Running head: Diversity Essay

Shang Li

EDUC 606 – Literary Theory Research and Practice (Capstone)

Professor Alesha Gayle

Diversity Essay

February 20, 2022

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Diversity Essay
I was introduced to Adichie’s (2009) TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story” shortly

after entering the Reading/Writing/Literacy program. Since then, my awareness of multicultural

education and diversity in literacy has been awakened by her earnest words. In her presentation

(Adichie, 2009), she noted, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with

stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become

the only story.” By articulating her experience of being a middle-class black female who

attended college in the United States and came cross stereotypes from her professor and

roommates that she was not “authentically African” because she spoke English fluently and the

African children in her work was not starving, she argued that the consequence of a single story

is disturbing our recognition towards equal humanity.

In response to Adichie’s speech, my own view is that default and incomplete assumptions

can lead to misunderstandings that marginalize students who do not belong to the dominant

cultural groups, deny their academic abilities, and further suppress their literacy development.

Therefore, I believed that when teaching a classroom with students from an array of backgrounds

and cultures, diversity plays a significant role in encouraging students’ openness to others’

stories, and cultivating a multicultural environment helps students grasp a more comprehensive

view of a subject matter. I also believed that in order to achieve the goal of promoting students to

embrace diversity, creating a culturally-sensitive environment and maintaining inclusive

conversations that honor students’ prior literacy practices becomes a main priority. Moreover, as

a multilingual student who speaks English as a second language and as a future teacher myself, I

want to shift my focus to linguistic diversity and teacher education around it in the following

sections.
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Under the circumstance that mainstream education in the U.S. is in English, many non-

native English students hold negative views of their first language rather than literacy

development because they tend to make more mistakes when reading and writing in English

(Murillo & Schall, 2016). As we already know that school assignments are primarily graded, it is

true that bilingual or multilingual students are more likely to feel unsatisfied and discouraged by

vocabulary and grammatical errors, or even doubting their intelligence and academic abilities.

Remarkably, a number of scholars acknowledged other factors that contribute to this

language gap in literacy education. For example, Sleeter (2008) identified that the short-term

fieldwork in teacher education program only provides prospective teachers with minimal

practices of real classroom teaching and inadequate experience of engaging with culturally and

linguistically diverse students. Similarly, students in Winn and Behizadeh’s (2011) study

reported that their academic abilities were underestimated by teachers because of their first

language, so they were only taught with limited skills on reduced curriculum. It can be noticed

that both studies—Sleeter’s (2008), and Winn and Behizadeh’s (2011)—shed the light on

teachers’ failure to recognize students’ linguistic diversity and to provide transformative learning

which extends their literacy development.

Regarding the above issue, Haddix (2008) stated that because the teaching force in the

United States is predominantly white and monolingual, their demographics (e.g., race, ethnicity,

language, and socioeconomic background) significantly differs from K-12 student populations.

In result, prospective teachers have not yet acquired sufficient understanding of what barriers

that the normalized cultural values bring to the minority groups, and the teacher education

program has a major improvement to equip preservice teachers with exhaustive knowledge to

connect with the diverse student group. On a personal note, I completely agree with Haddix’s
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Diversity Essay
(2008) analysis of this student-teacher mismatch. Growing up and receiving education within

different communities, teachers themselves, are internalized with certain values and beliefs that

they may take for granted (yet, have major differences than what students learned). More

importantly, I am not indicating that teachers should disguise their own and totally accommodate

to students’ diverse cultural background. Rather, mutual understanding and respect of each

other’s is the tool to carry on the conversation of diversity.

In order to increase teachers’ readiness to provide the type of support linguistically

diverse students need to successfully learn academic content and skills through English while

developing English proficiency, the implementation of emerging pedagogy and programs began

to rise. As such, an effective example of culturally responsive pedagogy can be found in Barnes’

(2006) study, whereby participants (preservice teachers) were invited to discuss culturally and

linguistically diverse issues and reflect on what constitutes their reading and cultural experiences

through writing autobiographical poems. After four-week intense engagement with such topics

and activities, the teachers expressed a more positive attitude in assisting English language

learners (ELLs) to read and overseeing their academic access. Notably, Lucas, Villegas, and

Gonzalez’s (2008) work underscored that linguistic diversity easily gets lost in the discussion of

diversity among all preservice teachers. The researchers reminded us that instructors who teach

diversity may not have the expertise to teach linguistic diversity, particularly. Thus, they

suggested that a separate course should be added for ELL-focused teachers and to subsequently

seek for support from linguistic professions.

Approaches like culturally sustaining pedagogy can be found in programs that help

educators to foresee the academic potentials of additive bilingualism. For example, School Kids

Investigating Language in Life and Society (SKILLS) was implemented to nurture multilingual
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Diversity Essay
students’ recognition of sociolinguistic discrimination and injustice by fully supporting and

sustaining the cultural and linguistic practices in which youths participate within their families,

peers and communities (Lee et al., 2020). Likewise, Cervantes-Soon and Valenzuela (2011)

proposed that L1(first language)-L2 (second language) transitioning programs and bilingual

programs should aim to add literacy in L1 and L2 rather than subtracting L1 to add L2 to reach a

gradual transition. I consider the appreciation of students’ first language and utilizing it to inform

students’ literacy skills in L1 and L2 as the key value of these programs because I am convinced

that ELLs with strong native language skill have higher tendency of performing competency as

native-English-speaking peers (Thomas & Collier, 2002).

In sum, this diversity essay has incorporated my understanding of diversity and

multicultural education within my deeper analysis of linguistic diversity and teachers’

preparation to teach ELLs. I also included modern pedagogies and programs which attempt to

promote linguistically diverse students’ success in both L1 and L2. Finally, I intend to use this

essay to raise teachers’ attention to the reality that students’ bilingual and multilingual abilities

are assets that will bring their achievements to a greater extent, yet they do need some time and

assistance to manage academic literacy in the US mainstream education.

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Diversity Essay
References

Adichie. N. (2009, October 7). The danger of a single story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[Video]. TED Conferences. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

Barnes, C. J. (2006). Preparing preservice teachers to teach in a culturally responsive way. Negro

educational review, 57.

Cervantes-Soon, C., & Valenzuela, A. (2011). Subtractive Legislative Policy: e Plight of Texas

Bilingual Learners. In Teacher Preparation for Bilingual Student Populations (pp. 209-

222). Routledge.

Haddix, M. (2008). Beyond sociolinguistics: Towards a critical approach to cultural and

linguistic diversity in teacher education. Language and Education, 22(5), 254-270.

Lee, J. S., Meier, V., Harris, S., Bucholtz, M., & Inés, D. (2020). School Kids Investigating

Language in Life and Society: Growing Pains in Creating Dialogic Learning

Opportunities. In Reconceptualizing the Role of Critical Dialogue in American

Classrooms (pp. 52-77). Routledge.

Lucas, T., Villegas, A. M., & Freedson-Gonzalez, M. (2008). Linguistically responsive teacher

education: Preparing classroom teachers to teach English language learners. Journal of

teacher education, 59(4), 361-373.

Murillo, L. A., & Schall, J. M. (2016). “They Didn't Teach Us Well”: Mexican‐Origin Students

Speak Out About Their Readiness for College Literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult

Literacy, 60(3), 315-323.

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Sleeter, C. E. (2008). Preparing White teachers for diverse students. In M. Cochran-Smith, S.

Feiman-Nemser, & J. Mclntyre (Eds.),Handbook of research in teacher education:

Enduring issues in changing contexts (3rd ed., pp. 559-582). New York, NY: Roudedge.

Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. P. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language

minority students’ long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz: University of

California, Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence.

Winn, M. T., & Behizadeh, N. (2011). The right to be literate: Literacy, education, and the

school-to-prison pipeline. Review of Research in Education, 35(1), 147-173.