An Invitation to My TCC Students

In an attempt to write beside my students, I threw these ideas together to introduce myself and invite my students at TCC to introduce themselves in their first writing sample this term. Here's my invitation and my own attempt to model for them. 

Quilting: My Neglected Hobby

Everyone has a story to tell. Some stories are told in words, others are told through pictures and still others are told through objects and artifacts that describe the culture and values the story teller wants to convey.

I would like to tell you about myself through my hobby. You see, I am a quilter, a quilter that discovered this magnificent art form late in life. I didn't begin quilting until my two children were nearly grown. Actually, I've always loved to sew, crochet, embroider to create nearly anything I could with textiles, needles and thread. I don't sit still easily, so I often crocheted afghans while watching television when my children were young. I found it challenging to learn how to design blocks with new stitches, yet relaxing because once I got hooked into a rhythm, the work seemed nearly mindless. I also loved to embroider, a craft some call cross stitch. My Aunt Nana taught me how to cross stitch when I was very young, during my annual summer visits to her home in Mexico City. The problem with embroidery, however, I found is that it would take me what seemed like years to complete a design.

So, then one summer day when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life after my divorce, I stumbled upon a new shop in town. The sign on the building advertised, "embroidery machines". Quite nonchalantly, I meandered into this new Bernina shop, just to look around, and found myself walking out with a used electronic sewing/embroidery machine. Wow! Now, since I've alway been handy with my hands, machines and gadgets, it didn't take too long for me to figure out how to use my new toy. I remember being so excited about being able to design sophisticated embroidery designs on clothing, or nearly any kind of fabric. I was ready to set up shop and start my own sewing business!

Never shy about asking questions or seeking help, I returned often to the Bernina store for advice. It was during one one of these frequent visits that I was introduced to quilting. In fact, I learned that Bernina is primarily a sewing machine designed for quilting. But what was even better, is that I could combine quilting and embroidery together. So, I became addicted. I joined a quilting bee, attended quilting meetings and bought every book or magazine I could find to help me learn my new craft. At Christmastime, I made fancy embroidered pillows, rag dolls and wall hangings as gifts for family. Soon I was making quilts to give as gifts. These I called my two-year quilts because I became so immersed in learning new quilt block designs and embroidering fancy stitches that I truly underestimated the length of time it would take to complete a project.

I have to admit that I haven't made too terribly many quilts, and nearly all those that I have designed I've given away as gifts. Today I only own one quilt that I've made. It's a child's alphabet quilt that I thought I'd give to the next niece born into the family. The only problem is that the last three children born into my family have been boys. So, the picture I've attached to this story is my testament to my hobby; a hobby, that I have to admit has gone sadly ignored during the past few years.

I don't quilt much any more because once my youngest child left home for college, I decided to go back to college myself. Since then, I've earned a Master's degree in reading education and am currently working on a doctorate in language and literacy at the University of North Texas. I am by profession and passion, a teacher. I have taught in public education for more than 20 years. I currently teach 7th grade in Keller ISD and of course writing at TCC-Northwest. I truly have a passion for anything related to language, literacy and culture, as I also speak French and Spanish. Si, soy Latina, con raices Chilenas y Mexicanas. 

I look forward to writing with you this term because everyone has a story to tell. I can't wait to hear yours.    

Framing My Research: An Open Inquiry

Dr. Mathis,

I hope you do not think that I have been ignoring the request to explain my ideas about my sociocultural inquiry project. Believe me, thoughts have been ruminating in my brain for a while. I’ve been trying to sort them out in a way that both makes sense and flows across the courses in my program.

My interests have always involved the key areas of:  writing to learn, new literacies/digital writing, multicultural/bicultural agency, critical literacy from both perspectives, (social and literary), and complexity science. I know that I must focus and narrow my research, but I’m not precisely sure where or how to do that yet. I guess I don’t feel like I know enough yet.

I do know, however, that the sociocultural perspective about learning and agency informs and will continue to inform all of my work as I proceed. When I think about what I want to investigate I have been considering three things: 1) what is important and valuable in the field of literacy, 2) what is important for society, 3) what is important to me, and 4) what is the difference that will make a difference?

I began a little research in the area of blogging for other classes. I’m not sure that I want to get stuck in researching blogging, as I’ve concluded that blogging and other forms of digital writing are just newer forms of writing with the unique advantage of a potential audience and feedback. Perhaps, it can be argued that this changes the author’s writing, thinking and/or learning; nevertheless, that is in itself a different research task. As we move into activity theory, I suspect there may be some connections there, too. I don’t know that I want to spend hours upon hours analyzing the discourse in blogs without a particular context or question in mind. I’m not sure this question gets much bigger than the obvious conclusions drawn from advantages gained by social networking or social discourse. Yet, the writing that occurs through social networking is a current phenomenon that is both transformative and I think has implications for education. I think I’ve whittled it down to issues of audience, voice, and purposes in communication. My conclusion, for now, is that digital writing is simply a tool; albeit a potentially powerful tool.

That said, my reading in sociocultural theory has opened a new way of thinking that I want to explore further. I am deeply interested in topics that concern bicultural identity and agency. As a white American Latina, I think that misconceptions, ignorance or a lack of any consideration exist about people whose heritage either lie in two cultures or those who have chosen to embrace more than one culture. I think that any study I would do in this area would involve my own positionality disclosure characteristic of qualitative inquiry. Yes, this may be in part a personal query, but I believe that it has larger implications for the growing bicultural (and biracial) population that already exists. I often wonder what some of my Latino, Asian, and biracial students think or experience, and where and when does ethnicity and color of one’s skin make a difference? I grew up in the safe zone of a white society, in a family that completely embraces other cultures and races. The Latina side of the family has always been a natural part of my heritage, although often more remote than the immediate surroundings of my privileged white middle class upbringing led me to think consider as unusual or different. I never gave much thought to my race, culture or ethnicity growing up, I realize now, perhaps it is because I did not grow up experiencing racism.

Another side of this quandary involves the ethnicity I claim. Perhaps, growing up in the 70s I wasn’t asked to consider being anything but white or as the official papers suggested, Caucasian. I didn’t consider that the term Hispanic applied to me because it wasn’t a term my family related to. My heritage is part Chilean and part Mexican. Furthermore, I grew up thinking I am American. I did not think that because I speak Spanish makes me uniquely Hispanic. Claiming Latina heritage didn’t seem to be an option as a child, therefore, I never considered being anything but white. Yet, I knew that I was a different type of white than my neighbor, not better, not worse; I was just inherently different from other white people of European descent (a term I still struggle with). I’d like to add that different didn’t carry a negative connotation, just, in my mind, a connotation of something deeper and more dimensional than that which monolingual or mono-cultural people cannot claim or conceive of. 

As I write this maybe the issue I personally grapple with involves the misconceptions that exist about being an American, a multi-cultural American, and above all a Latina. As an adult, living in a more culturally diverse 21^st century society than was ever imagined in the latter half of the 20^th century, I confidently claim Latina heritage, but feel sometimes, inappropriate by checking “white, of Hispanic descent” on government-type census documents. Why? Perhaps I grew up thinking I was more white than brown, more American than Mexican or Chilean. Yet, my Latina roots are deeply seeded in me, so I do proudly claim this heritage, today, not for the financial benefits (although I could use them), but because I value the cultural heritage.

So, perhaps, I wonder, what makes a person more ethnic than another? Is that even a legitimate question? Would claims of ethnicity and race be different if government labels, government programs or financial assistance did not exist? What qualifies a person to claim ethnic or cultural allegiances? And what messages about ethnicity and cultural identity do we, as educators, transmit to our students in public schools?

This last question may seem to be a bit outdated or overdone, in light of the research that exists about racial inequality in public education. Yet, I ponder the problems I see in schools where a lack of ethnic and cultural recognition exists. It is as though being American means that we are all meant to be the same. Discussions about race, ethnicity, color and culture do not seem to be important, or perhaps they are just underplayed in schools that are predominantly white. Students, I believe, are led to believe that race and ethnicity, don’t matter because “everyone should be treated the same”. Yet, because discussions about race, ethnicity and culture, are not dominant in the school culture, how do we really know what students think? I venture to say that there are many misconceptions among children and that conceptions of power unwittingly exist. Is this a societal concern, a parenting concern a school concern? I have discovered that when I ask students to tell me about their cultural heritage, many students do not know how to respond. I believe this is a sign of a general lack of awareness and appreciation for cultural diversity and pride in our multicultural roots in the United States. Of greater concern, are the misconceptions that ignorance is bliss or that a blind eye turned toward racism or cultural intolerance will irradiate social inequities. I wonder if is because, we as a society, only recognize prejudice when it becomes violent or newsworthy.

Regardless, the United States is a society that is deeply racialized and bounded by cultural misinterpretations, whether it is a result of capitalism or social ignorance is of some consequence. However, what is of greater consequence is the inability to recognize or unwillingness to acknowledge the symptoms and existence of ethnocentrism in our society. If public education is charged with preparing our youth for participation in a democratic global society, then, I believe that public education should teach its students how to recognize and comfortably be able to confront issues of racism and ethnocentrism in their own back yard, with the ultimate goal of not just teaching tolerance, but embracing our multicultural American roots.

So what will I research and what does this have to do with literacy and new literacies? I keep thinking about power and critical discourse. I am currently working on an annotated bibliography on critical ethnography for a qualitative research course. I realize that there are two strands associated with the term critical literacy, however, an article I read, “A Review of the ‘Digital Turn’ in the New Literacy Studies”, led me to consider an overlapping notion about the activism involved in critical social ideologies and the critical reading and writing skills that students should be taught to use in order to react critically to social issues. In this article, the New London Group calls for literacy pedagogy that embraces “four related components – situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice” (Mills, p. 258). This suggests that literacy instruction today should involve a deliberate invitation for students to compose freely as a means of processing and reacting to the important issues about race and ethnicity. The convergence between the Freirian critical literacy and the classic critical literacy associated with thinking critically is made when students are able to apply the practices associated with new literacies to conducted “sophisticated forms of collaboration, social inquiry, problem solving, and critical literacy” (p. 260).

I also became acquainted with some of Bourdieu’s ideas through a research project I completed on Deborah Reed-Danahay, who has studied Bourdieu extensively, for an anthropology class. I barely scratched the surface of his work. At some point, I’d like to read more as well as to read his works in the original French. I suppose I should save that for the dissertation. I feel as though Bourdieu and Bahktihn’s works need a lot of my attention.

I believe that my thoughts encompass more than a simple inquiry assignment, as this writing has helped me shape a larger agenda; maybe. If I am to understand the complexity of ethnocentrism and racism in public schools, then I must understand what the research already says and how to recognize notions about power in the discourse. Therefore, my research may involve a deep understanding revolving around the New Literacy Studies and as well as a critical investigation about the concept of power; but that may involve two different projects. For now, I am interested in studying the works of Michel Foucault and Allan Luke, and then ultimately pursuing Gee’s challenge, in his Routledge interview, to take Foucault’s ideas about power beyond imperialism and post-colonialism. I can’t however, say right now, where this research will take me; perhaps, toward fostering empathy and understanding about multiculturalism and diversity.

I am unsure about how to frame this inquiry assignment. If I am to use this work as part of a research/tool class, then I wonder if an annotated bibliography of the works of Foucault or Luke is adequate. Does this assignment need to be framed in a research question around a particular population? Should the topic search include critical literacy or just power, as search terms? I know that ultimately, should I continue to pursue this topic, I will examine these issues within the context of classroom discourse, online discourse, or children’s literature, for example. For now, do I simply become more aware of the field that involves what power means in critical discourse of across the board?

Well – I’ve said mouthful. I’m sorry to inundate you with so much thinking. I realize that the latter half of this long-winded answer relates more to the assignment, but I guess I felt compelled to write. Thank you for guiding me through this process.

-- Laura

References

Mills, K. A. (2010). A review of the “Digital turn” in the new literacy studies. Review of Educational Research, 80(2), 246-271. doi:10.3102/0034654310364401

Rogers, R. (2004, May). [Interview with James Gee.] In Companion Website to R. Rogers (Ed.) An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education (second edition). New York: Routledge. [http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415874298]