Who Looks at Whom? Talking About Queer-Themed Literature in a Secondary LGBT-Themed Literature Course

• In Event: 18.072 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 18.072-1 - Agency, Discourse, and Youth

Abstract

Drawing from a study of a co-taught and co-researched semester-long LGBT-themed literature course offered in an arts-based public charter high school in a Midwestern city, we analyzed the ways that students and teachers talked about the queer-themed novel Brooklyn, Burning (Brezenoff, 2011) in classroom-based literacy events. Our analysis revealed six distinct ways of talking, three of which we discuss here: deciphering characters’ gender and sexual identities; foregrounding traits; and foregrounding relationships. Based on the relationships among these ways of talk, we examine the nature of the gaze that classroom members co-constructed as they looked at the taleworld of the novel from the storytelling world of the classroom. We conclude by analyzing the affordances and constraints of these ways of talking.

Authors

• Ryan Schey, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Mollie V. Blackburn, The Ohio State University