Critical Place-Based Literacy Learning in WV Students' Place-Based Writing

• In Event: Critical Literacies: Agency, Place, Story

Abstract

This case study explores how students from one high school class represent place in their writing assignments. I examine two student writing assignments - a geographical autobiography and a “Where I’m From” poem and recorded podcast, modelled after George Ella Lyons’. The following question guided my research: How did students in one rurban WV high school English class represent critical place-based literacy learning in two summative creative writing assignments?
Utilizing grounded theory and constant comparative analysis, I determined that students attended to an intersection of place, identity, dialect, power, and reading and writing practices in their work. This empirical study provides information on what place-based learning can involve in Appalachia, specifically in a mid-sized city and its rural surroundings in West Virginia.

Authors

• Corey Humphrey, University of Pittsburgh

• Toni Poling