broughton,

The Performance and Construction ofSubjectivities of Early Adolescent Girls in

Book Club Discussion Groups

T his study examines the performance and construction ofsubjectivities of four early adolescent, sixth-grade girls

as they read and discussed a novel about two adolescentMexican children seeking a new life in America. Using datagathered through ethnographic methods such as participant-observation, interviews, dialogue journals, and book clubdiscussions, the author describes the participants as they per-formed their subjectivities in various contexts, focusingspecifically on their performances while reading and dis-cussing the novel in book club groups. The girls’ conversa-tions about themselves suggested that they engaged inongoing constructions of their subjectivities as they interact-ed with the text and with each other. Analysis of data was in-ductive and was informed by theories of experiential responseas developed by Louise Rosenblatt and others. The discussiongroups provided a fertile environment in which the girlscould reflect on the text, share responses, argue opposingviewpoints, and negotiate shared meanings. During the dis-cussions of the novel, the girls debated a variety of personaland social issues, sometimes recognizing and verbally ac-knowledging shifts in their values, beliefs, and attitudes asthey negotiated meanings and clarified understandings.

This study describes the performance and construction ofsubjectivities of early adolescent girls as they respondedto literature and talked about themselves in book clubdiscussion groups. This ethnographic inquiry examinedreading as a component of experience and therefore apractice used in the construction of the self. This reportexpands prior research into girls’ worlds (e.g., Brown &Gilligan, 1992; Cherland, 1994; Finders, 1997; Gilligan,Lyons, & Hanmer, 1990; McRobbie, 1978) as it considers

Journal of Literacy Research

Mary Ariail BroughtonTexas Woman’s University

JLRV. 34 No. 1

2002PP. 1–38

by guest on February 18, 2015jlr.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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The Performance and Construction of Subjectivities

the dimension of experiential response to literature. The inquiry was founded onthe premise that construction of the self begins at birth and continues throughoutlife. Furthermore, human subjects are fluid, experiencing shifts in subjectivities asthey grow and develop and when they move from one experience to another.

The primary objective in this paper is to foreground two aspects of the relationbetween literacy and subjectivity. Therefore, I will address the ways that discus-sions of literature contributed to the performance and construction of the sub-jectivities of four sixth-grade, early adolescent girls as they engaged in a readingexperience together. Three related questions guided this project: (1) What sub-jectivities were apparent to the girls and to others? (2) In what ways did the girlsperform their subjectivities as they encountered various contexts? (3) How mightexperiences of reading and discussing literature contribute to these girls’ ongo-ing construction of subjectivities?

The Reader as SubjectIn her seminal work, The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978), Louise Rosenblatt likensthe history of literary theory to that of a darkened stage on which stand the play-ers – author, reader, and text. Historically, the spotlight has focused on either au-thor or text, leaving the reader to remain in the shadows. “The reader is oftenmentioned, but is not given the center of the stage” (p. 4). Rosenblatt suggests awidening of the aperture to admit all three, but she is especially concerned withthe previously neglected member of the cast – the reader. The present study takesits cue from Rosenblatt as it places the reader in the center of the stage.

Identity and SubjectivityExperiential theories of response (Beach, 1993), developed by writers such asRosenblatt (1978, 1938/1995), Bleich, (1978), Langer (1995), and Iser (1972), em-phasize that the meaning and significance derived from any given reading experi-ence is dependent on who the reader is at the moment of transaction with the textas well as the reader’s subjective response to the text. For example, one’s view ofself as a member of a particular race, class, or gender will affect the transaction. Inaddition, the reader’s life experiences that have contributed to the construction ofattitudes, beliefs, values, and other subjectivities will affect the meaning that thereader gets from the text.

To focus on the reader, one must consider two concepts related to the who of theself – “identity” and “subjectivity.” Because the interpretations of these terms aresubject to controversy, it is necessary to address some of the distinctions betweenthe ways the terms are used in contemporary discourse. Identity is a term that iscentral to modernist thinking (Davies, 1993). According to Webster’s Third



International Dictionary (Gove et al., 1993), identity is defined as “sameness of es-sential or generic character in different instances”; “sameness in all that constitutesthe objective reality of a thing”; and “unity and persistence of personality.” Thismodernist definition of identity is consistent with the philosophy of humanism thatholds that individuals embody an essence that is inviolable to change. Recognizingthe importance of self in determining response to literature, literary critic NormanHolland (1980) describes a “primary identity,” which stands as “an invariant whichprovides all the later transformations of the individual, as he develops, with an un-changing inner form or core of continuity” (p. 121). Holland describes any devia-tions from this essential core as merely variations on a central theme, much like themusician’s variations on a single melody, displaying only surface changes while re-maining fundamentally constant. According to Holland, as readers interpret texts,they find unity in the texts because of the unity in their identity, and he refers toreaders’ essential characteristics as invariant “identity themes.”

Poststructuralist thought challenges the notion of an unchanging inner core asadherents to this movement seek to decenter the self. The concept of identity isput sous rature (under erasure) (Derrida, 1967/1976). The strike through the wordleaves the word visible, indicating that the term is still used and useful but sug-gests that we need to deconstruct it and move beyond its modernist implica-tions. Poststructuralists often prefer the term subjectivity, claiming that there areno stable referents for the “I”; the self is constituted through discourse and prac-tice and is continually constructed and reconstructed. Furthermore, rather thanvariations on the theme of a primary identity, poststructuralists hold that thereis no unified, coherent self; rather, the subject is a constant negotiation of con-tradictions and power relations, achieved through relations with others. AsWeedon (1987) notes, “Poststructuralism proposes a subjectivity which is pre-carious, contradictory and in process, constantly being reconstituted in discourseeach time we think or speak” (p. 33). The emphasis on subjectification as an on-going process serves to decenter the subject. This decentering of the self is de-pendent upon discourse, social structure, repetition, memory, and affectiveinvestment (Giroux & McLaren, 1992).

The tension between the ontological assumptions regarding the self as an essen-tial core and the self as an ongoing construction present a peculiar dilemma for oneattempting to describe a subject’s response to literature. It is clear that readersoften repeat their subjectivities in recognizably consistent ways. They adhere tospecific social groups and claim membership to certain subject positions, therebylending support to the idea of a stable identity. Giroux and McLaren (1992) arguethat, although individuals consist of a “decentered flux of subject positions” (p. 14),they repeatedly consent to certain subject positions because they are familiar and





comfortable. That consent becomes effective when individuals respond to theideologies that “hail” them (Althusser, 1971, 1984). They become subjected to theideologies by answering the call that they perceive is directed toward them. In thisway, individuals claim the “obviousnesses” of their subject positions and oftenresist change.

Even though subjects may appear to occupy fixed positions, it is also clear that peo-ple make shifts among their available subject positions as they engage in variousexperiences. The instability of the subject was illustrated by McCarthey (1998) asshe studied students in a literature-based classroom. Her students continually en-gaged in a process of constructing and reconstructing their subjectivities as the de-mands of the social setting changed. McCarthey observed that students’subjectivities shifted as they encountered different tasks and changed group com-positions. For example, a female student, Rosa, was described by her mother as“very shy” (p. 136). Indeed, when Rosa was placed in a group of peers consisting ofa European American, middle class boy, a Hispanic working class girl, and aHispanic middle class boy, Rosa was shy and acquiescent. However, when Rosa wasplaced in a group of all Hispanic students, she was much more verbal and assertivethan in the previous interaction. She initiated responses, commented on the re-sponses of others, and even openly disagreed with her peers. She performed hersubjectivity differently in these different relationships.

When social discourse takes the form of literature or discussions of literature, areader may take up comfortable subject positions even as one is offered othersthrough the experiences of reading and discussing the literature. In view of thereader’s resistance to change, a partial solution may be offered in a rethinking ofHolland’s concept of “identity themes” to allow for a recognizable subject (that is,a subject who consistently occupies certain subject positions) who is concurrentlya subject in process, subjected to construction through relations with others.Borrowing from the premise of Holland’s “identity themes,” while allowing for thereconceptualization of a subject of who is susceptible to shifts in subjectivities, Ichose to think of the girls in this study in terms of their “subjectivity themes,” re-ferring to the commonly held subject positions of race, class, and gender as well asthe recurring values, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, self-perceptions, and social be-haviors demonstrated by the girls and described by their parents and themselves.By describing the girls in terms of their subjectivity themes, it is possible to envi-sion a subject who claims membership among specific groups and repeats certainsubject positions, yet remains open to ongoing constructions of the self.

The Performance of SubjectivitiesAs early adolescents begin the move from childhood to adulthood, they face urgent



needs to reconcile a psychological self with their cognitive and physiological self(Hillman, 1991). While experiencing dramatic transitions in their social circum-stances (e.g., the transition from elementary to middle school), cognitive develop-ment (Elkind, 1968; Piaget, 1954; Vygotsky, 1986), and physical development(Tanner, 1972), early adolescents often become preoccupied with seeking an equi-librium in their perceptions of who they are and what they are becoming.

As adolescents seek a sense of self, they perform their subject positions (e.g., gen-der) in a variety of ways. For example, West and Zimmerman (1987) describe theconstruction of a gendered subject position as a “routine, methodical, and recur-ring accomplishment” (p.13) and the process of assuming the roles appropriate toone’s gender identity as “doing” gender (p.14). Butler (1990) also speaks of genderas a doing: “Within the inherited discourse of the metaphysics of substance, gen-der proves to be performative – that is, constituting the identity it is purported tobe. In this sense, gender is always a doing. . .” (pp. 24-25). In addition to gender,other subject positions may also be interpreted from the standpoint of perform-ances that are deemed appropriate for the circumstances. In observing fifth- andsixth-grade students in peer-led literature discussions, Lewis (1997) used perform-ance theory as a lens for viewing students in order to understand the beliefs andactions of the participants as they performed their social roles. Lewis found that so-cial conditions related to status influenced the way students spoke, how they werereceived by others, and what they understood and said about the texts. This viewof the self as an ongoing performance, which is influenced by social, personal, andpolitical contexts, raises questions such as the following: How does a person doHispanicism? How does one do Christianity? How does one do upper middle-class?I would propose that the performance of subjectivities is one way in which humanbeings develop a sense of self and through which others may develop a schema forrelating to them.

Construction of Subjectivities Through Experiences With LiteratureWhen students participate in book club discussion groups, the process ofsubjectification operates in two domains of experience. One of these domains isthe actual experience with other human beings in which the students discuss thereadings in a social setting, operating as agents on their own behalf, while si-multaneously being subjected to the powerful discourses and practices that con-struct them as subjects (Weedon, 1987). For example, when the girls discuss atopic of interest from the readings, they act as agents, expressing their verbal re-sponses to the selection and arguing for their own point of view. However, as al-ternative interpretations are offered, readers often engage in the negotiation ofcollective meanings with other participants in the discussion as their opinions arequestioned, challenged, or debated during the exchange of verbal dialogue.





These negotiations with others become elements of the social discourses thatcontribute to the construction of the girls’ subjectivities.

The second domain of experience is the “virtual experience” (Langer, 1951, p. 145)with the text. Britton (1970) and Harding (1937) conceptualized the reader as anonlooker or spectator to the events taking place as one experiences a text. Theterms onlooker and spectator do not imply a passive role in the events; rather, thereader can partake of the experience without being called upon to produce an ac-tual, physical response. Spared the constraints of actual participation in the event,the onlooker, or spectator, is free to evaluate or assess the situation. Harding (1937)notes, “It is in this detached, non-operative evaluation that the spectator’s rolemost commonly consists” (p. 250). “Detached evaluative responses,” he goes on tosay, “tend to be more widely comprehensive than the evaluation which precedesparticipation. One views the event in a more distant perspective and relates it to amore extensive system of information, beliefs, and values” (p. 252).

Rosenblatt (1978) explains experiences with texts in terms of stances that readersmay take during the event. When a reader assumes an “aesthetic stance,” attentionis centered less on the text itself than on the lived-through experience – on whatthe reader is experiencing during the relationship with that particular text.Although aesthetic experiences with literature are often pleasurable, they can alsolead readers to reconstruct ideas about themselves and to discover ways to inter-act with others (Galda, 1997). An aesthetic stance suggests a full range of humanemotions, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and images in which the reader may con-sider other ways of knowing and being.

MethodThis study seeks to explore ways in which four early adolescent girls responded tothe reading of a text in book club discussion groups. Viewing the girls’ overt per-formances from a poststructural perspective, I will attempt to describe the ways Iperceived them as they performed and constructed their subjectivities while mov-ing through the reading experiences.

ContextBecause of my interest in several recent works describing the challenges faced bymany early adolescent girls (e.g., AAUW, 1992; Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Pipher, 1994;Sadker & Sadker, 1994), I set out to examine the role that reading and talking aboutbooks might play in the ways that girls of this age learn to negotiate their sense ofthemselves. This inquiry, which spanned one academic year, took place in a subur-ban middle school of a large Southwestern city. The enrollment included



approximately 1700 students who were 70.14% White, 21.86% Hispanic, 4.62%African American, 2.90 % Asian, and .47% Native American. With the help of the class-room teacher, I chose the focal girls from a sixth-grade language arts class. Becauseof our concern that the girls might miss some classroom instruction while partici-pating in the study, we selected girls who were of average or above-average achieve-ment. Our assumption was that higher-achieving students would be more apt tomake up missed work than struggling students. Furthermore, we expected thathigher-achieving students would be more likely to remain as participants for the fulllength of the study. We chose four girls - Nieves Torres, Elizabeth Johnson, BuffyDawson, and Rose DiCaprio. (These pseudonyms were chosen by the girls and arenot necessarily typical of their ethnic backgrounds.) Although the girls shared cer-tain social and cultural characteristics, the ostensible differences among them in-trigued me most as I observed the ways they responded to the text, to others, andto me, as well as the ways in which they negotiated their subject positions. I will de-scribe each girl in more detail in the Results and Discussion section of this paper.

Data Collection In order to get as detailed a picture of each participant as possible, I gathered dataabout each girl both inside and outside the classroom. The use of multiple sourcesof data helped me to form a more complex view of each girl than would have beenpossible using only data taken at school. I was particularly interested in the waysthat experiences with literature, both as individual readers and as members of a lit-erature discussion group, might contribute to girls’ ongoing constructions of theways they view themselves.

To facilitate discussion, I describe the data collection process as three overlappingphases. In the first phase, I closely observed all the students in the girls’ languagearts class and took extensive field notes. Occasionally, I read aloud to the class andengaged the students in conversations about literature, but I tried to make it clearto the students that I was there to observe, to participate, and to learn with themrather than to assume any role of authority. Classroom conversations were record-ed on audiocassettes and later transcribed for analysis. I also read, responded to,and analyzed some of the written responses in the students’ dialogue journals. Myprimary objectives for the first phase were to identify the focal girls for the studyand to gain a sense of the social and academic contexts in which the girls were in-volved. After the focal girls were selected, I continued to observe the class and oc-casionally participate in classroom events for four additional months.

During the second phase, I selected and studied the focal girls. My criteria for se-lection included the following: (1) demonstrates average or above averageachievement in reading skills as determined by grades in language arts class, (2)




enjoys reading and discussing literature, (3) is willing to commit to at least sixmonths of observation, interviewing, and interaction necessary for the study, (4) iswilling to discuss personal issues with me as researcher, and (5) has parents whoagree to participate in an interview about their daughter. Originally, I had plannedto include girls from the three largest populations represented in the school -White, Hispanic, and African American. Unfortunately, the class I was able to ob-serve included no African American girls. Furthermore, it was not until after I hadselected the girls from a group of volunteers that I learned that all of the girls in thefocal group had at least one parent of Hispanic descent.

After the girls were selected, I attended extra-curricular and public events in whichthey participated so I could learn more about their larger social and cultural envi-ronment. I also believed that my relationships with them on a more personal basisoutside the classroom would reduce potential power inequities and encourage thegirls to see me as more of an “insider.” Examples of some of the events I attendedwere a pep rally, church service, band practice, orchestra concert, meals in theirhomes, and a Hispanic mother-daughter club meeting. I took field notes during orafter the events and recorded them for reference. Beginning in November, I con-ducted individual interviews with each of the girls and separate interviews withtheir parents. For all interviews, I used prepared interview guides, but I did not in-sist on strict adherence to the prepared questions. I wanted these encounters to bedialogic rather than interrogative because I wanted to hear the voices of the girlsand those who were significant in their lives. Furthermore, I wanted to encouragethe girls to see themselves as collaborators in the construction of the project. Allinterviews were recorded and transcribed.

The third phase of the study took place during December and January of the schoolyear and involved an examination of the girls’ interactions in classroom book clubdiscussion groups. With approval from the classroom teacher, I designed and or-ganized reading groups that incorporated design features suggested by Daniels(1994) and Raphael, Goatley, McMahon, and Woodman (1995). The use of bookclub discussion groups was new to the teacher and the students as previous litera-ture lessons in the class followed a more traditional format of reading a text inround-robin style and answering questions from the teacher or from preprintedmaterials. Each group consisted of three or four students, with some groups same-sex and some groups mixed. The focal girls were in one group, and I met with thisgroup for each discussion. In order to provide an environment that was quietenough for audio-taping, the focal girls and I moved to one of the school’s confer-ence rooms or a corner of the school library for each discussion. My role in thesediscussions with the focal girls was to observe and record their interactions,




promote participation, and occasionally to ask questions that would encouragethem to elaborate on their thinking. Although I was aware that my presence couldaffect the nature of the conversations, I attempted to minimize my influence by en-couraging open, candid conversations in which they were assured of their confi-dentiality and by allowing the girls to speak freely and to negotiate their ownmeanings from the encounters. Consequently, I intervened only when I was gen-uinely curious about something they had said or when I tried to draw less activelyinvolved discussants (typically Nieves) into the conversation. On one occasion, I wasabsent from the discussion, but the girls continued to record their own conversa-tions and discussed them with me later. Following completion of the book clubmeetings, I conducted follow-up interviews with each of the focal girls. Finally, Iconducted a group interview with all four participants.

Data AnalysisAs in most qualitative studies, the processes of data collection and analysis oftenoverlapped or occurred simultaneously. Since intense thinking about the data con-stitutes a form of analysis, it would be accurate to say that my analysis began in theearliest stages of data collection and was an integral part of the collection process.For the formal analysis, I developed a coding system from methods suggested byGlaser and Strauss (1967), Strauss and Corbin (1990), LeCompte and Preissle (1993),and Coffey & Atkinson (1996) in which the researcher systematically codes the ob-served events and utterances to generate theories that would provide a perspec-tive from which to view and explain the data. Sources of data included thetranscripts from the interviews with focal girls and their parents, excerpts from stu-dents’ response journals, field notes from classroom observations, and notes fromother events that I attended. For each data source, I began with a priori categoriesdeveloped from my research questions and added additional categories as theyemerged from the data. I also used Brown and Gilligan’s (1992) suggestions forlistening to the tapes of conversations, implementing a “Listener’s Guide” (Seepages 25-30). The first time through the tapes, I listened for the story the partici-pant was telling. The goal was to get a sense of what was happening. During thesecond time through, I listened for the “self ” – the voice of the “I” speaking in therelationship. In the third and fourth listenings, I attended to ways that the girlstalked about relationships – how they experienced themselves in the relationallandscape of human life.

Analysis of my transcripts and notes yielded two organizational structures. The firststructure, represented in Table 1, accommodated data related to the performanceof subjectivities.The second structure, represented in Table 2 accommodated datarelated to the construction of subjectivities.





Table 2. Construction of Subjectivities

Response Categories Response Sub-Categories

Participation in the story world Envision themselves as characters in the textImagine themselves in situations described in the textLink elements of the story or discussion to their own

livesLink elements of the story or discussion to other textsPropose alternative solutions for dealing with conflictsPredict how the story will unfoldGeneralize (supported by text)Generalize (unsupported by text)

Social interaction Participate in negotiated constructions of meaningResist negotiated constructions of meanings

Explorations of self Examine or question personal identitiesReport or exhibit changes in attitudes or beliefsReport or exhibit changes in perception of selfReport or exhibit gains in knowledge and/or

understanding

Table 1. Performance of Subjectives

Response Categories Response Sub-Catagories

Self-description Description of selfExplanation or justification for personal identities/

subjectivitiesDescription of relationships between self and othersPersonal values, attitudes, beliefs, etc., revealed through

talk about self

Description of or relationships Description of family or family memberswith others Affective response toward family or family members

Explanation or justification of traits or behaviors of familymembers

Description of peersAffective response toward peersExplanation or justification of traits or behavior of peersDescription of othersAffective response to othersExplanation or justification of traits or behavior of others

Perceptions of characters in Description and/or evaluation of charactersthe novel Affective response to characters

Explanation or justification of traits or behavior of characters

Social interaction with others Interaction with group leader (researcher)Interaction with other students in the groupParticipation (or not) in group discussions



The physical and/or socially constructed identity categories of gender, ethnicity,age, social class, and religion were attached to any of the above categories when itseemed appropriate. For example, Elizabeth’s statement, “I am a Christian,” wascoded as follows: Performance of Subjectivities – Description of Self – Religion, andRose’s statement, made at the end of the discussion of the book, “I feel differentlytoward illegal aliens,” was coded as Construction of Subjectivities – Report orExhibit Changes in Attitudes or Beliefs – Ethnicity.

It should be noted that all codings were used primarily as a way of identifying andcategorizing data that occurred frequently or data that seemed particularly relevantor significant. Although I took note of many recurring themes throughout thestudy, my interpretation relied on apparent significance as well as on the frequen-cy of repetition. In addition, some noteworthy data did not fit neatly into the cat-egories I had constructed even though such data provided important informationfor describing the girls and their interactions.

Finally, it must be acknowledged that factors outside the data sources could havecontributed to the ways in which the girls presented themselves to the group andinfluenced the performance and construction of their subjectivities. Because thestudy took place over a period of several months, factors unrelated to the discus-sions of the novel could certainly have been a part of the context in which the girlsexperienced shifts in their subjectivities. Like most early adolescents, these girlswere experiencing a myriad of physical, social, cognitive, and psychologicalchanges during the time the study took place. In addition, issues of power relatedto the design of the study could have also influenced the results (Lewis, 1997). Thefact that the researcher was present for most of the discussions would no doubtcomplicate the ways in which the girls chose to perform their subjectivities eventhough care was taken to minimize the power differential between the researcherand the participants.

ValidityAlthough I do not propose that my data collection and analysis resulted in a per-fect representation of the truth, the concept of validity suggests that we attemptto ground our research in methods that offer verisimilitude and encourage trust-worthiness. In an attempt to establish validity, I used several methods includinglength of time in the field, triangulation of data, reflexivity, peer debriefing, andmember checks (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). I devoted eight to twelve hours every day(six days per week) to observation, participation, interviewing, building relation-ships, writing, and analyzing for approximately six months. I spent a large portion




of these hours in direct contact with the participants in the study in both schooland extra-curricular contexts. Triangulation included multiple data sources, such asobservation, participation, interviews, written documents, discussion groups, andcasual conversations. These methods helped me to construct a view of subjectivi-ty and literacy from a number of different perspectives. Important tools for aidingin reflexivity were my journal and the weekly narrative summaries in which I regu-larly recorded my thoughts and speculations. For peer debriefing, I enlisted thehelp of several colleagues who read drafts of my analyses and gave me feedback,enabling me to see the data from multiple perspectives and to create a more com-plex analysis. Finally, I gave drafts of my written narratives to the girls and incor-porated suggestions from them and their parents into the final manuscript.Member-checking assured the participants that I was attempting to write athorough and careful account of their experiences. It also provided valuable feed-back that I used to refine my interpretations.

Once I constructed my views of subjectivity and literacy from the data, I consideredother lenses through which I could have viewed the same body of evidence. For ex-ample, one could approach the data from this study from a critical perspective, fo-cusing more intensely on the ways the girls’ subjectivities were shaped by matricesof power within their sociocultural and sociopolitical environments. Such issues ofpower, particularly in relation to the girls’ gender, class, and ethnicity, could cer-tainly affect the ways in which the girls’ views of themselves were constructed. Ichose, rather, to focus specifically on the ways in which the girls’ performances andconstructions of their subjectivities appeared to be shaped through their experi-ences with readings and discussions of text.

As in all research that involves human behavior, the positioning of the researchershould be taken into account. My interpretations of the data were no doubt tem-pered by my own subject positions as European American, Southern, middle-aged,female, and an educator. Furthermore, at the time the study took place, I was anewcomer to the area and had little knowledge of the local culture. As such, nu-ances of the factors involved in construction of subjectivities surely remained in-visible to me as an outsider. For example, even though the girls and their familiesoften talked candidly about their identification (or lack of it) with their ethnicity, itwould be impossible for me to fully understand the personal connections andmeanings that they associated with their positions as members of a minority pop-ulation. I recognize that many stories could be told from the data I collected. I havetold the story that seemed most compelling and plausible to me, fully aware thatmy own subjectivities encourage me to interpret the data in particular ways.




Results and DiscussionAlthough data for studies on response to literature are often collected primarily orsolely in a single classroom, I believed that a discussion of the performance andconstruction of subjectivities required a view of the girls in a broader context.Therefore, I observed and interacted with the girls for six months, not only in thelanguage arts classroom, but also in their other school, home, and community en-vironments. Seeing the ways the girls responded to various discourses and eventsin multiple contexts allowed me to form a view of them that addressed their per-sonal as well as their academic interests and concerns. Furthermore, my observa-tions of the everyday occurrences in the girls’ lives made it possible for me todevelop a deeper understanding of the ways in which they responded in the bookclub discussions of the novel than would have been possible if I had observed themonly during their discussions of the book.

For the book club discussions, the focal girls (and the other students in the lan-guage arts class) read and participated in conversations about Lupita Mañana(Beatty, 1981), which was one of the two books required by the local school dis-trict for students to read during their sixth-grade year. The story’s main characteris Lupita Torres, a poor, 13-year-old Mexican girl whose father has been killed in acommercial fishing accident. Lupita and her brother, Salvador, experience many dif-ficulties as they journey to the United States to live with their mother’s sister,Consuelo. As illegal immigrants, they have to constantly evade la migra, the UnitedStates immigration service. This novel offered an effective catalyst for discussionsof the girls’ subjectivities, and the discussion groups provided a fertile environmentwhere the girls could reflect on the text, share their responses, argue opposingviewpoints, and negotiate shared meanings. The discussions also allowed the girlsto explore a wide variety of personal and social concerns. They openly debated dif-ficult issues such as religion, divorce, illegal immigration, ethnicity, violence andabuse, and sexual development.

Descriptions of the GirlsIn the following sections, I will describe each girl briefly, using data gathered frominterviews with the girls, their parents’ descriptions of their daughters, the girls’ de-scriptions of themselves, and my observations of the girls over the course of theyear. Because of the open-ended nature of the interviews with the girls and theirparents, the picture that I constructed of each girl developed in a different way.Thus, the descriptions reported herein are not parallel for each participant. For ex-ample, the subject position as Christian is much more salient in the description ofElizabeth than for the other girls because of the ways in which she and her parents




viewed the importance of their religion. Following the descriptions, I will outlinethe ways in which the girls performed their subjectivities in the context of groupdiscussions of literature and how the experiences afforded opportunities for per-formance and construction of the girls’ subjectivities.

Nieves Torres. Both of Nieves’s parents were Mexican American. Nieves’s father wasa criminal trial attorney, and her mother helped her husband with the paperworkfor his law practice and took care of their five children. Raised in a south Texas com-munity near the Mexican border, Mr. Torres clearly struggled with the disparity be-tween a cultural tradition of patriarchal dominance and the more egalitarianoutlook of contemporary North American society. Although he explained that hewanted all of his children to go to college, he openly admitted that he expectedmore from his sons than from his daughters.

Nieves was a student who could easily be overlooked in the classroom. She was anunusually quiet child who always did her homework and class work on time. Inclass, she seldom volunteered to answer a question, but if she was called on, sheanswered thoughtfully. During our first interview, Nieves described herself in hersoft, fluid voice, emphasizing the importance of quiet activities such as reading:

I like to read a lot, and I’m really quiet; I don’t like talking that much. I liketo read. When I’m at home, I don’t like going outside and playing that muchbecause if I’m not reading, I’m usually watching TV. And I don’t like to talkthat much.

At lunch, Nieves often sat alone or with her friend Carey, sometimes reading andsometimes just quietly eating her lunch. Very early in my study, I felt drawn byNieves’s serene demeanor. She exuded a certain aura that intrigued me, and,even though she seemed less enthusiastic than some of the other volunteers, Iwas certain that I wanted to include her in the study. She conversed comfortablyand fluently in her interviews, but I did have to deliberately draw her into thebook club discussions.

Based on descriptions of Nieves by her parents and herself, a discussion of Nieves’ssubjectivity themes would include the following: She was a middle class, MexicanAmerican girl who valued quiet, calm, obedience to authority, and freedom fromconflict. She did not like to draw attention to herself, and she did not enjoy thecompany of people who were “rowdy.” She preferred reading and watching TV, andshe seldom pursued relationships outside her own family. Her parents were sup-portive of her, encouraging her to do well in school and often telling her that they




loved her and that she was quite special. Nieves’s favorite authors were Judy Blumeand Paula Danziger, and she often selected books about social relationships. Shechose to read because reading is a quiet recreational activity.

Elizabeth Johnson. When I described my study to the girls’ language arts teacher,she immediately suggested Elizabeth, a twelve-year-old girl whom many teacherswould consider an ideal student – bright, cooperative, reflective, and conscien-tious. Elizabeth loved an intellectual challenge, and she loved to read and to talkabout books. Because of her obvious commitment to Christianity, I was particular-ly interested in the ways her religion might become relevant as a factor inElizabeth’s accounting of her subjectivity.

Elizabeth was the oldest of four children, having two younger brothers and ayounger sister. Her mother, a secretary for a real estate company, was MexicanAmerican. Her father, who installed sprinkler systems, was European American.Both of Elizabeth’s parents were devoutly religious and had clearly contributed toElizabeth’s construction of herself as a Christian. For example, Mrs. Johnson passedalong her emphasis on Biblical teaching as she home-schooled Elizabeth during thefirst three years of school, teaching her to read by using Bible verses, which sheread and memorized. In my first interview with Elizabeth, I asked her to tell meabout the part that religion plays in her life:

Researcher: How big a part of your identity is your religion?

Elizabeth: It’s a big part. It’s what I focus on mainly.

Reseacher: So your Christianity is a big part of your identity. Do you think itaffects the kind of books that you read?

Elizabeth: Everything.

Researcher: It affects everything that you do?

Elizabeth: Everything that I do, yeah; it affects my whole life! Really.Because this is what I believe in, and like I said, if God tells me not todo it, I’m not going to do it.

Elizabeth faced almost every situation with hope and optimism. Just before theChristmas holidays, during one of the book club discussions, she suddenly told thegroup that her parents had decided to get a divorce and that her father would bemoving out of the house. She made the announcement calmly and with the resig-




nation and acceptance that I came to think of as characteristic of her. She was, infact, so optimistic about the separation of her parents that I dubbed her “ElizabethMañana,” a reference to the character in Lupita Mañana (Beatty, 1981), who alwayshoped for a better tomorrow.

Friends were important to Elizabeth, and one of the things she enjoyed aboutgoing to public school was the social interaction with others. She would have likedto have more friends, but she chose not to socialize with the “cool” ones; that is,the popular kids. She believed that many of the popular students had compromisedtheir moral standards, and she refused to transgress her constructions of her idealself even if it meant she would have few friends. Consequently, she sometimes feltlonely and neglected.

Elizabeth worked hard at being a good girl. Her mother described her daughter as“compliant,” and Elizabeth acknowledged that she placed a high value on doingwhat was expected of her. She constantly aspired for moral and religious integrity,spending a great deal of mental energy trying to determine the “right” thing to do.She mentioned on several occasions that she was trying to be “perfect.” Elizabeth’sreligious faith appeared to dominate her subjectivities as she filtered almost all con-scious decisions through her lens of Christianity. Her choice of friends, clothes, so-cial activities, language, and literature were all influenced by her definition ofherself as a Christian.

Rose DiCaprio. The urge to describe Rose in metaphors is irresistible. If I could havemagically transformed her into notes on a page, she would have been a study inlyrical contrasts – andante and allegro, maestoso and moderato, piano and forte. Hermother said, “She’s the opposite of everything she is,” and she’s a “roller-coaster.”Of the participants, she was, perhaps, the most difficult to describe because of herconflicting and variable subjectivities.

Rose lived in an affluent neighborhood with her parents and her younger brotherand sister. Her father, whose ancestors came from Ireland, was a neurosurgeon witha successful medical practice. Rose’s mother, a “stay-at-home mom,” described her-self as Spanish with “a little bit” of Apache Indian. Mrs. DiCaprio explained to me,however, that she was careful to minimize her family’s identity as Hispanic. WhenI asked her if she maintained any of her family’s cultural traditions, she stressed thatshe did not: “I think we’re breaking the mold on that. We’re trying to.” And sheadded, “I really don’t talk much about being Hispanic or Indian or whatever.”

Rose approached life with an amazing vigor. She was often boisterous, aggressive,and energetic. When asked to describe herself, she responded with references to




her appearance and the things that she liked to do. “I have brown eyes; I’m in thesixth grade; I’m in Mrs. Harper’s 3rd and 7th period class, and I’m five-one.” Shewas taking karate lessons, piano lessons, and harp lessons, and she was responsi-ble for care of the family’s dog. She also spent a great deal of time taking care ofher friends because she felt a responsibility to keep them happy. Rose’s sense of selfseemed closely linked to her relationships with other people – her family, herfriends, and her boyfriend. She defined almost every aspect of her life in terms ofrelationships. Her self-confidence would falter when she was not around peoplewho supported her.

Rose’s parents described their daughter differently.

Mrs. D.: She can be very loving, and she can be very . . . [She pauses a fewseconds] hard. Not mean, but hard.

Dr. D.: And stubborn.

Mrs. D.: Yeah. Stubborn.

Dr. D.: [Smiling] And she’s stubborn.

Mrs. D.: She can be very loving at one point, and you know, very giving, giv-ing, giving, but then when you cross that line, it’s like, “No way!”

Asked if she were pleased that Rose displayed these characteristics, she replied pos-itively. She explained that these traits would help her daughter to “get further,” andshe would not have to worry that others would take advantage of her. Mrs.DiCaprio further described Rose:

She is very organized, neat, and goal-oriented, and she’ll step on you to getto it. You know, she’ll pick you up and say “Sorry!” and then keep on going.But if you’re in her way, it’s just too bad.

Both parents agreed that Rose was as hard on herself as she was on others. Sheworked hard and had high expectations, especially for grades. Mrs. DiCaprionoted, “If she drops below a certain grade level, she’s very upset with herself andeverybody around her till she brings it back up. She knows it’s something shedoes herself.”

Rose’s subjectivity themes included a range of tendencies. Her most consis-tent characteristics were her inclinations toward aggression, determination,




compassion, and organization. While she longed to be surrounded by friends,her aggressive personality sometimes hampered her success at sustaininglong-term relationships.

Buffy Dawson. Like Elizabeth, Buffy had one parent (her father) who was MexicanAmerican. Her mother was of German descent. Buffy was a pretty, articulate,vivacious, and intelligent girl who first captured my interest because of herunexpected choice of reading selections. As a new sixth-grader, she had alreadyread several Shakespearean plays, as well as several other selections from canoni-cal literature. I was curious about the source of Buffy’s apparent self-confidence aswell as her choice of classical literature over more popular contemporary novels.

Buffy spent the first few years of her life with her parents on numerous army in-stallations. Because the family moved often, Buffy and her older brother learned tomake friends quickly by spending time outside with other children in the neigh-borhood. Buffy’s father, who was in Special Forces in the service, was away fromhome much of the time. Eventually, as a result of the father’s infidelity, the marriagedissolved, and Buffy’s mother decided to return to college to complete her degreeas a medical technologist. While her mother was in school, Buffy and her brotherhad to live with their father, a situation that Buffy despised. She recalled:

I was sad that I had to live with my dad and that I didn’t have my mom therebecause he was always mean to us. Like when we were little, he used to puthis hand up [indicating], but he never hit us, but, you know, we used to coverour heads every time we went by him. And he would raise his voice, and wewould run to our room with our hands over our heads, and he would likethreaten to hit us.

Mrs. Dawson proudly described her daughter in terms of her strength: “tough,”“adventurous,” “strong,” “tomboyish,” and “independent.” Recalling a time whenBuffy fell off a slide and broke both the bones in her arm, Mrs. Dawson said, “Andher hand was here, and her arm was there, and it was sagging right here. . . . Shewasn’t really even crying. . . I cried more than she did.”

Although Buffy presented a tough exterior, she acknowledged that she was not im-pervious to the opinions of others. As we talked about the popular book, RevivingOphelia (Pipher,1994), which I had given her mother, she noted, “I think I have beenlosing my self-esteem because lately, I haven’t been feeling good about myself.” Shewent on to describe how she would act differently when she was around the “pop-ular” kids.




I don’t act like myself like I do around my friends – my other friends like TaraBrinson, you know, ‘cause I act like wilder and stupid around her. But like ifI did that around them [the popular students], they’d like, “What a dumb-ass!” or something like that, you know? . . . . When I’m around someonewho’s like popular, I try to act more like them than what I do like me – likeif I would usually say something, I’d sometimes think, “Okay, what wouldthey say?

In the first part of this excerpt, Buffy describes a dilemma experienced by manyearly adolescents in which they feel that they are under the constant (and often dis-approving) scrutiny of others. For Buffy, this “adolescent egocentricity” (Bjorklund& Bjorklund, 1992; Elkind, 1967; Elkind & Bowen, 1979) seemed to affect her mostacutely when she was around older male friends, and she would become “quiet,”or to use Gilligan’s (1982) terminology, “lose her voice.” She pointed out thataround her female friends, she felt free to act more spontaneously without fear ofcensure. Buffy described a way in which she allowed herself to be constructed bythe popular students as she consciously performed a public self that would con-form to their expectations.

Buffy had distinct preferences for the books she chose to read. She avoided booksthat were too easy or juvenile for her. She avoided “baby books” and chose, in-stead, books that challenged her intellect. Her favorite author was WilliamShakespeare, but she read historical fiction, such as Cushman’s (1994) CatherineCalled Birdy and (1995) The Midwife’s Apprentice. In addition, she sometimes readclassical works by Louisa May Alcott and Charles Dickens.

Buffy’s subjectivity themes centered on her value of independence, toughness, andresistance to cultural norms of femininity. Buffy, like her mother, constructed hergender in ways more often associated with constructions of masculinity. Buffy’s an-imosity toward her father, coupled with her admiration for her mother, may ac-count in part for her strong identification with her mother’s constructions ofgender. Buffy acknowledged that she had many friends, but she also realized thatshe was less confident in her relationships with others after entering middle schoolthan when she was in elementary school.

The girls in this study offered up their life stories as they allowed me a glimpse intoa world I left long ago – the world of the adolescent girl. Yet, theirs is a world Inever really knew, for I lived the life of an adolescent in another time and anotherplace. I experienced adolescence in the Deep South in the 1960’s, well before the




time of the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and the age of personalcomputers. Poised from my position of mainstream, middle class, EuropeanAmerican background, it never occurred to me during adolescence to question mycultural background or to wonder how I fit into a world with so much diversity. Wecan never truly know what life is like for another person, but these girls tried dili-gently to illuminate their lives for me, and I came to know each girl as a precious,complex, and singular human being.

Using the ways the girls described themselves, the ways their parents describedthem, and the ways I viewed them in various contexts, I have constructed a briefnarrative description of each girl. The descriptions, however, feature the girls in rel-ative isolation from their peers. While the nature of this work requires that we con-sider each participant individually, it is equally important to recognize the socialcontext within which the study took place. In the next section, I describe how thesegirls interacted with others in book club discussion groups.

The Performance of Subjectivities in Literature Discussion GroupsHolland opens the preface of the book, 5 Readers Reading (1975, p. ix) with an ap-propriate quote from William Blake: “Both read the Bible day and night/ But thouread’st black where I read white.” Holland (1975, 1980) maintains that readers’ re-sponses are determined by identity themes that include an individual characteris-tic mode or style, developed over the period of one’s life. As readers read, they seekto find a unity in what they read, “a central theme or meaning or idea around whichthe various details of the play or story come to a focus” (p.13).

Although contemporary views of subjectivity would refute Holland’s (1975, 1980)humanistic approach to reader response, the findings of this study, nevertheless, in-dicated that each girl repeated her subjectivity themes as she participated in thegroup discussions. Like Holland, I found that the girls responded in ways that wereconsistent with the selves that they had made public during the first few monthsof the study. These performances became apparent as they talked about them-selves, discussed their relationships with others, responded to characters in thenovel, and engaged in social interactions with each other.

Nieves was characteristically quiet during the conversations. She seldom volun-teered to speak in the group, although she did seem to be mentally engaged withthe conversations at all times. As I transcribed the audiotapes, I noticed at least twoinstances when she offered to speak, but her more vocal peers drowned out hersoft, tentative voice. At times, I asked the other girls to hold their comments so I




could draw Nieves into the conversation with a question. When she did answer, herresponses indicated that she had given serious consideration to the issues. Her re-sponses were qualitatively different from the others in that she consistently spokeof the characters with empathy and understanding. Similar to the ways in which herown parents so conscientiously encouraged and supported her, Nieves consistent-ly responded to the characters in the story with warmth and understanding. Whenthe characters’ actions seemed reproachable to the others, Nieves looked beneaththe surface of their behavior and speculated about the conditions that might havecaused them to behave in such a manner. For example, when the other girls in thegroup criticized Lupita’s brother Salvador for his harsh attitude and Lupita for herpassive acceptance of his behavior, Nieves defended him:

I think Salvador is really nervous about the trip, and that’s probably why he’sall mad at Lupita. And I think she’s not getting mad at him because sheknows what he’s feeling, so she’s just letting him get mad and get out hisfeelings. And she doesn’t want to get mad at him because maybe he’ll getmad even more.

The other girls seemed to like Nieves, and when I encouraged her to contribute tothe group, they also encouraged her. “Speak! Speak!” Rose would demand at times.Nieves appeared happy in the group, and by the end of the study, she was some-what more loquacious. She did not, however, approach the level of verbal partici-pation of the other girls at any time.

Elizabeth’s interaction in the group was consistent with her self-talk in which shepresented herself as one who filters virtually all aspects of her life through her reli-gion. Her written responses, as well as her participation in dialogue, were stronglyinterspersed with references to scripture and to her belief in God. For example,when Buffy and Rose criticized Lupita for obeying her mother without question,Elizabeth disagreed:

I think that shows a lot of respect, loyalty, and character towards hermother – not arguing, because, you know, she’s under her mother’sorders for now until she’s like 18 or 20 or something, so she’s got to obeywhether she likes it or not. And that’s just part of my religion why I’m say-ing that, you know, because that’s how I’ve been taught.

Particularly in relation to issues that dealt with moral or ethical values, Elizabeth’sopinions were swift and confident. She staunchly defended her position and wasnot easily swayed by others in the group, even if she seemed to be the only oneholding her particular belief. She did, however, consider opposing viewpoints and




compared them thoughtfully to her own. Her discussions did not appear motivat-ed by an attempt to sway the others to her position so much as by an affirmationof her own personal beliefs. She was a cooperative participant, eager to contributeto the discussions but considerate of others who also wanted to speak. She seemedto enjoy the novel, typically reading beyond the assigned readings.

Rose delighted in the group discussions, although at times I suspected that her in-terest was more social than literary. In her first interview, she exclaimed, “I lovegroup work!” and her participation in our group confirmed that statement. She wasalways enthusiastic about leaving the classroom to participate in the book club, andit seemed that she approached the text with a capriciousness similar to that withwhich she faced life. In discussing the text, she often reached conclusions about thecharacters that appeared to be ungrounded in the text. I recalled her parents’ in-sistence that she was stubborn as I watched her vociferously argue for a point shehad raised. I also recalled her mother’s statement, “She’s the opposite of every-thing she is,” as Rose easily shifted from a fiercely protective and loving stance to-ward motherhood to the absolute certainty (albeit unsupported by the text) thatAunt Consuelo was a “slut.” Although she often disputed Elizabeth’s allusions toscripture with her own recollections from Bible class, she did not appear to dependon her religious experience as a mediating factor in her response.

Buffy seldom talked at length about the text itself. Rather, she frequently used thetext as an instrument for making sense of her own life. She often abandoned dis-cussion of the story as she leapt from dialogue about the characters or plot to per-sonal stories related to the reading. Her responses were typically coupled withreferences to experiences with her family. For example, at one point, Elizabethwas complaining about Salvador’s attitude and concluded, “What is his problem?”Buffy responded:

He’s probably going through puberty. Probably also because he lost his dad,but that’s kind of like with our family, too, since we don’t have – well, wehave a father, but he lives in El Paso – and so my brother has an attitudeproblem, too, now because he thinks that – because he says that, stuff likethat because there’s only girls that live in the house. And he says that Momagrees with me and stuff. And so, you know, because he doesn’t have any-one to look up to to be a boy. But like because he doesn’t do things some-times – like he gets really mean.

Buffy talked candidly about her father’s infidelity and abusiveness, her brother’spsychological problems, and her own struggle with creating her sense of self. This




student, who bitterly criticized her father and his new wife, other students in theschool, and even the other girls in the group, was also critical of the characters inthe novel. She particularly disapproved of the character of Lupita, whom she char-acterized as a “goody-goody” (a derogatory term that Buffy and Rose often usedto describe someone who tried too hard to be good). She did not at any time,however, criticize or disparage the mother or grandmother. Her responses re-flected her vigorous sense of responsibility to the women in her family, as well asher resolute independence.

As the girls participated in the book clubs, the performances of their subjectivitiesbecame apparent through their discussions of themselves and others in a numberof ways. Occasionally, a participant would make a simple, direct statement aboutherself, as when Rose said, “I’m like sort of okay with Salvador’s attitude becauseI’m like that a lot.” More often, statements about self were tied to other statementsthat explained or justified their stances. For example, although Buffy also claimedto have an “attitude” like Salvador’s, she proceeded to the explanation: “I get myattitude from my dad,” she claimed. Of the participants, Buffy and Elizabeth voicedmost of the explanatory statements about self; Rose offered a few, and Nievesnone. Elizabeth explained most of her personal statements with references to herparents or to her religion. For example, she used statements such as, “My dad doesthat a lot, so I kind of picked that up from him,” and “That’s just part of my religionwhy I’m saying that, you know, because that’s how I’ve been taught. That’s how I’mgoing to do it.”

The discussion of the novel provided a safe way for each girl to explore her rela-tionship to the social construct of ethnicity. Because of their ancestral ties toMexico (Nieves, Elizabeth, and Buffy) and to Spain (Rose), each girl self-identifiedand was identified by the school as Hispanic. However, the degree of identificationwith their ethnicity varied among the girls. Nieves, the only student with both par-ents of Mexican descent, appeared to identify more closely with her ethnicity thanthe others. For example, she and her mother belonged to a local mother/daughterorganization designed to encourage Hispanic girls to embrace their culture and tohave positive feelings about their identification with their cultural heritage. Roseand her family, on the other hand, stressed the importance of minimizing culturaldifferences. Rose’s mother, whose ancestors had migrated from Spain, told me thatshe was pleased that her children did not see differences among people of differ-ent cultures and ethnicities. She noted, “I take a lot of pride in that [not recogniz-ing difference], and I think it has a lot to do with not focusing on what I am or whoI am.”




I concluded that the book club experience had provided a space for the girls to ex-plore their constructions of ethnicity when, after one of our early conversations,Buffy asked me this question: “Do you think that the reason I cuss a lot is becauseI’m half Mexican?” I restated her question for the group and then asked Buffy whatshe thought:

Buffy: I think it is, because I don’t get it from my mom [who is of Germandescent] because she doesn’t cuss a lot. And she’s not any part Mexican, butlike, if you see Diana or Elena [Mexican American students in their class]walking down the street . . . .Like, if you see them, and if they’re mad at you,they’ll start cussing. And I do that, too, and my brother does that.

The text and the conversations generated by the reading had led her to questionthe implications of what it meant to have one Mexican American parent and oneEuropean American parent as she tried to construct a meaningful sense of her selfas a part of both cultures. I had observed that Mexican American students at herschool appeared to use more profanity than the white students, she knew that herMexican American father cursed more than her European American mother, andshe had the agreement of the other girls in the group that Mexicans curse more.All of these factors, and perhaps others, had contributed to Buffy’s construction ofthe subject position of Hispanic, and she had concluded that Hispanics are proba-bly predisposed to cursing. When I told the girls that I had never heard that theo-ry before, they were shocked, crying in disbelief, “You never heard that?!” Rosespeculated that the reason Hispanics curse a lot is because they are short-tem-pered. Elizabeth explained that she thought the condition had historical origins:

Okay, I was connecting it to a long, long time ago when they have all thesetribes and everything, the war things. All those tribes were like really intowar – the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Incas – they just loved war. So, I think, inthat aspect, since the Hispanics are from Mexico, they probably got thatfrom them because of that war-like stuff. They’re ready to fight. They getmad easily. And so they cuss.

Nieves offered that her father curses, usually in Spanish, and usually “if he gets hitor something.” However, when I asked Nieves whether she curses, she said that shedoes not. And her mother doesn’t curse “all that much.” Intrigued with this line ofconversation, I asked the girls if they thought that it was just Hispanic people whocursed a lot. Buffy and Rose responded:

Buffy: No, I think everyone cusses, but I think we cuss more.

Rose: The Irish cuss so much! [Rose’s father is of Irish descent.] The Irish cussalmost as much as the Mexicans.




It is notable here that Buffy said, “I think we cuss more” because the use of the firstperson pronoun indicates that she may have claimed a subject position as Hispaniceven though she had only one parent who was Mexican American. Furthermore,she clearly disliked her father who was Hispanic. In speaking of profanity, as whenspeaking of lying, she attributed this undesirable characteristic to him. I foundRose’s comment curious because she was Irish and Spanish, and she admitted thatshe cursed “a lot.” Her comment may have been an attempt to explain why shecursed so much.

All four girls constructed Mexican Americans as people who are far more prone tocursing than other populations. Furthermore, the tone of the conversation indicat-ed that they also believed that excessive cursing was beyond their control, so Iasked them directly:

Researcher: Okay, but if that’s true, is it because of culture or because of ge-netics? Do you know what I mean by genetics? Are you born. . .

Rose: [interrupting] I think it’s genetics.

Elizabeth: I think it probably is.

Buffy, realizing that genetics might not be entirely responsible, offered anothersuggestion:

Buffy: I mean, if it’s cultural, you know, it could be both. You know, youcould be Mexican – like if you were some goody-goody Mexican, your par-ents always cussed and everything like that, but you didn’t, it wouldn’t be –because you could have genetics in you that you cuss a lot, but that you justdon’t because you don’t want to or something.

Following this exchange, the girls related several personal stories about how theyhad heard their parents cursing, but they were not allowed to. Rose said that hermother “cusses a lot, and that’s where I get it from.” Buffy told about how hercousin had learned words at school and how she heard her older brother using pro-fanity. In an attempt to understand their reasoning, I probed:

Researcher: So, you’re saying on the one hand, that you think it’s genetic,that you were born with the inclination to cuss, but all the examples you’regiving are where you’ve learned to do it. You’ve learned it from your momor you didn’t learn it from your mom.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s exactly what I think.




Buffy: I learned it from my dad.

After that point, none of the girls attempted to link profanity to Hispanics. Wetalked about profanity for the remainder of the period, but no one mentioned againthe possibility that cursing was inherited. Instead, the conversation shifted to theways they had learned about language, how their parents and grandparents at-tempted to suppress their exposure to and use of profanity, and how they resistedbeing constructed by their parents and grandparents by using more socially-ac-ceptable forms of profanity such as “Go to hel-icopter,” or “Duck you!” Thus, as thegirls performed their subjectivities in the group, they also opened up possibilitiesfor other ways of viewing ethnicity.

Construction of SubjectivitiesOne of the most powerful aspects of literature is its potential to provide virtual ex-periences (Langer, 1951) as the reader envisions alternative subject positions. By of-fering representations of the experiences of others, literature provides a means forthe reader to explore and consider the ways her own world is constructed by al-lowing her to enter the text world of others. Although possibilities for construc-tions of the self, offered through experiences with literature, have been widelyrecognized by other researchers and theorists (e.g., Asheim, 1979; Bruner, 1986;Galda, 1997; McGinley & Kamberelis, 1996; McGinley et al., 1997; Nodelman, 1996),few have studied and reported how readers might enact these constructions. Thispaucity of evidence is understandable when one considers that most constructionsof subjectivity are personal and subtle and may take place over an extended peri-od of time. It is often difficult to recognize such occurrences even in oneself andfar more difficult to identify in others unless the subject recognizes and openly ac-knowledges the process. Furthermore, early adolescents may not have attained asignificant level of formal operational thought (Elkind, 1968; Piaget, 1954) in whichthey have developed the ability to reflect on and articulate their own thinkingabout themselves. Therefore, any attempt to prove that the reading experiences offour adolescent girls discussing one novel over a period of a few weeks led to sig-nificant shifts in their constructions in their subjectivities would certainly be a fu-tile effort. Nevertheless, some of the discussions during the book club groupsindicated that the girls found opportunities for alternative ways of constructingthemselves and their worlds. In the next section, I will describe several situationssuggesting that the girls’ experiences in the book club discussion group led themto reexamine their views of themselves and others. Furthermore, on a number ofoccasions, the girls openly discussed ways that they believed they had changed asa result of reading and discussing the book together.




Construction of Self Through Participation in the Story World. One of the waysthat readers allow literature to become a part of their own experience is by men-tally taking part in the story. From the earliest discussions of the text, the girls vol-untarily projected themselves into the story world of Lupita Mañana, oftenenvisioning themselves in the situations experienced by the characters. Roseseemed particularly prone to leap into the plot and position herself in the role ofthe characters. Her responses were often prefaced with a phrase such as, “If I werein that situation, I would . . . .” In our first discussion, Rose indicated that she wasappalled at the way Salvador treated his younger sister, and, like Buffy, she criti-cized Lupita for being a “goody-goody.” She said, “If someone ever talks to me likethat, there’s no way – I’m never going to take it.” This spontaneous shifting of sub-ject positions is similar to what Bruner (1986) refers to as “subjunctivizing reality”(p. 26). Bruner suggests a “subjunctive mode” in which the subject is “trafficking inhuman possibilities rather than in settled certainties” (p. 26).

Rose, as well as the others, sometimes reached conclusions about the charactersthat were unsupported by the text. She made judgments about the characters, as-signing characteristics to them that were not included, or even suggested, by theactual text. Rose quickly concluded that Aunt Consuelo was a “slut,” even thoughthe text only described her as an overweight, unkempt Mexican woman who hadtried to deceive the government in an attempt to increase her welfare payments.In another discussion, Elizabeth described Salvador as one who “whines and com-plains and curses and does drugs, and he carries a knife,” although there is no ref-erence in the actual text to suggest that Salvador “does drugs.” Yet, Elizabethincluded doing drugs as a part of her description of this poor, Mexican male withan “attitude.” Rose and Elizabeth drew on their prior constructions as they madeinferences about the characters in the novel. Such inferences enabled the girls toexperience the events of the story in ways that made the story personal and mean-ingful to them.

Iser (1972) refers to such tendencies of the reader to reconstruct the text as henotes that the text is never complete without a reader to fill in the inevitable gaps.He sees the product of the interaction as a “virtual” text. Hence, the reader is leftwith the work of creating a virtual text from the actual text written by the author.Iser suggests that it is the “unwritten” part of the text that stimulates the reader’simagination and creative participation. Rose’s assumptions about Aunt Consuelo’scharacter and Elizabeth’s reference to Salvador’s drug use indicate that the girlswere transforming the text in ways that allowed them to participate in the textualexperience along with the characters. As the girls interpreted the characters, they




drew on their prior knowledge to assist them in forming new understandings, mak-ing it possible to live through the text as different subject positions were madeavailable to them. Through these virtual experiences with text, the readers couldpotentially enhance their own life experiences.

Construction of Self Through Social Interaction. On one occasion, discussions ofthe novel led the girls to engage in a debate about what it means to be a typicalHispanic. Some of the characteristics noted by the girls included short stature, darkhair, dark skin, black eyes. However, for almost every characteristic that one girlidentified, another girl refuted it, and the conversation became quite argumenta-tive, a situation suggesting that each girl had a personal “apparent character”(Bruner, 1986) in mind when the term Hispanic was used. Nieves noted thatHispanic girls are obedient: “I think of obedience ‘cause like the boys are usuallylike wanting to tell them what to do.” She reinforced her argument with a referenceto her father: “My dad always says that his religion – his family’s religion is that youobey the males.” Elizabeth added that Hispanic girls are typically shy. Buffy vehe-mently resisted Nieves and Elizabeth’s descriptions, saying “I don’t think the girlsare obedient and shy!”

The girls’ constructions of gender and ethnicity were consistent with their assess-ments of the character of Lupita. The author depicts Lupita as a shy, obedient girl,a characterization consistent with Nieves’s and Elizabeth’s constructions of appro-priate behavior for a Hispanic girl. Nieves admired Lupita because she showed re-spect for her mother, and Elizabeth agreed that Lupita should obey her motherbecause that is the right thing for her to do. Buffy and Rose did not characterizeHispanic girls as obedient and shy. They expected them to be strong, independent,and resourceful. Both girls criticized Lupita for her submissiveness and her lack ofinitiative. Rose declared that “she’s just too nice and stuff,” and Buffy agreed thatshe was far too compliant:

I know you’re supposed to have respect for everyone, even – but I mean,come on! It’s like she takes orders from people – too many. I mean, she putsup with all this stuff, you know? It’s just like saying, “Go jump off the LondonBridge right now,” and she’ll probably go do it. She’s like – she takes toomany orders from everyone, especially Salvador.

The girls also discussed physical characteristics of Hispanics. While Rose observedthat on her mother’s (Hispanic) side of the family, all the adults were fat, Buffy ar-gued that since many Hispanics didn’t have much food to eat, that they would be




more likely to be skinny. Elizabeth thought of Hispanic boys with slick, black hair,and Rose and Buffy both disagreed.

Finally, Buffy exclaimed excitedly, “I think they could look like anything! They couldlook rich – you never know – and they could look better than what we were.” Asthe discussion developed, Buffy had realized the futility of attempting to define atypical Hispanic. Elizabeth quickly followed Buffy’s remark with, “Yeah, you can’thave a typical Rose or a typical Buffy.” Through the social interactions with peers,the girls became more aware of the complexity of the socially constructed subjectposition of ethnicity. As each girl listened to the others describe what it means tobe Hispanic, she was subjected to other ways of constructing this subject position.They were given the option of defining their ethnicity not only through their ownexperience but also through the experiences of others.

Social interactions, made possible through discussions of the text, also resulted inalternatives for interpreting the actions of others and offered ways of looking atmoral dilemmas that were different from the girls’ prior understandings. Forexample, Rose and Buffy were both subjected to ideas that challenged their priorunderstandings of responsibility as they discussed an incident in the book. Early inthe novel, Lupita’s mother is faced with a difficult decision. Her husband has beenkilled in a commercial fishing accident, and she is left to provide for herself and hersix children with only her modest income from her job as a maid. Knowing that herfamily cannot survive on such meager resources, she decides to send the childrenacross the border into the United States to live with her sister, Consuelo. BecauseConsuelo has told her of her own success and affluence in America, Lupita’s moth-er believes that her two oldest children can work there and send money home tohelp support her and the younger children. She gives the children a few pesos andsome instructions for ensuring their safety, then sends them on their way.

Rose was appalled that Lupita’s mother would consider such a plan. She thoughtthe mother must have been insane with grief: “I just think she’s totally lost it!Cried too much and her brain’s messed up!” Since the actual text does not offeran acceptable alternative, Rose created one; she invented a maternal grand-mother who could take care of the younger children so Lupita and Salvador’smother could accompany the two older children to the United States. Buffy, how-ever, because of her personal experience and her ethic of independence, dis-agreed with Rose’s proposal:

Rose: Well, what I’m saying is that if her mother, Lupita’s mother, the moth-er in the story – if the grandma is still alive, she can send some of her




younger kids to the grandmother and she will take care of them for herwhile she’s still collecting money. And then she’ll like give the children backand stuff because. . .

Buffy: [interrupting] Which simply means that the grandma’s gonna have togo take care of them. She’s gonna have to. Well, you never, know – the moth-er [grandmother] could be just as poor as she is.

Rose: But she might not!

Buffy: But you never know.

Rose: It wouldn’t hurt to try, though! I would never send my children there.I don’t care how poor we are. I just don’t care. I’d just go run to my parents.

For Rose, who had never experienced financial need firsthand, it was probably dif-ficult to imagine the desperation of such extreme poverty. Speaking from her posi-tion of economic privilege, Rose assumed that someone in the family would surelycome to the mother’s rescue so she would not be forced to send her children awayunprotected. Buffy’s rebuttal indicates that she interpreted the situation different-ly. She argued against imposing on the grandmother because she had personallywitnessed the consequences of a similar situation. She told the group about thestrain on her own grandmother who had taken on the care of five grandchildrenwhile her two daughters worked. Buffy told the girls that her grandmother had astroke because “she was over-pressured.” She also insisted that the grandmothermay be not be any more financially capable of taking care of the children than themother. Although Buffy did not live in extreme poverty, she had experienced theproblem of limited resources and appeared to be more sensitive to the financialplight of both mother and grandmother. Buffy understood the family’s desperationand that sending the children away might be the only way to ensure their survival.She supported the mother’s decision “because they were gonna probably die, like,because they didn’t have any food and stuff, and they were running out of money.”This interchange between Rose and Buffy illustrates how discussions of the text ini-tiated a discourse that encouraged both girls to confront alternative means of act-ing responsibly.

Construction Through Explorations of Self. As a result of reading the novel andhaving opportunities to discuss their responses to the text, the girls began to usethe book club as a way of exploring the ways they had constructed themselves.




Often these explorations were evident as the girls talked about the ways they hadincreased awareness of their personal values. For example, Nieves said that readingthe book had made her more aware of how much her family meant to her. As sheread about the two adolescents who had to leave their family in Mexico, she real-ized how much she would miss her own family if she had to leave. In addition, asthe girls reflected on the book club experience, they reported several shifts in theirattitudes, particularly toward Mexicans. After the girls had finished reading thebook, Rose realized that she had come to view the plight of Mexican immigrants ina new way:

Rose: I feel differently toward illegal aliens.

Researcher: Do you? Tell us about that.

Rose: I feel that I should like help them and find them a job. Or, I don’t know,like go and get a green card for them.

Researcher: How did you feel about illegal aliens before you read the book?

Rose: I felt like: Turn ‘em in!

In this case, Rose’s answer indicated that she had shifted from a position of supe-riority to one of empathy for their condition and a willingness to help them.Elizabeth also reported a difference in the way she felt toward Mexicans. Shenoted: “I realized that in America, a lot of things are taken for granted. Like every-thing’s taken for granted. But in Mexico, they’re so wanting everything all at once.”Elizabeth also noted, “I have learned that a lot of times I’m too quick to judge peo-ple by the outside.”

All of the girls agreed that reading the book had affected their attitudes about theSpanish language. For example, Elizabeth said,

I was thinking about, at first, I didn’t like Spanish. It was like any other lan-guage to me. It might as well be Russian. But then I started reading it, andas I became familiar with the Spanish words, I really, really wanted to learnSpanish. I mean, because it was always available to me, but I just neverthought I was very interested.”

Elizabeth went on to say that on the previous day, she had greeted her mother with“Mama, yo quiero agua, por favor.” (“Mother, I want some water, please.”)




One of the clearest indications of a shift in values occurred when the girls discusseda passage in the novel in which two characters, Lupita and her Aunt Consuelo, arefound telling lies. When the girls were asked to respond to the question, “Is lyingever okay?” Elizabeth wrote the following:

No, lying is not okay and never will be in any situation or circumstance. Godsaid, “Thou shalt not lie.” He has made it clear that lying is not okay, and sin-ful. He also said that when you lie, you ought to have your tongue cut off.Plus, with any sin, you deserve death. That is why I do not think it is okay.

When Elizabeth shared her response with the group, Rose immediately challengedElizabeth’s Biblical quote, and Buffy added, “But I think it is sometimes okay to lie.”Elizabeth’s journal entry had set the stage for an argument concerning the relativesins and virtues of bending the truth. Buffy argued that in some cases, you are ob-ligated to lie. In order to advance her argument that lying is sometimes preferableto telling the truth, Buffy proposed a hypothetical situation:

Buffy: Like if a wife was pregnant, and she told her husband she thought shewas fat, and everything. Of course, the husband is not going to say, “Oh,yeah, you’re like a little fat pig,” you know, because you don’t want to hurther feelings.

Elizabeth: In that situation, you would want to be very, very careful andmeticulous. You would say something like, “Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Oryou just wouldn’t respond.

Buffy: You know women. They’re going to say, “So, you’re saying that I amfat, aren’t you?” Women argue. You know that.

During this exchange, it is apparent that Elizabeth and Buffy constructed honestyin different ways. Elizabeth, relying on her religious beliefs, assumed that all lyingwas wrong and should be avoided no matter what the situation. Elizabeth’s re-sponse to Buffy’s scenario about the pregnant wife was that the husband couldspare his wife’s feelings and still tell the truth. She proposed that the husband by-pass the question by answering indirectly. Buffy flatly rejected Elizabeth’s alterna-tive on the grounds that a woman would not accept such an evasive answer. Sheoffered a scenario where a woman places a man in a situation where the only vi-able solution is to tell a lie. When Elizabeth suggested that he could use other tac-tics, Buffy responded with a clear statement about her constructions of the roles offemales: “Women argue. You know that.”




As a result of the discussion of lying, Elizabeth later noted that she had con-structed a different attitude toward lying:

I still don’t like it, but I realize that some lies are okay when they’re for agood cause. Like if you hide your mother’s surprise birthday party orsomething, and you lie to her about that, or what her present is or some-thing. Those kinds of lies are okay.

The group discussion of lying, which had been stimulated by the reading of thenovel, caused Elizabeth to question the way she had constructed the value of hon-esty. She had entered the group with a narrow, inflexible interpretation, based onwhat she believed to be authorized by scripture. After listening to alternative view-points from the other girls, she emerged with a more complex understanding ofthe relation between the values of honesty and kindness. She did not abandon herbelief in honesty, but because of the discussion of the text, she reconstructed hermodel for understanding its practical applications.

At times, the girls directly questioned their subjectivities. For example, when Buffyasked whether she used excessive profanity because she is half Mexican American,she was troubling her own subject position as Hispanic. The girls’ ambiguity abouttheir subjectivities sometimes took the form of speculating, hypothesizing, or sim-ply the telling of personal stories. In effect, the entire book club experience couldbe seen as an examination of self – a forum for negotiating purpose, meaning, anddirection. As each girl interacted with the others, she underwent a complex processof listening, sorting, responding internally, responding externally, receiving feed-back, evaluating, and reprocessing. The gains in knowledge, changes in attitudes,and modifications of values brought about through reading and responding to lit-erature all offered possibilities for ways in which the girls could have constructedtheir subjectivities.

ConclusionThe observations and conclusions from this study support the concept of readingas a reciprocal event. That is, in the girls’ experiences with literature, they simulta-neously performed and constructed their subjectivities. It is important to note thedifficulty, even artificiality, of assigning data to discrete categories of performanceand construction because the processes are not truly separable. Not only do per-formance and construction often occur simultaneously, they also serve as catalystsfor each other. As readers talk about themselves, they may realize and take up sub-ject positions that were previously unexamined or unarticulated through the




process of translating their thoughts into spoken language. Conversely, as readersreport changes in attitudes or beliefs, thereby demonstrating ways experienceswith literature have altered their thinking, they are publicly representing them-selves and performing their foregrounded subjectivities. Furthermore, engaging inthe world of the story, both through individual reading and through literature dis-cussions, becomes an opportunity to experience other subject positions and pos-sible worlds (Bruner, 1986). Such experiences allow the reader to continuouslyconstruct and reconstruct existing subjectivities.

Numerous researchers and theorists have suggested that experiences with readingmay be related to the readers’ sense of themselves. For example, Galda (1997)speaks of the power that comes from both the book and the reader: “This powerenables readers to transform words-on-a-page into emotional experiences thatfunction as mirrors and windows into our lives and the lives of others” (p.1). AndMcGinley and Kamberelis (1996) found that, for the children they studied, reading“involved not only constructing textual understanding of the literature they readbut also constructing their identities, their moralities, and their visions for socialand community life” (p. 63). Similarly, others have suggested that as readers inter-act with works of literature, they engage in subjective experiences with the text(Bruner, 1986; Langer, 1995; Langer, 1951; Rosenblatt, 1938/1995).

The reader allows the act of reading to become a part of her life experiences as sheimagines her own participation in the events of the story. During the process ofreading, the reader may break with the actual, physical world and enter whatBenton (1983) calls a “secondary world” that “exists in the limbo between the au-thor or reader and the text” (p. 69). Although the reader is not actually taking partin the action, she is mentally participating in the story. S.K. Langer (1951) describesthis phenomenon as a “virtual” experience. These alternative worlds provide placeswhere readers may be subjected to discourses that they would not encounter intheir actual worlds.

In a stance described by Langer (1995), as “stepping out and rethinking what oneknows,” readers use their developing understandings to add to existing knowledgeand experiences. This is a powerful step in the reading process because of its po-tential for helping readers examine their own lives. While reading about the livesof the characters, the reader compares her life to the lives depicted in the text.Subsequently, she creates a text-world in which an array of values, attitudes, andbeliefs are made possible as she supplements the inevitable gaps left by the author(Iser, 1972) with her prior knowledge, experience, and understandings. Through




such imaginings, the reader may begin to envision new possibilities for her ownlife. Bruner (1986) reminds us that stories provide “a map of possible roles and ofpossible worlds in which action, thought, and self-definition are permissible (or de-sirable)” (p. 66). Free from the restraints of actual participation in the events(Britton, 1970; Harding, 1937), readers are free to engage in the “subjunctive reali-ty” (Bruner, 1986) constructed through reading. That is, they “rewrite” the text asthey interpret it, allowing themselves to consider other roles and alternative waysof performing them.

The girls in this study indicated that they willingly participated in the subjunctiveengagement with the text. They gave themselves over to the virtual experiencesmade possible by their willingness to experience an alternate reality. Buffy said,“I try to imagine that I’m there. . . . Sometimes it depends on the book, I’ll imag-ine it as me.” Rose said that she often put herself in the position of the main char-acter. And Elizabeth said, “That is exactly how I read my books is I put myself intothat person’s eyes, and I just kind of like just go along with them.” By readingLupita’s story, Rose could experience poverty in a way that viewing it from herprivileged position of affluence could never afford her. Buffy could use the textto compare her own troubled life with that of the characters. And Elizabeth couldexercise her religious faith by making moral decisions about right and wrong.Such experiences offered possibilities that could ultimately lead to constructionsof the girls’ subjectivities. These girls demonstrated, through their engagementwith the story, Rosenblatt’s (1938/1995) premise that “literature provides a living-through, not simply knowledge about” (p. 38). Thus, for these girls, as well as forother readers, literature provides much more than information; it provides oppor-tunities for experience.

As Rose, Buffy, Elizabeth, and Nieves discussed their interpretations of LupitaMañana, they clearly demonstrated how their subjectivities might be constructedthrough their reading experiences. Although the girls recognized the book as a fic-tional story, they used the text as a way of examining their own lives as they con-structed subjective interpretations and created meaning. For example, when Roseread about Lupita’s mother’s decision to allow Lupita and Salvador to leave Mexicoand travel to the United States by themselves, Rose drew on her personal beliefs toform an opinion regarding the mother’s lack of responsibility toward her children.Rose argued passionately that she would never allow her children to make the tripalone. Furthermore, when Buffy offered a counter-solution to the mother’s dilem-ma, Rose was faced with the decision to either defend or to abandon her position.Such encounters, fostered by the reading and discussing of a work of literature,




expanded the boundaries of the girls’ actual experiences and provided them aspace in which to explore other ways of being.

Finally, I would suggest that before students are readers, they are people – re-markable human beings with unique experiences and singular subjectivities. Theyare constantly constructed and reconstructed by social and cultural forces, as wellas their own agency, resulting in a dynamic and heterogeneous subject-in-process.Although described in different ways, at different times, and by different writersfrom different perspectives, the idea that reading literature contributes to the con-struction of the subjectivities of the reader is not new. Theorists and philosopherssuch as Rosenblatt, Britton, Iser, Bruner, and others have long recognized that ex-periences gained by reading and responding to literature can both illuminate andinfluence the subjectivities of the reader. What this study has shown is how thoseprocesses may play out with actual readers. Buffy, Elizabeth, Nieves, and Rosebrought the theories to life as they read, wrote, and talked about literature to-gether. Because of the way this inquiry was designed, the book club discussiongroup described here does not necessarily represent a typical group in which stu-dents remain in the larger classroom setting and may or may not have an adult pres-ent for the discussions. These girls were carefully selected, and they represent aspecific population of students. Nevertheless, the observations and conclusionsfrom this study do support learning environments that encourage open, candidconversations, offering potential opportunities for the enhancement of students’understandings of themselves and others.

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broughton,

Documents

girls worlds

subjectivities asthey

girls conversations

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