This dissertation reports findings from a sociolinguistic ethnography that examined relationships between literacy practices and personhood. The study involved the formulation of a writing club at an urban middle school, involving a multiracial group of women from the lowest academic track; two were described as special education students. They researched and wrote about their communities, investigating questions of personal concern about issues of racism and sexism. Students interviewed community members, including artists, organizers, neighbors, and peers. Students wrote up and published their findings. I collected data on the writing project, including forty-five hours of taped data. Analysis involved thematic and textual analyses of the students' written artifacts, and microanalysis of videotaped events. A microethnographic analysis examined sociolinguistic processes that research suggested is important. Attention was paid to the social construction of intertextuality during writing activities. The findings show that the nature of literacy practices and personhood is such that they are continuously and inherently constructed within particular fields of intertextual semantic potentials. These intertextual potentials are described along five dimensions: (1) ways students' definitions of personhood changed over the course of the project, (2) strategies students, community members, and myself used to position students, (3) how the project's structure positioned students, (4) community literacy practices and how they positioned people, (5) how students used community literacy practices to position themselves and others. The student's definitions of personhood changed. The established field of intertextual semantic potentials was influenced by changes in literacy practices that led to changes in literacy practices that led to changes in the students' definitions of writing, their views about themselves and life in the community. Literacy practices established in the writing project built on ones students encountered as they researched their communities. Community members shared ways of acting for social justice, including the importance of reclaiming cultural heritage, learning history from the community's perspective, analyzing multiple forms of oppression. Students' ethnographic research helped them reflect on their communities by enhancing their understanding of the cultural dynamics in which they live. Students recreated methods and theoretical frameworks to address the issue of personhood as students, as community members, and as ethnographers of their own communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8934 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | Egan-Robertson, Ann |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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