Positioning adolescents in literacy teaching and learning
Files
Accepted manuscript
Date
2018-12-01
Authors
Frankel, Katherine K.
Fields, Susan S.
Kimball-Veeder, Jessica
Murphy, Caitlin R.
Version
Accepted manuscript
OA Version
Citation
Katherine K Frankel, Susan S Fields, Jessica Kimball-Veeder, Caitlin R Murphy. 2018. "Positioning Adolescents in Literacy Teaching and Learning." JOURNAL OF LITERACY RESEARCH, Volume 50, Issue 4, pp. 446 - 477 (32). https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X18802441
Abstract
Secondary literacy instruction often happens to adolescents rather than with them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade “literacy mentors” to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a) understand how mentors positioned themselves and how we positioned them and (b) examine the literacy practices that enabled and constrained the mentor position. We found that our positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up in different and sometimes unexpected ways as a result of the multiple positions available to them and institutional-level factors that shaped what literacy practices were and were not negotiable. We argue that future collaborations with youth must account for the rights and duties of all members of a classroom community, including how those rights and duties intersect, merge, or come into conflict within and across practices.