Teaching Bilingual Literature and the Semantic Classroom: Using Scalar to Create Bilingual Collaborative Literary Resources

Abstract

Language(s) which the tutorial aims to study or research: English, Spanish. A short summary of the tutorial: This tutorial demonstrates how to use Scalar to create bilingual collaborative editions in the context of teaching bilingual literature. In particular, it focuses on bilingual or even polylingual classrooms wherein students have varied language competencies and fluencies. Summary: Teaching literature in bilingual contexts is challenging, not just in terms of linguistic barriers but also the logistics of texts. For literature teachers who aim to challenge the primacy of Anglophone literature and to bring literature in translation to students, digital tools provide inclusive spaces for students from a range of linguistic standpoints. Using the example of Chicano author Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales’s epic poem ‘I am Joaquín/Yo Soy Joaquín’, this tutorial demonstrates how to create a multimodal textbook for teaching the poem in both its original English form and Spanish translation. Chicanx literature, while an established field of literary study, remains a challenging space in teaching and learning given the bilingual, and even polylingual, approaches taken by authors such as Gonzales. Even when the students reading the literature are not bilingual, there is educational value in immersing them in both translated and original versions of texts. For example, translations of ‘Joaquín’ into Spanish shed light on postcolonial politics of language. The English source text contains code-switching, and different print publications include ephemera such as illustrations, chronologies and so on. The film adaptation offers interesting insights into issues such as the politics of literacy, and the relationship between translation and adaptation. In terms of the content of the poem itself, it is abundant in cultural, political and social histories, historical figures, events and consequences specific to the ChicanX community. Gonzales bypasses dominant white-washed narratives of colonial history in the US–Mexico borderlands. Instead, he privileges figures of Chicanx and Aztec myth and folk history, and retells historical events through a Chicanx gaze. The sheer length and cultural richness of the poem, as well as its versions (English, Spanish, film), make it ideal for exploration in Scalar, where these elements and intricacies can be explored, compared, contrasted and analysed in detail, while at the same time developing students’ critical digital literacies. The multimodal, non-linear pathways that can be created in Scalar allow students to explore these issues and draw linguistic and cultural connections. Contemplating how to represent, organise and explore materials using Scalar braids literary and cultural criticism with digital literacy. Informal, playful contact with other languages without the requirement to ‘learn’ said language can inspire students to take an interest in, and perhaps even pursue, that language. Collaborative editions can unify bilingual cohorts by creating an inclusive translingual digital space where students can read, translate, annotate and communicate. In particular, this tutorial provides guidance on how to build a textbook using a range of content, including text, audio, video, maps, timelines and images. Moreover, this tutorial suggests how teachers can arrange multimedia content into diverse, bilingual narratives that bring the semantic possibilities of Scalar into the pedagogical approaches being used to teach. Pedagogically, this tutorial is rooted in universal design for teaching and learning, translanguaging pedagogies, intersectionality and bell hooks’ belief that education is the practice of freedom (4). Difficulty: Medium. Aims: To showcase how Scalar can be used in teaching literature in bilingual contexts, to capture what can get lost in translation in teaching bilingual literature via analogue methods. Demonstrate how translanguaging pedagogy, digital pedagogy and universal design can work together in contemporary teaching and learning contexts. Target audience: Those who teach and learn literature in connection with the study of modern languages; those who want to overcome challenges to teaching in bilingual or even polylingual contexts; those who would like visualise bilingual texts in non-linear, collaborative and intersecting ways; those interested in teaching and learning about the politics of translation using digital tools and methods. This tutorial is suitable for teaching in higher education and second level, especially where there is a focus on research-based and -led teaching and learning.