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

By reading Hicks’ overview in chapter one, I could easily identify her passion for the subject. She writes about her study in a very compassionate way, which hopefully will mean that we will learn a great amount from Reading Lives. But I wonder about her passion and attitude, and if it could change the outcome of her research. For example the authors states the following: “ feeling can guide teachers and researchers to knowing in ways that are more fully responsive to the particulars of how working-class students engage with middle-class literacy practices”. I agree with Hicks, but as I continued to read about the overview of her research I found it interesting when she said this: “ When it became clear in first grade that Laurie was not making it in school, I began adopting a somewhat different research role with her. I became Laurie’s tutor, as Laurie and I tried to figure out together how she was going to learn to read and write in school”. I found this interesting because I feel at that point Hicks’ role in the research changed. Would that affect the outcome and information she gathers from the research, and how would the information she gathers compare to the information that could be gathered by someone who has not stepped into the teaching role like Hicks did? Hicks states: “I was not viewed by the children as a regular teacher, but neither did I attempt to step into the role of peer or family member”. I feel like she may have taken on these roles more than she thinks, and how would this affect her research if she did take on these roles?

I also understand that when a person or things is placed into an environment, the environment changes. For example, the students were followed over a three-year time span and in the second grade were enrolled in the same classroom. The teachers had to be aware of her research, did this change their teaching? And if it did would it change the affect Hicks is trying to measure?

At the end of the podcast, she suggested focusing on the various types of discourse. By focusing on the three types of discourse she identified, I was able to relate some of the comments from the two research articles Hicks was discussing to possible situations I may encounter in classes. My undergraduate degree is in special education, so I find it interesting that the word “label” is used to talk about the type of discourse you may belong to. The labels that are placed on students that I work with require the school system to provide services, but it also links them to a discourse within the school system. It is different from the discourse Hicks talks about because most of the discussion is about the discourse students belong to or follow outside of the school settings. On page 24 the author mentions the Roadville students who are used to oral stories, which made me think of Zonnie from the article we just read. It was helpful for me to think about Zonnie when reading about discourses, because I was easily able to think of the possible conflicts the author discusses from students inability to be “hybrid”.

After reading chapter two, I thought of a possible answer to the question I had for chapter 1. Both Hicks and Walkerdine stated they came from a working-class family. Therefore, they were connected to the students by having the same discourse as the students they were researching. I do feel their connection to the students through living with a similar discourse would make their findings different from someone else who researched the same students. I understand discourse to mean the language process, values, and beliefs that characterize a certain group; consequently, wouldn’t they be one step ahead of someone who hasn’t experienced the need to be hybrid within the school system? The following quote leads me to think the above would be true: “…we reflect on the cultural regularities of community life and wonder perhaps about the feelings, knowing, and belongings, of subjects within discourses”. It would seem that because of this connection they didn’t need to wonder about the feelings, knowing, and belongings of the discourses the students belonged to. Which makes me think, would teachers who belong to the same discourse of students in their classes reach the students better than a teacher who does not belong to the same discourse? Or would it be more effective for a teacher who does not belong to the same discourse to teach the students to be hybrid as Health taught teachers to “construct more permeable, or culturally hybrid classroom spaces”. Another possibility is that it may not matter because Hicks states, “practices shape individuated subjectivities”.

Elizabeth Griffin