Two Sisters and a Heuristic for Listening to Multilingual, International Students’ Directed Self-Placement Stories

Directed self-placement (DSP) is considered useful in linguistically and culturally diverse writing programs, but questions of self-efficacy institutional knowledge sustain hesitancy using DSP with English as an additional language (EAL) writers. This interview study grounded sociocultural literacy theory explores multilingual, international students’ engagement placement courses, showcasing two quadrilingual, bicultural, student sisters, Hemani Kavya. Despite nearly identical linguistic, cultural, educational backgrounds upon concurrently entering a program, they experienced differently enrolled different sections: mainstream Kavya EAL courses. shares DSP’s positive impacts on her program trajectory whereas Kavya’s story uncovers lost opportunities feelings otherness. Findings affirm that complex highly contextual. highlights mission building agency motivation for collecting primary data so marginalized students can explain effects their identity development. Responding to the need empirical research writers DSP, analysis considers offers heuristic examining experiences across contexts.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 6 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073697537 9 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}