The Longitudinal Interactional Histories Approach: Theory and Method for Understanding Writing Development

• In Event: Taking the Long View: Learning From Longitudinal Studies of Writing

Abstract

Objectives
This poster describes the “longitudinal interactional histories approach” to analysis (LIHA) developed by the author, including attention to relevant theories as well as the methodological practices implied by those theoretical positions. This approach to literacy research has at its core a focus on three key sustaining questions:
What interactions do youth have with Discourses, institutional policies and practices, individuals, and texts/technologies while writing?
What impacts do these interactions have on texts they write?
How do youths’ texts change over time?

Theoretical framework
I address the first two questions above by referencing theoretical understandings of what I term “interactional histories” of a text, similar to Lillis and Curry’s (2006) “text histories” and Rogers’ (2002) “histories of participation,” which acknowledge both the multiple interactions that students may have while writing as well as the ways in which previous literacy experiences/interactions may influence any given writing task. I explore the third question (‘How do youths’ texts change over time?’) with reference to notions of timespace (e.g., Compton-Lilly, 2016), analyzing how literacy practices, their features, and their institutional values vary across time and contexts in which they occur.

Methods
Methodologically, I explain the ways in which I identify writers’ interactions with discourses, communities/institutions, individuals, and texts/technologies relevant to any given writing event, which are then analyzed through discourse analysis of classroom interactions and/or content analysis of interviews (question 1). I then present ways in which I track the actual changes in students’ texts through interview analysis and/or inter-textual analysis (Prior, 2004) (question 2).
I also discuss how data are analyzed longitudinally and how researcher positionality over time is considered (question 3).

Data Sources
Empirical data to be used as exemplars of this approach are drawn from an eight-year qualitative study I conducted of five Spanish/English bilingual youth, following their literacy trajectories from young adolescents beginning high school through the first four years after their high-school graduation.

Results
I use a LIHA analysis to demonstrate two primary themes with this particular data set: 1) students’ non-English resources tended to be marginalized in academic and institutional practices and policies, but their bilingualism was key to academic and professional development during and after high school, and 2) success in educational institutions depended on having a range of supportive interactions at both institutional/community and individual levels, but even in the most promising situations, these young people’s bi-literacy and its development continued to be marginalized.

Scholarly Significance
The approach to analysis described in this poster highlights the importance of nuanced longitudinal qualitative research in better understanding literate (and bi-literate) journeys through adolescence and young adulthood, as well as the many ways in which the contexts in which writing occurs play defining roles in its use and development.

Author

• Amanda Kibler, University of Virginia