Creating a Transnational Space in the First Year Writing Classroom

Book excerpt: During the first twenty years of the new millennium, many scholars turned their attention to translingualism, an idea that focuses on the merging of language in distinct social and spatial contexts to serve unique, mutually constitutive, and temporal purposes. This volume joins the more recent shift in pedagogical studies towards an altogether distinct phenomenon: transnationalism. By developing a framework for transnational pedagogical practice, this volume demonstrates the exclusive opportunities afforded to freshmen writers who write in transnational spaces that act as points of fusion for several cultural, lingual, and national identities. With reference to recent works on translingualism and transnationalism, this volume is an attempt to conceptualize effective writing pedagogy in freshman writing courses, which are becoming more and more transnational. It also provides educators and first year writing administrators with practical pedagogical tools to help them use their transnational spaces as a means of achieving their desired learning outcomes as well as teaching students threshold concepts of composition studies. This volume will be particularly useful for first year writing faculty at colleges and universities as well as writing program administrators to create a more effective curriculum that addresses these needs in classroom settings. All scholars with a doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition, English as a Second Language, Translation Studies, to name a few, will also find this a valuable resource.