Blending Lifewriting and Technology to Teach Language, Culture & Identity in the ESL Classroom

By blending lifewriting e.g. diaries/journals, creative non-fiction, poetry, and autoethnography and technology e.g. social networking, such as YouTube, I study my own life, and advocate for a method, theory, and approach to teaching language, culture, and identity in the ESL classroom that also uses both. I call this Transautomedia. I combine analysis (theory), application (original research projects), and activism (vigorous action in support of my cause). This is written (semi) linearly, but is also an art installation in the form of a website called The Human Archive Project (THAP), a Trans-Space, not bound by language, genre, discipline, or identity. On THAP I research my hybrid identity and ask: In what ways did being brought up simultaneously Jewish and Muslim help shape my hybrid identities? How do language, religion, culture, community, power, class, and gender contribute to my complicated and changing identities? I also write about myself since I am discussing writing about the self and since my own struggles with my hybrid identity can serve as an example of the kinds of issues that ESL (and all L2) learners face as they attempt to build their new identity in another language, another culture. Additionally, my dissertation includes two projects: Reclaiming Lithuania, a Vlog series about my Lithuanian Jewish identity, and Baubie, a memoir about the death of my Holocaust survivor grandmother. Finally, this dissertation also includes a pedagogical aspect. I create a syllabus with activities for The ESL classroom using lifewriting and technology, and how-to's on such things as website design.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• MC, Tamara

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Waugh, Linda

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ruiz, Richard
• Temple, Judy

• Culture
• Identity
• Language
• Lifewriting
• Web 2.0
• Second Language Acquisition & Teaching
• Autoethnography

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/332837

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/332837