Date of Award
8-26-2022
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Reading and Language Arts
Advisor(s)
Marcelle Haddix
Keywords
affect theory, communities of practice, LGBTQ+, narrative inquiry, poetry, queer theory in education
Subject Categories
Education | Secondary Education
Abstract
This dissertation explores three adolescent writers’ and one adult writing instructor’s development of and visceral relationship to writer identity and LGBTQ+ identity through the development of an out-of-school time community of writers, Write It Out, on Zoom over the course of three months. Making critical use of affect theory (Dutro, 2019a & 2019b; Ahmed, 2002; Ehret, 2018), the study asks the following research questions: 1) How do LGBTQ+ teenagers’ experiences and identities manifest in a queer virtual OST community of writers?; 2) How did these LGBTQ+ teenagers’ affective experiences meet those of their instructor, a queer writer and educator, in this community of writers?; and 3) What does it mean for a teacher-researcher to capture these experiences affectively in writing?
Using narrative inquiry methods (Clandinin & Connelly, 1990; Kim, 2015) and practitioner research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Thomson & Gunter, 2011; Mockler, 2013) to engage with such data sources as audio and video class recordings, semi-structured interviews, student writing, field notes, memos, and planning artifacts, the study documents and explores the ways that the instructor and the students in the program understand writing and their experiences and practices as queer writers. Specifically, it engages with the ways the Write It Out community experiences generation gaps in their understandings and presentation of queer identities, how the group relates to queer histories both personal and public, and what it means to become a queer community of writers. In addition, it presents data in dialogue with poetry, considering the affective dimensions of writing as a method of inquiry (Richardson, 2003) when exploring writing education.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Cooper-Novack, Gemma, "“A SENSE OF SAFE CONNECTION”: AN AFFECTIVE NARRATIVE EXPLORATION WITH QUEER TEENAGE WRITERS IN AN OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME PROGRAM" (2022). Dissertations - ALL. 1625.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/1625
