'Doing Right' By Melissa: An Inquiry Into School Spaces

• Published in: Language & literacy (Kingston, Ont.) Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 1 - 19
• Main Author: Vander Zanden, Sarah
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada 01-05-2013
• Subjects: Case studies; Educational Environment; elementary; Elementary Education; Elementary school students; Elementary Schools; Grade 5; Inquiry method; Learning; Literacy; space; urban; Urban areas; Urban Schools
• ISSN: 1496-0974; 1496-0974
• DOI: 10.20360/G2XS3X

This educational ethnographic case study explores Melissa’s literacy experiences in an urban elementary school. Using a modified domain analysis (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999), this paper focuses specifically on what it meant for Melissa to ‘Do the Right Thing’ in various school spaces. Her application of doing the right thing in different spaces complicates what it means to take ‘right action’. Therefore, ‘taking right action’ was divided into three domains: 1) Institutional Domain: Code of Compliance 2) Dominant Literacy Domain: School Code and 3) Personal Domain: Melissa’s Self- Reliance. While Melissa was considered a model fifth grader in her urban elementary school setting by her teachers and peers, her personal code of literacy often subsumed the dominant school discourse of ‘do the right thing’.   Analysis generated prospective inroads for understanding how literacy learning is inextricably intertwined with relationships of space and discourse. Insights from this close analysis point to the need for nuanced recognition of students’ intellectual lives and underscore the plague of low expectations that narrowing curriculum imposes upon students.