Chapter 7: An Ear to the World: Drawing on the Rich Literacy Histories of Returning Students

Drawing on responses to our self-directed placement process and years in the classroom, we argue that teachers should respect the rich literacy and linguistic histories of returning adult college students. We have taught extensively in “accelerated” developmental writing classes in the community college setting and believe that sometimes the curriculum that is designed for those classes is limited in terms of what it asks of and provides for students—especially those returning to school with a rich array of linguistic resources. In set curricular models, these complex and powerful linguistic and literacy practices can go at best underutilized, and, at worst, due to the many negative structural, curricular, and instructional responses to these diverse literacies, attitudes towards these practices may stop students from persisting by undermining belonging and agency. In this chapter, we will discuss literacy histories that include workplace literacies, religious literacies, and extracurricular literacies, including interest in urban fiction and science fiction. We will detail how opening up the language practices students are encouraged to use in the classroom can draw on these multiple literacies to create rich communities of learning that situate linguistic dexterity, connectivity to culture, experience, and community, as well as diversity of literacies at the heart of the learning endeavor.