Metaphors of Identity and Literacy: What Do They Say About the Questions We Ask?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session brings together an international group of literacy scholars to explore theorizations of identity. In response to the conference call, we turn the lens on ourselves to ask in what ways we are complicit in failing to disrupt “people’s quest to be self-actualized” (p. 1, para 1). Our goal is to use data from our own qualitative studies to explore how theoretical frames for identity, and their accompanying metaphors, position children and youth as they become literate. We focus on the questions asked and the findings reported. We frame our papers around the five metaphors for identity described by Moje and Luke (2009) and extend this framing, to include an additional metaphor, identity as assemblage.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Language and Social Processes

Chair

• Catherine F. Compton-Lilly, University of South Carolina

Papers

• Five Metaphors and a Case Study: The Longitudinal Case of a Chinese American Child - Catherine F. Compton-Lilly, University of South Carolina

• Understanding Individual and Group Identities in an After-School Media Club - Annette Woods, Queensland University of Technology; Amanda Levido, Queensland University of Technology

• Narratives of Deficit and Standardization and Other Ways for Us to Know Children: Children Learning Literacy - Annette Woods, Queensland University of Technology

• Embodying the Language of Generations: Language and Identity in a First-Year Course - Kerryn Dixon, University of Nottingham

Discussant

• Elizabeth Birr Moje, University of Michigan