Teaching composition in the multilingual world: Second language writing in composition studies

The student population in U.S. college composition programs is not what it used to be. This statement rings true regardless of which period in the history of composition we happen to choose as a reference point-in fact, composition studies evolved in response to a series of literacy crises (Lunsford, "Politics"). Yet, the implications of the demographic shifts are especially pertinent today. Over the last century and a half, U.S. higher education grew from a parochial institution for a select few from privileged socioeconomic, religious, ethnic, and linguistics backgrounds to a provider of mass education for people from a wider range of backgrounds. The growing diversity of student population has also made U.S. higher education highly heterogeneous in terms of the language backgrounds that students (as well as teachers and researchers) bring with them. Today, with the globalization of economy and information, teaching writing to college students is not just about preparing students for academic, professional, and civic writing within the national boundary; it is also about preparing students-both domestic and international-for the increasingly globalized world that has always been, and will continue to be, multilingual.