Reading & Writing Center

What is Next Level English Instruction?

Next level English instruction is an approach to teaching writing that draws on writing instruction pedagogy,schema theory, identity theory, cultural wealth theory, and what we all know about the importance of student engagement in the classroom. The focus of Next Level English is to engage and center minoritized students and the cultural wealth they bring to academia. It is an approach that encourages students to write with style, to bring their style to academic writing and/or to choose writing topics that engage their lived experiences.

What Are the Benefits?

The primary benefit is engagement and enhanced learning through the reading and writing process. When students are actively instructed how to both consider the audience at hand and bring themselves to a topic, they are more likely to feel invested in their work. This type of engagement often comes somewhat naturally to those who go on to teach English, but trauma around reading and writing at critical phases of schooling and traditional approaches to teaching reading and writing often feel like barriers that create disengagement. Next Level English instruction is an approach that encourages students (who already know a lot about the world already from their unique positionalities) to access their lived experience and find their “way in” to an assignment and in many cases to find their own voices.

What students have to say about NLE

As I started to to take up positionality, I started to not only have a better flow

of ideas in my writing but also feel better about what I was writing too.

~E. Gutierrez/LPC Student

The first time I ever felt seen or understood was in my English 1A classroom, my professor was doing a lesson on how to incorporate our experiences into our writing. She acknowledged that writing about our lived experiences would improve our writing because it would help communicate to our reader what we really mean and feel. I had been wanting to do this for a long time and I didn’t wait another second.

~J. Hernandez/LPC Student

How Do I Begin?

Lean into it:

Create a space in Canvas for writing instruction and include the Next Level English Instruction links
Use assignments on writing from positionality and using different Englishes: Use All of Your Englishes, Using Positionality to Form a Thesis, Positionality Examples
Include links to the Next Level English pages with assignments as reminders
Reshare the links/lesson with students in office hours who seem to need another approach to writing assignments
Meet with Michelle Gonzales (Eng Fac & RAW Center coordinator) on Zoom to discuss possible approaches

Develop a Practice:

Do applicable steps above
Develop your own lessons on Different Englishes (and/or other Next Level content) that applies to your class curriculum
Create writing/essay assignments that give students the opportunity to address the course content and write from their lived experiences (Those actively engaged in decreasing incidents of plagiarism have found that these opportunities make a big difference)
Include links to the Next Level web pages with your essay/writing assignments to remind students to use them and to demonstrate your commitment
Praise students for bringing their own style to their writing
Make suggestions for enhancing audience appeal when their style creates an unconvincing/clashing tone
Make suggestions for enhancing clarity when style attempt creates clarity issues
Praise students for taking risks, especially if the risk resulted in creative critical thinking (even if the execution is a bit clunky)
Praise students for writing from lived experiences that provides a fresh angel on a topic or a new understanding

Examples

The student who wrote the example below, came to office hours and used the word “locura” (Spanish for madness) when she discussed her thesis. The professor urged her to use the word in her thesis/essay if it helped her feel closer to the topic.

“Protagonists in dystopian literature go through a phase of denial about their situation, and this denial inevitably turns into a type of locura that the character was either driven to or made to believe in by the system."

The student in the example below did a read of dystopian novels (We, 1984, and The Handmaid’s Tale) that was largely informed by research on family ideology, paired with his cultural family values/experiences (and those living in his community) immigrating to the US with his family as a preteen.

“In retrospect Family Ideology is the first of multiple seeds used by dystopian governments to control its citizens, which creates the root of profound loss of hope. When combining all of these points together, we can have a better understanding of D-503’s perception of society and his need of I-330 acceptance, Offred’s attachment void with Luke which is filled by Nick, Winston and his dream of a family with Julia, Enrique’s abandonment trauma, and Latinos who have left their families in the search for a better life because their home country behaves dystopian like. Family Ideology when used incorrectly is the root for loss of hope.”

The student in this final example explained to her instructor in office hours that she was unsure how to begin writing from her positionality, but found it easier to connect with her topics once she did.

“The American Dream, to me, is just that, a dream. Reality is working harder than everyone just to be given the same opportunities. It is the harsh truth that the dream was not designed for people like me, but dreams are limitless, and I have a few of my own. Success does not have to mean hamburgers with an ugly fence; it can mean carne asada with our tios and tias. The first step is realizing that the American Dream is not designed for people of color, and we should build our own.”

Adoption

Please consider using the NLE materials with your students. Should you adapt them or make copies for your students, you can credit Michelle Gonzales and Kisha Quesada Turner

Contact

mgonzales@laspositascollege.edu

kturner@laspositascollege.edu