“Tjaa,I Do Have Ears,But I Do Not Hear”: New Literacy Studies and the Awakening of a Hearing Teacher

To address the low literacy achievement of minority students, the sociocultural movement of the New Literacy Studies (NLS) encourages us to expand on current understandings of literacy. Instead of thinking of literacy as a neutral set of skills transferable from one setting to another, NLS researchers encourage us to contextualize literacy within individuals’ social and cultural realms. In this view, there are multiple literacies. As a literacy teacher of students who are deaf, I have witnessed students struggling with school-based literacy learning. As I began to examine what I was doing within the classroom, I realized that my assumptions about literacy instruction were the main source of students' struggles. In this study I explore how I used the theoretical perspective of the NLS to expand my understanding of literacy. The findings suggest that, in order to base literacy instruction on students' resources, teachers need to learn to negotiate conflicting educational Discourses on reading and writing, to create a space within the classroom for students to bring in their literacy practices, and to recognize and preserve students' agency and identity in their learning. Findings also indicate the vital role of writing in deaf students' learning of Icelandic.     

The Subject of Post-structuralism: A reply to Alison Jones

ABSTRACT Alison Jones finds in the writing of her students who take up post-structuralism, a confused humanism, an illegitimate appearance of a prediscursive self. She attributes this to some aspects of my writing and to the students' failure to understand the structuralist base of post-structuralism. Jones argues that I and her students are guilty of humanism when we use active verbs such as 'positioning' or 'forced choice', or when we try to imagine what agency might be in a post-structuralist framework. In this reply I produce a detailed reading of Jones'. In doing so, I attempt to find how she produced her reading of my writing, and at the same time to extend my understanding of what the 'post-structuralist subject' might be. I attend to this in the dual sense of human beings as subjects, and the subject of post-structuralism as we teach it to our students.     

‘But sir,I lied’ – the value of autobiographical discourse in the classroom

This article aims to examine the benefits of teachers using their own autobiographical writing in the classroom. It explores the blurring of truth and fiction in autobiographical writing and argues that teachers can help students if they provide students with the cloak of fiction when writing about their own lives. Furthermore, it puts forward the case that when teachers share pertinent autobiographical episodes then pupils are more willing to respond in an engaged and passionate fashion. In developing my argument, I suggest that autobiographical writing can be therapeutic in certain classroom contexts. The data sources for this article are the author's own life and two case studies: an 11‐year‐old boy, George, and a 15‐year‐old girl, Eloise, both of whom were pupils of the author and wrote autobiographically for him. The methodological approach is that of bricolage: chiefly, the article combines ethnographical observation with interviews and discourse analysis. I also examine quantitative studies which look at the therapeutic dimensions of autobiographical writing. Theoretically I draw on Friere's concept of ‘conscientization’ (Friere 1985: 49) in order to critique the ‘banking’ concept of education, which would close down opportunities for pupils to write freely about their own lives.     

Writes of passage: writing up qualitative data as a threshold concept in doctoral research

Effective writing is an essential skill for all doctoral students, yet it is one that receives relatively little attention in training and supervision. This article explores extensive feedback from participants in a series of workshops for doctoral candidates engaged with writing up qualitative data. The themes arising from the data analysis are discussed in terms of the affective domain of writing, and the main claim is that writing up qualitative data has been identified as what Meyer and Land would call a threshold concept for doctoral candidates employing qualitative analysis. Drawing on Turner's notion of liminality, the article concludes that interdisciplinary workshops can be instrumental in helping doctoral candidates understand the role of writing, and of writing up qualitative data in particular, in their development into independent, autonomous researchers.     

“Our Leaders Are Just We Ourself”: Black Women College Student Leaders’ Experiences With Oppression and Sources of Nourishment on a Predominantly White College Campus

This article offers a theoretical analysis and phenomenological study of the leadership experiences of black women college students at a predominantly white higher education institution. Existing literature argues that leadership development is vital to the college experience as an opportunity to empower and engage students in social change. However, the implementation of these leadership development models fail to consider how the racial and gender identities of students influence leadership development or student peer interactions (Byrd, 2009; Kezar & Moriarty, 2000). Through black feminist standpoint theory, I present a theoretical framework that highlights the historical traditions of black women's leadership. These historical traditions grounded my qualitative study, which explores the experiences of contemporary black women's student leadership. Participants reported interpersonal interactions with oppression, more specifically: stereotypes, microaggressions, racialized and gendered self-presentation expectations, along with negotiating voice and silencing. A number of social factors were cited as sources of nourishment where women drew from historical traditions of black women's leadership to persist through oppressive challenges. Additional sources of nourishment included mothering, mentorship, allyship from white peers, and the formation of social networks.     

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

In this article I examine my struggles as a White teacher educator creating discourse around race with my preservice students. I use my own struggles to highlight how White members of a teacher education faculty do, and more often do not, address race either with our preservice teachers or among ourselves. In particular, I explore the implications of "colorblindness" for teacher education. I conclude with suggestions for ways in which Colleges of Education can support White faculty members as they move beyond colorblindness toward racial consciousness.     

Digitally mastered? Technology and transition in the experience of taught postgraduate students

Taught Master's students have been largely overlooked in research into learners' engagement with digital technologies. This article reports work to redress this imbalance, in which an extended email correspondence was conducted with 23 Master's students. Specifically, it investigates (1) the extent to which these students start their courses both functionally competent in the use of IT and digitally literate, and (2) the relationship between students' engagement with digital technologies and their experience of transition to postgraduate study in five areas: knowledge and skills, autonomy, ‘deeper’ learning, enculturation into an academic community, and self-concept. Findings suggest that students may initially be less functionally competent in IT than might be expected, but use these tools in an informed manner. Engagement with a wider range of digital technologies parallels their shift from novice to expert practice and their developing self-concept as researchers; however, non-digital means also remain important in mediating all aspects of transition.     

The Transformative Impact of Blended Mobility Courses

Several pedagogical assets of the blended‐learning courses conducted within the ADRIART.net partnership originate from their novel site‐specific approach and intercultural value. Conducted outside school environments across Austria, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia in 2011–2014, over a dozen of these intensive Master's programme workshops mixed students and mentors from different cultural and professional backgrounds, intersecting the realms of film, new media, photography, performance, architecture and contemporary art. These short‐term academic mobility courses concluded with public exhibitions, screenings or performances, often at eminent cultural venues or in public spaces pertaining to the site‐specific character of each course. This article discusses key issues that proved beneficial for conceiving and implementing this fruitful academic collaboration format. Several curricular and organisational solutions are presented that increased the positive impact on students as well as other stakeholders in this project‐based pedagogical piloting of the Media Arts and Practices international Master's programme. Set against its curriculum‐development framework, the article examines new methodological solutions, joint mentoring models and group dynamics management, as well as some specific logistical issues. Next to developing relevant employment skills and attitudes, such production‐oriented, but process‐aware course designs offer timely academic provisions as a response to a ‘glocalised’ world. More importantly, these course designs can also foster students' engagement with the actual (social, economic, natural, political) environment and the development of life‐long learning habits.     

Aesthetic Learning,Creative Writing and English Teaching

My article argues that the concept of ‘aesthetic learning’ can be helpful for English teachers on two levels. First, it can be a useful identity for English teachers and students to adopt, based upon my own experiences as a secondary English teacher, creative writer and PhD student. Second, I argue that ‘aesthetic learning’ is an effective and productive way of analysing some of the learning processes that happen in the English teacher’s classroom. In order to arrive at these conclusions, I examine my own creative writing, teaching and learning processes from which I extrapolate the notion that we are all ‘aesthetic learners’ in the sense that we learn to appreciate the qualities of the worlds we inhabit, whether these are actual or virtual. Throughout, my own writing, learning and teaching are used to illustrate my argument. In particular, the article seeks to re-position my own teaching in secondary schools within the context of ‘aesthetic learning’.     

独立学院学生大学英语四级写作教学实践和思考

在独立学院教学实践中,本人深切体会到学生在四级作文写作实践中存在的问题,在实践教学中,作者根据学生作文中常出现的问题和不足,调整教学内容,向学生讲授四级作文写作要领,有效帮助学生提高写作水平,并以所授班级为研究对象,将学生一年以来的作文情况进行比较。     

Teaching About Love and Practicing Feminist Pedagogy in a College Classroom

Being a feminist teacher, working on gender equity education, including teaching, reading, writing, and doing research on this topic, has become a commitment for me. I have frequently reflected my teaching practices and occasionally found new teaching strategies in the classroom. I always try to bring new topics or issues into the classroom in order to raise students' gender consciousness. I also try hard to figure out what can be done to empower students. Teaching about love is one way I use to empower college students in the gender course. This article is about my teaching experiences. I intend to discuss the teaching strategies, particularly focusing on the topic of love, to explore the possible ways of practicing feminist pedagogy.     

Becoming artist,becoming educated,becoming undone: toward a nomadic perspective of college student identity development

In this article, I place my ethnographic project among undergraduate university art students and their professor in dialog with Rosi Braidotti’s figuration of the nomadic subject and her reflections on the importance of creating theoretical alternatives for mapping the embedded and embodied social positions that we inhabit. As educational interlocutors, college students must negotiate expectations and categorizations about age-appropriate relations, career paths, and identity passageways, which are always already framed by Western psychological development discourses. Interested in loosening the grip of these closure-seeking and normalizing discursive practices, I argue for a revision of identity development grounded in a nomadic theory of the subject and engage my data through an alternative analytic of arts-informed assemblage in light of Braidotti’s ideas. In so doing, I uphold my feminist commitment to do theory as both critique and creativity, bringing into view poetic-enough writing and imagery as a response to the question how is it to be in the process of becoming?     

‘Madam,are you one of them?’ ‘Reflexivities of discomfort’ in researching an ‘illicit’ subject

Informed largely by Affect theory (2004), this paper takes up ‘reflexivities of discomfort’ to reflexively engage with my affective struggles as a Christian, heterosexual, mother, educator, undertaking a study on homosexuality, which is a thorny issue in Uganda. It a methodological prologue, reflecting my thoughts and struggles before I undertake the study. My purpose is not to find solutions, but to lay bare some anxieties and ambivalences, also suggesting the limits of reflexivity. The paper begins with an autobiographical narrative about school in relation to (homo)sexuality. This is followed by an exposition of Uganda’s Anti-homosexuality Bill; my use of reflexivity and affect to inform my affective struggles; my background as it relates to sexuality, providing insights into my researcher positionality. I then engage with moments imbued with high affective/emotive intensity in my preparation to undertake the study.     

Along the Write Lines: a case study exploring activities to enable creative writing in a secondary English classroom.

This article arises from a four week study of a class of 14‐15 year old students. The study explored students’ perception of themselves as writers and the effects of a variety of teaching and learning strategies on their creative writing responses. The aim of the project was to enhance the students’ creative writing, whilst ascertaining whether there were particular activities or types of writing that would lead to students perceiving more satisfactory outcomes in their writing. It answers the research question: What do I observe, and what do my students say, about the experience of different classroom based creative writing tasks?     

That Awkward Moment I Became Irrelevant

If you have ever found yourself asking, “Why don't students see the relevance in what I am teaching them?”, you are not alone. I recently discovered that I had become out-of-touch with what college students find relevant. My purpose in writing this commentary is twofold: (1) to reflect on and improve my own practice, and (2) to encourage my fellow instructors to reflect on their own practice to ensure what they teach is perceived as relevant by college students today.     

Higher Level Thinking,Writing, and Democracy Among Community College Students

In my work on the college's Committee on Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies, I found that much of the written work done in our community college was based on lower level cognition, requiring none of the assessment or exploration that is emblematic of critical thought in a democracy. Most of the assignments asked students simply to recite information without any demand for assessments, values, or analysis of the material. Most seemed rooted in inculcation rather than creative thought. In the workshops I conducted with colleagues, I endeavored to stress the importance of transcending the simple cookie-cutter essay, urging faculty that critical thinking and even the strength of our democracy depend on our students’ ability to use information to construct new ideas and propose provocative and original theories.     

Presuming Competence

This study discusses my attempt to improve educational experiences of fifth-grade students living in public housing. The context of a social justice-oriented classroom is revealed through reconstruction of my thought processes while teaching and learning with students. The narrative portrayal that emerges demonstrates the impact our theorizing together had on our growth, outlook, and learning in an effort to make substantive change in the community. Although this curriculum was not explicitly grounded in a service-learning framework, the processes, activities, and results of the classroom typify the potential and possibilities of a justice- and service-oriented elementary classroom. Reflections of classroom occurrences and struggles I engaged in privately and with students are conveyed through vignettes of the change-focused, integrated curriculum based on students' priority concerns—particularly the attempt to replace their dilapidated school. The role of theorizing with students and curriculum realizing democratic principles in a poor neighborhood is depicted.     

Self‐Reflexivity and the Creative Voice: Issues of Transgression Identified with Participant Ethnographic Research in Art and Design Education

This article shares my experience as a doctoral student researching within the domain of art and design education. This is a professional doctorate bringing together my experience as an educator and that of researcher where boundaries between education and social science research disciplines cross. My research paradigm is situated within critical theory. It is an interpretive hermeneutic study where I am cast as a participant ethnographer. At the time of writing I wanted to make known the issues and tensions that I encountered with research protocols, such as permissions mechanisms and ethical gatekeepers. These tensions I still perceive as confining, but more significantly, I realise that knowing and understanding research methodology is key to achieving creative and unpredictable research practice. This article is, therefore, focused on my journey to discover a research methodology that enables me to use a creative voice. By this I mean a method by which I can develop a writing style that articulates my practice that enables me in the construction and reporting of my research analysis to fully capitalise on my reflexive self. I have referenced papers produced by others at the time of writing their doctoral thesis and have found this enlightening. This is my contribution.