Social Class and Improvisation: Rural Students' Perspectives on Learning and Boredom

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Rural Literacy Programs

Abstract

The study I report on here used filmmaking in a rural middle school to enhance and contextualize the traditional literacy curriculum that was well established in the school. As such this study is an example of what has been called “rural literacies” (Donehower et al, 2007). The study reports student engagement with improvisation as an alternative literacy learning framework that employed digital tools. The study examines how literacy practices relate to the affordances and constraints of place as well as to the social class based identity constructions reinforced by the particularly Canadian streaming mechanism of French Immersion programming.

Author

• Michael J. Corbett, University of Tasmania