Navigating and hybridizing interpretive claim-making across discursive communities

ABSTRACT

In order to better understand how the full range of students’ semiotic resources may be marshalled for learning, we analyse the role of interpretive claim-making across fandom and disciplinary communities. Using a framework of syncretic literacies with a focus on navigation, we analyse data from a series of writing conferences in a U.S.-based, fandoms-themed English course serving diverse high school students. Our analysis attends to shifts in convergent and divergent intersubjectivity to trace students’ navigation of interpretive practices as they talked with their peers and their instructor. Discursive claims emerged as an important tool functioning differently across these interactions. Specifically, the claim-making practices of one focal student demonstrate an emerging understanding of the distinctly different functions that claims serve as tools for navigating between, and hybridizing, discursive communities. Our findings highlight the importance of using discourse to analyse the presence of multiple or conflicting discursive practices, and designing learning environments in ways that support students’ use of hybrid discursive tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Boundary objects
• disciplinary communities
• literacies
• writing conferences
• intersubjectivity

Acknowledgments

The Authors would like to acknowledge the Interaction, Analysis & Learning (IAL) group at New York University founded by Dr. Jasmine Ma for their support on preliminary data analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the International Literacy Association [RA843].

Notes on contributors

Karis Jones

Karis Jones (Ph.D.) is Assistant Professor of English Language Arts for the School for Graduate Studies at SUNY Empire State College. She studies issues of equitable literacies learning across disciplinary, fandom, and gaming spaces. She has been published in the Journal of Literacy Research, Equity & Excellence in Education; Journal of Language & Literacy Education, Linguistics and Education, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Teacher and Teacher Education.

Scott Storm

Scott Storm (Ph.D.) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Education at Bowdoin College. Scott is a former high school teacher with 15 years of experience in urban public schools. Scott researches adolescent literacies and social justice. His work has appeared in Journal of Literacy Research, Equity & Excellence in Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, English Teaching Practice & Critique, Theory Research and Action in Urban Education, Schools: Studies in Education, and Literacy Research and Instruction among others.

Sarah W. Beck

Sarah W. Beck (Ed.D.) is Associate Professor of English Education at New York University where she works as a teacher educator and designer of alternative ecologies for writing development, along with formative, student-centred approaches to writing assessment. Her work has been published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Literacy, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Assessing Writing, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Research in the Teaching of English, and English Journal.