Jessica Miller

Education 409

9 March 2019

Language Manifesto

Language honestly is not something I have thought a lot about until coming to graduate school.

My own experience as a monolingual English speaker has, in retrospect, not forced me to think very

critically about language. My manifesto therefore has centered on how I value everyone and therefore

shall value all forms of language. Being a part of a social justice program my major concerns around

equity have often dealt with class and race, and I had not thought much in depth surrounding how

language plays into those categories as well, though Adair et al. show that “vocabulary unexpectedly

emerged as a justification for discrimination” (310). To support my newly conscious value of all forms of

language I will make space for loud talk, explicitly use gender neutral language, and provide multiple

methods for student participation. I designed my manifesto as a word cloud that could easily be blown

up into a poster and put up in my future classroom. I choose this because I thought it was a great quick

way to remind me of my language values and also an interesting language filled piece of work to look at

for students. It will always announce to my students and myself what the values of language are inside

the classroom.

Loud talk is something I have been thinking a lot about, so often when students participate in

call and response learning or want to chat to their partner about the assignment they are shut down and

told to raise their hand or to work independently. As a student myself I did not enjoy either response

and when met with negative responses in the ways I wanted to participate I decided to stop

participating. I personally am someone who, when a question is asked to me, my gut response is to

speak out and answer. In school those answers were not considered valid. The argument for quiet and

obedient classrooms to me simply supports a Eurocentric ideal of language, that the adult has all the
knowledge and children are simply there to receive that knowledge (a standard banking method). Yet

conversation, as well as, dynamic and noisy classrooms “would actually help young children of Latinx

immigrants learn vocabulary and expand capabilities in a range of related linguistic skills and

knowledge” (Adair et al. 327). While this supports Latinx learning it easily can cross over to Black

students as well. While I want to make space for loud talk in my classroom I also understand that it will

not support every student, so there needs to be some kind of balance. I heard a lot of amazing ideas on

how to support noise level and student participation, such as by making a chart in which you move the

clip to the appropriate participation rules for the lesson at hand. This way different students can be

supported at different time, so there would be space for call and response participating as well as quiet

work time. I want these decisions of talk to be student chosen so they can support their best forms of

learning. To me this idea is really connected to providing students with more agency and research shows

that when teachers give space for “children to be agentic, the children used the opportunities to initiate

and design projects, develop questions, give and receive feedback, negotiate, and actively engage in

dialogue” (Adair et al. 314). This is the critical thinking learning that I want to encourage and develop in

my class.

I have been trying to do a lot of work in recognizing my own privileges as a cisgendered woman.

Others’ assumptions about me identifying as my perceived gender has never bothered me because it

has always been correct in terms of how I self-identify. I understand many people are not afforded the

same privilege. I want to keep gender neutral language in my vocabulary when referring to students and

anyone else who has not explicitly shared their preferred pronouns and gender. I think even having a

discussion or read aloud with students about this topic could be beneficial for how they view gender or

engage with their own identities, as well as others. This is a subject I truly look forward to exploring with

my students in a prepared and meaningful way, I think it requires me to do a lot of personal work in

order to provide my students with the best information and resources possible. In order to keep my
classroom gender neutral I will not be dividing students in “boy, girl” order or referring to them as boys

and girls. I recognize this is simply one step in degendering my own language. This is another means for

cultivating a classroom of respect.

Lastly, I want to be sure to incorporate multiple means for participating within my classroom.

Some students love to talk to each other, others may want to write, and maybe even use visuals to

convey their ideas. I want to make sure I provide a diverse range of options which support whole class

engagement as much as possible. I plan to move away from hand raising by having students show their

ideas with their fingers in front of their chest or doing write around activities instead of having a verbal

conversation. This will not only keep class engaging but support different students’ learning preferences.

I want to continually keep in mind the strengths and needs of my students so I can best support them

and how they want to communicate or use languages other than English. I love the idea of translating

how they want to write something into “academic” language, so that they can validate their norms while

also meeting societies, “the use of students’ mother tongue in the classroom . . . supports the academic

and intellectual development of EL learners by providing contexts in which learners are better able to

participate in curriculum activities using the full range of their available linguistic resources” (Gibbons

135).

In conclusion, all forms of language are valuable. These are simply some of the ways I want to

cultivate a respectful and engaging classroom environment. I am focused on making my future class a

safe space and a space students want to be in and participate in every single day. I want my students

first and foremost to learn how to be critical thinkers, if they can be that they can do anything they want

in life. I want to think about why we can use different means for discussion in our classroom, why value

gender neutral language, and why we don’t raise our hands. All classroom practices, in my opinion,

should have well thought out reasons behind them. I want my thinking to be clear to my students.

Language is at the forefront of their daily lives and will be a key in everything they do, so they may need
to learn how to play by the rules sometimes to get what they want, but they also need to know how to

challenge things they don’t agree with in a fearless manner. Truthfully, that is something I am still

learning as well.
 Works Cited

 
Adair, Jennifer Keys, et al. “How the Word Gap Argument Negatively Impacts Young Children of Latinx

Immigrants' Conceptualizations of Learning.” ​Harvard Educational Review​, vol. 87, no. 3, 2017,

pp. 309–334., doi:10.17763/1943-5045-87.3.309.

“Planning Talk for Learning and Literacy.” ​English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in

the Challenge Zone​, by Pauline Gibbons, Heinemann, 2009, pp. 130–151.