Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Language arts
- All Subjects: literacy practice
- Creators: Gee, James P
- Creators: Durand, Sybil
Description
The purpose of this study is to explore the literacy practices members of an online fan community engage in to participate in the space and to question what learning happens through that participation. This dissertation is the product of a two-year virtual ethnographic study of The Sims Writers' Hangout (SWH), a discussion forum website established by fans of The Sims to support members' interests in creating and sharing Sims fan fiction. Affinity space theory informs an understanding of SWH's organization, and a definition of literacies as situated, social practices also frames the study. Data were collected following a discourse-centered online ethnographic approach, which guided systematic observation and interactions with eight key informants. The data corpus includes hundreds of pages of discussion forum posts, member profiles, moderator-created norming texts, numerous digital, multimodal Sims fan fiction texts, virtual interview responses from informants, field notes, and additional virtual artifacts, such as informants' websites and Flickr® photostreams. Study results are presented within three separate manuscripts prepared for publication and presentation, each exploring different lines of inquiry related to SWH. Chapter 3 focuses on tensions visible in the forum discussions to argue for an expansion of affinity space theory that accounts for the “hanging out” members do in the space. Chapter 4 analyzes one informant's literacy practices using a Design perspective. This analysis reveals the collaborative nature of Sims fan fiction literacies. The final manuscript (Chapter 5) offers an analysis of SWH pedagogy using Bernstein's pedagogic device concept. Data illustrate how pedagogic discourse in this online, informal learning space aligns with and challenges Bernstein's theory. Finally, Chapter 6 offers conclusions about how these three analyses expand our understanding of adolescent literacies and 21st century learning. This chapter also contains implications for theory and practice, recommendations for future research, and reflections on lessons learned.
ContributorsLammers, Jayne Catherine (Author) / Marsh, Josephine P (Thesis advisor) / Hayes, Elisabeth R. (Committee member) / Gee, James P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Among researchers, educators, and other stakeholders in literacy education, there has been a growing emphasis on developing literacy pedagogies that are more responsive to the ways young people experience literacy in their everyday lives, which often make use of digital media and other technologies for exchanging meaning. This dissertation project sought to explore the nature of these digital-age literacies in the context of children learning through and about new technologies. Conducting a year-long, multimethod observational study of an out-of-school library-based program designed to engage students in self-directed learning around the domain of computer programming, this project was framed around an analysis of digital-age literacies in design, discourse, and practice. To address each of these areas, the project developed a methodology grounded in interpretive, naturalistic, and participant-observation methodologies in collaboration with a local library Code Club in a metropolitan area of the Southwestern U.S between September 2016 and December 2017. Participants in the project included a total of 47 students aged 8-14, 3 librarians, and 3 parents. Data sources for the project included (1) artifactual data, such as the designed interfaces of the online platforms students regularly engaged with, (2) observational data such as protocol-based field notes taken during and after each Code Club meeting, and (3) interview data, collected during qualitative interviews with students, parents, and library facilitators outside the program. These data sources were analyzed through a multi-method interpretive framework, including the multimodal analysis of digital artifacts, qualitative coding, and discourse analysis. The findings of the project illustrate the multidimensional nature of digital-age literacy experiences as they are rendered “on the screen” at the content level, “behind the screen” at the procedural level, and “beyond the screen” at the contextual level. The project contributes to the literature on literacy education by taking an multi-method, interdisciplinary approach to expand analytical perspectives on digital media and literacy in a digital age, while also providing an empirical account of this approach in a community-embedded context of implementation.
ContributorsAguilera, Earl (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth R (Thesis advisor) / Gee, James P (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Small-group literacy instruction is frequently used in schools in order to engage students in discussions around texts. Instructional settings vary and produce a range of results. They are complex social spaces in which students position one another and themselves as they enact different identities. These identities are associated with sets of literacy practices. This paper describes the results of a study examining the ways in which 3rd and 4th grade students and their teachers positioned themselves and one another in three different small-group literacy settings and the literacy practices that they used as they performed their identities. Using a multimodal discourse analysis (Kress, 2012) and D/discourse analysis (Gee, 2005, 2011), the form and function of language and gestures were used to look at the kinds of identities that the participants enacted and the literacy practices that the students engaged in the different settings. The results of the analysis suggested that the identities that the participants performed were related to the context in which interactions around texts took place. The identities themselves were connected to the use certain literacy practices. The literacy practices used by the participants were also related to the classroom context. The findings suggest that it is important for teachers to consider the figured worlds active in small-group settings, the identities performed within those worlds, and the literacy practices in which students engage.
ContributorsKrauter, David (Author) / Marsh, Josephine P (Thesis advisor) / Gee, James P (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation investigates the impact reading Young Adult Literature (YAL) has on students' empathetic responses as well as their capacity to take action regarding a social justice issue chosen by the student. Drawing on data from a 10th grade honors classroom at a Title 1 school in the Southwest, this ethnographic case study investigates how students use YAL to formulate knowledge construction, empathetic responses, action plans and personal healing. Data for this research includes ethnographic fieldnotes, semi-structured participant interviews, daily journals and a focus group interview. Throughout this study, the teacher and researcher worked together to develop a flexible curriculum that implemented YAL and social activist ideas, such as investigation into action plans and discussion surrounding ways to make change. Results demonstrate that students who had some prior experience with an issue, coupled with identification with a helper character from the novel were more inclined to attempt to take tangible, victim-focused action, whereas students with no prior experience with an issue or those who identified overtly with the victim in the novel were likely to create action plans that spread awareness for others who were unaware of the complexities of the issue. Additionally, the students who had little exposure to the social justice issue they chose demonstrated a level of productive discomfort and a shift in the way they perceived the complexities of the issue. The importance of YAL in the students' social and emotional growth, coupled with an opportunity to create civically minded citizens signals the growing importance of this type of literature in a socially minded world.
ContributorsHays, Alice (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis advisor) / Durand, Sybil (Committee member) / Chin, Beverly (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This qualitative classroom-based study investigates the writing practices, choices and reflections of Latinx high school students during an instructional unit on writing testimonio. The study is grounded in a sociocultural theory of writing and draws from LatCrit and Testimonio to understand how writing about self as testimonio shapes the writing practices of ethnically and linguistically diverse student populations, specifically Latinx, urban youth. The study took place in the researcher’s eleventh grade class at an urban charter school in a major urban center in the southwest. Data collection included collection of writing samples, interviews of a subsection of the students within the class, and participant observer memos and field notes. Analysis was conducted through a testimonio and narrative analysis lens and afforded the opportunity for researcher and participant to co-construct the knowledge gained from the data corpus. Findings focus on the ways participants interacted with the unit of study, how participants used navigational capital to navigate the in-between spaces in their lives, including between cultures, school and home, and linguistic situations. Further, these findings reveal the purposes for which participants wrote their testimonios and on the ways the participants found agency as writers, pride in their writing, and ownership of the narratives of their communities.
ContributorsBaldonado-Ruiz, Monica (Author) / Early, Jessica (Thesis advisor) / Saidy, Christina (Committee member) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / Durand, Sybil (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021