An “Aha!” Moment

Language Justice, Curriculum Renovation, and English Language Learning Program Reform

Winter Break home office makeover project leading to more expansive thinking in 2022.

Just had an “Aha!” moment to take what is currently piecemeal tinkering with our English for Academic** Purposes* curriculum to top-to-bottom renovation centered on linguistic justice, differentiated instruction, systemic/strategic enrollment management (inc. dual enrollment students , F-1 visa holders, and undocumented students, + enhanced retention and a new learning community), intensiveness, and integration with existing wraparound campus student support services programs.

Up top and on the shelves beside my desk are books I’ve read, underneath are many more I haven’t, yet.

The funding to make this happen January-March as a team effort by and with our ELL adjunct faculty and for and with our students presented itself in an email that hit my inbox at 5:07pm yesterday. I unplugged, did the movie and take out thing with Mairin and Jacob, and woke up with the synapses firing. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of buzz words above, but I have a clear vision of how they fit together and now it’s down on paper! Ready to run in 2022!

The top two pieces are all the societal ills that must be destroyed; below are maps of So. America, Chile, and a Korean scroll map of the world.

I’ll continue to document this process, including look backs to the 2018–19 overhaul and the 2021 tinkering, in subsequent posts here.

Sphinx the RBG is my thought partner; Baltimore City College High School’s tower in background, where student organizing is a consistent inspiration.

*My predecessor did a great job of overhauling our EAP curriculum in 2018–19. These ideas would build on her work while minimizing the administrative and paperwork hurdles of curriculum reform.

*In a Systemic/Strategic Enrollment Management for EAP brainstorming session I facilitated on Tuesday, our team came to the conclusion that “English for Academic Purposes” doesn’t really describe what this part of our program is, may be off putting to prospective students with different goals, and is not in line with raciolinguistic justice praxis. What should we rename this program?