Passion for Writing

• Sam shows a shifting identity.
• “This shift opens the door for more complex and nuanced considerations of literacy practices” (Williams 343).
• ”That’s when I began to gain an appreciation and excitement to write because I could paint a picture through my writing using my creative spirit”, “While I don’t fully agree with having to write about topics that are not of interest because it limits our creative mind, I do feel that it is good to be open to other various topics and subjects” (Sam).
• Sam’s identity shift from loving writing in school to disliking it shows the development of a more complex relationship with literacy practice.  At first he loved writing but as he got older he only loved certain aspects such as creativity, showing that literacy practices are not black and white.

 

Turn Around?

• Kayla writes using the little narrative of the victim.
• “In victim narratives, students wrote about negative school-based literacy experiences that stigmatized and marked them, including being misread by poor or insensitive teachers, having a “masterpiece” ruined by a teacher’s notorious red ink, or being forced to write research papers and read books doe critique rather than pleasure” (Alexander 617).
• “The feeling that my best work wasn’t good enough was honestly devastating.  There were red pen marks all over the page, word changes, “helpful hints” (as he called them), and just x’s everywhere” (Kayla).
• The paper perfectly fits the victim narrative description of Alexander.

 

Recess and Distress

• Blake shows the idea of literacy-as-success.
• “The most common “cultural narrative” that scholars observe students performing in literacy narratives is the conventional literacy success story, a narrative that assumes the more literate one is, the more successful he or she will be” (Alexander 609).
• “I know that if I slow down and take it one step at a time, I will be able to see myself succeed this year, and for the next 5 years” (Blake).
• Blake learns a lesson in literacy and connects it to Alexander’s ideas of a success story by saying that the lesson that was learned will yield future success.

 

Expect the Unexpected

• Hannah show the use of a sponsor.
• “Intuitively, sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned up most typically in people’s memories of literacy learning: older relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors” (Brandt 167).
• “My brother’s passing had such a tremendous impact on my life” (Hannah).
• Can the passing of her brother/ her brother be a sponsor?