths of urban learners to help students codeswitch
choose the language variety appropriate to the time, place, audience, and communicative
purpose, we honor linguistic and cultural diversity, all the while fostering students mastery of
the Language of Wider Communication, the de-facto lingua franca of the U.S. (471). If a
teacher recognizes, understands, and is prepared and skilled to teach contrastive analysis,
students are more likely to be prepared to be exposed to any communicative context and adapt to
the language that is demanded throughout that particular discourse. In addition, teachers can
help students see past the idea of only writing for formal situations and dive deeper in the joy and
creativity that is able to surface through writing.
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While studying Ghanems archive, I noticed that many of the students patterns include
things like punctuation, capitalization, verb conjugations, and possession. I also noticed that
similarly to my co-teachers feedback, her comments never draw negative attention to the
linguistic variation that occurs within her students writing. For example, in SWC01, SWC02,
SWC03, SWC06, and SWC07, Ghanem makes comments like, ______, look at component #3
of good writing and tell me what you can do to this paragraph, bought is the past tense of buy,
and It is ! its. its ! This is a possessive pronoun to show ownership. Although Ghanem
doesnt use contrastive analysis, she still implements guidance in her feedback to students and I
rarely found any manners of prescriptive attitudes in the comments either. If anything, I would
say that the components of good writing were a little prescriptive, but other than that, I found
that all of her comments were just there to help students learn when to use possessive versus a
contraction, what the past tense is of an irregular verb, how to implement the period, when to
capitalize, and how to form the present progressive. Sometimes, I noticed that she would just
write in the punctuation parts like a semicolon and colon without explaining, which I thought
was ineffective because, like me, I still dont really know how to use either one effectively, or
when not to use them, etc. And knowing how to implement them effectively in writing would be
useful. I also picked up on the fact that much of her feedback also emphasizes the content of
what the students are trying to say within their work and I think that nothingnothingis more
important than recognizing what a student is trying to express. The reason they write is to
transcribe their ideas, the reason theyre transcribing their ideas is to express themselves, and the
reason for expression is obviously to release and/or communicate and I think thats truly the
heart of writing and I appreciate that Ghanem really pays attention to what her students are
saying and gives feedback based on what they're conveying through their writing.
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One of the things that I loved was in SWC06, Ghanem encourages her student to practice
English by writing and talking about her drawings, and that she doesnt need to stop drawing
nice pictures because she is learning English. I thought it was great because its encouraging
literacy in multi-genre mediums. Because were moving into such a profound digital age,
literacy has grown to encompass all different types of mediums besides written text and Ghanem
is encouraging her student to embrace English through her ability to draw, and her students
ability to learn English through her drawings. I also loved how Ghanem sometimes referred to
herself and her experiences in learning English as a second language. For example, in SWC15,
Ghanem reveals to her student, Remember to start all sentences with capital letters. I know this
is hard because there are no capital letters in your languagejust like mine! We get better when
we practice. I thought this feedback was similar to the concept that if a teacher shares with
his/her students, the students may share with the teacher, and also, showing her students that she
also struggled with these English rules allows her student to feel comfortable, rather than
embarrassed over her mistakes.
As I read through Ghanems interview, I picked out her main goal in teaching writing to be
communication and expression. When Ghanem states, And the language objective I'm going in
for directions: reading, what is it that I'm doing for that area, writing-what is it I'm doing,
speaking, and then listening. So when they sit together and they are reading to each other and
they are talking they are getting the listening and you know the reading I understood that to be
her emphasizing the literacy process as a means of bettering communication and our
interpretations and understandings of literacy and how it helps us in reading, writing, listening,
and speaking. Thinking about this comment in relation to her feedback makes me realize that it
makes sense that much of her feedback emphasizes her students content and then her sensitive
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guidance in their grammatical conventions because Ghanems purpose is to help her students
learn English in a meaningful waynot just so that they can learn the simple sentence-level
grammar stuff.
Reflecting on this project, I realize that pointing out and referencing students
grammatical conventions is a very tricky process that involves an incredible amount of
sensitivity as well as a level of skilla teacher has to know when and where to draw the line. I
think that if were going to be sensitive to students cultural and linguistic backgrounds, its
essential to make them feel comfortable in where they stand, but also wanting to learn more
about the language theyre learning. So for example, my co-teacher referenced students
grammar in a very low-key way, circling the possession, plural forms, verb conjugations, etc.
which in a way, is good because its not saying the student is wrong, but rather drawing attention
to what needs to be adapted into SAE, whereas Ghanem, circles and marks their grammar and
then illustrates what it is that needs to be adapted into the English form. Going back to Wheeler,
I think that both teachers have patterns that are occurring in their students writing, and itd be
helpful to help their students see these patterns and then make adaptations to them according to
the communicative context.


P.S Dr. SherryI don't know if we can do Skype, but I'm hoping that you would be able to see
Professor Sherry and you could talk to him and they said "can we do it here in class?" I said "I
can't promise you anything" cause I thought it would be rewarding for them. Do we have
time/possible to Skype with them!? Are the students who authored these papers the same
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students as this years? Unfortunately theyre not, and the permissions and scheduling were just
too difficult. Darn.

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Work Cited
Wheeler, R. & Swords, R. (2004). Codeswitching: Tools of Language and Culture Transform
the Dialectically Diverse Classroom. Language Arts, 81(6), 470-480.


Melissa Reichard S.W.A.P.

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