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Identity Chats: Co-Authorized Narratives and the Performance of Writerly Selves in Mass-Multiliterate Times

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Identity Chats: Co-Authorized Narratives and the Performance of Writerly Selves in Mass-Multiliterate Times IDENTITY CHATS: CO-AUTHORIZED NARRATIVES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF WRITERLY SELVES IN MASS-MULTILITERATE TIMES Stacy Kastner A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2013 Committee: Dr. Lee Nickoson, Advisor Dr. Savilla Banister Graduate Faculty Representative Dr. Kristine Blair Dr. Sue Carter Wood Dr. Kevin Roozen, Auburn University © 2013 Stacy Kastner All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Lee Nickoson, Advisor Inspired by my classroom experience and Deborah Brandt’s findings that generations of Americans were resistant to calling themselves “writer,” this multimodal dissertation focuses on the critical narratives, reading and writing artifacts, reflections, and theories of two primary co- researching-participants (CRPs) concerning the complicated and elusive identity of “writer” (Barthes; Foucault) and the not always complimentary relationship between definitions of writing in school, in popular culture and opinion, and in everyday practice (Brodkey; Prior). I conducted two narrative case studies between December 2011 and May 2013 with two adolescents. In my study, I integrated methods from rhetoric, composition, and writing studies with a narrative inquiry methodology, building co-authorization into the research relationship and utilizing digital composing tools in order to disrupt the limitations and exclusivity of a traditionally single-authored and print-based space and in order to situate the stories of student writers at the center of my study. I also made use of a variety of dialogue-driven instruments: (1) oral histories and loosely-based interviews (Brandt; Selfe and Hawisher); (2) a writer’s questionnaire that asked CRPs to describe “writing,” the identity “writer,” and themselves as writers; (3) Joy Reid’s Perceptual Learning Styles Preference Questionnaire; (4) archives of CRPs’ print and digital reading and writing artifacts; (5) artifact-based interviews (Halbritter and Lindquist); and (6) text-based interviews (Roozen). Each case study offers literacy researchers and scholars within rhetoric, composition, and writing studies a view of how a particular adolescent has come to call, see, and think of him or herself as or as not a writer. Working outwards from Roz Ivanič’s various modelings of writer iv identity, in my conclusion, I offer my own framework and language for discussing and researching the self-identities of student writers. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my family and my partner, Nick Porter—I would be lost without your love, understanding, and support. I am also grateful for the time that I spent at St. Bonaventure University and particularly to Dr. Patrick Dooley who encouraged me to think of and see myself as an academic when a Ph.D. seemed out of reach and to Dr. Lauren Matz who encouraged me to seek out student voices in my research inquiries. My project has developed in thanks to opportunities to talk with a variety of other inquirers, researchers, and everyday theorists, including: the Research Network Forum and the Qualitative Research Network at the Conference on College Composition and Communication and various meetings on and around the Bowling Green campus with Laural Adams, Megan Adams, Nick Baca, Estee Beck, Matt Bridgewater, Mariana Grohowski, Dave McClure, Kimberly Spallinger, Kellie Jean Sharp, Shirley Faulkner-Springfield, Scott Sundvall, and Alison Witte. I am thankful for old friends, like Katie Fredlund, a fellow Bonnie and New Yorker, who is a generous source of good advice and company, and for new friends, like Kerri Hauman, with whom and from whom I am grateful to have learned so much over the past four years. I am indebted to a committee of encouraging, open-minded, and wise faculty members. Savilla Banister has been generous with her excitement about and support for my project. As a committee member and as a scholar, Kevin Roozen has been both guide and friend, liberal with his advice, time, and feedback. I am especially grateful for the feminist mentoring that I received as a student in Bowling Green State University’s Rhetoric and Writing Program and throughout my project. Sue Carter Wood has also been generous with her excitement, time, and feedback, and I am ever thankful to her for leading me to the archives where I became fascinated with the literate activities of everyday people and began experimenting with methodologies and methods vi that would serve me well in this project. Kris Blair plays a central role as a sponsor in my own literate history, and I am ever thankful to her for equipping me (theoretically and pragmatically) to do digital writing research and to construct meaning using more than alphabetic text. Throughout this project she has challenged me to be a more thoughtful researcher and writer. Lastly, Lee Nickoson has been a more gracious advisor than one could ever wish for; words can neither express my gratitude to nor my respect for her. Her patience with my messy, slow but steady, re-writing processes and her gentle and yet firm advice have guided this project from an annotated bibliography and sketch of an idea in her summer 2010 Teacher Research seminar to its completion. Most importantly, I am also indebted to Stewie Daniels, Mrs. Daniels, Corrinne Burns and their families for sharing their stories and their lives. They have taught me much about being a researcher, a teacher, and a human being. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION. CALLING, SEEING, AND THINKING OF STUDENTS AS WRITERS (BECAUSE THEY ARE) .................................................................................... 1 Chapter Outlines ........................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1. ON WRITING NON-WRITERS (PEOPLE WHO WRITE BUT DO NOT CALL THEMSELVES WRITERS) ...................................................................................... 9 Chapter Outline .......................................................................................................... 10 The Problem of Writing Non-Writers: American Sponsors ...................................... 11 History: The Student-Writer as Bookworm ................................................... 12 Culture: Everyday Writer/ing as Literacy Crisis ........................................... 14 Present Day: The Student-Writer as Parrot .................................................... 16 The French Dispersal of the Writer ........................................................................... 18 The Study ............................................................................................................ 21 Co-Researching-Participants: Background .................................................... 24 Co-Researching Participants: Positioning and Views on Writers and Writing ........................................................................................................... 25 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 27 CHAPTER 2. WRITER IDENTITY VERSUS WRITERLY SELVES: FOUNDATIONS AND FRAMEWORKS .......................................................................................................... 29 Literacy ............................................................................................................ 30 Brian Street, From an Autonomous to an Ideological Model of Literacy .......................................................................................................... 30 Deborah Brandt, an Economic Model of Literacy and Sponsors of viii Literacy .......................................................................................................... 32 Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher, Technological Literacy ........................... 33 Writing ............................................................................................................ 36 Identity ............................................................................................................ 37 Identity as Discoursal/Performed/Rhetorical ................................................. 40 Autobiography, Self-Identity, and Dialogue/Narrative/Story ....................... 42 Writer Identity ............................................................................................................ 43 Writing and Identity: the Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing ........................................................................................................... 44 “The Discoursal Construction of Writer Identity” ......................................... 45 “Writing and Being Written: Issues of Identity across Timescales” ............. 48 Studies Directly Influenced by Ivanič’s Framework ..................................... 51 Conclusion: Research Opportunities/Project Goals ................................................... 53 CHAPTER 3. NARRATIVE INQUIRY AS RCW LITERACY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................ 56 Narrative Inquiry ........................................................................................................ 58 Data Collection: Dialogic Instruments ...................................................................... 62 Oral Histories/Autobiographical Narratives .................................................. 64 Writer’s Questionnaire ..................................................................................
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