36.3727, FYI: Addressing Current Issues in Teaching First-Year Writing to Multilingual Learners: Plurality, Linguistic Justice, and Decolonization

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3727. Wed Dec 03 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.3727, FYI: Addressing Current Issues in Teaching First-Year Writing to Multilingual Learners: Plurality, Linguistic Justice, and Decolonization

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Mara Baccaro, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Daniel Swanson <daniel at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 02-Dec-2025
From: Anita Chaudhuri [anita.chaudhuri at ubc.ca]
Subject: Addressing Current Issues in Teaching First-Year Writing to Multilingual Learners: Plurality, Linguistic Justice, and Decolonization


Call for Chapters
(https://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/9430)
Proposals Submission Deadline: January 4, 2026
Full Chapters Due: May 10, 2026
Introduction
Multilingual students in Canadian higher education institutions (HEIs)
are a prominent demographic, with the number of international students
attending postsecondary institutions increasing from 7% to 18% of
enrolled students across Canada during the last decade (Statistics
Canada, 2024). The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of
Canadian university classrooms carries significant implications for
the conceptualization and teaching of first year academic literacy
courses, which are a foundational, introductory requirement at many
institutions. It has been suggested that writing and composition
theory/practice in Canada has traditionally assumed a monolingual,
monocultural mindset (Cumming, 2023), approaching academic literacy
through identifying and conforming to the conventions of scholarly
discourse communities distinguished by discipline, and thus teaching
learners standardized language norms and expectations that are
required for success. Studies in the last decade, however, have begun
to shift the theoretical and pedagogical focus, highlighting the need
to move beyond a deficit-oriented mindset characterized by
Western-dominated, monolingual, academic English and cultural
references (e.g., Canagarajah, 2023) and toward a more linguistically
just or inclusive pedagogy. This is particularly relevant given the
broad range of cultures, languages, ethnicities, and world views that
come together in Canadian first-year writing classes (e.g., Ahmed,
2024; Bhowmik & Chaudhuri, 2023; Chaudhuri & Stouck, 2024).
Objective
Linguistic justice scholars in the U.S. have recognized that
justice-informed, equitable and inclusive learning opportunities are
essential for language learning and literacy development. These
educational leaders have a stance against racism, publishing demands
for Black linguistic justice, and endorsing pedagogical models that
center culturally and linguistically diverse students, their
socio-cultural realities, and experiences of historical inequities
(CCCC 2024). Such scholarship informs the Canadian context; however,
it does not fully encompass the experiences of Indigenous, bilingual,
multilingual and international students in first-year writing
classrooms. The edited collection seeks to address this gap with a
specific focus on three scholarly approaches: building pluricultural
and plurilingual practices into Canadian first-year academic writing
classes (e.g., Galante, 2020; Marshall & Moore, 2018; Van Viegen &
Zappa-Hollman, 2019); challenging colonial attitudes, biases, and
practices that privilege monolingual Anglophone students (e.g., Santos
& Sohn, 2024; Walsh Marr, 2023); and promoting linguistic justice in
multilingual writing classrooms (e.g., Blaauw-Hara, 2023; Charnley,
Stouck, & Comeau, 2024; Gentil, 2023).
Target Audience
This project is a one-of-a-kind strategic response to linguistic
justice and decolonization efforts in Canadian writing studies. We see
our intended audience across Canada to be faculty members in
communications and rhetoric, language and literacy education, English
and cultural studies, and English as an additional language programs
who research and teach first-year writing to multilingual learners,
graduate students as emerging scholars and teaching assistants, and
writing center specialists.
Recommended Topics
This publication will impact the research community’s efforts to:
- Move theory into practice,
- Recognize how the Canadian context can foreground Indigenous,
bilingual and multilingual worldviews that promote more equitable
multilingual and multicultural teaching practices, and
- Understand linguistic diversity and linguistic justice possibilities
when responding to student writing.
The book will be organized in three sections on theory, practical
context (examples of innovative practices and/or actionable
strategies), and assessment to enhance linguistic justice and
decolonization efforts. We invite researchers to address any of the
following topics. We encourage co-authored chapters which include
graduate students as co-contributors and seek submissions from diverse
Canadian contexts and perspectives to inform innovation and leadership
in post-secondary writing instruction.
- Frameworks to practice plurilingual, raciolinguistic, Indigenous,
and social justice for multilingual nlearners
- Linguistic justice in Canadian writing classrooms
- Code meshing and translingualism for teaching and assessing academic
writing
- Linguistic citizenship
- Land-based and student-centred approaches to writing instruction
- Family literacies that support scholarly voice for multilingual
writers
- Home languages and cultures in university writing and rhetoric
courses
- Crosslingual reading and writing instruction
- Inclusive writing instruction
- Ways to challenging linguistic discrimination in higher education
- Pluralism and linguistic justice assessment practices
- Antiracist and decolonial writing pedagogies
- Accessible and inclusive discourses in higher ed
- Teaching and assessment practices of non-White or multilingual
instructors
- Articulate a future of linguistic equity and justice enhanced by
artificial intelligence
Note: For additional context, authors may wish to view the PRISM
Toolkit website (https://ok-linguistic-equity-2025.sites.olt.ubc.ca/).

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Writing Systems

Subject Language(s): English (eng)




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3727
----------------------------------------------------------