ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Latinx high school students enrolled in a special college-level class on language, race, culture, and power adopted and co-constructed their understanding of one particular academic concept: communities of practice. The concept was selected for analysis due to students’ responsiveness to the term and its continued use throughout the course. The chapter is based on a discourse analysis of classroom interaction in a twelfth-grade academic preparation class that was documented using video recordings and classroom observations for the five-month duration of the course, as well as analysis of students’ presentations and research assignments. By analyzing examples of how the concept was applied in classroom interactions as well as in students’ work, the author argues that the students and instructors were able to co-construct a space in which their personal experiences and hybrid language practices were positioned as valuable resources for learning. Further, students’ multiple ways of appropriating the term communities of practice provide insight into how academic language can be made relevant to students’ lives and employed for the purpose of meaningful academic and personal work.
