Unpacking Tough Love: Constructing the Self in Literacy Narratives of Black and Brown Boys

• In Event: Centering Hope, Joy, and Love in Literacies Research With Youth of Color

Abstract

In response to this year’s conference theme, I reflect on systems of literacy instruction steeped in false assumptions about Black and Latinx boys’ verbal deprivation and low-literacy. This year-long case study details the narratives of 15 adolescent boys of Color as they negotiated literacy identities across online school, home and book clubs during COVID-19. Drawing on Ochs and Capps’s (1996) discourse analytic framework on narratives and self, I found that boys drew on linguistic resources such as emotional intensity to instantiate identities as agents or passive victims of “tough love” as experienced in the English classroom. These findings texture the field of literacy research by highlighting the varied ways boys construct their sense of (dis)empowerment in their literacy learning.

Author

• Marisa Saris Segel, Boston College