About the Book
Offering a wealth of art-based practices, this volume invites readers to reimagine the joyful possibility and power of language and culture in language and literacy learning. Understanding art as a tool that can be used for decolonizing minds, the contributors explore new methods and strategies for supporting the language and literacy learning skills of multilingual students. Contributors are artists, educators, and researchers who bring together cutting-edge theory and practice to present a broad range of traditional and innovative art forms and media that spotlight the roles of artful resistance and multilingual activism. Featuring questions for reflection and curricular applications, chapters address theoretical issues and pedagogical strategies related to arts and language learning, including narrative inquiry, journaling, social media, oral storytelling, and advocacy projects.
The innovative methods and strategies in this book demonstrate how arts-based, decolonizing practices are essential in fostering inclusive educational environments and supporting multilingual students’ cultural and linguistic repertoires. Transformative and engaging, this text is a key resource for educators, scholars, and researchers in literacy and language education.
Table of Contents:
Opening Call: Indigenous creation—Literature as Historical/Cultural Recovery Introduction: Language Reawakening as Pilgrimage—Stepping Back and Stitching Hope Part I: Roots They ARE listening 1 A Colorful Language: Playback Theater as a Way of Listening with Youth in Palestine 2 Education Beyond Walls: Using the Arts to Awaken an Endangered Language 3 Enacting Language Reclamation through Performance as Embodied Praxis 4 The Kuleana of Ulana Lauhala: Reflecting on Our Weaving 5 Zapotec Youth Visualizing their Language: Using Cellphilm and Visual Methods to Support Language Revitalization 6 Digital Language Kinscapes: Twitter-based Pedagogical Possibilities for Indigenous Youth Language Learning in Canada Our languages hold the Pulsing Hearts of Our Cultures: Questions for Reflection and Further Applications for Practice Part II: Routes Step Back, Leap Forward 7 Reimagining Language Curriculum: Black Language and Literacy Education Through Hip Hop and Rap Inclusion 8 The Complexities of Chinese Children’s Meaning-Making Revealed Through Artistic Practices, Talk, and Social Interaction 9 My Storytelling Journey: From Rural Settings in Haiti to Urban Settings in New England 10 Identity, Voices, and Agency of Asian Female Graduate Students Through Visual Self-Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Study of Art, Literacy, and Language 11 ITS: Identity, Technology and Storytelling 12 Making Meaning Hear Me, Tell My Story: Questions for Reflection and Further Applications for Practice Afterword: The Kwakwaka'wakw art of Kota – Rooted in Cultural Traditions, Re-Routed to Language Reawakening
About the Author :
Amanda Claudia Wager is Canada Research Chair in Community-Engaged Research and Professor of Education at Vancouver Island University, Canada.
Berta Rosa Berriz is Professor Emerita of Creative Arts and Learning at the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University, USA.
Laura Ann Cranmer is a Professor of Indigenous / Xwulmuxw Studies at Vancouver Island University, Canada.
Vivian Maria Poey is Professor of Photography and Integrated Studies at Lesley University, USA.
Review :
"What a novel but powerful and essential concept: that art is a way of listening. In this book—international in scope and wide-ranging in its understanding of the arts—the authors present inspiring portraits of using the arts to affirm languages that are suppressed or that may soon disappear unless they are reclaimed and revitalized. They remind us that if we just listen to our students, and work respectfully and collaboratively with their families and communities, then the education of all students—monolingual, bilingual, multilingual, and emergent—will inevitably be enriched.
--Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, USA
"In this important new book, the contributors demonstrate how art can be incorporated into the educational experiences of emergent bilinguals. They also explain why we should use art to inspire and motivate students to dream and excel."
--Pedro A. Noguera, Dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, USA
"The book provides educators with rigorous research and stories of inspiring practice to lead us into collaborative, meaningful and transformative action in our teaching and learning environments, Arts-infused strategies equip educators with examples that vigorously combat anti-Blackness; authentically welcome immigrant families; decolonize Indigenous communities; refute the violence of displacement; disrupt discrimination of cultural identity and challenge hierarchical frameworks on what counts as knowledge."
--From the Foreword by Patty Bode, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
"What a novel but powerful and essential concept: that art is a way of listening. In this book—international in scope and wide-ranging in its understanding of the arts—the authors present inspiring portraits of using the arts to affirm languages that are suppressed or that may soon disappear unless they are reclaimed and revitalized. They remind us that if we just listen to our students, and work respectfully and collaboratively with their families and communities, then the education of all students—monolingual, bilingual, multilingual, and emergent—will inevitably be enriched.
--Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, USA
"In this important new book, the contributors demonstrate how art can be incorporated into the educational experiences of emergent bilinguals. They also explain why we should use art to inspire and motivate students to dream and excel."
--Pedro A. Noguera, Dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, USA
"The book provides educators with rigorous research and stories of inspiring practice to lead us into collaborative, meaningful and transformative action in our teaching and learning environments, Arts-infused strategies equip educators with examples that vigorously combat anti-Blackness; authentically welcome immigrant families; decolonize Indigenous communities; refute the violence of displacement; disrupt discrimination of cultural identity and challenge hierarchical frameworks on what counts as knowledge."
--From the Foreword by Patty Bode, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
