Re-forming student literacy: Informing teacher-research.

Abstract

Teacher-research, an increasingly popular approach to research in composition studies, finds itself in a dilemma at present. The very nature of teacher-research emphasizes the connections between teachers and students in the classroom, context-full studies composed in narrative or descriptive renditions. However, the language and the genres which continue to control the creation of knowledge in composition are those of the psycho-statistical research paradigm, decontextualized studies which rely on a split between the researcher and the researched, in which those who are researched become the object of study. Teacher-researchers who try to take on the familiar language and forms of the psycho-statistical tradition even as they maintain their context-full perspectives find themselves caught between two worlds and unable to satisfy the demands of either one. This dissertation traces the development of its author, a teacher-researcher who was caught in this dilemma as she attempted to study how students perceive their own literacy and their literacy instruction. As readers move with the author through her descriptions of the program of reading and the practical application of issues of literacy and teacher-research in which she was engaged over the four years of this study, they will also move through an argument for the practice of teacher-researcher that rejects the psycho-statistical tradition and locates its roots in other traditions more compatible with its aims and ends. The development becomes clear through the four case studies, each a rendition of students' understandings as they come to form and re-form their own perceptions of their literacy. These case studies, read in conjunction with their postscripts that provide segues between them, comment on the kind of research employed and reflect the author's growth as a researcher, showing her reading into and application of several research traditions other than the psycho-statistical one. In particular, the study shows the influences of ethnography, of critical educational theory, of phenomenological pedagogy and of feminist studies. Ultimately, the author calls for an approach to research growing out of these various traditions, one which accomplishes three goals: research which is based in local knowledge and individual experiences, research which is collaboratively conceived and practiced, and research which has emancipatory action as its necessary end. In keeping with these named goals, the final chapter is composed with two students, each of whom writes extensively about his or her role in the research and the changes this study has effected in their lives as student writers.