Right or Wrong? The Classroom as a Site of Compliance

Abstract

English language learners, and particularly recent immigrants, must negotiate not only the academic demands of American schooling, but also the social and cultural demands. In this vingette drawn from student teaching experience, the author shows how the classroom is often a site shaped by the dichotomy of right/wrong, in which students are constantly assessing the degree to which they have complied with expectations and in which there is often no space left for questions that seek answers outside of that dichotomy.