Page Cassidy
Language and Coloniality: Decolonial Concepts for US High School Curriculum
This learning module focuses on the role of language in the colonial encounter. Language is a good entry point to understanding colonialism’s broader impacts on colonized people. Students can also make connections to their personal lives and spark conversations about languages. By using language as an entry point, this module will be able to easily introduce the concepts of colonial power structures, how colonialism and indigeneity are interconnected, and the impact colonization has on aspects of life that supposedly have nothing to do with government control.
Although decolonial concepts can be complicated to pull apart because of how entrenched colonial practices and thought processes are in modern society, beginning to introduce these concepts at the high school level will improve students’ understanding of the world and how to critically analyze texts and other resources.
This module is designed for teachers to use as an accompaniment to existing curricula and reinforce skills that are already important in US high school education. By the end of this module, students will be able to identify how colonialism reaches beyond direct government control and has lasting effects long after the colonizing power has moved on.
Structure
The module is made up of 3 parts that help guide students and teachers as they work to understand the impacts of colonialism, including the implications for today. The first part introduces students to important vocabulary that could support discussions about what colonization means. Part 2 focuses on language as a case study for understanding the wide-reaching impact of colonialism. Part 3 asks students to begin analyzing for themselves what colonial and decolonial concepts look like in different time periods. The final review is a way for students to step outside their comfort zones and analyze a primary source document.
Learning Objectives
Transfer:
Students can make connections between historic colonizing efforts and modern society
Students can analyze primary and secondary sources, as well as historical events, from a decolonial perspective
Meaning:
Understandings: Students will understand how colonial powers used language to control other regions. This will emphasize that colonialism is not simply one government exerting power in another place.
Essential Questions: What is colonialism in the modern context? How does colonialism create or destroy categories? How does language highlight this? How is colonialism perpetuated today? What does the role of English (and other colonizer languages) tell us about this?
Acquisition:
Students will know 1) what colonialism means (outside external control); 2) the meanings of de-, post-, and anti-colonialism; and 3) how language shaped and was shaped by colonialism and controls many of the categories we assign people to in the case of Southeast Asia.
Students will be skilled at 1) analyzing primary and secondary sources; 2) making connections between past and present; and 3) applying terms to historical and present contexts.
Page Cassidy is majoring in Public Policy with a minor in Spanish at the University of Chicago.
Learning Resources
Part 1: Definition of Terms (also consider our Keywords list)
As part of the introduction to the “Age of Expansion,” which is a component of most states’ Social Studies Curriculum Standards, consider incorporating a wider range of colonial terms. These could include decolonial, anticolonial, and postcolonial. Ask students to consider what these words mean, how they impact the way we (as a class) talk about this time period, and their implications for understanding the many, long-lasting effects of coloniality.
Discussion questions:
What is a colony? What is colonialism?
Do the new terms change what you consider colonialism to be? If so, why? If not, why not?
What do the author’s definitions of the terms reflect about the importance of language when talking about colonial projects?
Suggestions for how to incorporate material into existing curriculum:
Help students use these terms in conversation when having in-class discussions.
Supplement textbook discussion questions with teacher-generated questions that focus on or use these new terms.
Include the terms in tests.
Create prompts that include the terms for essay options.
Part 2: The Reality of Language
Resource 1: Evolution of English (3 minutes)
Resource 2: South Asian Language Maps (available online and as a downloadable PDF)
These two resources introduce the ways that language, culture, and society are connected. Colonialism establishes boundaries in order to make categories simpler and more easily recognizable, oftentimes when they don’t exist in reality. These resources can help students begin to question the categorization of languages and cultures by first highlighting how English evolved. Second, by asking students to analyze and discuss the language maps that the English (and present-day researchers) have created, teachers can open up conversations about the impact that colonial categories have on cultures.
Discussion questions:
How would you define language? Can languages be owned by or restricted to a certain group or region? Why or why not?
What role does language have in different cultures?
What does English’s own language development mean for the categories they create in Southeast Asia?
Suggestions for how to incorporate material into existing curriculum:
Hold a discussion in class.
Follow up with a discussion-board post or short homework assignment.
Introduce content in class and ask students to connect the material to the ways language operates as a connector and divider in their own lives (as a homework assignment).
Part 3: Language and Narrative
Resource 1: “The Barbershop,” from Malay Sketches (Alfian Sa’at, 2012)
Resource 2: Malay Sketches (Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham, 1903 edition)
Each of these pieces uses the same title—Malay Sketches—but communicates different worldviews. Students can compare and contrast the two works to highlight the role that language plays in creating a narrative. Students can also examine the role that language plays within each work, specifically in Sa’at’s Malay Sketches. This is a good opportunity for students to return to the keywords (decolonial/postcolonial/anticolonial) that were established during the introduction.
Discussion questions:
Why do you think that Sa’at chose to use the same title as Swettenham? What connection might he be drawing between Swettenham’s description and the Malay Archipelago today?
What categories does Swettenham create in his work (for example, race, gender, class, religion, age/generation, etc.)? How does Swettenham create these categories (or others) in his work? What kind of categories is he creating?
Perform a close-reading of Swettenham’s work. What kinds of language does he use to create his argument?
What messages is Sa’at creating in his work? Is he also creating categories? Breaking them down?
How does language impact Sa’at’s characters? What lasting impacts of Swettenham’s categories can you see in Sa’at’s characters?
Suggestions for how to incorporate material into existing curriculum:
Have students discuss assigned readings in small groups.
Ask students to select a story from Sa’at’s Malay Sketches and write a review, make a presentation, do a close reading, etc.
Final Review: Analyze a Primary Source
Resource: Reports of the Taft Philippine Commission (pages 20–23, 1901)
To conclude this module, teachers can assign a section of the Taft Report for students to analyze. As a policy document, this text highlights the role that colonial languages and colonial perspectives on language played in establishing colonial control. Teachers can ask students to draw their own conclusions from this text given what they’ve discussed in class. This could connect to a larger final project, be part of a Document Based Question assignment, or could lead to a more flexible final analysis of what students have learned during this unit. The structure and contents of the report will require students to make connections for themselves with less direction than was provided by the language maps or the Malay Sketches.