Embodied narratives: Ways of reading student literacy histories

<p>When asked about their former experiences and attitudes towards reading and writing first-year students often begin with statements like, &quot; I don't know how to write,&quot; or &quot;I'm not a big reader,&quot; or &quot;I'm not creative.&quot; Behind these facile and familiar sentences is a world of experience we know very little about and are hard-pressed to explain.</p><p>Students are situated on a precarious fault line within the academy and their narratives function like maps of this treacherous terrain. Their stories do not simply reflect personal, private crises but cultural phenomena---including taken-for-granted issues surrounding the &quot;necessity&quot; of discipline and an almost shocking attention to &quot;cleanliness&quot; in relation to the body and the body's prose. My aim, in part, is to question how culture acts in the classroom in ways that are not always apparent.</p><p>I show how students serve as cultural critics in crafting their literacy histories, pointing to a fundamental incoherence in what we believe constitutes good writing, academic excellence and &quot;success.&quot; One of the purposes and central challenges in this dissertation is to develop ways to &quot;listen to...the competing cultural logics&quot; that students' stories expose (Ratcliffe 214).</p><p>In this qualitative research study I pursue two strands of inquiry: (1) What can literacy histories teach us about students' conceptual strategies developed over a lifetime of schooled literacy, and (2) What can we discover about successful and unsuccessful pedagogical practices as seen through their eyes.</p><p>In reading over one hundred literacy histories written by first year writers at the University of New Hampshire I've noticed that several conventional patterns of narration emerge: &quot;The Rise To Success,&quot; &quot;Stigma Narratives,&quot; &quot;Transgressive Narratives,&quot; as well as telling portraits of teachers in and out of school. In examining these patterns I weave a close reading of student texts with literary texts. My readings are informed by a broad range of works in the fields of cultural studies, feminist studies, rhetorical theory and ethnography. I describe the ways &quot;students' stories often confound, correct, explode, or refine writing theorists' constructs, researchers' findings and teachers' assumptions&quot; (Bishop 177).</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year

2001

Author dc:creator

• Paterson, Stephanie Diane

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thomas Newkirk

• Language
• Rhetoric and Composition
• Literature
• American

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/26

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholars.unh.edu:dissertation-1025