I don't want to feel out of place (pauses, searching for the “right” words). I don't want to have my difference hinder me. But, help me if anything. So, I want to express myself so they can understand me—so, that I can communicate.
But, in Jamaica, when I was a little kid, you always heard crazy little things when you're a kid (laughs). And, you're like: “Oh, they act like this, and they do this. They're so silly: They spell color without the u.” And they didn't necessarily seem to make it a bad thing to be that way, but it was understood that we were different. And, I liked being different. I liked being Jamaican.
And, so I got here and um… It's like it didn't seem that weird. And, then I was worried that it doesn't seem that weird because I'm LIKE THEM! So, when I lost my accent, I was worried that I would lose being Jamaican. I was afraid that I'd lose my identity. (LeeAnn [pseudonym])
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AuK., & MasonJ. (1981). Social organizational factors in learning to read: The balance of rights hypothesis. Reading Research Quarterly, 17(1), 115–152.
2.
BakhtinM. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (C. E. M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
3.
BergerP. L., & LuckmannT. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday.
4.
CollinsJ. & BlotR. (2003). Literacy and literacies: Texts, power and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
5.
DelpitL. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's children. Harvard Educational Review, 58, 280–298.
6.
DelpitL. (1996). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: New Press.
7.
DysonA. (2003). The brothers and sisters learn to write: Popular literacies in childhood and school cultures. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
8.
FanonF. (1967). Black skin, white masks (C. L. Markmann, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove Press.
9.
FechoB. (1998). Crossing boundaries of race in a critical literacy classroom. In AlvermannD., HinchmanK., MooreD., PhelpsS. & WaffD. (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the literacies in adolescents’ lives. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
10.
FonerN. (2005). In a new land: A comparative view of immigration. New York, NY: New York University Press.
11.
FreedmanS., & BallA. (2004). Ideological becoming: Bakhtinian concepts to guide the study of language, literacy and learning. In BallA. & FreedmanS. (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning (pp. 3–35). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
12.
FreireP. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.
13.
FreireP. (2003). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum International.
14.
GaldaL., & BeachR. (2001). Response to literature as a cultural activity. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 64–73.
15.
GavelekJ., & RaphaelT. (1996). Changing talk about text: New roles for teachers and students. Language Arts, 73, 182–192.
16.
GeeJ. (1991). What is literacy? In MitchellC. & WeilerK. (Eds.), Rewriting literacy: Culture and the discourse of the other (pp. 3–12). New York, NY: Bergin & Garvey.
17.
GeeJ. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London, England: Taylor and Francis.
18.
GeeJ. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York, NY: Routledge.
19.
GeertzC. (Ed.). (1983). Blurred genres: The refiguration of social thought. New York: Basic Books.
20.
GenishiC., & DysonA. H. (2009). Children, language and literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
21.
GergenK. (1995). Social construction and the educational process. In SteffeL. & GaleJ. (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 17–39). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
22.
GoldbergT. (1993). Racist culture: Philosophy and the politics of meaning. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
23.
GonzalezN., MollL., TeneryM., RiveraA., RendonP., GonzalesP., & AmantiC. (1995). Funds of knowledge for teaching in Latino households. Urban Education, 29(4), 443–470.
24.
GoodyJ., & WattI. (1968). Literacy in traditional societies. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
25.
HeathS. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
26.
HenryA. (2001). The politics of unpredictability in a reading/writing/discussion group with girls form the Caribbean. Theory into Practice, 40(3), 184–189.
27.
HintzenP. C. (2002). West Indians in the west: Self representations in an immigrant community. New York, NY: New York University Press.
28.
HooksB. (1994). Teaching to transgress. New York, NY: Routledge.
29.
HollandD., LachicotteW., SkinnerD., & CainC. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
30.
HrubyG. (2001). Sociological, postmodern, and new realism perspectives in social constructionism: Implications for literacy research. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(1), 48–62.
31.
KalmanJ. (2004). A Bakhtinian perspective on learning to read and write late in life. In FreedmanA. & BallS. (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning (pp. 252–278). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
32.
KirovaA. (2007). Moving childhoods: Young children's lived experiences of being between languages and cultures. In AdamsL. & KirovaA. (Eds.), Global migration and education: Schools, children, and families (pp. 185–198). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
33.
KnoellerC. (2004). Narratives of rethinking: The inner dialogue of classroom discourse and student writing. In FreedmanA. & BallS. (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning (pp. 148–171). New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
KressG. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London, England: Routledge.
35.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
36.
MatthewsM., & CobbM. (2005). Broadening the interpretive lens: Considering individual development along with sociocultural views of learning to understand young children's interaction during socially mediated literacy events. Journal of Literacy Research, 37(3), 325–364.
37.
McLeanC. (2010). A space called home: An immigrant adolescent's literacy practices. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 54(1), 13–22.
38.
MorsonG. (2004). The process of ideological becoming. In FreedmanA. & BallS. (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning (pp. 315–332). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
39.
New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In CopeB. & KalantzisM. (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 9–38). London, England: Routledge.
40.
NietoS. (2002). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives for a new century. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
41.
ObidahJ. (1998). Black-mystory: Literate currency in everyday schooling. In AlvermannD., HinchmanK., MooreD., PhelpsS. & WaffD. (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the literacies in adolescents’ lives (pp. 51–72). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
42.
OgbuJ. U. (1995). Literacy and Black Americans: Comparative perspectives. In GadsenV. & WagnerD. (Eds.), Literacy among African-American youth: Issues in learning, teaching, and schooling (pp. 83–100). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
43.
OlsonD. (1977/1994). The world on paper. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
44.
Peyton-YoungJ. (2004). Discussion as a practice of Carnival. In AlvermannD., HinchmanK., MooreD., PhelpsS. & WaffD. (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the literacies in adolescents’ lives (pp. 247–264). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
45.
RosenblattL.M. (1995) Literature as Exploration.New York: The Modern Language Association.
46.
SfardA. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4–13.
47.
ShotterJ. (1995). In dialogue: Social constructionism and radical constructivism. In SteffeL. & GaleJ. (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 41–56). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
48.
SteffeL. (1995) Alternative epistemologies: An educator's perspective. In SteffeL., & GaleJ. (Eds.). Constructivism in Education (pp. 489–524). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
49.
StreetB. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
50.
ValdesG. (2004). The teaching of academic language to minority second language learners. In FreedmanA. & BallS. (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning (pp. 66–97). New York: Cambridge University Press.
51.
VygotskyL. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
52.
WengerE. (2004). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
53.
WertschJ. (1998). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
