Summary and Analysis Assignment

To support your reading and reflection on the readings, you will submit a summary and analysis for the
required readings for each week. Below is a template you are welcome to use, but feel free to use a
format that works best for you. Submissions are due each Sunday by midnight.

Your submission should include the following:

 An APA-formatted complete reference for the article or book
 A summary of the author’s main ideas and arguments. When reading multiple chapters, include a
summary for each chapter.
 Two quotes from the reading (remember to indicate the page numbers) and an explanation of why
you choose these.
 Analysis/reflection of how the reading has helped you to understand the concepts or ideas discussed
in the reading. Make connections with other readings from other classes and also to your own
personal and professional experiences. Tell me what you have learned, what you would like to know
more about, and what challenged your beliefs or assumptions.

Template for Summary and Analysis Assignment (when filled in this will be at least two pages)

APA Formatted Reference: Pimentel, C. (2011); The Color of Language: Racialized Educational
Trajectory of An Emerging Bilingual Student, Journal of Latinos and Education, 10:04. 335-353
Key Terms/Concepts/ from the article and their definitions
 Bilingual education: it is a term that refers to the teaching of academic content in two
languages, in a native and second language.
 Language ideologies: are morally and politically loaded representations of the structure and
use of languages in a social world.
 Dual-language programs: use the partner language for at least half of the instructional day in
the elementary years. These programs generally start in kindergarten or first grade and extend
for at least five years, and many continue into middle school and high school.
 Remedial language: perceive students’ native language as deficiencies that must be overcome.
 At risk pre-K student: it is a term used in the United States to describe a student who requires
temporary or ongoing intervention in order to succeed academically.
 Academic readiness: an estimate, based on qualitative and/or quantitative information, about
 whether a preschool child is ready to handle the various demands of the structured
educational environment.
 The whiteness or white privilege is a program that seeks to maintain power for a socially
constructed group of people who are referred to as whites.
 Linguistic Conformity. This ideology disseminates the idea that this nation must conform to
one linguistic code in order to ensure national unity, social stability, and the preservation of
democratic values.
 Language as a Liability. It is the conception of language as a problem, language as a liability is
an ideology that constructs non-English languages as social impediments that prohibit
students from learning the English language, which stands in the way of language minority
students being able to fully participate in academic, employment, and other social avenues of
integration and advancement.
 The Fear of Language. This ideology emerges out of xenophobic sentiments that imagine
Latinas/so taking over U.S. cities and resisting assimilation, thereby posing a direct challenge
to existing power relations in this country that privilege Whites.
 Language Elitism. This language ideology is closely tied to “linguistic imperialism” in which the
English language has been used as a tool for colonialism. Within this ideology, the English
language is perceived as being superior, a language of intellect and enlightenment.
 Language as a Commodity. Although still giving prestige to the English language, this ideology
perceives non-English languages as commodities assets that can create job opportunities,
career advancements, and participation in an increasingly interconnected, multicultural, and
multilingual global community.
Main Ideas/Arguments

 Enrichment models of bilingual education place students in classrooms where they continue
to develop their native language in addition to English throughout their elementary years.
 Remedial languages programs include Transitional Bilingual Education and English immersion.
 The ultimate goal of bilingual education is to produce students who can operate long term in
bilingual and biliterate contexts, whether those contexts be within their families,
communities, or work sites.
 Academic identities are tied to the languages students speak.
 The premature placement of language-minority students in English mainstream classes gives
 them a disadvantage that is hard to overcome.
 In contrast to what the bilingual education research says about unconditionally using
students’ native languages as resources for learning, in practice language policies and
programs often prioritize the acquisition of the English language to the detriment of other
languages.
 Larger social relations of power guide practices.
 Blackness and brownness are often characterized in explicit deficit terms in the media, in
schools, and in the larger society.
 In a colorblind society, Latinos can potentially integrate and effectively function in mainstream
society until they actually open their mouths and speak either spanish or English with a
spanish accent.
 Usually programs assume that Latinos, spanish-speaking students are academically behind
and unequipped to achieve in kindergarten because of the language they use.
 When bilingual programs are physically separated from the main school, as they often are,
they can become considered marginal to the larger school culture.
 When the program is seen in this narrow capacity, it may be difficult for educators and
students who do not participate in the program to perceive the pre-K students outside of a
deficit framework.
 This project teaches pre-K students that they lack the resources necessary for learning,
resources that other students in the school not only possess but can attempt to package up
and give away in a grocery bag.
 Spanish-speaking students are nonetheless perceived as participating in the designated
“gifted” program within the school and consequently are perceived as gifted.
 The racialization of the English language signifies English as an elite and academic language as
well as a prerequisite for academic achievement.
Quote 1: when schools invest Rationale: I would like to be part of a school where the identity plays
in students’ long-term native a significant role. I understand language is equal to identity because
language development, they when I learned English at the beginning, I was a different person, and
are not only investing in the it took years to adapt my spanish personality to English. So, I want as
prospect of producing future a teacher to help students to develop their identity in both languages
bilingual, but they are and being a guide for them to improve their lives in any languages.
investing in students’
identities. Pp 338
Quote 2: if educators want to Rationale: I usually use spanish as a starting point when I am teaching
facilitate and even accelerate English as second language, I spent some hours making my students
Latino, spanish-speaking conscious about their first language and what they know about it.
students’ acquisition of Then I just match those feelings and knowledge with English and use
English language, they need it for let them feel more comfortable. It is important to know the
to continue to develop language we speak before getting into other one, that can make the
students’ native language. Pp path easer.
339
Analysis/Reflection
This article shows some real-life situation of non-English speaker vs standard education. It shows
something I consider is important to recognize as a teacher and it is the fake perspective about non
margination because you do not speak the language. You can be an immigrant and speak English but if
you have accent automatically you are categorized either as Latino or African American. It becomes a
worse situation when you do not speak English at all because then you are consider disadvantaged in
comparison not the other people. We need to create a system where we all are included regardless
blood, skin, or nationality. That false publicity about multilingual education when the structure of
education is based on White people benefit.
Something I have thought before and the article confirmed me is that as a Latino who has wither skin
than other Latinos, I can integrate as another American in the US until the point I speak, then because
my accented English, the stereotypes jokes and comments start to pull up. Most of the time I do not
complain about it, but it is true that the treatment changes a lot before and after they realize you are
an immigrant.
I would like to change that perspective and help from my classroom to build a better place for
immigrant students, fight against those “programs” which try to integrate in a wrong way, all the
people together.