Mndez
Universidad del Este
Escuela de Estudios Profesionales
Programa Ahora
Workshop 5
In this article they present three case studies of immigrant, first-year students, as
they negotiate their identities as second language writers in mainstream composition
classrooms. I argue that such terms as ESL and Generation 1.5 that refers specifically
to immigrants who arrived to the destination country before adolescence and they are
often problematic for students and mask a wide range of student experiences and
expectations. In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in meeting the needs
of ESL students in the composition classroom, particularly with the growing number of
second language writers entering our colleges and universities.
During the 1990s, much of the scholarship on second language writing focused on
the experiences and instruction of international students studying at U.S. universities.
International students were a steady presence at large research universities, where many
second language writing specialists were conducting research, and international visa
students were easily identified on campus, through international student groups, data on
degree status and countries of origin that is required by the federal government, and Test
of English as a Foreign Language scores and applications. Resident ESL students,
however, have remained a more elusive group to study and more enigmatic to categorize.
The article begins by exploring the theoretical connections between identity and
writing. I then present case studies of three first-year students and examine how they
negotiate their identities as second language writers in mainstream composition
classrooms. Then they discuss the implications of these findings for composition. In
particular, they argue that these students experiences raise compelling questions about
our categories for second language writers.