| As the world becomes economically, politically, and technologically globalized, United States schools have largely maintained their teacher-centered, homogenizing, and normalizing practices. Especially important is the need to disrupt conceptions of multiculturalism that use dualisms or binaries to describe difference, such as Black/White, English/non-English, native/non-native, which perpetuate hierarchy and limit understanding. This dissertation describes how radical hybrid literacy practices helped Lucy Luna, a bilingual teacher, to reconceptualize difference in ways that consider the spaces between binaries as valid places for thinking about difference.; Over a year-long ethnographic case study in her second and fourth grade dual language bilingual (Spanish/English) classrooms, Lucy and I co-constructed a theoretical curriculum into practice. Both urban classroom settings had a large proportion of Learners of Second Languages who were primarily native Spanish speakers of mostly Dominican and Puerto Rican descent. The research questions were: How does the intentional use of hybrid literacy practices by a teacher of LSL foster creation of liminal classroom spaces? How might hybrid literacy practices help a teacher to reconceptualize: herself as a teacher of Learners of Second Languages, Learners of Second Languages, and curriculum and teaching for Learners of Second Languages? Using post-colonial and critical race theories, I collected data from various sources: classroom observations, formal and informal interviews, a videotaped lesson, e-mails, lesson plans, student work samples, co-analysis sessions, and a researcher journal.; Our work took shape as projects of estrangement and making students “strange.” Analysis revealed the themes of locating liminal literacies: estranging hierarchies of literacy; mocking standard English: estranging school literacies and students; claiming “strange” places and blank spaces: estranging the (identity) map; naming: estranging the dictionary; identifying uncomfortable places: estranging the rules of recognition; choosing and forcing hybridities: estranging the “Other.” Drawing upon the shifting, multiple, and ambivalent identities of students, Lucy reconceptualized the role and meaning of language/culture, race, and skin color for herself, her students, and her curriculum and teaching. Students became unknowable as she facilitated student expression of hybrid identities. I discuss implications for multicultural teacher education, bilingual education, and post-colonial theory. |
