At the beginning of each school year, I do a welcome week with my 9th graders to build community and to get to know my students as individuals before diving into the content. This is also an opportunity to set community norms and routines. For next year, I am adding a day for working on language portraits. I chose to add the written reflection component so that students can fully explain their design choices; this also acts as an additional formative writing assessment for my own beginning of the year data collection purposes. Students will be able to use any/all of their languages to respond the prompts, which will also allow me to see their languaging practices and choice in written expression.

As part of our welcome week, I want to co-create a poster with my classes called “the languages of room 219”. (This would most likely happen as a follow up to the language portraits activity.) This is an opportunity to document all of the languages represented in the room, so that these languages are visible. This will help students to connect in these languages, to learn about languages different from their own, and to know which languages are available as a resource during class activities. This also helps me as the teacher to make sure no languages are missed as I get to know my students in the beginning of the school year, especially since this is common when multilingual students are not identified as MLLs.

During the Quarter 4 unit, we spend a week examining the connections between language and identity through a series of texts and activities. At the end of the week, students have a choice of free write prompts to reflect on their connections to the texts and activities. As outlined in the free writing reminders slide, students are welcome to write in any/all of their languages, welcoming translanguaging practices in their creative writing. A student example from this year is included, with the student’s permission to share their reflections.