Finding Yourself in a Book: Adolescent Identity Work and Literacy Engagements

• In Event: Lifelong Identity Work: Examining Identity Formation From Preschool to Adult Teachers in a Range of Local Contexts

Abstract

This qualitative nested case study examines the identity displays of 11th grade “marginalized” students over a semester as they experience two different approaches to literacy instruction. Participants included 22 Latino and African American adolescents in an urban, San Francisco Bay area high school and of these, six focal participants. Given the challenges in assessing links between engaging in literacy based instruction and identity development, a complex approach for noting displays and trajectories of adolescent identity was employed that considered explicit, implied and inferred displays of identity. Data includes case studies of the six focal participants involving multiple interviews, examining student work, and being the focus of audio and video recordings in each class session. Additional data included recorded meetings with the teacher, field notes, and pre and post study questionnaires of the entire class.
Early in the semester, students participated in a traditional ELA unit that involved reading the novel, Bless Me Ultima (Anaya, 1994), engaging in formal literary criticism, test preparation, and writing a five-paragraph essay. After this unit, the students participated in a student-centered curriculum employing reader-response criticism that was developed along with the classroom teacher to support shared literacy activities as they read the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, (Alexie, 2007). An additional benefit to this work was the opportunity to examine how policy changes to ELA instruction are being experienced from a student perspective.
Relying on socio-cultural theories of identity (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998) and reader-response theory (Rosenblatt, 1938; Sumara, 2002), the study hopes to test the assertion that reading literary fiction offers students additional discourses from which they might “author the self” (Holland, et al. 1998). A benefit to this site is that the research can also explore the extent that marginalized youth feel constrained (or not) by their designated status. Additionally, it considers if the ELA classroom can provide a safe space to examine the self that perhaps other available spaces do not afford. Adolescents who are marginalized may feel less permission (or less of an expectation) to “try on” various affinity identities (Gee, 2000) that might leave traces (Derrida, 1976) on their selves and imagined future trajectories of practice through which to craft their own identity narrative. Preliminary findings suggest that students appreciated having a space, the ELA class, to voice, consider and challenge the narratives they carried. Students who were deeply engaged with reading the Alexie novel presented identity displays that suggest it was a transformative experience of the sort proposed by reader-response proponents. However, findings also suggest that resistance to school and a culture of low expectations led some students to resist deep engagements with literacy activities.
Key References:
Alexie, S. (2007). The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.
Anaya, R. (1994). Bless Me, Ultima.
Calabrese Barton, A., Kang, H., Tan, E., O’Neill, T. B., Bautista-Green, J., & Brecklin,
C. (2013). Crafting a future in science: Tracing middle school girls identity work
over time and space. American Educational Research Journal, 50(1), 37-57.

Author

• Anthony Johnston, University of Saint Joseph