| The following research report on literacy practices presents an analysis of the data collected over the course of four months at Owl Creek middle school in Northwest Arkansas. Following a qualitative research protocol, I interacted with middle school students who participated in the Razorback Writers after-school literacy outreach program sponsored by the University of Arkansas. This report details the two major literacy practices encouraged in this after school program -- the collective read-aloud sessions focusing on the graphic novel I Kill Giants, and the students' creation of their own graphic novels, which were developed in group workshops. In the following pages, I examine the events and relationships that emerged during the group reading sessions and creative workshops, and I try to identify the implicit and explicit assumptions about literacy that became apparent in these sessions. Moreover, I explore the ways in which these practices express several theories of literacy, specifically 1) language socialization, 2) the New London Group's theory of Design and multiliteracies pedagogy, and 3) university-sponsored literacy outreach. Thus, this study also provides a report of how these theories function -- together and separately -- in the Razorback Writers classroom. |
