Rhetorical Bilingualism
I taught at a pre-dominantly Latina/o community college in Brownsville, Texas. While the school doesn’t keep statistics of students who speak bilingually, a quick walkthrough of the institution reveals its presence. The “Composition I” course held an explicit outcome that focused on Edited American English, but the “Composition II” course leaned heavily toward rhetorical theory. Consequently, in the “Composition II” course, I made use of the rhetorical concept of “audience” for an assignment, where I invoked a bilingual audience through the construction of a poster with a refrán/dicho (proverb/words of wisdom). I assigned this project toward the end of the semester because by that time, students had built a familiarity with concepts in rhetorical theory, and they were used to us discussing certain terms, namely “audience.” As an educator, I chose this particular assignment because it made use of a linguistic dexterity that most students possess and imagines an entirely difference audience than an academic one, yet students who felt uncomfortable could still create the poster in English-only.
I had come across Cruz Medina’s “Nuestros Refranes: Culturally Relevant Writing in Tucson High Schools,” so I adapted the idea to fit a multimodal text in my classroom. In groups of two or three, I asked students to identify a refrán or dicho (a proverb or words of wisdom).
Then, they had to write it out on a poster/canvas, which a Spanish speaking/reading audience would understand. They also had to create a visual on the poster which would convey the same message for non-Spanish speaking audience. The final product was a poster with the written refrán/dicho with a corresponding visual. For example, one poster read, “No todo lo que brilla es oro” (not everything that shines is gold). The visual component included a sketch of a golden poop, which I found comical. In other words, the refrán/dicho cautions against falling for situations that seem too good at first but may end up being otherwise.
I had a lot of fun reading and learning from the posters on refranes/dichos. Most students did a good job of self-selecting themselves based on the required skilled for creating a poster. I expected some resistance from students in my course about using Spanish in a composition course, but only a handful of students decided to write their words of wisdom in English. This comfort toward this bilingual assignment probably stemmed from my insistence on bringing in the external community as an audience throughout the semester. This approach probably translates well to areas in the Southwest US or where linguistic diversity exists. Next time, I’d have to reconsider if I want to include a digital option for a poster. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment, for it used the linguistic and community knowledge that students possess and seldom appear in the college classroom. As a bilingual educator, I thoroughly enjoyed knowing that I was developing students’ full scope of rhetorical agility.
José Luis Cano, Texas Christian University; www.misliteracies.com