Critical Biliteracies without Borders: Translanguaging and Culturally Sustaining Approaches

The Sol y Agua research practice partnership is a team of teachers and administrators from El Paso Independent School District and researchers from University of Texas at El Paso, and our work aimed to center the biliteracies and experiences US-Mexico borderland students in their learning of computer science. In this webinar we share how students’ extensive knowledge of bordercrossing and their translanguaging skills figured centrally in the team’s planning process, but receded to the margins in practice when curriculum was piloted, and how collaborative reflection and revision of the curriculum helped us to bring biliteracies back to the center. We share some of the ways that we did this, identify pressures that made it difficult, and we discuss the Continua of Biliteracy as a tool that can help keep focus on students’ biliteracies in both planning and practice.