<i>Trans</i> -ing to Dismantle and Rebuild a Third Space in a Two-Way Bilingual Second Grade: “ <i>Tapar un Hoyo para Destapar Otro</i> ”

Considering teachers as policymakers, we carried out an ethnography of policy implementation with four bilingual teachers—the second-grade team at a 50/50 two-way bilingual elementary school—during the first 7 months of their implementation of a new program model in which children were integrated throughout the day across language groups. Previously, the school taught language and literacy in “home language” groupings, with Spanish-dominant and English-dominant children in separate classrooms. Importantly, this change coincided with the adoption of a new language arts curriculum. We aimed to understand the challenges involved in these transitions. Drawing on a Third Space theoretical framework, we found that while some teachers lamented the loss of the Spanish language arts space, as they worked to build equitable learning communities in their newly diverse literacy classrooms, they began to embrace integration along other dimensions, what we term trans-ing. They expanded translanguaging pedagogies. They considered cross-curricular integration, and they increased team-teaching. These multiple dimensions of integration allowed them to begin to reimagine their students and their work in more dynamic, interconnected ways. This project looked explicitly at the early stages of the integration process; our primary purpose was to identify and understand integration’s challenges. The creativity of the professionals with whom we partnered allowed us to begin to imagine the possibilities inherent in breaking down dichotomies and embracing dynamic Third Spaces in two-way bilingual education.