Where the Girls Talk: Literacies in Safe Spaces

• In Event: 14.046 - Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: 14.046-8 - Research in Reading and Literacy SIG V

Abstract

Seven years of research with two high-need young adolescent girls is presented in this study; the participant-researcher examined the particular affordances of a small community of three engaged in living and constructing their literacies. Findings indicated that while the girls rejected the discourse of traditional classrooms, among a community of three they figured a safe world where they could (1) speak about hot and sensitive topics while in school, (2) develop a deeply personal, metacognitive understanding of their own literacies, and (3) use their physical presence and markers to create an embodied empathy. In this girl-constructed world, participants produced, reproduced and enacted intense explorations of literary response in ways not available to them in digital and classroom spaces.

Author

• Mary Beth Schaefer, Saint John's University