- Department, Office, or School
- Department of Educational Studies
- Professor
- emailshesson@ric.edu
- phone401-456-8170
- location_onHorace Mann, 326
Sarah Hesson is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Studies Department and the Director of the TESL Program at Rhode Island College. She earned her doctorate in Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center. Some of her current research interests include the school experiences of Latino adolescent youth, translanguaging as social justice pedagogy, and the possibilities of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) with emergent bilingual adolescent youth. She previously worked as an adjunct professor at Hunter College as well as a Research Assistant with the City University of New York – New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY-NYSIEB).
Sarah received her BA in Comparative Literature from Bryn Mawr College, and earned her Master’s in Bilingual Childhood Education from Fordham University through the NYC Teaching Fellows Program. She previously worked at the NYC Department of Education as a bilingual elementary and middle school teacher, and has taught in various educational settings PK-Adult as well.
Education
The Graduate Center, CUNY, PhD in Urban Education
Selected Publications
Hamman-Ortiz, L. & Hesson, S. (2026). “‘I Became More Flexible’: Combating English Hegemony in Dual Language Bilingual Education through Translanguaging Pedagogy,” in Reimagining Language Teacher Agency: Transperspectival Insights and Actionable Strategies, Springer Nature.
Hesson, S. (2026). “Me and My Bilingual Community Unit of Study and Language-Centered Social Justice Standards“. Developed with Central Falls School District for classroom use.
Hesson, S. (2022). “Reimagining language policy through the lived realities of bilingual youth,” in Remaking Multilingualism: A Translanguaging Approach, Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Woodley, H., Cioè-Peña, M., Hesson, S., & Solorza, C. (2021). “Different places, different issues: Teacher education reimagined through the CUNY-NYSIEB experience,” in Translanguaging and Transformative Teaching for Emergent Bilingual Students: Lessons from the CUNY-NYSIEB Project, New York: Routledge.
Courses
- Foundations of Bilingual Education
- Teaching Reading and Writing to ESL Students
- Curriculum and Methods for Content ESL Instruction
- Teaching Content in English and Native Languages
- Assessment of English Language Learners
- Internship in English as a Second Language
- Bilingual Practicum Year 1
- Bilingual Practicum Year 2
- Fieldwork Supervisor
Research Interests
My research interests include the school experiences of Latino adolescent youth, translanguaging as social justice pedagogy, policy and pedagogy for emergent bilinguals, raciolinguistics, or the intersections of language and race, and the possibilities of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) with emergent bilingual adolescent youth.
Grants and Awards
Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship, CUNY Graduate Center; New York, NY — 2011-2016
This award offers funding for a 5-year period and includes the opportunities to work with professors, teach graduate level Education courses, and work at a CUNY college as a writing fellow. Includes Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Writing Across the Curriculum Fellowship.
Scholarship to PAR Institute “Reading Just the Word: It Ain’t Enough!” — June 2015
Provided funding to attend a Social Justice Curriculum Institute focused on Participatory Action Research.
Provost’s Summer Research Award, CUNY Graduate Center; New York, NY — Summer 2014
This award offered financial support over the summer to enable the development of the dissertation research proposal.