1. Reflective Essay
Before this course, my exposure to migrant workers came from angry social media posts
about closing our borders and reading the provincial comments responding to the original status.
Even though I grew up in a small town and lived in small towns my whole life, I have always
thought that my beliefs were more progressive than my neighbors. During the course of this
class, I have become more aware of migrant issues in the media as well as my friends’ reactions
to these stories.
At the beginning of this course, I had very little exposure to English Language Learners
(ELLs) in the classroom and even less experience with migrant farm workers’ children in my
classroom. While I still do not have any more experience with these students in my classroom, I
do feel like I know more about them as learners and as people. However, my core beliefs and
dispositions, based on the survey regarding migrant farm workers, remained fairly consistent.
The biggest changes in my surveys were changing from no opinion (neither agree nor disagree)
to an opinion (either agree or disagree). I think that this course taught me enough that I am able
to have an opinion on situations that I previously did not know enough about to agree or
disagree.
In the pre-survey I indicated that I had no opinion on whether people in the USA should
be required to speak English, but at the end of this course, I strongly disagreed that people in
America should be required to speak English. I think this change came from the presentations on
Curzan & Adams (2012) throughout the semester. These presentations made me more aware of
ELLs in our schools being placed in special education classes because of the language barrier
alone. It made me realize that their language is just as important and valuable as English.

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Similarly, after the course I disagreed that everyone who enters the US should be required to
learn English within three years.
I also indicated on the pre-survey that I had no definitive opinion about if crossing the
border into the US without documentation should be a dangerous and deadly risk. After reading
…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera and participating in class chats, I realize
that the people who are crossing our border are moms and dads, children, best friends. These are
no longer just blank-faced people to me; they are someone’s family and should not risk harm or
death to cross our border.
While …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera was incredibly sad at
times and rarely included any positive aspect of the migrant workers’ lives, I did enjoy it. It
provided me with a very realistic account of what these people face on a daily basis. Parents
want what is best for their children, but have to leave them at home unsupervised while the
parents work in the fields, or the children have to miss school to work in the fields too. This book
also outlined times when parents sent their children to live with strangers believing that this was
the best opportunity for the children.
I do not think that this book (used wholly) would be a useful tool in the classroom. I think
there are excerpts that could be used in classrooms as supplementary material to provide students
will a similar story in a different culture. In an American literature classroom, “A Silvery Night”
(104-106) could be used after reading Puritan literature like “The Devil and Tom Walker”
because both stories are about someone walking at night to meet the devil. It would provide
students with a different cultural experience and allow them to compare and contrast these
events. Unfortunately, some of the material and language would prevent me from using the entire
book in my class.

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Not only did I gain information about ELLs from the young adult literature reading and
class chats, I also learned valuable knowledge about the major elements of linguistics from
fictitious characters from my childhood. Since I am only fluent in English and have no real
recollection of learning to speak or read this language, many tasks in this course were difficult
for me. What stands out the most for me is the Elmer Fudd and Tweety Bird assignment. This
helped me understand phonology. It is also memorable because these are characters I grew up
watching and had never thought about how their voices were created. For me, these were just
silly voices with no rhyme or reason. Now when I hear them, I recognize which phonological
rules were broken to create the voices. Similarly, analyzing Elmo and Yoda’s syntax and
morphological showed me that these characters were not just careless in their speech—not using
pronouns and changing the order of sentences—there was a systematic approach to create these
voices for the characters. Analyzing these rules with familiar characters reinforced the correct
rules and made understanding these ideas much easier. I believe that I will be able to use this
new understanding to help my future ELL students in the classroom because I will know to look
for patterns in their language and compare their variations to my own language.
In my literature class at Effingham County High School, I have never encountered an
ELL student in my classroom that was not completely proficient in English. However, there are
many aspects of this course that are still beneficial for me as a teacher of all students. The young
adult novel taught me that I need to be aware of what students are facing outside of school at
home and with their friends. It also reminds me that I need to stay in touch with parents more so
that they are aware of their child’s progress. For any future ELL student I may teach, I know that
his or her culture may impact the behavior in my classroom. I also know that I need to increase
my wait time after asking a question and make sure that my expectations are clearly stated and

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listed in writing where the students can see. I definitely feel better prepared to teach an ELL than
before taking this class.

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References
Curzan, A. & Adams, M. (2012). How English works: A linguistic approach. Pearson Education,
Inc. Boston, MA.
Rivera, Tomás. (1992). …And The Earth Did Not Devour Him. Houston. Arte Publico Press.

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References
Curzan, A. & Adams, M. (2012). How English works: A linguistic approach. Pearson Education,
Inc. Boston, MA.
Rivera, Tomás. (1992). …And The Earth Did Not Devour Him. Houston. Arte Publico Press.