Imagining a Peace Curriculum: What

Second-Language Education Brings

to the Table
by Brian Morgan and Stephanie Vandrick
Just as peace and justice studies contributes much to Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages, the reverse is also true: second-language
classes are particularly rich sites to explore diverse notions of the common
good and implications for peace and war. Because of the intercultural
interactions in such classrooms, and because such classes focus on language and communication, these settings offer unique opportunities to
develop pedagogies addressing interethnic conflict and the dehumanizing
language and images that promote it. English as a Second Language classrooms are productive settings for the telling of stories that counter official
ones. Here we focus on critical pedagogies and curricula in two classroom
settings. In the first, a class including Muslim students employs a critical
media literacy perspective to investigate post-September 11th biases
against Muslims. In the second, students read literature related to war and
peace, examine its language, and make connections with their own stories
and identities.

INTRODUCTION

Peace and justice studies, through its interdisciplinary attention to

social conflict and resolution, has contributed much to many disciplines, including the related fields of applied linguistics, SecondLanguage Education (SLE), Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages (TESOL), and English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
Applied linguists and TESOL scholars have not ignored human affairs
and intergroup relations, but such concerns have traditionally been
subsumed within the fields preoccupation with the behavioral and
contextual factors in the acquisition of a second language. More
recently, overtly ideological and politicized approaches have emerged
PEACE & CHANGE, Vol. 34, No. 4, October 2009
 2009 Peace History Society and
Peace and Justice Studies Association

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alongside or in place of exclusively pragmatic and or psycholinguistic

ones, particularly in the subfield of critical English as a Second Language (ESL) pedagogies and critical applied linguistics.1 Scholars and
practitioners in this emergent area draw inspiration from the diverse
sociocultural perspectives and critical theories that have long informed
peace and justice studies.
We believe that the reverse is true as well: classes focusing on
second-language teaching can be particularly rich sites for the kinds
of exchanges that are essential for understanding the concept and
dimensions of the common good and its implications for peace and
war. Because of the intercultural interactions in such classrooms
and the focus on language and communication among differing peoples, second-language educators are in a unique position to develop
theories of pedagogy that address interethnic conflict and the dehumanizing language and images that allow and promote it. By their
very nature, ESL classrooms are productive settings for the telling
of stories that counter official ones. Because all classroom interaction has its root in the backgrounds and stories of its participants,
and because we share the belief that the personal is political, we
begin by establishing our own positionalities through sharing of our
stories below.
THE PERSONAL AS POLITICAL

Brian Morgans Story

A couple of years ago, I was watching a live CBC broadcast from
Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. It was a parade for Canadian veterans
from WWII, who had liberated the town from the Nazis some
60 years before. I remember looking at the screen and the faces of
these men now in their eighties. I found myself imagining what it must
have been like thenthe lack of comfort, the constant fear of death,
and the horrific experiences of combatand what it must be like now
to walk down the same streets and remember. Watching the parade, I
also thought about my wifes uncle, whom she never met, a bomber
pilot who was killed near the end of the war and not long after marrying a British woman and fathering a daughter, who is now in her early
sixties and has maintained close ties to her Canadian relatives.
Although I was watching an official commemorative event, I was
reminded of how we come to interpret such formal happenings

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through personal experiences and identitiesin my case, not only as a

parent of a 12-year-old child, and as a second-language educator of
immigrants and refugees, but also as someone who has been privileged
to travel many parts of the world (e.g., Eastern Africa, the Middle
East, China) and to meet those who at one time or another would
have been called the enemyto walk along their streets, share their
food, drink, and music. One lifelong lesson I gained from these early
travels: these new places seemed so different from what I had previously studied in school or had learned through snippets of mass media
coverage. And the people I met were far more complex than the ideological labels ascribed to them. In short, I became acutely aware of
serious shortcomings in my foundational world outlook at a time (my
early twenties) when I thought that I knew all I needed to know. In
many respects, this can be a dangerous and subversive state of mind.
It is very difficult to hate someone with whom youve shared a meal
and a sunset, or to destroy their home and neighborhood.
Stephanie Vandricks Story
When I was 10 years old and living in a Christian boarding school
in India, one evening we students were brought together and told that
because of tensions and possible war between India and China, we
should all keep our Bibles next to our beds, in case we had to evacuate in the middle of the night. I dont remember feeling very afraid;
the imperviousness of a child who felt loved and safe protected me, as
did the sense that nothing bad could happen to us, the white North
American children of Christian missionaries. Part of this feeling of
safety was provided by the Gurkhas (descendants of Nepalese Hindu
warriors) serving as security guards for our school. The Gurkhas were
legendary for their bravery and military exploits. They seemed to provide the best of native Indian prowess (we always felt they had mysterious oriental powers) and British military training. So my first
experiences with visions of war were closely intertwined with colonial
imagery, values, and privilege. Of course, we children didnt consciously know or analyze any of this, but looking back now, I see
how protected we felt by our sense of racial, religious, and national
privilege. Now I can see how in matters relating to war and peace and
the military, as in so many other matters, we are all unconsciously
shaped by our early experiences, as well as by our various interacting
identities. For many years, I have questioned the representations of

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war that I grew up with; Ilike many peoplefind that my life experiences, and time, both reinforce and subvert the official representations or versions of war and conflict that I experienced as a child.
This creates a tension that is uncomfortable, yet allows me now, decades later, to explore these topics with my students in ESL classes and
to encourage them to question these official representations, identities,
and attitudes.2
The stories here draw attention to the ways in which the personal
can become politicalof how spoken and shared intimacies can rub
against the grain of government and mass media representations. The
Iranian novelist Marjane Satrapi offers a provocative and insightful
perspective on this issue:
The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided
between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we
dont know each other, but we talk together and we understand
each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me.
And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.3

Some may resent Satrapis belief in the possibility that their

political leaders and our political leaders might have many things in
common. Whether or not we agree, one contrast is crucial to the question and pursuit of peace. When we talk together, as Satrapi urges,
when we use personal pronouns such as you and me, we imply
meanings of familiarity, understanding, and intimacya shared
humanitythat makes it difficult to hate and to kill. The American
linguist Robin Lakoff makes a similar point: Soldiers, and those who
remain at home, learn to call their enemies by names that make them
seem not quite humaninferior, contemptible and not like us.
Once language draws that line, all kinds of mistreatment become
imaginable, and then justifiable.4
Of course, we do not all have the time, the money, or the language skills to talk together, learn about, and bridge the different
worlds and worldviews we occupy, but an ESL classroom does come
close without having to buy an airplane ticket. Its particular advantages for peace education are articulated in the following points.

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A PEACE CURRICULUM: WHAT SLE TESOL BRINGS TO THE
TABLE

(1) Both sides of almost every conflict in the world can end up in the
same ESL class. Iraqis and Iranians, Israelis and Palestinians, Ethiopians and Eritreans, or Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims are examples. This can create tense moments, but as Shelley Wong has detailed,
this also creates unique opportunities for insightful dialogue and collaboration. For some students, it is the first opportunity to hear previously censored voices and the collective dreams and memories of
historic enemies.5
(2) Language is both the medium and the object of study.
Through first-language (L1) and multilingual translation, or through
collaborative analyses of target-language literature, grammar, and
vocabulary, charged words and dehumanizing discourses can be
exposed, and often from the perspective of those who have been
directly or similarly affected. Equally important, the assumed neutrality of everyday, commonsense language is also critiqued. These two
types of language practices work in tandem: the construction of an
inferior, exotic, and dangerous Other requires the normalization or
naturalization of a collective Self whose superiority, commonsense
goodness, and actions need never be justified or closely scrutinized.6
The appearance of objectivity in commonsense language can be
more damaging than hate language as it operates somewhat below our
conscious scrutiny. Language, in this overly familiar or unmarked
sense, conditions our indifference to poverty, systemic racism, homophobia, sexism, and religious intolerance in all spheres of public life.
Moreover, it underpins the most effective forms of propaganda in
liberal, democratic societies, as suggested by Parenti:
The most effective propaganda is that which relies on framing
rather than falsehood. By bending the truth rather than breaking
it, by using emphasis, nuance, innuendo, and peripheral embellishments, communicators can create a desired impression without
resorting to explicit advocacy and without departing too far from
the appearance of objectivity.7

A key point to consider is that propaganda, ideologies, and discourses are to a large extent linguistic constructions.8 Second-language
instructors are in a position to help students see the ways in which

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grammatical and lexical choices influence social agents and shape how
they perceive or feel about other countries and peoples. In turn, second-language learners are perhaps more ready to understand these
concepts, as they are less nave users of texts and discourse than monolinguals, and can see how representations and concepts change (often
invisibly) with different languages and uses of languages.
(3) Propaganda, discourse, and ideology are also perceptual and
cognitive processes, hence the possible reciprocal application of second-language acquisition (SLA) research. Most second-language
instructors, through their exposure to SLA research, come to classrooms alerted to the complexities and contingencies of learning and of
the multiple meanings and varied degrees of awareness that occur in
any single activity or communicative semiotic exchange. They recognize the process of learning as conscious and unconscious, intentional
and incidental, or immediate and recursive, and they diversify their
syllabi in ways that seek to accommodate the multiple experiences,
learning pathways, and strategies of their students. Such flexibility in
syllabus design encourages new understandings and critical collaboration that can be counterdiscursive.9
(4) An ESL classroom is a place rich with uncommon sense and
insight. This final point arises from and complements the ones stated
above. There is a tendency in schools and society to misjudge immigrants and refugees as partially formed citizens based on their errors
in English. Yet, the newcomers or outsiders eyes and ears are alert to
power in ways no longer available to habituated, domesticated insiders, who see but no longer perceive the beauty, horror, and complacency around them. For a peace and justice curriculum, ESL students
social, cultural, and language experiences are key resources and not
deficits in need of remediation.
It is important to consider that these curricular points in support
of peace and justice take shape in different forms and with different
priorities depending on their settings and the specific reasons that
draw students to these programs. The site may be a university program, an ethnic community agency, a refugee center, or even a workplace. Each setting will determine the form and extent to which a
peace and justice component can be integrated.
We now provide a detailed discussion of two such settings and
the lessons that took place within them. The first setting we describe
is a content-based EAP course called English in Use, which Brian
Morgan taught for several years at a university in Toronto, Canada.

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The second setting we describe is an advanced ESL reading writing

class that Stephanie Vandrick teaches at a university in the United
States.
BRIAN MORGANS CLASS

English in Use is a full-year, 6-credit course mostly for second-year

undergraduate students who have already been accepted into the university but still have difficulties with academic language skills and
research. I modeled the second term after a course called Language
and Public Life, a one-semester, 3-credit EAP course that I taught
at another university in Toronto. The following quote from the
Language and Public Life course outline gives a sense of its focus:
Language is not neutral or objective. It is often framed by cultural
and institutional perspectives; language represents, creates, and
reflects social perspectives of the world, of reality. Along with the
importance of agencies like schools and businesses, the sophisticated technologies of media and communication networks affect
and reflect the way we talk and write to each other and the ways
we see the world.10

The course is conceptually inspired by Sarah Beneschs notion of

critical EAP.11 Conventional EAP writing skills (i.e., documentation,
paragraph cohesion, thesis development) are prominent concerns, but
not as discrete skills to be mastered prior to social research. Instead,
the syllabus for Language and Public Life is based on a notion of academic language learning, identity negotiation, and critical social
inquiry as interanimating and codeveloping processes.12
As indicated in the course outline, another key underpinning is its
critical multiliteracies orientation. The rationale for such an approach
is that effective participation in public life increasingly requires students (and citizens) to read texts from multiple perspectives and for
multiple purposes. Participation in public life also requires students
and citizens to negotiate a much broader range of mediaphotographs, videos, multimedia, and hypertext. Toward this end, I try to
develop a compositional environment in which competing social interests and powerful forms of persuasion are analyzed across a broad
spectrum of informational domains.13 This aspect of the course is
challenging and requires the provision of a metalanguagea set of

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analytic tools and concepts that can assist students in researching and
writing across diverse media and text-types.14 One of the metalinguistic resources I bring into class is the video Manufacturing Consent:
Noam Chomsky and the Media, specifically a section that takes up
Chomskys analysis of a propaganda model in the mass media.15
Another video I use is Killing Us Softly 3, which examines the depiction of women in advertising and links these images to particular
social consequences (e.g., eating disorders, violence against women,
trivialization of womens participation in society).16
In addition to videos, several key readings by Birk and Birk, Corbett, Janks, Parenti, Bosmajian, and English help comprise the metalinguistic tool kit for the course.17 Some of these resources rely more
on linguistic and grammatical categories (e.g., Birk & Birk, Janks),
including a visual grammar (e.g., Corbett, Ch. 5). Some provide analytical categories that are more rhetorical and discourse based (e.g.,
Parentis categories of omission, face-value transmission, false balancing, etc.), and some of the readings specifically address dehumanizing
language and war (e.g., Bosmajian, English). For all of the course
readings and videos, I provide study guides for discussion. The questions I pose encourage a variety of descriptive, experiential, and criticalanalytic reading strategies.
Language and Public Life English in Use in the second term has
three major assignments: an analysis comparison of two print ads
(500750 words), an analysis of a public language event, for example,
speech, seminar (a group oral presentation), and a major research essay
on a social issue or recent current event (1,2001,500 words), which
includes prior small assignments such as an annotated bibliography
and an analysis of a related Web site.
Focus on Assignment 3: The Major Research Essay
The major essay assignment asks students to research a current
event or social issue from a critical media literacy perspective. I ask
the students to research their topic not so much for its objective content but rather for how it is represented or framed by the media:
How does the language used (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical forms,
images) make us feel about this topic and the people involved? I
encourage them to see the issue through the eyes of others, through
mainstream and alternative media, much of which can be found on
the Internet and often in different languages with which my students

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are familiar. I give the students a list of alternative media Web sites
belonging to organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
(FAIR), Z Magazine, the Independent Media Center, Project Censored, Adbusters, Straightgoods, and Rabble.18
I spend a lot of time on the essay process prior to the final
submission. There are small-group discussions, then whole-class conversations on potential topics and contrasting points of view, drawing from the diverse experiences of the class. There is also a short
assignment in which students bring rough drafts of theses statements, essay outlines, and two research sources with short annotations that state their relevance to the essay. These are discussed in
groups and in a whole-class format. The reliability of specific Internet sources is debated based on a short reading from Collins on
ways to evaluate information found on the Internet.19 Students also
question the application of course readings and the credibility of
evidence provided in the research materials. These can be constructive moments for storytelling, dialogue, collaboration, and critical
reflection.
Excerpts from Student Essays
Over the past few years, one of the more common essay topics in
my class has been the so-called War on Terror and how it has influenced much of the mainstream media coverage of Muslims and Muslim nations. In my 20042005 class, there were twenty students in the
class, six of whom self-identified as Muslims. During class discussions,
they spoke about the discrimination against their faith that has
increased since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center
and the war in Iraq. From this group, one student, whom I shall call
Mehrdad, chose to research the medias coverage of Iraqs first election. He contrasted Western media sources such as CNN and Time
magazine with Al-Jazeera, an Arabic media organization based in
Qatar. He noted that the American and British governments undeservedly tried to take full credit for the elections, but that it was on the
insistence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani that elections took place at
all, an important point supported in an article by Tony Karon in
Time.20 Mehrdad was also critical of Al-Jazeera, noting that its primary aim was to attract the Arab world by revealing the election as
unjust since it was promoted by the United States, who was portrayed
to be the enemy of the Arab world.

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In a paper titled The War against Iraq, a student named Zahrah criticized the Western media for its failure to investigate and challenge the Bush administration about the weapons of mass destruction
that supposedly justified the war. She also noted the one-sided negative imagery of Muslims since the September 11th attacks. As she
argued in her essay, there are approximately four million Muslims in
the United States and 650 mosques; however, there is surprisingly little
awareness or understanding of Islam in the American consciousness.
In the 20052006 class with a similar demographic makeup as the
previous year, media coverage of Islam and of Muslims was again a
common essay topic, but not just for Muslim students. Two students,
one from Mexico, the other from France, chose to investigate the controversy around the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and its publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Janique, the
student from France, did an excellent job of analyzing and contrasting
media from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Canada, and the United
States. One interesting contrast was between Arab News, an online
English publication from the Middle East, and the Washington Post.
From Arab News, Janique cited an article by Usma Mobin-Ullah titled
Exercising Free Speech or Spreading Hatred?21 Janique described
this article as fairly balanced as it advocated the right of Muslims
to protest against the cartoons but not in a violent or destructive
manner. In sharp contrast, she found John Lancasters article in the
Washington Post22 to be a strong case of unbalanced treatment, following Parenti.23 She notes that the title Pakistani Cleric Announces
Bounty for Killing of Danish Cartoonists serves to alarm his readers
that Muslims are dangerous people who are willing to kill for their
religion. According to Janique, Lancasters negative labeling is further achieved by his focus on protests that took place in Pakistan and
selective quotes from the protesters such as Bush is a dog and
Death sentence for the cartoonists.
Janiques positioning in her conclusions seeks out a careful middle
groundperhaps in part a reflection of the collaborative rapport and
interethnic dialogue that was a constant aspect of the essay process:
I agree with Usma Mobin-Ullah that freedom of speech is
accepted as long as it does not attack a particular group of people, culture, race, gender, and especially religion. Also, the Muslims are wrong to act in such a violent and aggressive manner.
The Jylland-Posten should never have published those cartoons,

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and people need to realize that every thing they see or read in the
media is not true and to get their facts right before acting in ways
that could have negative repercussions.

The final word from my students goes to Lia, who was highly critical of major American media and their submissive acceptance of their
governments claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and of
close ties between the Iraqi government and international terrorist
organizations. Her thoughts, and their relevance to the question and
pursuit of peace, are worth quoting at some length:
Media made a huge mistake, but this is a good lesson for all the
people around the world to see that media can be wrong too and
they are not always giving you the right information. I strongly
believe that war is not a good way of solving a problem at any
circumstances. Also, I think that all the people should be more
independent and they should value their beliefs. Each person
should think independently and should not get influenced by the
media. We all have to think more about what is wrong and what
is right and remember that we live in 21st century; therefore war
is not the answer.

Reflections on Assignment 3
It would be too idealistic or nave to suggest that critical media
literacy ensures peace, security, and mutual respect in the world. Still, it
would be wrong to claim that words are useless or do not do anything.
We know from the past, as Lakoff reminds us, that dehumanizing
and desensitizing language has always preceded and hastened acts of
violence or genocide against the Jews of Europe, the Tutsis of Rwanda,
or the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We also know, as my students
essays indicate, that dehumanizing language and disinformation is not
exclusive to dictators and their propaganda machines. Being informed,
critical, and aware of language is an essential, but certainly not the only,
part of the peace process. Language can be a divisive and destructive
weapon, but it can also be a creative and unifying tool by which we
talk together and we understand each other perfectly, in the words of
Marjane Satrapi. Exploration and awareness of both options seem to me
a good foundation for a responsible EAP curriculum.

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STEPHANIE VANDRICKS CLASS

Literature lies at the intersection of language and art; there is no more

powerful medium to engage with lifes great themes. Here I describe
the assignment of war-related literature in an advanced ESL reading writing class. I discuss the rationale for teaching war-related literature, criteria for selecting texts, and relevant pedagogical factors, and I
address the closely intertwined pedagogical, linguistic, and social goals
of such teaching. First, teaching war-related literature promotes language acquisition through examining the ways language is usedand
sometimes manipulatedin depicting war and its consequences. Second, such literature helps students examine the universal, critical questions of war, its causes, and its effects, especially as these questions
intersect with relevant aspects of students own identities, such as their
gender, race, ethnicity, age, and or social class. This section of the
article further addresses the interconnections among war, racism, sexism, and sexual identity. I also provide examples of specific literary
works that are well suited for use in language classes, and I focus on
three works that I have found particularly effective in advanced ESL
reading classes.
I would like to note here that although my students are international students, and although English is not their first language and
therefore they do not write or speak perfectly, they bring all their cultural backgrounds and education to the classes, very much enriching
the class discussions as discussed earlier in this article. On the other
hand, I also want to point out that although I give special attention to
language issues, these same works can easily be taught in non-ESL
classes, such as literature, history, political science, sociology, and
various types of interdisciplinary classes.
Context Controversy
Not all instructors in TESOL or in other fields outside English
departments would agree that teaching war-related literature, or other
literature deemed political, is appropriate. To summarize briefly,
there are at least two related controversies. One is the issue of whether
to teach literature in ESL or composition classes at all. Many believe
that such readings do not provide realistic models for students, and
are not representative of the type of reading and writing most of them
will do in their college classes and future careers. I strongly disagree,

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as I believe that literature offers the best that language has to offer,
and allows readers a powerful way to reflect on life and its most
important themes and issues.24 The second controversy is whether to
teach anything that could be construed as politicizing the classroom. This is an ongoing controversy in academe and in the medias
(and sometimes politicians and governments) treatment of academe.
However, along with other scholars of critical pedagogy, I believe that
there is no way to teach that is neutral; even the choice to be neutral is in effect a political choice.
Rationale Objectives
What is the rationale for teaching this type of literature? And
what are the objectives, both linguistic and thematic? The first set of
objectives is linguistic. As the first goal of an ESL class is language
acquisition, in working toward that goal, why not choose interesting,
relevant materials for language-teaching goals such as reading skills,
writing skills, and vocabulary development? One of the most relevant
and universal themes is that of war and peace; all through history, in
all countries and cultures, these are issues that have profoundly
affected countries and families. Let me say parenthetically that
although literature is not only or mostly about certain subjects, and
is not and should not be purely political, much of the powerful draw
of good literature is the themes, and some of these are definitely political and social issue themes. When I teach short stories, poems, and
novels, I focus on themes related to gender, race, class, sexual identity,
and other political topics. My years of classroom teaching have provided the evidence that when students read engaging and engaged literature, they in turn are more engaged, and thus learnboth language
and in generalbetter. Most of the best discussions and the best writing done in my classes have been in response to such readings. Focusing on important and engaging topics such as war and peace does not
detract from language learning, but promotes it.
Another linguistic objective, besides language acquisition, is for
students to acquire the kinds of academic and linguistic abilities
needed by all students in their academic work as well as in the larger
context of their civic lives. One of the most important of these is reading critically. A crucial part of reading critically is examining the language used by writers and seeing how it is consciously used for certain
effects. In my classes, we discuss ways writers manipulate readersfor

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better or for worse. We talk about propaganda, both explicit and covert. For example, can the literature be propaganda? Yes, sometimes it
is; it is hard to draw the line between the literature that explores
important themes and makes certain points, and the literature that is
clearly aimed at influencing readers. Even overt attempts to influence
readers are not necessarily wrong. Think, for example, of great
muckrackers work, such as Upton Sinclairs The Jungle, or powerful
and influential dystopian novels, such as Aldous Huxleys Brave New
World, George Orwells 1984, and Arthur Koestlers Darkness at
Noon. Some so-called literature clearly crosses the line and is blatantly
used for political or ideological gain, and usually such works can be
identified by their specificity and lack of true literary merit. These are
issues we explore in class.
In any case, we talk about how language is used for effect. After
all, a literary work is more than just the content; it is also the overall
structure of the work, the sentence-level structures, the vocabulary,
the cadences, the imagery, etc. One effective example is the way passive voice is often used, in particular by politicians, political writers,
leaders of big corporations, and others with power in society, to
downplay agency and thus responsibility. We have all heard sentences
such as Twenty soldiers were killed in friendly fire incidents, or
Two villages were bombed, sometimes with an agent in a by
phrase, thus deemphasizing responsibility, and sometimes with no
agent mentioned at all, even further evading responsibility. The laws
have been changed; workers were injured in workplace accidents;
mistakes were made; we can all think of many such examples. Thus
students become aware that grammatical and language choices are
often far from neutral or innocent.
The second set of objectives focuses on the subject matter and
themes of the literature. These include the objectives of education in
general: examining, discussing, reflecting on, and forming opinions
about lifes great issues and themes, and learning to express those
opinions thoughtfully and articulately while being open to fair consideration of the opinions of others. Here the focus on the literature of
war and peace is not only illuminating in itself, but also allows students to practice and work toward the intellectual skills listed just
above.
Which kinds of questions are raised by war-related literature?
First and foremost are the universal questions and issues of war: when
war is justified or not; how war is rationalized; the rules of war and

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whether they are followed (e.g., violations of the Geneva Conventions);

the effects of war; and how war is suffused with issues of gender, race,
and class.
Second, I find it useful for students to think about the role of literature, and especially how literature can serve a powerful antiwar function. Among other issues, we discuss who is permitted or encouraged to
write, be published, and be publicized, and how this connects with identity and writing about controversial issues. All of this is influenced by
gender, race, class, and is connected to who has power. These concepts
are very familiar to readers of this journal, but for many students, especially my often quite privileged students, they are completely new.
This point leads to the third war-related question that we examine: what are the specific ways that war questions interact with aspects
of the students own identities? Almost all students have some connection with war and conflict, or its threat, and they are affected differently depending on their country, ethnicity, religion, gender, class
status and resources, and more. For example, questions of war may be
of particular salience to students (particularly young males) of draft
age, to parents of such young people, and to women from areas where
war has brought about widespread rape. How they experience these
situations might well depend on one or more of the above factors. Perhaps only persons of a certain ethnicity or religion are being attacked,
or perhaps only those without resources and means who do not have
the possibility of escaping from a site of conflict.
Sometimes students war-related experiences are very clear, and
they are very conscious of them. For other students, as for me when I
started making connections with my childhood experiences in India
noted earlier in this article, the experiences are more indirect, and they
have not thought much about the implications of those experiences
and their connections with the larger themes of war and peace. Helping students make these connections, or voice connections that they
may have already made, must be done with sensitivity, allowing students to reveal as little or as much as they choose and in various
possible outlets (e.g., class discussion, small-group discussion, journals
and other writings, or private conversations with the professor).
Choosing Texts
Some of the criteria I use in selecting appropriate readings are as
follows. First, a pragmatic but necessary criterion is that the selections

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525

be easily available. Fortunately, some of the widely available textbooks include appropriate and interesting related readings; sometimes
I also copy and distribute short readings. Second, I generally choose
fairly short readings so that length and difficulty will not discourage
students, and so we can do more readings in the time we have. Short
stories of fewer than five pages work well, as do short poems. Occasionally, I use full-length novels in the most advanced classes. Third, I
choose pieces in which the language is both sophisticated and authentic; I never use abridged or adapted literature. Fourth, however, I
avoid pieces in which the vocabulary is going to be a serious impediment for the students, either because it is from an earlier historical
period, or because it is full of technical or other jargon, or because it
is experimental in style. I want the students to experience the power
of good literature and to be challenged, but not overwhelmed or discouraged. Fifth, the selections themes should be complex, not overly
simplistic, but not too very hard to discern. Finally, the selected works
should appeal to emotion and experiences the students can relate to or
imagine. Of course readers should be exposed to new worlds, new
experiences, but there should be some basic human themes that offer
the students a way in to the works, a way to connect with them.
Sample Texts and Lessons
Here I briefly discuss three works that I have taught in my ESL
reading writing classes: the short stories War by Luigi Pirandello
and D. P. by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and the poem Rite of Passage
by Sharon Olds.25
War by the late Italian writer Luigi Pirandello is anthologized
in at least two ESL and composition textbooks; it is also available on
the Internet. It is short, literary, emotional, and simultaneously subtle
and pointed. The story takes place on a train in Italy during World
War I. The occupants of the train compartment are parents whose
sons have gone or will soon go to fight at the battlefront. The main
characters son has died in battle, and he tries to make his loss tolerable by speaking of patriotism, sacrifice, and pride. He says, If Country exists, if Country is a natural necessity, like bread somebody
must go to defend it. And our sons go, when they are twenty, and
they dont want tears, because if they die, they die inflamed and happy
. At the end of the story, precipitated by a fellow parents innocent
question of Then is your son really dead?, the father breaks

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down in overwhelming shuddering sobs as the true extent of his loss

finally sinks in. He looked and looked at her, almost as if only
thenat that silly, incongruous questionhe had suddenly realized at
last that his son was really deadgone for everfor ever to the
amazement of everyone, [he] broke into harrowing, heart-rending,
uncontrollable sobs.26
This is a story that anyone can relate to at any age, any political
stance, any culture. All of us had parents and many of us are parents.
All of us either have war-related losses, or can imagine and dread such
losses. Such losses are in the news every day, and the story and feelings it portrays are universal. The horror and sadness of war-related
loss is one focus of discussion. The other main focus is the ways and
reasons people use to rationalize sacrifice and make it tolerable. We
talk about the words patriotism and sacrifice, and the concept of soldiers as heroes. We talk about what the phrase supporting the
troops means, and how that phrase can be used against those who
oppose war with accusations of lack of patriotism or worse. We
explore the stance of being against a war and yet supporting and
appreciating the soldiers who fight that war. We talk about justified
wars vs. nonjustified wars, and about the difficulties of knowing which
are which. We talk about related vocabulary and concepts such as the
draft, pacifism, and conscientious objectors. We talk about issues of
class and race as they are shown in the identities of soldiers; in the
United States, at least, minorities, those of lower socioeconomic status,
and those with a high school diploma or less are overrepresented in
the military, perhaps because it represents one of the few career
opportunities available to them. And we talk about the current wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. Often students have not thought much about
these issues, or have thought about them only in accepting uncritically
their parents or cultures or medias presentation of war issues. My
goal is not for them to agree with my views, but for them to become
more educated about the issues, to think critically about them, and to
form their own opinions.
Another war-related story, D. P., by the late great writer and
icon Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., deals with the racism experienced by black
American soldiers in Europe during World War II and by the mixedrace children who are so often the products of wartime. The story also
deals with the displacement suffered by so many people during wartime. (The title D. P. stands for displaced persons.) D. P. illustrates ways in which issues of war, race, gender, and class often

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527

intersect and interact. World War II brought American soldiers of

different races together in ways they rarely interacted back home,
and these encounters not only very often revealed racism, but also
sometimes allowed for new understandings and new connections
among soldiers of different races. The language used by the soldiers,
as well as that used by the local German people, is very revealing of
the ignorance that whites, especially, displayed about black people.
The German people in the story call the half-white, half-black child
Joe after the black fighter Joe Louis. Some of the stereotypical views
the white characters reveal are seen in some of their comments: Lets
see those white teeth sparkle, Joe. Are all your people such dreamers? and in Joes own question, Why do people smile when they
see me, and try to make me sing and talk, and then laugh when I
do?27 Students may not realize that these quotations embody stereotypes and are thus problematic. Stereotypes of the time included the
beliefs that black Americans were simple, cheerful people who loved
to serve white people and to sing, dance, and entertain. These stereotypes were often manifest in popular entertainment venues where
black performers were expected to put on huge smiles and sing and
dance in an exaggerated manner for the enjoyment of white audiences.
Discussing this historical background as depicted in the story helps
students broaden their understanding of the contexts of racism in the
past and present. It also helps them understand the damaging effects
of stereotypes.
International students find this story compelling, as it allows them
the opportunity to ask about racial issues in the United States. They
are often very confused about racism, its history, its prevalence, and
its manifestations. They frequently have racist ideas of their own
about African-Americans, some gleaned from Hollywood films where
black Americans are often portrayed as either entertainers, servants,
or criminals. For example, some students are open about their fear of
black men; they conflate blackness with crime, poverty, and danger.
But they are not sure what they are allowed to say or ask, and this
class discussion allows them an opportunity to raise these sensitive
questions and issues.
Another literary selection that has been effective in my classes is
the poem Rite of Passage by one of our best contemporary poets,
Sharon Olds. I choose this poem partly because there are few examples of war-related literature by women writers, and I think their
perspective is important. I think this first for reasons of simple equity

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and second becausewithout essentializing and while acknowledging

all the exceptionsI believe that women, especially mothers, have a
perspective that must be considered.28 This poem is deceptively simple
but very powerful and even devastating in its perceptiveness about
how naturallywhether from nature or nurture, biology or societywarlike behavior comes to young boys. Speaking of her son and
his friends at her sons sixth birthday party, the narrator reports:
We could easily kill a two-year-old, he says in his clear voice. The
other men agree, they clear their throats like Generals, they relax and
get down to playing war, celebrating my sons life.29 Olds is clearly
addressing the kinds of gendered thinking that may feed into the
tendency to solve problems with military aggression. Discussion of this
poem can lead in numerous directions, including the ways in which
people are socialized into warlike behavior and beliefs, such as the
concept that killing is a sign of masculinity, and that killing the
other (someone different from oneself and ones family and friends)
is justified.
CONCLUSION

In the unique settings of our ESL classrooms, where students from

many countries gather together, we have seen the immense power of
narrative to illuminate issues of war and peace, and to reveal and
forge connections among stories and peoples even when it appears
that the historic political and religious barriers among them are nearly
insurmountable. Students in our classes experience the power of reading others stories and of reflecting on their own stories, just as our
own reflections on our war-related personal stories have informed this
article. We have also seen, over and over, the effectiveness of drawing
students attention to language. Discussions of the readings and the
students own writings in response to the readings confirm the profound learning that takes place when students develop a critical
awareness of how language is used in various genres. Only with this
kind of consciousness can they look beyond official representations,
understand attempts to manipulate through language, and develop
their own understandings.
The peace curricula that we describe here allow our multicultural
classrooms to be informed by peace and justice studies. In turn, the
kinds of learning that go on in these unique sites, where students
from vastly different backgrounds learn to understand each other, can

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529

contribute to the field of peace and justice studies. This synergy is an

example of trying to understand and work toward the common good.
NOTES
1. Brian D. Morgan, The ESL Classroom: Teaching, Critical Practice,
and Community Development (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998);
Bonny Norton and Kelleen Toohey, eds., Critical Pedagogies and Language
Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Alastair Pennycook,
Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2001); Vaidehi Ramanathan, The Politics of TESOL Education:
Writing, Knowledge, Critical Pedagogy (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2002);
Timothy G. Reagan and Terry A. Osborn, The Foreign Language Educator in
Society: Toward a Critical Pedagogy (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum,
2002); Stephanie Vandrick, Feminist Pedagogy and ESL, College ESL,
Vol. 4, No. 2 (1994): 6992.
2. For further discussion of connections between my missionary kid
childhood and my career teaching ESL, see Stephanie Vandrick, ESL and the
Colonial Legacy: A Teacher Faces Her Missionary Kid Past, in Enriching
ESOL Pedagogy, ed. Vivian Zamel and Ruth Spack (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2002), 411422.
3. Michelle Goldberg, Freedom from Writers Perspective: Author
Marjane Satrapi Captures Personal Side of Iran, Toronto Star Newspaper,
May 7, 2005, sec. H, p. 10.
4. Robin T. Lakoff, Weighing the Power of Words in Wartime,
Toronto Star Newspaper, May 20, 2004, pp. A17 & F7.
5. Shelley Wong, Dialogic Approaches to TESOL: Where the Gingko
Tree Grows (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), 182184.
6. See Robin T. Lakoffs The Neutrality of the Status Quo, in The
Language War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), chap. 2.
7. Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality (New York: St. Martins Press,
1986), 217.
8. See Hilary Janks, A Critical Approach to the Teaching of Language,
Educational Review 43 (1991): 191199; see also Cate Poynton, Grammar,
Language and the Social: Poststructuralism and Systemic-Functional
Linguistics, Social Semiotics 3 (1993): 121.
9. On a flexible and critical orientation to syllabus design, see B.
Kumaravadivelu, Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Learning
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); for an excellent discussion of
past and current directions in SLA, see Leo van Lier, The Ecology and

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PEACE & CHANGE / October 2009

Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective (Norwell, MA:

Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004); also see David Block, The Social Turn in
Second Language Acquisition (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,
2003).
10. Judy Hunter and Brian Morgan, Language and Public Life: Teaching
Multiliteracies in ESL, in Academic Writing Programs, ed. Ilona Leki
(Alexandria, VA: TESOL, 2001), 99109.
11. Sarah Benesch, Critical English for Academic Purposes (Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001).
12. This approach is also informed by the work of Jim Cummins,
Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society, 2nd
ed. (Ontario, CA: California Association of Bilingual Education, 2001).
13. See, e.g., Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, eds., Multiliteracies:
Literacy, Learning and the Design of Social Futures (London: Routledge,
2000); Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Grammar
of Visual Design (New York: Routledge, 1996); Barbara Warnick, Critical
Literacy in a Digital Era: Technology, Rhetoric and the Public Interest
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002).
14. A metalanguage is a language used to talk about (i.e., describe and
analyze) language. As proposed by the New London Group (1996) for
education, Any metalanguage to be used in school curriculum has to match
up to some taxing criteria. It must be capable of supporting sophisticated
critical analyses of language and other semiotic systems, yet at the same time
not make unrealistic demands on teacher and learner knowledge . A
metalanguage also needs to be flexible and open ended. It should be seen as a
tool kit for working on semiotic activities, not a formalism to be applied to
them (p. 77). See New London Group, A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:
Designing Social Futures, Harvard Educational Review, 66 (1996): 6092.
15. Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick (Producers), Manufacturing
Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media [Videotape] (Ottawa: National Film
Board of Canada, 1992).
16. Sutt Jhally (Producer), Killing Us Softly 3: Advertisings Image of
Women With Jean Kilbourne [Videotape] (Northampton, MA: Media
Education Foundation, 2002).
17. Newman P. Birk and Genevieve B. Birk, Selection, Slanting, and
Charged Language, in Exploring Language, 7th ed., ed. Gary Goshgarian
(New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 113121; Haig A. Bosmajian,
Dehumanizing People and Euphemizing War, in Exploring Language, 7th
ed., ed. Gary Goshgarian (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 159165; John
Corbett, An Intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching (Clevedon,

Imagining a Peace Curriculum

531

UK: Multilingual Matters, 2003); Bella English, When Words Go to War, in

Exploring Language, 7th ed., ed. Gary Goshgarian (New York: Harper
Collins, 1995), 178182; Hilary Janks, A Critical Approach to the Teaching
of Language, Educational Review, 43 (1991): 191199; Michael Parenti,
Media Evasion, in War, Lies, and Videotape: How the Media Monopoly
Stifles Truth, ed. Lenora Foerstel (New York: International Action Center,
2000), 4554.
18. The Internet URLs for these organizations are as follows: Adbusters,
http://www.adbusters.org; Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, http://www.fair.
org; Independent Media Center, http://www.indymedia.org; Project Censored:
Tracking the News that Didnt Make the News, http://www.projectcensored.
org/; Rabble: The News for the Rest of Us, http://rabble.ca; Straightgoods:
Canadians Informing Canadians, http://www.straightgoods.com; Z Magazine,
http://www.zmag.org/.
19. Paul Collins, Community Writing: Researching Social Issues Through
Composition (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001).
20. Tony Karon, Blogged Down in Iraq: Who Won, and Whats Next?
Time On-Line Edition, January 31, 2005, http://www.time.com/time/
columnist/karon/article/0,9565,1020972,00.html.
21. Usma Mobin-Ullah, Exercising Free Speech or Spreading Hatred?
Arab News, February 24, 2006, http://arabnews.com.
22. John Lancaster, Pakistani Cleric Announces Bounty for Killing of
Danish Cartoonists, Washington Post, February 18, 2006, http://www.
washingtonpost.com.
23. Michael Parenti, Media Evasion, in War, Lies, and Videotape:
How the Media Monopoly Stifles Truth, ed. Lenora Foerstel (New York:
International Action Center, 2000), 4554.
24. For overviews of this controversy, see Diane Belcher and Alan
Hirvela, Literature and L2 Composition: Revisiting the Debate, Journal of
Second Language Writing, 9 (2000): 2139; Stephanie Vandrick, Literature
and the Teaching of Second Language Composition, in Exploring the
Dynamics of Second Language Writing, ed. Barbara Kroll (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 263283.
25. Luigi Pirandello, War, in The International Story, ed. Ruth Spack
(New York: St. Martins Press, 1994), 7477; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., D. P., in
Inside Out Outside In: Exploring American Literature, ed. Victoria Holder
et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 132139; Sharon Olds, Rite of
Passage, in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 2nd ed., ed.
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996),
22882289.

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26. Pirandello, War, 7677.

27. Vonnegut, D. P., 132134.
28. See Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace
(Boston: Beacon, 1989); Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (London: Hogarth
Press, 1938).
29. Olds, Rite of Passage, 2289.