Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Rise Up!”: Literacies, Lived Experiences, And Identities Within An In-School “Other Space”, Kelly Wissman

Literacy Teaching & Learning Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I consider the literacy practices that emerged in an in-school elective course centered in the literacy tradition of African American women. Drawing from spatial perspectives (Leander& Sheehy, 2004), I explore what it means to consider this course an “Other space” (Foucault,1986), as a space created without the constraints of a mandated curriculum or standardized test pressures and as a space informed by an understanding of the connections among literacies,lived experiences, and identities. Through the presentation and analysis of five vignettes, I consider how the students shaped the course to their own ends and pursued agentive literacy work …