egan robertson learning about culture, language and power

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http://jlr.sagepub.com/ Journal o f Literacy Research

http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/30/4/449The online version of this article can be foun d at:

DOI: 10.1080/10862969809548011

1998 30: 449Journal of Literacy Research Ann Egan-Robertson

Literacy Practices, and IntertextualityLearning about Culture, Language, and Power: Understanding Relationships among Personhood,

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Learning About Culture,Language, and Power:

Understanding RelationshipsAmong Personhood, LiteracyPractices, and Intertextuality

Ann Egan-RobertsonUNIVERSITY OF

WISCONSIN AT MADISON

This a rticle theorizes about w hat the n otions of per-sonhood and intertextuality contribute to our concep-tion of literacy teaching and learning. To do so, it pro-vides definitions of key terms and a review of relatedliterature from literacy studies, critical discourseanalysis, and multicultural education. The article thenpresents an analytical framewo rk for un derstandinginterrelationships among personhood, literacy prac-tices, and intertextuality. To elaborate on the theoreti-cal ideas presented, the article draws on data from a

study of an urban writing club in w hich a small groupof eighth-grade female students used a number of re-search methods to explore issues of c ulture, language,and power that had importance to them. Analysis fo-cuses on (a ) the ways two students took up opportuni-ties presented to them as they participated in the writ-ing club for shaping and reshaping discourse practicesabout personhood along the dimensions of history,music, racial and ethnic identity, and womanhood,and (b) the significance of the framing of the study inproviding opportunities for the students to make inter-textual links between their research studies and the lit-

eracy practices of comm unity members.

Journal of Literacy ResearchVolume 30 , Number 4,1998, Pages 449-48/LR

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I found two different kinds of music. Common m usic and political music.Common music is what we hear on the radio, on MTV, all the tim e. Somepeople call this popular music bu t I can't call it popu lar because it's notpopular w ith a lot of people when it talks about women that way. I call itcommon music instead. Political music is music that gets people to dosomething about the problems of the world. At first I thought cultural mu-sic was a third kind of m usic. T hen I decided that cultural music is a kind ofpolitical music because it brings back your culture.... For some people,your culture was never written in books. Cultural music tells you how yourown history was....

- Sandra V erne, "Does M usic Affect the WayWe T hink and Feel About People?"

Dear Teachers,T hrough the years of my schooling up till now, I feel I have missed some-thing. T eachers, you've been great. But there's a problem. T he problem is wehave been deprived of learning about other cultures. In the future, I hopeyou can consider this letter.

- Denise Yothers, "Racism: A Problem in Riverside"

THESE EXCERPTS ARE TAKEN FROM an edited volume of student writing pub -lished by M arielis Flores, DeLayne M onson , Sandra V erne, and DeniseYothers (pseudo nym s), which the y entitled Life As Teenagers in the Nineties:

Growing Up in Riverside. T hese eighth-grade students, members of a w ritingclub at their urban school, used a number of research methods to explore theirsocial identities and to address issues of personhood that had importance tothem . T hese issues included racism, alcohol abuse, gang violence, and images ofwomen in music.

Denise Yothers wrote that she conducted "a survey on abo ut five differenttopics. One of the m was racism. You know it was amazing for me t o find this o ut.One hu ndre d kids surveyed. Eighty percent have experienced racism " M arielisFlores researched "W hat needs to h app en to keep kids off the streets?" She cameto this question o ut of her lived experience; her best friend from childhood wasin jail because of his involvement in a gang-related killing that occ urred outsidethe school 2 days before the s tart of the year. She wrote , "M y goal for this boo k isto keep kids off the streets. A lot of teenagers like having mo ney b ut they are do -ing the wrong t hi ng ... I know. I live in a bad neighborhood where you be seeingteenagers selling drugs. I'm writin g this book to have kids stop selling and using."DeLayne M onson penned, "In writing this book, we are trying to better educatesociety and teenagers on w hat issues are affecting us and why they are so im por-tant for us to k now about." Her inquiry into how to stop intergenerational alco-holism led the writing club to interview a group of high school peer health ed u-

cators who were w riting a play called "End Racism in Our Schools; End R acismin the USA." DeLayne asked them in a befuddled voice why they were writing aplay about racism when they were a health education group. She queried theirdirector M arsha Davidson abou t connections they saw between alcoholism andracism. Sandra V erne's goal as a writer was "to let people kno w wh at m usic reallyis because kids/teenagers seem to thin k that m usic is just som ething to dance to.

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I'm trying to provide them with information that I have foun d by talking topeople and researching." Sandra investigated the que stion "Does m usic affect the

way we think and feel about pe ople?" out of her distress at being called nam es byboys, including her twin b rother.Part of what makes these students' research and writing seem rema rkable

is that they had all been assigned to the lowest academ ic track in their school,which gave little atten tion to comp osition. D enise's, M arielis's, DeLayne's, andSandra's inquiry and writing creates an intertextual, polyp hon ic context for ex-ploring a set of theoretical questions about literacy learning that frame this ar-ticle: Wha t is personhood and h ow can we understand these young women'swriting as exploring and addressing issues of personhood? H ow does un der-standing relationships between personhood and literacy practices contribute tounderstanding the complexities of learning to read and write in school? H ow,and why, can the construct of intertextuality expand notio ns of how issues ofpersonhood are embedded in literacy teaching and learning? In this article, Itheorize about what the notions of personh ood and intertextuality c ontributeto ou r conception of literacy teaching and learning. To do so, I provide a defini-tion of personhood and review related research. I also present an analyticalframework, which includes a rationale for why perso nhoo d and literacy are pro-ductively investigated through the heuristic of intertextuality. T o elaborate onthe theoretical ideas presented, I the n focus on two aspects of the writing club:(a) the ways Denise Yothers and Sandra V erne took up o ppor tunities presentedto them , as they participated in the writing club, for shaping an d reshaping d is-course practices about personhood along the dimensions of history, music, ra-cial and ethnic identity, and w om anho od, and (b) the significance of the fram-ing of the study in providing opportu nities for the students to make intertex tuallinks between their research studies and the literacy practices of community

members.T he study of the w riting club focused on the question: How w ould stu-

dents use a comm unity-based set of texts to create social identities for them-selves and each oth er in relation to their com mun ities, their schooling, and w rit-ing and to ex amine issues of personhood?1 It focused on this question because of

1. I elaborate elsewhere (Egan-Ro bertson, 1997b) on the d istinction between the concep ts of iden-tity and personhood. Briefly, the term identity often focuses atte ntion on individual's sense ofself, whereas personhood focuses attention o n the attitudes and assum ptions abou t people em-bedded within the way a culture organizes itself thro ugh its discourse practices (Geertz, 1979;Shorter & Gergin, 1989) in institutions such as schools. T hus , the co nstruct of pe rsonho od fore-groun ds con cern with the range of possible identities available for an individua l to take up. I ar -gue that to take up a nondo minan t identity involves a struggle of personh ood. I use the term per-sonhood in ways similar to some uses of the term subjectivities (see Luke, 1996; M oje, in press). Iprefer the termpersonhood/peoplehood (DuBo is, 1969; West, 1993) because of its critical h istoricalroots in the ongoing national conversational about citizenship: e.g., Who gets to count as a per-son with what kinds of rights in the us in various eras and situations? T he term subjectivities of-ten implies a theoretical perspective that foregrounds attention to hegemo nic discourses aboutpersonhood. M y interest is on the dialectical relationship between dom inan t and subord inatediscourses (e.g., Carby, 1987; Flores, 1993) as these relate to dialogic educational and class-room discourse practices (e.g., Freire & M acedo, 1995; Lankshear, 1997; Lankshear & M cLaren,1993; Walsh, 1991).

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the rece nt interest in an exa mination of issues of person hood as these relate toliteracy ed uca tion (Street, 1994; W illis, 1995). Interestingly, analysis of the que s-

tion itself highlighted the im portan ce of the intertextual links created in framingthe project by myself as teacher-researcher. For exam ple, a key part of the w rit-ing club involved interviews of community artists and activists of whom stu-dents asked questions such as "Do you think th ere is a connection between alco-holism and racism?" "Do you think racism is connected to kids dropping out ofschool?" "Do yo u thin k m usic prom otes sexism?" "Why did you start w riting/in-vestigating racism?" "Explain what you mean by racism?" "How do you stop ra c-ism?" T herefore, in addressing how the students to ok up th eir literacy practices,this article elaborates on the discourse practices that framed the writing project,which opened up a site th at I describe elsewhere as an intertextua l field (Egan-Robe rtson, 1997a; Egan-Rob ertson, in press). T his field contained dynamic p o-tential for students to create intertextual links between their inquiry into com-mu nity issues and the inquiry of com munity mem bers who were using researchand w riting to address similar issues.

T he Usefulness of Personhoo d in the Study of Literacy

Agencies including UNESCO came to associate literacy with the idea of afully human person, with enlightenment in contrast to the dark space of"illiteracy." T his, I would like to suggest, is characteristic of the ways inwhich literacy and personhood are intertwined in many cultural dis-courses. (Street, 1994, p. 141)

Literacy scholars in A ustralia, Great B ritain, and the United States (e.g., Davies,

1994; Street, 1993,1994; W illis, 1995) have called for exa min ation of the identitie sand personhood s constituted th rough literacy practices. T hey have asked whatkinds of literacy practices gain significance and whose and what purposes areserved by the m. For exam ple, Street (1994) asked, How is literacy a site for nego -tiation of dom inant and subordinate discourses abou t people? T he related ques-tions he raised were refinements of the first bro ad question: Wh at are the defi-nitions a nd assum ptions ab out writing and literacy? W ho has the right to shapethe literacy agenda? How do people adapt literacy to their own agenda (e.g., tochallenge "structures of power and dom inatio n" [p. 7])? How is it that school lit-eracy has becom e so dom inan t that local literacies go unrecognized there? Street(i993> 1994) linked literacy and person hood by bring ing together theories of lan-guage from the field of discourse analysis (Fa ird ou gh , 1992,1995) with close eth-

nographic study of

literacy in

specific settings (cf. H eath , 1982,1983; Hy mes,1974)> such as in th e H m ong com mu nity in Ph iladelphia (Weinstein-Shr, 1993).Street (1994) adopted the concept of perso nho od from an thropolog y to describethe ways cultural discourses about pe ople are constituted thr oug h literacy prac -tices: how some cultu res com e to "associate literacy with th e idea of a fully hu m an

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CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND POWER PJJM

person, with enlightenment in contrast to the dark space o f'illiteracy'" (p. 141).Street categorized literacy programs as following either an a uton om ous or ideo-

logical mo del. The autonom ous model holds th at literacy is a neutral technol-ogy that is acquired by individuals and results in cognitive consequences, such asthe acquisition of rational thought; the ideological model holds that literacy con-structs social and power relationships, and asks who benefits from these relations.

In th e Unite d States, Willis (1995) has raised que stions a bou t literacy andpersonhood, based on her son's experiences as a writer in third grade: How dothe cu ltural practices of African A merican stud ents becom e marginalized as re-sources for com position in school? H ow can we und erstand issues of person-hoo d related to double consciousness, feeling separate from while being part of agroup? Willis has reviewed pe rsonho od, w ith a focus on doub le consciousness inAfrican American literature. Ladson-Billings (1992,1996) has theorized that theliteracy achievement of African American studen ts is enhance d w hen teachers

create instructional contexts that assign significance to stude nts' cultural identi-ties and co mm unity knowledge. M ost importan tly, "successful teachers of Afri-can Am erican stude nts" explore with their stude nts the question : "Literacy forwha t?" (Ladson-B illings, 1992, p. 318). T hese ques tions, whic h have significantimplications for examining literacy in us schools, animated the research elabo-rated in this article.

Defining Personhood

Personhood is best viewed as a field hat is ideologically structured in anysociety .... As an ideological sector, the notion of the person is not fully or-dered by a privileged or dominant structure, but is a site of articulation of

dominant and subordinate ideological components. It is this articulation,rather than approximations of a totalizing concept such as the individual,that may most fruitfully be examined in different cases. (Kirkpatrick, 1983, p. 1)

Personhood is a dynamic, cultural construct about who is and what is consid-ered to be a person, what attributes and rights are constructed as inherent to be-ing a person, and what social positions are available within the c onstruct of being aperson . Discourses of "person" - and related discourses such as self, "identity,""individua l"- vary a great deal across situation s, across people, across cultures,and across subcultures (Gergin & Davis, 1986; Kirkpatrick, 1983; Kirshenb latt-Gimblett, 1989; Schwerder & M iller, 1983) as well as within cultures (DuBois,1969). Geertz (1973,1979,1983) stressed the importance of personhood withincultures and asked questions about the meaning of a group's situated system of

symbols (cu lture) within its discourse and wh at it allows mem bers of a culturalgroup to do. For example, he discussed how people o rganize the ir lives and ar-gued that research on personhood needs to consider what it is like to b e a personat a particular historical moment in a particula r place, articulating ideologicalnotions about being a person.

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Scholars in the area of critical disco urse analysis (e.g., Faird ou gh , 1995;Gee, 1996; Luke, 1996) have pro vided definitions of discourse tha t have signifi-

cant implications for understa nding p erson hood . Gee (1996) defined discoursesas "ways of behaving, interac ting, valuing, think ing, believing, speaking, and of-ten reading and w riting that are accepted as instantiatio ns of particula r roles (ortypes of people) b y specific groups of people .. ." (p. viii). Faird ough (1989,1995),draw ing on sociologists of language such as Bak htin (1981), Bo urdie u (1977), andFoucault (1972) and sociolinguists such as Halliday (1978), discussed how lan-guage positions p eople. For example, the way a docto r talks to a person "posi-tions" that person as a patien t with a particular se t of rights for talk but also withcultural implications for acting, thinking, and so on as a patien t, which is a cul-tural category of being a person. Fairdou gh (1989) developed a useful rubri c forcritical discourse analysis that involves three com pone nts: textual analysis, inter-pretation of the interactional processes involved in text production and con-

sumption, and explanation of "how interaction process relates to social action"(p . 11). T extual analysis includes ideational, or conte nt, analysis of wh at counts asknowledge, analysis of social relations, and analysis of social ide ntities; in terac-tional analysis com bines textual analysis with interpretive analysis; and explana-tory analysis brings togeth er these two types of analyses with analysis of socio-cultural practice at th e situational, institutiona l, and societal levels.

Although discourses about personhood are dynamic in that they are builtand rebu ilt as people interact within an d across social and institutional c ontexts,it is also the case that n otion s of person hood can b e viewed as fixatives withindiscourse practices that constrain a nd delimit th e possibilities for creating iden-tities for oneself and others. T hese fixatives are m anifest in the form of systemsfor organizing people, such as academic tracks. Discourse practices associatedwith personhood are part of the social realities that people m ust deal with(Carby, 1987; Davies, 1994; Davies 6- Harre, 1996; Fairdo ugh , 1995; Gee, 1996).Classrooms provide a good example of how historically situated an d in terac-tionally negotiated discourses of personh ood are related.

Discourses of Personhood in Classrooms

Before the beginning of the school year, before either th e teach er or studentshave set foot in t he classroom, discourse practices of "person" may already havebeen put in place by the nature of the arrangement of the furniture, the formsthat have to be rilled out, the w ritten records of prio r work, and by the classroomexperiences that th e teacher and stu dents bring w ith them . T here are also sys-

tems of classification and divisions that organize pedagogy. It is in this sense thatpersonhoo d can be viewed as both a constructed a nd a "historical" co nstruct. Astudent m ay be constructed as a member of a particular reading group, and of-ten as part of an academic track. For example, Denise, M arielis, DeLayne, andSandra were each assigned to the lowest academic track in their sch ool. M arielis,a bilingual speaker of Spanish an d English, and D eLayne, a bidialectal speaker of

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African A merican a nd " Standard " English, were also categorized as special edu -cation stu dents, reflective of n ational statistics in which bilingual an d bidialectal

students are positioned as having prob lems w ith language learning (Delpit, 1995;Garcia, 1994). T hese stud ents' placem ent in special education could also be u n-derstood as telling examples of discourses of deficit assigned to students fromcommunities of color (T ate, 1997). Wh en I invited the stud ents to join a writingclub, they indicated interest bu t com men ted tha t they "couldn't write." T heirdefinition of themselves as nonw riters fit the discourse practices of their aca-demic and special education tracks, in whic h basic skills and fill-in-the-bla nkworksheets abounded. Sandra stated that they had not had writing class sincefifth grade "and then it was Dick and Jane." Interviews with the students andtheir teachers as well as data from the larger ethnograp hic stud y of their E nglishlanguage arts class confirmed t hat the students had no t had many oppo rtunitiesto do elaborative writing in school. T hese discourse practices were ones Street

(1993) would describe as fitting the auto nom ous literacy mo del. Discoursesabou t literacy practices and person hood in mainstream us schools create o rga-nizational positions tha t require there to be academic achievers, underachievers,and nonachievers, reflective of a sociocultural system of com petitive stratifi-cation and status positions that often result in differential access to valuablelearn ing o ppo rtun ities (Apple, 1993; Oakes, 1985).2

Part of the "historical" aspect of personhood in many us classrooms isthat students are defined as gendered children or adolescents of particular ra-cial/ethnic backgrounds and language groups, as are teachers. T erms such asrace, ethnicity, gender, age, economic class, and even academic track, which are sooften used in educational forms and by educ ators to categorize stu dents, cometo be closely associated w ith discourse practices associated w ith personh ood.3

T hus, there is a complex of factors involved in school and classroom literacy-practices that together constitute discursive practices associated with person-hood. It is at the level of the purpose s of literacy and education that m eanings ofper son ho od are co nstituted (King, 1995; Street, 1994).

In anothe r example, Lee (1995), working at a Chicago high school to createa culturally relevant approach to teaching literature, argued tha t stigmatiza-tion of African American students occurs through the omission of, or negativejudgment about, their linguistic practices as academ ic reso urces. Such exclu-sionary and deficit views of a com mun ity's language an d literacy practices, Lee

2. Nystrand, Gamoran, and Carbona ro (1997) provided an insightful m etaph or of an ecologicalniche to describe the context in which stu dents ' writing develops. A niche influences the o ppo r-tunities for uptake constructed in a particular classroom.

3. Ladson-Billings and T ate (1995) argu ed that researchers need to build on the landm ark work ofscholars such as DuBois (1969) an d use race as a theoretical lens or analytical tool in educationa lresearch. I use the term p ersonhood to highlight the intersection of a myriad of complex socio-logical factors (e.g., race, class, gen der). T ate (1997) recognized this intersec tion wh ile mak ing acompelling argument for the development of "theoretical frameworks that allow for an expan-sive examination of race" (p. 236). M y intent in using the theoretical construct of pers onh ood isto take up this challenge as I investigate issues of race a nd racism, gender a nd sexism involved inlearning to read and write in school.

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(1995) argued, often lead to silence amon g African A merican stu dents . T hesepractices can be understood as social constructions of personhood from a lin-

guistic standp oint: How does language omission contribute to a definition of per-sonhood? W ho has a language/dialect that is viewed as acceptable and proper?Negating or devaluing the linguistic resources of a community can be under-stood as a way of negating an attrib ute of person hood . Lee's (1993) scholarshipredefined how everyday linguistic practices can becom e academ ic resources asstudents take up new position s vis-a-vis school-based literacy. For example, Leeused th e everyday linguistic practi ce of "signifying as a scaffold" to teach AfricanAmerican students to analyze literature.

Willis (1995) asked teachers to be cognizant of how classroom literacypractices influence African American students' sense of personhood. Buildingon the work of D uBois (1969), she analyzed the way her son experienced doubleconsciousness as a writer in third grade when he realized that h e could no t draw

on his cultural experiences as a member of the African American communitybecause his classmates and teacher would no t und erstand their significance. T heaccuracy of her son's claim becam e painfully evident wh en, in comp osing an es-say for a nation al contest, the rules forbade h im from referencing his experienceas an African A merican, thus defining him as a non perso n.

Ladson-Billings (1994,1995,1996) can be und erstoo d as raising questio nsabout pe rsonhood, from the interrelated standpoints of academic achievement,cultural com petence, and critical consciousness: Are African Am erican studen tsviewed as educable, as capable of high academic achievement? Are students al-lowed to demonstrate their cultural competence as African Americans as theyparticipate in school-based learning? Do students and teachers examine to-gether the ways knowledge, literacy, and education contribute to or constrainsocial justice for all? Indeed, Ladson-Billings argued that establishing teachingand lea rning practices that critically examine the broad er society helps success-ful teachers of African American students to meet the twin goals of academicachievement and cultural competence. Similarly, Gadsden (1992) implicitlyraised questions about person hood and m ulticultural literacy education: Whichcommunities count as having a literate tradition? Gadsden, whose researchdocuments literacy practices across four generations of African Americans inrural Sou th Carolina, called for educational p rogram s that build o n the "literacylegacies" African A merican students b ring to school.

T he questions tha t these scholars raise from the perspective of literacy andteacher education are useful for addressing questions about personhood andclassroom practices in general. Namely, to what extent and how do discursivedefinitions of personhood get established along various dimensions in class-

room s and literacy practices (e.g., W ho co unts as a person a nd as a mem ber of acom mun ity, with linguistic and literary resources, with academ ic ability and val-ued educational and literacy agendas), provide different mo me nt-to-m om entaccess to literacy for stud ents, socialize stude nts to particular views of pe rson-hoo d, and define the curriculum ? T he questions tha t Ladson-Billings (1995), Lee

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(i995)> Ga dsden (1992), an d W illis (1995), amon g othe rs (e.g., Au 6- Kawakami,1994; Foster, 1992,1995; Guiterre z, Rymes, & Larson, 1995; King, 1995; M cCa rthy

& Crichlow, 1993; Walsh, 1991), raise also suggest that pay ing explicit atte ntio n tohow personhood is being defined may provide a mea ns for restructu ring class-room and literacy education in ways that address the goals of educationa l equ ityand multicultural education. However, to do so, a dramatic comm itment to di-versity is often required (Ladson-Billings, 1996), one that often includes the so-cial construc tion of intertextual links to studen ts' com mun ities. In designing thewriting club, I intentionally created intertextual links between the stu den ts' re-search problems and questions and the literacy practices of community mem-bers, who were associated with social-change work in their various communi-ties. Given the above review of scholarship on literacy and personhood , Ireasoned that it was imp ortan t for students to examine the reasons and m eth odscomm unity mem bers hold for addressing issues of personhood in the com mu-

nity an d wider society.

Examining Personhood T hrough Intertextuality

Although the questions already discussed establish the importance of examin-ing personhood in classrooms and although I have noted th at classrooms m aybe predisposed to particu lar definitions of perso nhoo d, I have not yet addressedwhy it is useful theoretic ally t o investigate issues of personhood through theconstruct of intertextuality. Intertextuality focuses analytical atte ntion on theways sets of texts are broug ht to gether and mad e use of by readers and write rs.T he analytical approach I take builds on critical discourse analysis scholarship ineduca tion, which in tur n builds on sociocultural scholarship that posits the con -structed nature of everyday life, including th e c onstructed natu re of ideologyand perso nhoo d. Because there is extensive literature o n sociolinguistic an d dis-course analyses of classrooms, I will not review it here (for reviews, see Cazden ,1988; Gee, M ichaels, & O'C onno r, 1992; Hicks, 1996; Hornbe rger & Co rson , 1997;Luke, 1996; M cKay Hornberger, 1996). Briefly, from this perspective, it isthrou gh patterns of interaction that discourses of everyday life create ideologiesof the world. In classrooms and schools, ideologies often a ccount for w ho ha saccess to what edu cational opp ortunitie s an d what and w hose knowledge is val-ue d as significant. T his scho larship has contributed to our understanding ofhow classroom norms and values are socially constructed through the face-to-face interaction of teachers and students (e.g., Bloome, 1989; Heath, 1982,1983;

Santa Barbara Classroom D iscourse Group, 1993). For example, the placem entof students in reading groups positions students as particular kinds of literacyachievers and often accounts for the distribution of learning opportunitiesbased on notions that basic skills, like spelling and grammar, need to be mas-tered in building-block fashion before stud ents are capable of critical interpre ta-

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tion of texts. As Egan-Robertson and W illett (1997) argued, the con tribution ofethn ograp hic an d sociolinguistic research to education includes redefinitions ofeduc ation, literacy, and classroom practice.

Within this broad area of research, there has been a good deal of recent in-terest in intertextuality (Beach & Anson, 1992; Bloome & Egan-R obertso n, 1993;Faird oug h, 1992,1995; Har tm an, 1992; Hicks, 1996; Kamberelis & Sco tt, 1993;Lem ke, 1992,1995; Luke, 1996; Sho rt, 1992). On e ap proa ch is to explore inter tex-tuality and intercontextuality (Beach Phinney, in press; B loome Egan-Robertson, 1993; Floriani, 1993; Santa Barbara Classroom Discourse Group,1993) as socially constructed resources throug h w hich teachers and students cre-ate relationships in and across educational activities. From this perspective, in-tertextuality involves more than the juxtapositioning of texts. Bloome and I(Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993) argued that social recognition, acknowledg-me nt, a nd social significance are assigned to juxtaposed texts as a central part of

the meaning construction process in classroom settings. We have argued thatthere are three types of intertextual relationships tha t together comp rise the cul-tural ideology of a local event: intertextual sub stance, intertextual process, andintertextua l rights. Intertextual substance has to do with the set of texts, includ-ing the content of the texts, that can be juxtaposed. It addresses the question:W hat is am ong the sayable in an event in this social institution? Intertextual p ro -cess refers to the n orm s, or pa rticular ways, for assigning significance. In otherwords, it respond s to anthro pological questions such as how, where, when, a ndfor what purposes juxtapositions are recognized, acknowledged, and assignedsocial significance. Intertextual rights refers to w ho can d o the saying. Describ-ing the social consequences of intertextuality "requires identification of the so-cial positioning and o ther social work d on e. .. in the construction of an ongoingevent" (p. 320). From this perspective, intertextuality is viewed as a socially c on-structed resource peop le use to con struct culture a nd ideology. T he study pre-sented in this article expands the under stand ing of the social construction of in-tertextuality by exploring how it is connected to the construction of literacypractices and personhoo d.

Fairclough (1992,1995) provided a com plime ntary perspective on the sig-nificance of intertextuality in critical discourse analysis. Fairdo ugh's (1995) ana -lytical framework featured a comb ination of:

a theory of power based upon Gramsci's concept of hegemony with a theoryof discourse practice based upon the concept of intertextuality (or interdis-cursivity). The connection between text and social practice is seen as beingmediated by discourse practice: on the one hand, processes of text produc-tion and interpretation are shaped by (and help shape) the na ture of the so-cial practice, and on the other hand the production process shapes (andleaves "traces" in) the text, and the interpretative process operates upon"cues" in the text (p. 133).

Fairdough's approach to intertextuality provides an explanatory frame-work; th at is, it goes beyond interpretative analysis to provide a critical analysis:

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one that explores issues of power related to language and literacy education. It isimportant, from this perspective, to analyze how pow er relationsh ips are c on-

structed throug h the use of language in everyday interactions, in institutions likeschools; specific settings, such as classrooms; and the intertextual practices inteachers' and stu dent s' comp osition and interp retation p rocesses. M y analyticalframework for intertextuality inco rporates, from Fairclough's framework, atheory that assumes, a priori, that language in use, or discursive practices, areshot through with power relationships, with Bloome and Egan-R obertson's(i993) focus on generating an "emic" or insiders' und erstanding of who canmake wh at kind of intertextual links and with wh at social consequences.

From th e theoretical perspective taken in this study, it is imp orta nt for theresearcher to position herself within th e research. I locate myself as a mem ber ofa m iddle-class, multiracial family and as a professional engaged in researchingdime nsions of my society. T hese dimensions, literacy practices and person hood

in ed ucational and classroom discourse, evolved in part from my interdiscipli-nary teach ing of language arts and social studies at the secondary level. As West(1993) noted, any discussion of our peoplehoo d as a nation needs to begin with arecognition of race as a salient aspect of our history and o ur present. Found a-tional questions in the nation's legal and literary h istory from this perspectiveinclude: who counts as a citizen and as a writer, and who co unts as co ntributingto our cou ntry's history and literary trad ition (e.g., Berry, 1994; Carby, 1987;DuB ois, 1969; Frank lin, 1974; Gates d M cKay, 1997; W est, 1993). M y person alstory within this sociocultural context situates me on a dynamic field with co n-tinuously shifting borde rs demarcated by a distant past in which my Irish imm i-grant ancestors encountered signs in store windows tha t read NINA (NO IrishNeed Apply); my childhood during which my m other, a mem ber of the Interna-tional Ladies' Garment Workers Union, worked as a seamstress; the present inwhich I read and negotiate the world as the m other of my 2-year-old daughterM aya who is of African American a nd European American heritage; and a futurein which M aya will deal with the com plex legacies of discourse practices abou tpersonhood in a society still rife with conflicts abo ut issues of race, class, a ndgender, particularly in institutions such as schools.

Multiple S tudies Within a Study

To conduct the study, I implemented a students-a s-ethnog raphers w riting clubat an urban K -8 school.4 T he school where the study took place is located in theheart of a working-class New En gland city, in a neighborhood rich in history of

4. I was interested in con ducting a studen ts-as-ethnog raphers project to build theoretically on thelandm ark work of Hea th (1983) in reconceptualizing language arts teaching and learning arou nda base of ethnog raphic and s ociolinguistic inquiry (cf. Heath, 1982; see also Eg an-Robertson &Bloome, 1998; Fairdoug h, 1992; Foster, 1992; M oll & Diaz, 1987; Robinso n, 1991; Santa BarbaraClassroom Discourse G roup, 1993; Stock, 1995). For related sc holarship on engaging learners asresearch ers, see Freire (1972), Lee (1993), and Oldfath er a nd Dah l (1994).

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social activism of various ethnic g roups (e.g., Puerto R icans, African A mericans,Irish America ns). At the time of the study, the co mm unity was experiencing the

high tide of poverty and associated wave of violence endem ic to inn er cities inthe early to mid 1990s. T he study focused on several young wo men as they exam-ined questions a bout c om mu nity life. I invited eighth-grade stude nts who wereinterested in researching and writing about the community to join a writingclub, which I convened for approximately 3 ho urs per week between F ebruaryand June, 1993. T hus, the study from which da ta are taken involved teaching asmall group of middle school students how to be ethnographers of their owncommunities, and it involved researching what the students did (the literacypractices in which they engaged as they researched their own com mu nities). T hetwo sets of studies, the students' and my own, adopted a collective questionabout community-based literacy practices, asking who was researching andwriting abo ut the comm unity, how they did so, and what their purposes were.

T he corpu s of data included field notes; 45 hou rs of audio - and videotapesof writing club activities, conversations, and interviews collected over a 4%-month period; collection of written artifacts, especially student writing; 8month's of participan t observation in the stude nts' language arts classroom; se-lect audiotapes of English classroom interactions; demographic data on theschool and community; and interviews with the students' English and specialeducation teachers.

T his study involved a set of co-occurring ethno graph ic studies: the studiescondu cted by the students, the writing club's study of comm unity-based writingpractices, and my study of these studies as they developed. Figure 1 provides adiagram of the relationships am ong these studies. T he vertical axis highlightsphases in the life cycle of the writing project: orientation phase, interviewingand fieldwork phase, and the boo k w riting and publishing phase, which culmi-nated in a boo k signing event. Th e horizontal axis provides key informationabo ut each life-cycle phase from the perspective of a particular study. Colum n 1highlights the students' research questions, the types of writing they did, thepeople the y interviewed, their processes of data analysis and r epo rt writing, andthe book publication party they hosted. Column 2 highlights the students' andmy research of com mun ity-based literacy practices and p rovides details relatedto this collaborative study. Colu mn 3 features highlights of my stud y of the stu-dents an d o ur collective study.

Data Analysis

T he goal of the data analysis was to explore the relationships am ong personh oodand literacy practices, using th e co nstruct of intertextuality. Analysis was con-ducted using discourse analytic techniques (Bloome & E gan-Rob ertson, 1993;Fairclough, 1989,1995). I cond ucted 12 microanalyses of videotape d segments ofclub meetings to analyze the social interactions with in the gro up, noting the so-cial positioning being d one as texts were recognized, acknowledged, and assigned

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S t u d e n t s l n d i v id u a l S t u d i e sVe g a C o m m u n i ty W r i ti n g C lu b s

S t u d y o f C o m m u n i ty - B a s e d L i te r a c yP r a c t i c e s

E g a n - R o b e r t s o n s S t u d y

O r i e n t a t io n P h a s eS t u d e n t s in t r o d u c e d t o t h e w o r k o fs t u d e n t s i n s i m i l a r p r o j e c t s ; s t u d e n t sse l ec t r e sea rch ques t ions : S a n d r a Ve r n e :D o e s t h e k i n d o f m u s i c

y o u l i s t e n t o a f f e c t th e w a y y o u f e e la b o u t p e o p le ?

Mar i e l i s F lo res :Wh a t n e e d s to h a p p e nto keep k ids o ff t he s t r ee t s?

D e L a y n e M o n s o n : H o w c a n y o u k e e pf r o m b e c o m i n g a n a l co h o l i c if y o u rpa ren t s d r ink?

Den i seYothe r s : l s r ac i sma p rob leminRive r s ide?

I n t e r v ie w i n g a n d F i e ld w o r kS t u d e n t s d o v a r i o u s t y p e s o f w r i t i n g q u e s t io n s , f ie l d n o t e s , l o g g i n g o f ta p e s ,m e m o s . S t u d e n t s i n t e r v i e w t o g e t h e r : Ca r los Vega : d i r ec to r o f Vega

C o m m u n i t y C e n te r Te r re l l Thomas : schoo l subs t ance

a b u s e c o u n s e l o r E a r l A c k e r m a n : d ir e c t o r o f

C o m m u n i ty M u s ic S c h o o l N e i g h b o r h o o d f a m i l y w h o w a s

d e a l i n g w i t h i n te rg e n e r a t io n a la l coho l i sm

C h u r c h y o u t h g r o u p l e a d e r

B o o k W r i ti n g a n d P u b l is h i n g S t u d e n t s re a d t h e t ranscr ipts o f

t h e i r i n te r v i e w s n u m e r o u s ti m e s a sa b a s i s fo r g e n e r a t i n g a n a l y se s .

S t u d e n t s d e c id e t o p u b l is h t h e i rr e p o r t s in a n e d i t e d v o l u m e w h i c ht h e y e n t i t le L i f e A s Te e n a g e r s i n t h eN i n t i e s : G r o w i n g U p i n R i v e r s i d e

B o o k S i g n in g E v e n tF a m i l y, r i e n d s . a n d c o m m u n i t ym e m b e rs a t te n d .S t u d e n t s a n d 1 t a l k a b o u t o u rr e s e a rc h a n d w r i t in g a n d d i s t r ib u t e5 0 c o p i e s o f t h e b o o k a n d k e e p 6each fo r ou r se lves .

O r i e n t a t io n P h a s eS t u d e n t s a g r e e t o s u g g e s t i o n t h a t w e a r ec o l le c t iv e l y t o i n v e s t i g a t e t h e f o l l o w i n gq u e s t i o n s a b o u t l i te r a c y : W h o r e s e a rc h e s a n d w r i t e s a b o u t th e

c o m m u n i t y ? H o w d o th e y d o so ? A n d , w h y d o c o m m u n i ty m e m b e r s

r e s e a rc h a n d w r i t e ? S t u d e n t s in t r o d u c e d t o t h e w o r k o f

c o n t e m p o r a r y a n d h i s to r i c a l lo c a lr e s e a rc h e r s a n d w r i t e r s .

1 c o n t a c t f ri e n d s a n d c o l le a g u e s w h oa r e c o m m u n i t y a r t i s ts a n d a c t iv i s ts .

I n t e r v ie w i n g a n d F i e ld w o r kS t u d e n t s d o v a r i o u s t y p e s o f w r i t in g q u e s t i o n s , fi e l d n o t e s , lo g g i n g o f t a p e s ,m e m o s . G r o u p i n t e r v ie w s : l r m a A s h t o n : p l a y w r i g h t , d i r e c t o r ,

a n d a c tr e s s i n p o l i t ic a l t h e a t e r Te re s a C r u z : p o e t , p l a y w r i g h t , a n d

ac t re s s i n ch i ld ren s t hea t e r M a r s h a D a v i d s o n : p l a y w r i g h t a n d

d i r e c to r o f a d o l e s c e n t t h e a t e r g r o u p ,u n i v e r s i ty r s e a rc h e r o f m u l t ic u l t u r a l

e d u c a t i o n

B o o k W r it in g a n d P u b l is h i n g S t u d e n t s r e a d th e t r a n s c r ip t s o f

t h e i r i n te r v i e w s n u m e r o u s t im e s a sa b a s i s f o r g e n e r a t i n g a n a l y s e s .

S t u d e n t s a s k I rm a A s h t o n t o h e l pt h e m w i t h t h e d r a f ti n g a n d s e n dh e r a p r o s p e c tu s o f t h e i r b o o k .

B o o k S i g n in g E v e n tS o m e o f t h e C o m m u n i t y a r ti s t s a n da c t iv i s ts t h e s t u d e n t s i n t e r v i e w e da l so a t t e n d .

O r i e n t a t io n P h a s eGa in ing acce ss :Wr i t ing c lub i s pa r t o fl a rge r s tudy o f l it e r acy in s tude n t sEng l i sh l angua ge a r t s teache r s c l a s ses .F o r m a t io n o f w r i t i n g c l u b to e x a m i n e : H o w w o u l d s t u d e n ts u s e a n a l te r n a t iv e

se t o f t ex t s t o c rea t e soc ia l i den t i ti e sf o r th e m s e l v e a n d e a c h o t h e r i nr e l a t i o n t o t h e i r c o m m u n i t ie s , t h e i rs c h o o l i n g , a n d w r i t i n g ?

W h a t w e r e t h e s o c ia l a n d p o w e rr e l a ti o n s h i p s e s t a b li s h e d i n t h ew r i t i n g c l u b ?

W h a t w e r e t h e l i n g u i s t ic s t r a te g i e se m p l o y e d i n v a r io u s l i te r a c y e v e n t s b ys t u d e n t s ,c o m m u n i ty m e m b e r s ,a n dmyse l f ?

W h a t is th e u s e f u ln e s s o fi n t e r t e x t u a l i t y a s a s o c i a l c o n s t r u c t io nt o u n d e r s t a n d i n g r e la t io n s h i p sb e t w e e n l it e r a c y p r a c t ic e s , d e n t i t y,a n d p e r s o n h o o d ?

D a t a C o l le c t io n a n d A n a l y s is P a r t i c ip a n t o b s e r v a t i o n i n r o l e a s

w r i t i n g c l u b f a c i l it a t o r F i e ld no te s Ta p i n g o f a l l m e e t i n g s Transc r ip t ion o f a l l in t e rv i ew s C o l l ec t ion o f a r t i f ac t s , e spec ia l ly

s t u d e n t w r i t i n g

I C o n t i n u e d l1 Ana lys i s I

\

\ /\ .

\ /

C o n t in u e d A n a l y s is I n c o r p o r a t in g d a t a c o l le c t e d b y

s tu d e n t s a n d b y u s a s w e s t u d i e dc o m m u n i t y - b a s e d l i t e r a c yprac t i ces

M a p p i n g o f i n t e r t e x t u a l i ty

FIGURE i. Relationships Amo ng Research Studies

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tmii EG AN-ROBERTSON

social significance as the students engaged in research of their com munities. Toconduct the analyses, I drew o n several sources, each of which ha s been elabo-

rated in the discussion of related literature p resented above. It is important toemphasize that, based on the prev ious theo retical discussion, I use the abstractterm of personhood to describe, interpret, an d explain the issues the studentswere investigating and writing about; however, the students and communitymem bers did not use this term, nor did I use this scholarly term with the stu-dents. However, the students, com munity mem bers, and I explicitly used re latedterms, such as race and racism, gender an d sexism.

Learning About Culture, Language, and Power

T his section begins with discussion of excerpts from D enise Yother's and SandraV erne's writing to illustrate the analyses generated by students an d to show howtheir writing was produced. I next present a "mac ro" analysis of the intertextuallinks proposed by m e as teacher-researcher of the w riting club, illustrating th eimportance of intertextual links proposed by a teacher to the opportunities avail-able for students to craft school-based literacy practices.51 highlight the im por-tance of these initial intertextual links in framing young people's opp ortunitiesfor taking up discourses about various dime nsions of personhood. T hen, I pro-vide a discussion of a set of transcript segments, taken from the third writingclub meeting, to illustrate how from the o nset of the writing club mem bershipinvolved constru cting literacy practices of researchers interested in th e exam ina-tion of issues of racial and ethnic identity and racial prejudice, that is, issues ofpersonhood. A brief excerpt from a comm unity artist is included to represent

the pattern of reasons for and ways of researching and writing tha t the stud entsencountered as they investigated comm unity mem bers' literacy agendas. T hesedata are impo rtant to include, because they significantly influenced the contentand processes students adapted in their ow n writin g. Finally, data from SandraV erne's writing conference w ith a com mu nity artist illustrate the ways in whichstudents created intertextual links with the discourses and methods raised bycommunity members in composing their reports.

Is Racism A Problem in Riverside?

When I started researching this chapter, I had racism and racial prejudice

confused. When the writers club interviewed T eresa Cruz, she asked, "Has .anyone experienced racism?"... I started saying I did by being called, "T hat

5. See Cazden et al. (1996) on multiliteracies and literacy education; see Applebee (1996) on theinfluence of teachers' disciplinary roots in shaping curriculum .

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CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND POWER |

white girl," "Honky," and "Gringa." T hen I found out that is not racismWhat that is called is racial prejudice.... Like M arsha Davidson said in wordsteens can understand, "Racism = prejudice + power."

- Denise Yothers, "Racism: A Problem in Riverside."

T his excerpt from Denise Yother's ethnogra phic rep ort can be understo od as ar-ticulating "dom inant and subord inate ideological co mp onen ts" (K irkpatrick,1983, p. 141) of personh ood , along dim ensions of racial identity, racism, and gen-der. T he quote provides an example of the kin d of analyses Denise generated torepo rt findings related to her research question: "Is racism a problem in River-side?" She illustrates her process of c oming to critical awareness (consciousness inFreire's [1972] term ). Denise provides an exam ple from her person al experienceas a researcher to educate her readers about key terms she had enco untered (ra-cial prejudice and rac ism), their meaning s, an d the centrality of power relation-ships to racism. Her choice of examples makes visible the intersection ofgendered and raced identities and how these discourses of perso nho od are usedamong adolescents. ( I started by saying I did [experience racism] by beingcalled, 'T hat w hite girl,' H onky,' and 'Gringa.'")

Her words suggest some recognition of racism as a system of p enalty andprivilege based on skin color ("Racism = prejudice + power"). Her u nderstand-ing of issues of power related to racism are reflected in her letter to teachers, citedat the start of this article. In the letter, Denise asks her elementary and mid dleschool teachers to change their teaching practices to provide mu lticultural per-spectives, writing tha t "there's a problem. T he problem is we have been deprivedof learning about other cultures." Her writing suggests that she has begun to seethat some groups of people with in ou r society are set apart and excluded fromthe curriculum. Denise wrote the letter as a response to Irma Ashton's (a com-

mu nity artist who me t with the students on three occasions) suggestion that shewrite a skit in which an adult an d a young pe rson discuss racism. Denise's use ofthe phrase "other cultures " provides an exam ple of how discourse is a site of ar -ticulation of dom inant and subordinate notions about personhood : it works tonormalize a Eurocen tric perspective that views "other cultures" as apa rt rath erthan a central com pone nt of our society.

T aken together, these quotes from Denise's writing represent the k inds ofconnections she made for herself and her readers based on issues of race and r ac-ism as these related to interactions amo ng peers (being called "T hat wh ite girl,""Gringa," and "Hon ky") and to classroom interactions aroun d official texts (e.g.,whose history and culture is taught and whose is excluded from the curric u-lum). Two of the European American teachers in attendance at the students'

book publication event cried when Denise read her letter aloud along with aquote she included in her chapter from M r. V ega, director of the Puerto RicanCultural Center: I think racism is a society prob lem. Everyone in this societyhas to work to end it. It can't be one -sided. T eachers can't do it alone. T he p rinci-pals can't do it alone. T he superintendent can't do it alone. The mayor can't do it

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fJWli E G A N - R O B E RT S O N

alone. It has to b e done by parents, the church, the educators. Ending racism hasto be v alued by everyone that's p art of society. We all need to work at it." T his ex-

amp le from Denise's research repo rt illustrates how she made intertextual linksbetween her inq uiry process and th e "mino rity discourses" (Luke's [1996] term)about social change that she and he r coresearchers encountered and incorpo -rated into their writing . Literacy becam e recognized, within th e writing club a ndthe stude nts' writing, as a site of negotiation of d ominan t and subordinate dis-course practices about personhood.

How Does M usic Affect Your Feelings?

M y goal for this chapter is to let people know what music really is becausekids/teenagers seem to think that music is just something to dance to. I'mtrying to provide them with information that I have found by talking to

people and researching. Sandra V erne, "Does M usic Affect the WayWe T hink and Feel About People?"

In th e above text, Sandra V erne positions herself as a teenager, researcher, inter-viewer, author, and as someone who is an authority on the topic she has re-searched. T hroug h a chain of discursive actions, Sandra builds an argu me nt; shecreates a picture of music as something that has become accepted as entertain-me nt by teenagers. She establishes a goal ("to let people know w hat m usic reallyis"), a position of auth ority to speak from, and dem onstrates ho w she has electedto address the problem thro ugh taking public action as a writer ("I'm trying toprovide them [teenagers] with information I found by talking to people and re -searching"). In her writing , there is evidence that Sandra is using contrast (e.g.,

between common music and cultural music) to illustrate some of what she haslearned about the potential impact of music on people (see Sandra's text at thebegin ning of this article). Sandra's task was to write a chapter prospectu s to sev-eral audiences: to ask the princip al for m oney to publish the bo ok th at she andher fellow studen ts were writing; to inform her English teacher, about the ir workin the writing club, which counted as their English class 3 days per week; to com -municate w ith Irma Ashton, a local artist who the students asked to retu rn tohelp them "write up their reports"; and most im portantly, to provide informa-tion to h er peers about he r research findings. T he writing task itself provided aseries of positions from which she could have written; from among these, shechose that of a researcher having inform ation to share that would make a posi-tive difference in p eople's lives. She wan ted tee nagers to kno w tha t mu sic affects

the way they think and feel about women; that it "puts messages across." Shewrites, "In m usic there are references to wom en as 'whores,' hu ssies, or 'bitches.'We are affected by music when people go up to other people and start makingfalse accus ations .... Whe n peo ple say those things, they think it is okay becausethey see it on T V and repeat it." Sandra generates a critical discourse analysis of

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CULTURE LANGUAGE AND POWER PUli

how ideas about women become normalized through the media. She reveals toher readers her process of generating a contrastive analysis between "c om mo n"

mu sic an d "political" music, providing definitions of her term s for readers anddetailing the decisions she m ade as an analyst ("Com mon mu sic is what we hea ron the radio, on M T v, all the tim e. Some people call this popular m usic but I can'tcall it popu lar because it's no t pop ular with a lo t of people w hen it talks abo utwomen that way. I call it comm on music instead") Her awareness of the powerinhere nt in words is clear in her explanation of cultural m usic as a kind of politi-cal music ("Political music is music that gets people to do som ething about theproblem s of the w orld. At first I thought cultural music was a third kind of m u-sic. T hen I decided that cultural music is a kind of political mu sic because itbrings back your cultu re.... For some people, your culture was never written inbooks.")

As in Denise's writing, there are traces of the information Sandra "found

by talking to people and researching," of the way do mina nt versions of historyhave excluded t he history of many communities of color. For example, Sa ndraincludes in her chapter information she learned from Irma Ashton th at thedru m could n ot be played by Africans in captivity as slaves once slave holders re-alized that the dr um s were used as a form of comm unication. Sandra reports onone of the "minority discourses" she accessed for learning history from thecommunity's perspective ("Cultural music tells you how your own historywas . . . " ) . Bringing "back your culture" was a theme evident in questions Sandraasked of com mu nity m emb ers across the interviews. In her field notes from aM arch 3 interview of Irma A shton, Sandra w rote, "She told us about how herdaugh ter traced her family ro ot s.. .." On M ay 10th, Sandra asked Teresa Cruz,"How did you go abo ut trac ing your roots? At what age did you realize that youwanted to trace your roots?" In these writing excerpts, Sandra illustrates the pr o-cess of coming to consciousness abou t the importan ce of learning history fromthe comm unity's perspective and about how "the production and reproductionof the social o rder (in this case discourses a bout cultural groups and aboutwomen) depend ... upon practices and processes of a broadly cultural n ature"(Fairclough, 1995, p. 219). T he p articu lar data selected for inclusion in the nextsections of this article articulate dimensions of Sandra's and (to some extent)Denise's productio n of these texts through identifying intertextual links to vari-ous aspects of the writing club.

Intertextual Links Proposed in the Form ation of the Writing C lub

In this section, I highlight t ha t the analyses of culture, language, and power pre-sented in the stu dents' writing were influenced by the m acro-level juxtap ositionsmade by myself as teacher-researcher and then by the com mu nity m emb ers thestudents interviewed. T hus I elaborate here on intertextual links I made in forming

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the writing club. T he language arts teacher and I had originally hoped to engagestuden ts as researchers of culture and language in her English classes. However,my schedule only permitted me to be in the school 3 ho urs per day, from 12-3 PM Given that t he schedule was built on a 6-day rotation , I was no t able to observeany one class often enough to establish co ntin uity for such an instructional in-terventio n. T he teacher suggested the alternative plan of my forming a writingclub during activity period. Th e writing club began near the start of the secondhalf of the academic year and continue d thro ugh the en d of the school year. Fig-ure 2 is a copy of the flier I distributed to stude nts who had chosen free time d ur-ing an activity period .

T here were many types of activities associated with writing club m eetingsduring different phases of the life cycle of the writing club. Initially, the groupread and heard abou t the work of teenage ethnographers from arou nd the coun-try. At the first m eeting of the writing club, I raised potential questions that they

mig ht be interested in researching: What's it like being a young w oman growingup in Riverside? As a young African A merican woman? As a you ng Latina? As ayoung White woman? As illustrated later in this article, this is an importanttheoretical point, because the students then adopted questions to investigateand help each other design and imp leme nt research plans in which they built in-tertextual links with the questions I used to frame th e study. As part of the studyof their comm unities, students interviewed a num ber of family and comm unityme mb ers. M ost of the interviewing was done collectively. T he students wrote ina variety of ethno graph ic genres and narratives a nd presented their findings inan edited volume. In establishing th e writing club, I drew on m y social networkof colleagues and friends, with who m I had done similar critical educationalwork in the past. One of the people w as Irma Ashton , a local theater producer,director, and a ctress. Before the stude nts interviewed A shton, I brought in a copyof The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Washington, 1993). I shared this book fortheoretical, methodological, historical, and political reasons: T ruth had lived inthe area in the mid -i9th century, and Ashton was known for her dram atic po r-trayals of T ruth. Indeed, Ashton was som etimes publicly referred to as "TheProphetess," mu ch as T ruth once had b een. Also, in prepara tion for their inter-view with Ashton, the studen ts read a biographical sketch of Ashton, which wasincluded in a playbill for a show abou t Ida B. Wells, a 19th-century journalist andanti-lynching activist. Ashton acted as Wells in the two-woman show, touringregionally for \V i years before traveling to Sou th Africa w ith the show. I alsobrought in Wells' autobiography, Crusade for Justice (Duster, 1970). T hus, fromthe beg inning , I, acting as the teacher-researcher, proposed to t he students an in-tertextual framework and analysis that deliberately incorporated community

texts and discursive practices based on critique. T his had to do w ith the theo reti-cal problem and question raised in this article, because it focused attention onwhat kinds of literacy practices were assigned significance by m e as teach er-re-searcher and highlighted for students by the commu nity-based literacy practicesof the artists and activists they me t throug h the writin g club. As noted in the lit-

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CULTURE LANGUAGE AND POWER

VEGA SCHOOL

COMMUNITY WRITING CLUB

F O R M I N G N O W

WHEN:

TUESDAYS WEDNESDAYS AND THURSDAYS DURING ACTIVITY PERIOD

FOR W HOM:

POD STUDENTS INTERESTED IN WRITING AND RESEARCHING WHO ARE NOTINVOLVED IN ANOTHER ACTIVITY DURING THIS TIME.

WHAT WE WILL DO:

WRITE ABOUT YOUR COM MUNITY LEARN TO DO ACTION RESEARCH INTERVIEW COMMUNITY WRITERS ARTISTS ACTIVISTS AND OTHERS READ THE WRITING OF STUDENT WRITERS FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY PUBLISH OUR WRITING MAKE DECISIONS TOGETHER

HOW TO SIGN UP:

SEE MS. EGAN-ROBERTSON FOR A PERMISSION FORM OR IF YOU WAN T MOREINFORMATION.

FIGURE 2. Flier for the Community Writing Club

erature review, what kind s, whose, and w hat purp oses are served in literacy prac-tices are central concerns in the construction of discursive practices of personh ood.

T alking Literacy Practices and Personh oodInto Being in the Writing C lub

T hroug h analysis of the actions of mem bers in three transcript segments fromthe third writing club meeting, I attemp t to make visible the ways in which dis-cursive practices constructed in the writing club provided an opportunity forstudents to explore issues of personhood based on constructing an analysis ofintertextual links between issues of culture, language, and power a nd their per-sonal experiences. T o make visible the social positioning oc curring on a line-to-

line basis in the transcrip ts of conversations, I use three types of m arkings in th eright-hand columns of the transcript charts: I have bold-faced w ords that em -phasize intertextual processes, italicized words th at highlight intertextual sub-stance, and underlined words that mark explicit discursive dimensions of per-sonh ood and identity. Using the theoretical framework crafted for this study, my

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analysis illustrates how literacy practices were being socially constructed andhow relationships between literacy practices and personhood were being con-

structed through face-to-face interactions among writing club members fromthe early days of the d u b . For example, there is evidence of intertextual links thatShanae made to the questions I posed to frame the writing club project, andthere is evidence that Denise crafted an inte rtextual link to expan d the focus ofShanae's topic to inclu de her interest in issues of racial prejudice, an interest thatwas grounded in her experiences as a young White w oman.

An analysis of the general pattern of interactio n d uring th e first 2 days ofthe w riting du b shows that we generated, discussed, and revised questions that thestuden ts wanted to pursu e. T he activity of choosing research topics and ques-tions framed conversations abou t issues that were of critical concern to stu dents,thus, linking an academic task with personal interest. T hese discussions werepreceded or followed by quiet writing time. Sometimes a student read aloud

what she had w ritten; then the other students recounted their experiences on thetopic. T ranscript 1 from the thir d day of the w riting club provides a basis for ex-amining this pattern of practice.6 T his segment of transcrip t was selected be-cause the pattern becom es visible as participan ts already in the gro up help a newmem ber w ith this pattern (lines 25-26). T he interactions of the two groups ofparticipants, returning an d new, provide a poin t in time where the expectationsfor participating became visible as members responded to my request, asteacher-researcher, to "say one again." As Fairdou gh (1989) argued, at such m o-ments, members make visible to each other and thus to observers - or in thiscase, readers what is expected of participa nts.

T here are four actors in T ranscript 1: Ann (the teacher-researcher),DeLayne (an entering mem ber), Shanae, and Sandra (returning m embers). Inlines 25-26,1 ask Sh anae, "Could y ou say one again, for DeLayne?" In makingthis request, I draw on m em bers' knowledge of prior texts constructed b y mem -bers and practices used to construct the texts (intertextuality, Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993). Her research question is based on her adaptation of ones Iraised at the first club meeting : Wh at's it like growing u p as young wom en in Riv-erside? As a youn g African A merican wo man?

In sharing this question, Shanae is ma king an intertextua l connection b e-tween the cu rrent event and an earlier one; that is, she is dem onstratin g to thosewho were present in the previous events (including me as teacher-researcher)that she recognizes the links between these even ts, and tha t she is assigning socialsignificance to bo th t he prior event and the curre nt o ne. In "saying" this ques-tion, she is also interactionally accomplishing the intertextual link and sharingthe cultural knowledge with the new mem ber.

6. T he line breaks in the transc ripts were construc ted based on an analysis of the co ntextualizationcues (i.e., based o n pau se structure, rising and falling into natio n, etc.) used by various speakers.T his type of descriptive analysis of a transc ript is based on Green an d Wallat (1981). It grows outof the sociolinguistic notion that people signal meaning through more than the words theyspeak.

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TRANSCRIPT i. Excerpt From T hird Writing Club M eeting

Intertextual positioning

Creates reason for repeating self:Orienting new member to groupliteracy practices

Defines self as researcher whoadapts the personhood questionframe, "what's it like."to examine issues of multiracialidentity

Acknowledges interest in question:creates space for discussion of thisdimension of personhood

30 . Shanae Some people probably Framing question in relation to group

Line

25 .26 .

27 .

28 .

?9

Speaker

Arm

Shanae

Ann

Descriptive analysis

Could you say one again,for DeLayne?

What's it like

bein? or having twonationalities?

M m m -h m m .

32 .

33 .

34 .

ca n t

answer it

cause -

31 . Sandra I could

DeLayne

Shanae - some people onlyprobably have onenationality.

Denise T omorrow -

35 .

36 .

37 .

38 .

39 .

40 .

41 .

I was telling her ho w I

have a question of the dayor questions

which I was doing todaywith my survey.

T omorrow I'm going toresearch this one.M y question number threefrom yesterday,it's prejudice: who does itreally hurt?T he person who 's beingprejudiced or both?

Sandra defines self as multiracial

DeLayne defines self as multiracial

Shanae creates a problematic space,by raising issue of whether allmembers of the group could respondto the question

Denise, who is European American,takes the opportunity created byShanae to establish an angle onShanae's topic that relates to herinterest in issues of raceReferencing earlier conversation

with me as teacher-researcherEstablishes self as researcher with aquestion,adapting method of survey toexplore peers' reactions to a set oftopicsDenise defines self as researcher,

interested in examining issues ofrace.from multiple perspectives

T hree types of markin g make visible the social positioning being done : bold-faced words = intertex tual processes italicized words = intertextual substance underlined words = explicit discursive dimensions of personhood and identity

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Additionally, her next response makes visible how m em bers can interactwith the qu estion. In this response, she comm ents on her qu estion (lines 30,33).

Sandra's and DeLayne's responses to her comm ent overlap hers. T he second pa rtof her comm ent creates a problem atic space by raising the issue of whether allmem bers of the group could respond to the question. T hus, Shanae both p ro-vides an intertextual link and makes visible the literacy practice associated withposing a research q uestion - that members can comment or respond to the re-search questions of others.

T he interactions among members of the group illustrate how literacypractices were shaped by mem bers. They also show how mem bers began fromearly in the project to shap e and reshape local views of person hoo d. In asking thequestion "What's it like being or having two nationalities?" Shanae is raising forinvestigation discourse practices surrounding multiracial positioning. This wasa position th at she later went on to articulate as a subordinate position: She andSandra, she claimed, have experienced som e difficulties be ing accepted as Pu ertoRican. Shanae asked us if she "looked Pu erto Rican." In m aking the claim t hatsome people can no t answer her que stion (line 30), because some people pr ob -ably have only one nationality (line 33), she can be viewed as openin g a space forconsidering this issue, while simultaneously suggesting the possibility that theremight be some people in the group who could not answer the question (Deniseand m e). In this way, she can be unde rstood to open space for considering mu lti-racial personh ood as a research issue and as one that is potentially exclusionary.

In this transcript, Shanae articulates this problem in a way tha t providesspace for agreement, disagreement, renegotiation, and expansion of a questionby memb ers, as they express that their relationship to her q uestion is proble m-atic. DeLayne and Sandra (lines 31-32) respond to Shanae, acknowledging theirmultiracial ide ntities and interest in Shanae's topic . Shanae (line 33) finishes her

statement of concern with a clarification abou t whether every me mb er of thegrou p has personal experiences related to her question. Denise, wh o is EuropeanAm erican, takes the floor (lines 34-41) to respond to Shanae an d othe r stude nts,recognizing that she cannot answer the specific question but establishing ashared interest in questions a bout racial and ethn ic relations. She creates a con-versational position from which she can address the theme of power relation-ships regarding racial identities embe dded in Shanae's question. Denise impliesthat she understands Shanae's question to be about racial "prejudice" and findsaspects of her pers onh ood at issue in the conversation.

T he transcript markings (bold-faced /intertextual processes, italicized/in-tertextual substance, and underlined/explicit discursive dimensions of person-hood and identity) illustrate how shared expectations for the social construc-

tion of intertextuality were interactionally built in moment- to-momentinteractions. T he intertextual substance of the students' questions (issues of ra-cial identity and racial prejudice) a nd intertex tual processes (raising a questionto research) began to be shaped and reshaped within the discourse practices ofthe writing club . In this way, views of person hoo d (issues of acceptance as a m ul-

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C U LT U R E L A N G U A G E A N D P O W ER f\Ml]

tiracial person, issues of racial prejudice) and literacy practices (keeping a re -search noteboo k, having a research question, shaping an analysis based on pe r-

sonal experiences as Shanae does based on attributes of looks and language (seeT ranscript 2), creating an angle to take u p a coresearchers' topic of interest) werebeing shaped and reshaped and explored through their interactions as the stu -dents engaged in discussion about their community research projects. Studentsraised questions about ethnic identity and about issues of personhood associ-ated with it (being accepted as a member of a racial or ethnic group, the emo-tional effect of prejudice).

Further evidence of analysis of discourse pattern s associated with issues ofrace and racial identity as these emerged in our interactions can be seen in thenext excerpt from the sam e mee ting. In their roles as researchers and in th e so-cial relationships they were constructing as writing club mem bers, the stude ntstook up opportunities to examine attributes and attitudes about people basedon race and gender, and often did so in relation to how these categories inter-sected in their lives. T he stu dents can be viewed as assigning intertextual signifi-cance to the questions I raised as I framed the study: What's it like growing up asa young w om an in Riverside? As a young African A merican wo man? As a youngLatina? As a young W hite woma n? T he issues associated with gen der are so e m -bedde d in this particular tran script th at it can be hard to see them . However, thiswas a multiracial group of wome n researchers, and the experiences of issues ofperso nhoo d differed am ong us based on our particular intersections. T ranscript2 shows traces of the way students beg an to take up these intersections of dim en-sions of personhoo d. We all spoke based on our experiences as wom en, and thetalk in these transcrip ts illustrates how issues of race and racial identity variedamong us.

T ranscript 2 provides further evidence of how the them e of perso nhoo dwas being negotiated. In lines 55-64, Shanae describes tensions around estab-lishing one's multiracial identity as a mem ber of a particular c om mu nity with inthe peer ne twork. Shanae raises name-calling ("wannabe") as a salient linguisticpractice am ong adolescents (lines 58, 63). In discussing what co unts to people,she argues that mem bership in a group is often based on appe arance ("She don 'tlook [it]"). T hus, appearance is described as one attribute for negotiating inclu-sion or exclusion of racial/ethnic group membership. The discourse practiceShanae raises has to do with inclusion or exclusion from community member-ship and how that has to do w ith who has the power to define one's racial iden-tity. Later, in the sam e conversation (T ranscript 3), Shanae suggests tha t if youare able to speak Spanish (lines 99-102), you can sometimes b e accepted by peersas Puerto Rican even if you are n ot immed iately viewed as "looking it." She then

discusses additional dimensio ns that people (teens) use to define me mb ers.In line 99, Shanae elaborates on language as a similar bou nda ry line to ap -

pearance in defining co mm unity m emb ership (line 100). She compares her ex-periences with Sandra's ("I can talk it. She only talks it a little," lines 101-102).Notice how Shanae argues for linguistic competence as establishing a way of



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EGAN-ROBERTSON

TRANSCRIPT % . Excerpt From T hird W riting Club M eeting

Line Speaker

54. Ann

55. Shanae

56.57.

58.

59.

60.

61.62.63.

64.


What do you think?

Sometimes when you tellsomebody your nationality.it's gotta reallyit's gotta really show

or they'll call you a wannabe.

'Cause like for her,

she's got Puerto Rican inher,but yet it's still -when she tells people that,they pick on her and callher "wannabe"'cause it don't look likeshe's Puerto Rican.

T hree types of marking make visible the social bold-faced words = ntertextual processes italicized words intertextual substance

Intertextual positioning

I position Shanae as an analyst

Shanae indicates the negotiatednature of identity

Shanae defines appearance asattribute for negotiation of culturalidentity; Shanae identifies visibleinscription as a basis for negotiatinginclusion and/or exclusion in agroupShanae identifies the code"wannabe" as how teens canrespond to someone who is notviewed as visibly inscribed as a partof a racial/ethnic groupShanae uses Sandra's experience as abasis for supporting her claim

Shanae establishes Sandra as havingdifficulty beingaccepted as Puerto Rican becauseshe is constructed bv her peers asnot "looking" Puerto Rican

positioning being done :

underlined words = explicit discursive dimensions of personh ood and identity

negotiating c om mu nity mem bership. She uses her personal experience (line 99 )as a case and sup ports her claim (line 101) by presenting Sandra's experience as acounterexa mple. Shanae is mak ing an intertextual link as she analyzes no t onlyher experiences of being multiracial, but com pares these experiences with how h erpeers negotiate their multiracial or multiethnic identities.

T ranscript 3 can be understoo d as an example of my intertextual pra cticeas teacher-researcher in working to establish literacy practices and perso nho od.I (Ann in the transcrip t) acknowledge the comparison Shanae has made between

her experience an d Sandra's by respon ding to t he earlier discussion (lines 55-64)of looks or visual inscription as a basis for nego tiating group me mb ership. I sug-gest the significance of cultural knowledge to the negotiation of communitymem bership (lines 103-108). Hav ing read the text of where th e group's conversa-tion is going, I confirm the level of analysis Shanae is generating as appro priate

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C U LT U R E L A N G U A G E A N D P O W ER WlMU

research discourse. I also keep the topic open , rather tha n letting it close downaround traditional views. M y actions can be understood as indicating to stu-

dents th at n o simple answer explains various points of view; that is, there is mo reto consider. From the perspective taken in this analysis, by mak ing an intertex-tual link to the topic of bicultural competence , I position Shanae as a researcherwho h as taken up a topic worthy of serious academic inquiry.

One major way that the students took up the o pportunities presented tothem to analyze discursive dimensions of personhood was through generationof analyses of what teenagers do in their interac tions. For example, at the end ofShanae's leading the discussion about her research question, Sandra posed herresearch question for grou p discussion: How does music affect yo u, and how doyou affect music? T he "you" in her qu estion referred, in particular, to y oungpeople. The excerpts from the students' writing quoted earlier in this articleindicate that the audience to whom they selected to report their findings was

TRANSCRIPT 3. Excerpt From T hird Writing Club M eeting

Line Speaker

99 . Shanae

100.

101.

102.

103. An n

104.105.

106.107.108.


And I talk it.

So

egan robertson learning about culture, language and power

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