Patriann Smith
About Patriann Smith
Speech topics
Positioning Literate Precarity as Transraciolinguistic Possibility
As North America and the world continue to wrestle with the pervasiveness of literate precarity, the presents and futures of youth beckon our collective consciousness, seeking pathways for hope and for flourishing. Even as a crusade of banned books and challenged classics rages on, there continue to be numerous possibilities for harnessing the peripheral positioning by which we appear to be assailed.
One promising possibility for paddling almost imperceptibly (or not) through precarity is a transraciolinguistic approach. Building on the elements highlighted by a raciolinguistic perspective with a specific emphasis on the implications of ‘individual-to-global analyses’, and functioning in conjunction with insights from diaspora literacy, transnational literacy, and racial literacy, the five elements of a transraciolinguistic approach will be discussed based on how these emerged —èvèk èpi sans white gaze — in the lives and literacies of Black Caribbean immigrant youth reading and writing their transnational worlds.
In turn, practical pathways for using the 3’M’s of this approach — metalinguistic, metacultural, and metaracial understandings — during students’ reading of fictional and non-fictional literature will be presented.
Based on these insights, it is anticipated that teachers will be better able to use a transraciolinguistic approach to support Black immigrant students as well as all youth’s reading of literature via multiple modes. It is also expected that teachers will be able to use a transraciolinguistic approach to transform K-12 standards for the teaching of literature in ways that create relational pathways for hope and for flourishing.
Speaking videos
Books by Patriann Smith
“Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom (Language and Literacy Series)” (2023)
Learn how to center, affirm, and develop Black immigrant literacies in ways that allow all youth to engage with and honor their literacies. This book presents a framework to revolutionize teaching in ways that draw on students’ assets for redesigning, rethinking, and reimagining literacy and the English language arts curriculum. This novel framework has five mechanisms through which Black immigrant literacies and languaging can be better understood: the struggle for justice, the myth of the model minority, transraciolinguistics, the local-global, and holistic literacies. Presenting authentic narratives of Afro-Caribbean youth, the author describes how teachers and educators can: (1) teach the Black literate immigrant; (2) use literacy and English language arts curriculum as a vehicle for instructing Black immigrant youth; (3) foster relations among Black immigrants and their peers through literacy; and (4) connect parents, schools, and communities. The text includes lesson plans, instructional modules, and templates that range in their focus from K–12 to college. Book Features: Details how teachers, curriculum, and instruction can benefit from understanding the experiences of Black immigrant students, and how that experience differs from other Black American students. Highlights authentic narratives that center the holistic voices of Afro-Caribbean immigrant youth from Jamaica and the Bahamas. Demonstrates how students grapple with racialization, becoming immigrants, and the responses of others to their use of Englishes in the United States. Offers research-based methods for teaching all students to draw on their metalinguistic, metacultural, and metaracial understandings in literacy and ELA classrooms. Presents concrete strategies for supporting Black immigrant populations in establishing and sustaining a sense of community across linguistic, cultural, and racial contexts.
“Handbook of Research on Cross-Cultural Approaches to Language and Literacy Development” (2015)
With rapid technological and cultural advancements, the 21st century has witnessed the wide scale development of transnationalist economies, which has led to the concurrent evolution of language and literacy studies, expanding cross-cultural approaches to literacy and communication. Current language education applies new technologies and multiple modes of text to a diverse range of cultural contexts, enhancing the classroom experience for multi-lingual learners. The Handbook of Research on Cross-Cultural Approaches to Language and Literacy Development provides an authoritative exploration of cross-cultural approaches to language learning through extensive research that illuminates the theoretical frameworks behind multicultural pedagogy and its myriad applications for a globalized society. With its comprehensive coverage of transnational case studies, trends in literacy teaching, and emerging instructive technologies, this handbook is an essential reference source for K-20 educators, administrators in school districts, English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, and researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). This diverse publication features comprehensive and accessible articles on the latest instructional pedagogies and strategies, current empirical research on cross-cultural language development, and the unique challenges faced by teachers, researchers, and policymakers who promote cross-cultural perspectives.
At a glancePatriann Smith
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