Pamela J.
Hickey, Column Editor
Bridging Literacies:
Poetic Translation as an
Act of Empowerment
Kristin Winet
Rollins College
kwinet@rollins.edu
Ryan L. Winet
Rollins College
rwinet@rollins.edu
Two months into our first semes-
ter teaching developmental read-
ing at our former institution,
we noticed a distinct hierarchy
emerging between levels of per-
ceived ownership students felt
over the material: the ELL stu-
dents were frequently deferring to
their more proficient partners and
silencing themselves in the pro-
cess. The majority of our students
were multilingual, speaking Man-
darin Chinese, Turkish, Korean,
and German as first languages,
though some of our students were
monolingual English speakers. Up
to this point in the semester, we
had been engaged in an English
language immersive environment,
encouraging all students to speak
and write in the target language.
However, we realized that if we
wanted to promote the idea that
we are all learners of English, we
needed to address that explicitly
in class. We decided to do some-
thing radical.
66 English Journal 106.1 (2016): 66–68
Copyright © 2016 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
EJ_Sept_2016_C.indd 66
Lingua Anglia:
Bridging Language
and Learners
We decided to introduce
translation.
The use of translation in the
composition classroom is a com-
plicated issue. Though some
scholars have argued that courses
for linguistically diverse students
require a methodology that values
students’ “multi-­ competence,” or
a mind with “two grammars,” the
prevailing assumption for many
teachers and instructors is that
permitting home languages and
integrating translation leads stu-
dents to develop a language crutch
(Cook 557). Critics of translation
often argue it is a descriptive—­as
opposed to prescriptive—­ method
that concentrates on rules and
vocabulary, rather than natural
acquisition (Huang). We believe
that these criticisms follow a lim-
iting assumption, especially in
light of new research demonstrat-
ing how the effects of globalization
have made acts of translation an
ever-­important theme for writing
teachers to discuss in their classes
(Leonardi). Instead of keeping
translation entirely out of the class-
room or embracing it too heavily,
we believe there is a third way: that
translation can be brought into the
classroom not to promote the idea
of rules and regulations, but rather
to invite students to dialogue, to
speak with their classmates about
their home communities, about
their favorite poets and writers, and
about how their languages work.
We know, too, that the ELL
environment presents many chal-
lenges to reading and writing
teachers, not least of which is
encouraging a classroom culture
that can be accessed and used
by all students. Therefore, as we
developed our lesson plan, we
recalled that many of our ELL
learners drew upon a rich Chinese
literary tradition that is not always
honored in the introductory com-
position classroom environment;
it is quite often entirely ignored
in lieu of promoting culturally
specific texts written by Western
writers. Therefore, to honor our
students’ rich literary traditions
and to change the dynamics of
the class in a playful manner, we
decided to begin with these learn-
ers and did a little bit of investi-
gating into Chinese poetry. Over
and over again, the same poem
came up in our searches: Li Bai’s
famous and deceptively simple
quatrain 靜夜思, often trans-
lated to English as “Quiet Night
Thoughts.” We printed out copies
of the poem in the original Chi-
nese on large sheets of paper:
静夜思
床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡
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We then divided students into
groups. Each group had at least
one Mandarin speaker, a multilin-
gual speaker, and a monolingual
English speaker. We held up the
poem in its original language and
listened as the Mandarin students
began chatting excitedly about
this famous Chinese poem, one
they have had memorized, they
told us, since kindergarten. Other
students looked at the poem in
complete disbelief, feeling, they
told us, how their Chinese part-
ners must sometimes feel when
looking at an unfamiliar text.
To begin the lesson, we asked
the Chinese students to guide the
non-­Mandarin speakers through
an ideogrammatic translation
of each character, using both
groups’ strengths to help “talk
through” what each character
means. The idea was to invoke
Robert Weschler’s claim that a
blend of grammar-­translation and
active communication can create
“a new, more powerful hybrid . . .
in which the focus is more on
the negotiated meaning of the
message than its sterile form.”
Though each group came up with
slightly different translations, a
common ideogrammatic transla-
tion was the following:
[bed] [front] [bright] [moon]
[light]
[suspect] [is] [ground] [on]
[frost]
[raise] [head] [look] [bright]
[moon]
[lower] [head] [think of] [old]
[home village]
We compared translations and
quickly realized students were
pausing on characters like
“frost” and “home village,”
grappling with how to properly
EJ_Sept_2016_C.indd 67
Lingua Anglia: Bridging Language and Learners
describe frost to their classmates
and trying to figure out whether
or not the frost was a metaphor
or if Bai was actually observing
frost on the ground outside his
window. The intent, though,
was to pause on the language
and consider its meaning more
carefully: while some students
had translated “frost” as “snowy
ice,” others had decided upon
“ice chips,” or “frosty floor.” We
discussed the rhetorical choices
behind each one, emphasizing,
for instance, the poetic liberty of
“snowy ice” and the literalness
of “ice chips.”
The success of these
translations is secondary to
the success of the lesson
in creating an inclusive,
accessible environment.
At this point, we asked stu-
dents to take their translations and
compose them into poems that
made poetic sense to an English
speaker. As they worked together,
more questions emerged, such as
whether the connotations of the
last character—­ “nostalgia” or
“homesickness”—­ could be used
in English interchangeably. While
the monolingual English speakers
argued that the words had rela-
tively the same connotation, the
Mandarin speakers countered that
nostalgia is more closely related
to “late nights” and that home-
sickness can occur at any time.
One Chinese student mentioned
that she envisioned nostalgia as
being an American emotion, one
that relies on a cultural fascination
with youth and the past, rather
than an acceptance of the present
moment. Others argued that pin-
ing for a “home village” invokes
homesickness, not nostalgia,
because the speaker did not men-
tion a specific event or moment in
time.
At the end of the lesson, we
reconvened as a class and worked
on one translation together. Kris-
tin’s class focused on the personal
“I” and the thoughts and actions
of the speaker:
At the foot of my bed, bright
moonlight
It looks like frost on the floor
Raising my head, I gaze at the
bright moon
Lowering my head, I think
fondly of my village
Ryan’s class, on the other hand,
decided to deemphasize the
speaker and instead focus on the
ephemeral setting and the ques-
tioning of the frost on the ground:
In front of the bed, there’s
bright moonlight
Could it be frost on the ground
instead?
Lifting the head, gazing at the
bright moon outside
Bending down, feeling homesick
As we reflect on the students’
work, we realize that the success
of these translations is second-
ary to the success of the lesson
in creating an inclusive, acces-
sible environment. Our Chinese
students were speaking up and
grappling with new vocabular-
ies, and our other students were
learning about the reading process
from another’s perspective, using
their own linguistic competen-
cies to help finesse the words into
artful sentences. Several groups
had naturally digressed into dis-
cussions of previous educational
experiences and anecdotes, creat-
ing a culture of camaraderie and
discovery regarding language
English Journal 67
8/30/16 6:25 PM
 Bridging Literacies: Poetic Translation as an Act of Empowerment

and culture that had not existed
before. The energy infused the
rest of the semester: A Hawaiian
student stayed after class one day
to show Kristin and a small group
of students how to write common
greetings and how to pronounce
the vowel-­dominant words in her
native Hawaiian. In Ryan’s class,
students saw how excited the
Mandarin speakers were about
receiving a poem in their own
language. It inspired other stu-
dents to bring in, share, and trans-
late poems written in languages
such as Indonesian, Korean, and
German.
We believe that we have effec-
tively responded to Vanessa Leon-
ardi’s call for a reevaluation of
translation as effective practice
in an increasingly globalized and
multilingual world. As writing
teachers, we are always seeking
ways to engage, connect with, and
honor our students. Though we
recognize that using translation
remains a hotly debated topic in
immersion settings, we are now
convinced that reconceptualizing
this space will help instructors
reach students in more compel-
ling, meaningful ways, ensuring
the respect and appreciation
of diverse home languages and
cultures. 
Works Cited
Cook, Vivian. “Evidence for Multi-­
Competence.” Language Learning
42.4 (1992): 557–­91. Print.
Huang, Harry J. “The Role of Transla-
tion from First to Second Language
in a Course of Writing in a Sec-
ond Language.” Letras de Hoje 26.4
(1991): 105–­26. Web.
Leonardi, Vanessa. The Role of Pedagog-
ical Translation in Second Language
Acquisition: From Theory to Practice.
New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Web.
Weschler, Robert. “Uses of Japanese
(L1) in the English Classroom: Intro-
ducing the Functional-­ Translation
Method.” The Internet TESL Journal
3.11 (1997). Web.

Kristin Winet is the director of the First-Year Writing Program at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She has been a mem-
ber of NCTE since 2014. Ryan L. Winet is a PhD candidate in literature at the University of Arizona and a lecturer at Rollins
College.

English 101
She wanted to be an actress, Mrs. Accardo, my first college English teacher with the short brown hair that
curled like a poodle’s soft fur. She didn’t believe in makeup. She asked if anyone was a feminist and I was
hooked. I couldn’t get enough of her lectures and the way she flailed her hands about like a sparrow in a
birdbath, soft, unassuming, as if one heavy hand could snap her in two. We wrote in her class, really wrote,
filling three journal pages every day. It didn’t matter what they said, just as long as those pages were
bursting with long, scribbled cursive thoughts that flowed from our minds like spilled coffee, dark, rich,
and sweet. Steamy hot, delectable words stung our insides and woke us up. They made our eyes red and our
hearts race. She stirred our minds with a swizzle stick, poking and prodding until the truth poured out. All
that remained were the used up grounds at the bottom of the cup, bitter and gritty reality.
—Jennifer Novotney
© 2016 by Jennifer Novotney

Jennifer Novotney (jleenovo@gmail.com) earned an MA in English from Northern Arizona University. In 2014, she was a
Moonbeam Children’s Book Award winner for her novel, Winter in the Soul. She taught at Pennsylvania State University
before settling at MMI Preparatory School. She can be reached through her website, JenniferNovotney.com. Jennifer has
been a member of NCTE since 2012.

68 September 2016

EJ_Sept_2016_C.indd 68 8/30/16 6:25 PM

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.