Where everyday translanguaging meets academic writing: Exploring tensions and generative connections for bilingual latina/o/x students

In K-12 schools throughout the United States, bilingual Latina/o/x students often communicate by moving flexibly between English and Spanish in conversation—an everyday language practice that has been referred to as translanguaging. In this chapter, we explore potentially fruitful connections between this everyday form of bilingualism and the kinds of writing valued in academic settings. Drawing on ethnographic data from our research in urban elementary and middle schools, we examine the everyday translanguaging in which bilingual Latina/o/x children and youth engage as they skillfully and creatively blur the linguistic boundaries between English and Spanish in their everyday talk. We argue that the skills already evident in the everyday translanguaging of bilingual Latina/o/x students constitute an untapped pedagogical resource that could potentially serve to support the teaching and learning of academic writing, and we offer conceptually grounded practical implications for writing pedagogy across monolingual and bilingual instructional contexts. We conclude by articulating a critique of monolingual approaches to schooling, and we argue for expanding what counts as—and who counts in—academic writing.