RES 5530: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Spring 2009)

Zonnie and Danny felt “hard feelings out loud”, but who listened? Zonnie used poems to express her thoughts and feelings, and Danny used music with drumbeats and lyrics. What inspired them, affected them, and motivated them?

We first learned about Zonnie and Daniel’s knowledge of the Indian tradition: “ Zonnie and Daniel spoke Lokota or Dakota but most were knowledgeable about and participated in traditional Indian customs”. (208). Noll began the research article by identifying how important the Indian customs were to the two students. Next the author identified the purpose of conducting the research and writing the paper: “ I need to gain entry into the conceptual world of my participants, to capture the meaning that they confer on what they do and on the way other people react to what they do”. I tried to pinpoint specific information that helped me understand what inspired Zonnie and Danny, as well as how other treated them.

I feel Zonnie was inspired by love, and Danny was inspired by his heritage. I think both were affected by their heritage, but I felt that you could identify the importance of heritage to Danny more than Zonnie. In the second paragraph of the author describing Danny, three words or phrases really stood out to me: “symbolizing Indian power”, “full-blooded”, and “separated”. Literally Danny wore his emotions on his sleeve; the badge represented Indian power and the fact that he “started wearing an American Indian Movement (AIM) badge” and did not wear it the entire time made me think that Danny was experiencing strong emotion with his heritage. Something, or someone, made him feel like he needed to add it to his wardrobe. Also, the way he identified his family as “full-blooded” was an attempt to show his pride of his strong connection to the American Indian culture. Daniel and his family lived in a neighborhood that was “separated from the rest of town by a bluff that runs along the southern edge”. People separate themselves for many reasons. I couldn’t identify the reasons Danny’s family separated themselves, but I feel it might be a way to preserve their tradition and heritage. Heritage and preserving tradition seemed important to Zonnie’s family, but to her I think the love she felt for her family inspired and motivated her more. Noll states the following about Zonnie and the strong emotion she identifies within her writing and story telling: “Zonnie’s relationship with both her friends and her family influenced, at least in part, the role of writing, art, and dance in her life”. I think the love within the relationship greatly influenced Zonnie. The interesting point is that her main form of communication at school was through written expression. It was how she communicated the ideas she felt the strongest about. Zonnie sent her father poems when he was in prison. In the article she comments about sending them to her father: “they really like my poems because it reminds them of what love used to be”. Danny did not have a good relationship with his peers at school, out of school seemed to be different. He was treated poorly and called a “prairie nigger” at school. Zonnie’s experience with her peers was different but they did not understand the relationship she had with her family.

Through the case studies I was able to understand what the students felt strongly towards, as well as the specific background knowledge the teachers could use to build instruction with Zonnie and Danny. But why did their teachers not see it, and were they considered average students because of the C grades they were earning? To me their understanding of their heritage and emotions could be used to guide them into above average students. I also have a hard time understanding how Danny’s teacher could not see how eager he was for her to read his story. He turned in four pages of work when he usually turns in a small amount of work, how is that not a sign to the teacher?

Elizabeth Griffin