Privileging bilingualism: Using biliterate writing outcomes to understand emerging bilingual learners’ literacy achievement

Abstract

Language planning and policy with regard to bilingual education are greatly influenced by the ideologies outlined by Richard Ruiz. In this article, we demonstrate that Ruiz’s language-as-resource orientation requires that we use two-language assessments to study how program models are both developing and conserving the languages that students bring to school. We demonstrate through a study of students’ writing how scholars might use such assessments to privilege bilingualism and present a more complete understanding of students’ biliteracy development that counters the use of bilingualism in service to the hegemony of English, even when the same study includes a comparison of English outcomes of students in paired literacy as compared to students in English-only models. Findings reveal that students in paired literacy are becoming comparably literate in the domain of writing in Spanish and English as measured by a Biliteracy Writing Rubric. Furthermore, when their English language outcomes are compared to those of their peers in English-only contexts, the differences are found to be statistically insignificant.

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