Co-Constructed Identities and Literacy Practices:How identities of one teacher and her first grade students are enacted

and co-constructed through literacy practices and a third space

Theoretical Framework• Under the New Literacy Studies, literacy is seen as more socially situated, inseparable from cultural and

social practices (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005).

•The creation of a third space supports a positive view of literacy as outside school experiences transition into the classroom (Benson, 2010; Gutierrez, Baquedono-

Lopez, & Alvarez, 2001).

•Social identification, or identities as writers, are co-constructed by students and teachers through academic

learning (Lewis, 2001; Wortham, 2006).

How Were Labels Assigned?

How Were Labels Countered?Classroom discourse

•During transitions students would stop and chat to create informal, unregulated

spaces to “negotiate privacy, appropriate the classroom rules, and enjoy the risks

of doing their own things in school” (Chen, 2009, p. 28).

•Discourse during lessons

• Students responses to teacher questioning demonstrated an understanding that

did not necessarily match their assigned label

• Students shared comments that reflected how they were knowledgeable in other

areas

Third space

•This time was used to connect outside of school identities with school identities

and to serve as a ‘brainstorming’ session for writing pieces. Choice of topics did

not reflect a deficit view, instead it focused on perceived strengths.

Traditional texts

•Refusal to conform to assigned writing paper or to work on assigned writing goal

•Creating writing pieces that focus on meaning as opposed to assigned classroom

goals (mechanics, spelling, or grammar).

•Identities were enacted in a cyclical pattern between the students and the teacher.

Co-construction of identities:

Sasha R. Ramlal