Crossing Spatial and Textual Boundaries: The Writing Club as Culturally Sustaining Practice

• In Event: Writing and Writing Instruction: Perspectives and Practices

Abstract

Alternative literacy forums outside of traditional classrooms provide youth with opportunities to create writing that centers their voices and allows for choice and confrontation of injustice. In using culturally sustaining approaches, facilitators of these spaces can help students develop their writing and their social-emotional growth. This paper discusses the results of a qualitative study that documents how boundaries across genres and spaces were crossed, examining writing club as an alternative, culturally sustaining forum for academic and social-emotional growth. Tracing the lived experiences of four adolescents of color who participated in a writing club once a week for two years, we will understand how we can transform our literacy spaces to be more culturally sustaining for the diverse students we teach.

Author

• Jody N. Polleck, Hunter College - CUNY