STUDENTS’ RIGHT TO THEIR OWN LITERACIES: USING MODELS OF LITERACY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERACY NARRATIVES FOR FIRST YEAR WRITING

Abstract

Exploring the enduring implications of Paul Kei Matsuda’s founding work on “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition” (2006), this dissertation investigates student literacy narratives from a composition studies and translingual perspective. Despite the contributions of language theory politics from translingualism, pervasive views of language and the ways college teachers, including writing teachers, conceive of difference continue to limit the possibilities for our students and the discipline. Aware of the pitfalls of a “sameness-of-difference” notion of the diverse experiences contained within the classroom space, I am interested in the ways that the literacy narrative can help students better appreciate the larger socio-ideological forces that support and constrain reading and writing practices in material and conceptual ways. Models of literacy can help students reflect on the literacy events, sponsors and other meta-narratives that have shaped them in their growing identities as readers and writers. African American writers, including Ellen and William Craft, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, and Toni Morrison, provide a framework for students’ own in-depth investigation into their literacy practices through these content chapters. While other work focuses on the role of literacy as one feature of African American literature, this dissertation shows the literacy narrative as a genre tackling pervasive notions of racialized difference and equality. In defining literacy acquisition as a socially-situated process, these narratives highlight the socio-political import of learning to read and write in America and the pivotal role of the imagination in unbinding literacy from text-based production. The literacy narrative can help students better appreciate the larger socio-ideological forces that support and constrain reading and writing practices in material and conceptual ways. As a reflective starting place to envision the challenges and rewards of literacy in their professional and personal lives, literacy narratives can help students decide in what ways writing matters to them. These assignments also attest to how language users shape, and are shaped by, the college literacy classroom, calling for a theory that acknowledges that the work of the First Year Writing classroom can become a productively collaborative space. This not a story of how African American authors speak for contemporary students, but rather how these texts can mobilize their own understanding of the significance of literacy on people and on individuals. In harnessing these texts, the dissertation calls for a more robust praxis in assigning literacy narratives in First Year Writing composition classes and multilingual English-language learner equivalents.