NEGOTIATING BLACK MASCULINITY AND AUDIENCE ACROSS HIGH SCHOOL CONTEXTS: A FEMINIST POSTSTRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THREE NON-DOMINANT STUDENTS’ MULTILITERACY COMPOSITION PRACTICES DURING DIGITAL STORYTELLING by REBECCA L. BEUCHER B.A. University of Minnesota M.A. Loyola Marymount University A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Education 2015 This thesis entitled: Negotiating Black Masculinity And Audience Across High School Contexts: A Feminist PostStructural Analysis Of Three Non-Dominant Students’ Multiliteracy Composition Practices During Digital Storytelling written by Rebecca Lee Beucher has been approved for the School of Education Elizabeth Dutro ____________________________________ Kevin O’Conner Date May 18, 2015 The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol # 12-0076 iii Abstract Beucher, Rebecca Lee (Ph.D., School of Education) Negotiating Black Masculinity and Audience Across High School Contexts: A feminist poststructural analysis of three non-dominant students’ multiliteracy composition practices during digital storytelling Thesis directed by Professor Elizabeth Dutro Autobiographical digital storytelling (DST) is a burgeoning multiliteracy practice in in- and out-of-school spaces. Recently, education researchers have explored DST’s potential as a robust critical literacy tool for non-dominant youth to tell agentic counter narratives. A less explored area of youth DST practices relates to how authors account for audience (local and macro discourse) when composing digital autobiographies. Using feminist poststructural theory as a heuristic and analytical tool, I investigated the varying discourses youth authors engaged throughout their processes and products related to autobiographical DST. The ethnographic data for this dissertation were collected in an English Language Arts high school classroom, African American Literature, over the course of four months across fall semester 2012. The three case study findings chapters illustrate three non-dominant students’ approaches to negotiating their subjectivity within the school context across multiple school spaces. The findings from this study complicate notions of agency; namely the case studies demonstrate how diverse youth of color negotiated multiple and competing discourses when narrating stories of the self in relation to a perceived peer audience. More specifically, each case iv provides a detailed analysis of how Darius, Malcolm, and Gabriel, negotiated local and macro discourses related to Black masculinity, salient intersecting subjectivities for each. This study holds theoretical implications in establishing the importance of using poststructural feminist theories in combination with Critical Discourse Analysis of student processes and produced related to autobiographical storytelling by way of detecting the complex power relations youth navigate within the school context. Moreover, this study reports important implications regarding the utility of digital storytelling as a culturally responsive, multimodal, critical literacy practice that affords youth opportunities to draw on personally and culturally meaningful discourses (e.g., hip-hip music) as they compose digital representations in relation to local and macro discourse. Additionally, implications for English Language Arts practice encourage future examination of how youth author’s attentiveness to peer audience discourse demonstrate students’ facilities in composing narratives in relation to audience. Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Georgyann Wernikoff, my teacher in life. Thank you for being my cheerleader, my rock, and my sounding board. I am this woman because of you. vi Acknowledgements Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the teacher and students at Regional High School in African American Literature, with a particular thank you to Gabriel, Malcolm, Darius, and Kira; you opened a window of your lives to me and taught me so much about the, and your experiences in this world. I am forever thankful of this gift of time and conversation. Thank you to the Principal, and Assistant Principal at Regional High for allowing me to work with the students and teachers in their school. Thank you to the English Language Arts teachers for your commitments to teaching high quality texts and socially critical thinking with empowering frameworks informing your curriculum, thank you also for letting me crash your happy hours. Thank you to the guidance counselor for your insights, and the technology teachers who opened their lab space to Kira’s students and me, and to the Future Center counselors for allowing me to be in your space with Kira’s students. Thank you to the school district diversity office for supporting me with getting documents for parents and caregivers translated. To my committee members…Elizabeth Dutro, my advisor, my colleague, my friend. Thank you for loving and nurturing these stories as I did, and for always treating them with the care I know you would, had you known these students yourself. I cherish your wisdom, your work with youth that has intimately informed how I approach research, methodology, and theory, and your gentle and pointed guidance, and for always supporting me in every step of this amazing journey. I look forward to the next leg of this journey to work together as colleagues, but you will forever be a mentor I look up to and strive to be just like. Kris Gutierrez, from my entry into the scholarly world you opened my world to an entirely new way of thinking about vii literacy. Thank you for believing in me early on and for bringing me into your fold. Your work, and your guidance and fundamentally shaped the trajectory of my work and continues to as I imagine my future directions. Kevin O’Connor, I cherish our time discussing the depths of identity theory and your guidance as I began to conceptualize how to approach these case studies. You have always pushed me to think deeply about the theories that form the basis for my work. Thank you. Kira Hall, your work has profoundly shaped how I think about language and performed identity. Thank you for being my advocate and for always taking the time to think with me about my evolving work. I now look forward to reading everything you have recommend I read over the past several years. Cindy Cruz, your work has deeply informed how I approach positioning myself on the side of resistance. Thank you for the needed encouragement you have offered in this past year and for advocating for me as I venture out in search of an academic position. To my teachers and colleagues…Janette Klingner and Shelby Wolf you were both pioneers in the field of literacy and were my mentors in scholarship and life. Thank you both for believing in me early on, for nurturing and mentoring me with your brilliant and warm guidance. Your light shines on as I carry the torch always remembering from whence it came. Dean Lorrie Shepard thank you for envisioning and building a program that supported important equity efforts in the School of Education. My experiences in R.IS.E. were fundamental to my evolution as an early literacy scholar and form an important foundation for the work I continue to do today. Alison Boardman, Karla.Scornavacco, Diana Arya, Kim Schmidt, Chao Wang, Brooke Moore, Amy Boele, Cristin Jensen Lasser, Anne Davidson, Vanessa Santiago Schwartz, Katy White, and all of my colleagues in the Collaborative Strategic Reading group, you were and are my SoE viii family; I love you all! Thank you Sara Mcdonald, Lisa Rodriguez de Martinez, Paul Hohman, and Staci Ruth Shea for helping me with all of the details. To my family, friends, and mentors…Dad, thank you for reminding me that I need to play, less I turn dull, for always being ready to engage in a healthy argument, and for agreeing to disagree about the small stuff, but for always being on my side for on most important issues. Natalie, my sister, my best friend. Thank you for the late night calls about everything, for our shared laughter and tears (and for helping me with formatting in the eleventh hour!). Mike, thank you for your gentle compassion, our heart to heart talks. Kim Goodwin, Adam Painter, Jeanette Ho, Leah Suarez thank you for being my best friends in life. Auntie Coco, thank you for cheerleading me on through every step of this way, and for being an empowering role model in committing yourself to community based Native American youth education. Thank you Mikey for always making me smile and for looking out for me. To my grandparents, Lorraine and William, “Tex” Elliott, Inez and George Beucher, and Phil and Lovey Wernikoff, I love you, thank you for forging the pathway for me to be here at this moment. Steve Wernikoff, thank you for always being available to help me navigate my way through the world. Janis Lemke our conversations about education have been so generative to my thinking and supportive to my soul. To my step-siblings and all of my cousins, I love you, thank you for support and love over these years! Bella, my furry writing buddy who has been writing with me for 15 years and counting. Uncle John Reda, my Ph.D. mentor, thank you for the impromptu pep talks, the cheerleading, the coaching and for forging the pathway towards the Ph.D. Aunt Phyllis, thank you for caring so deeply for my work and the students in my study, and for all of our conversations. Dani Rado, thank you for feeding me the delicious super food meals that got me through the long hours of data collection and prospectus writing, for your love, and support ix during this time, and for talking theory with me as I shaped the foundation of this dissertation.