A tale of two placements: Influences of ESL designation on the identities of two linguistic minority community college students

Abstract

This article draws upon interviews with two Generation 1.5 students at an urban community college with a large multilingual student population, demonstrating the ways in which ESL designation and writing placement affect students’ constructions of identity. It compares and contrasts the experiences of one student who is placed into an ESL-designated developmental writing course and one student who is placed into a developmental writing course for native English speakers (NES), exploring the extent to which this placement validates and/or challenges their self-conceptions as students and writers. It also promotes investigation of placement procedures that perpetuate divisions between ESL and NES writing courses.