ERIC Number: EJ925597
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-May
Pages: 34
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0034-527X
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Available Date: N/A
"Rise Up!": Literacies, Lived Experiences, and Identities within an In-School "Other Space"
Wissman, Kelly K.
Research in the Teaching of English, v45 n4 p405-438 May 2011
In this article, I consider the literacy practices that emerged in an in-school elective course centered in the literacy tradition of African American women. Drawing from spatial perspectives (Leander& Sheehy, 2004), I explore what it means to consider this course an "Other space" (Foucault,1986), as a space created without the constraints of a mandated curriculum or standardized test pressures and as a space informed by an understanding of the connections among literacies,lived experiences, and identities. Through the presentation and analysis of five vignettes, I consider how the students shaped the course to their own ends and pursued agentive literacy work resonant with the epistemologies in the literacy tradition of African American women. While I situate these contributions and literacy practices within Black feminist and postpositivist realist theories of identities, I contend their full measure cannot be understood without a look at the physical aspects of the space, the travel of texts into and out of it, and its relational and affective dimensions. I conclude with considerations for pursuing literacy pedagogies attentive to social identities and for creating "Other spaces" within a time of standardization and testing. (Contains 3 notes.)
Descriptors: Gender Issues, High School Students, Writing (Composition), Realism, English Instruction, Elective Courses, Females, African Americans, Vignettes, Epistemology, Feminism, Literacy, Poetry, Social Justice, Racial Factors
National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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