ERIC Number: EJ1179578
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Jun
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1086-296X
EISSN: N/A
Blurring Material and Rhetorical Walls: Children Writing the Border/Lands in a Second-Grade Classroom
Dutro, Elizabeth; Haberl, Ellie
Journal of Literacy Research, v50 n2 p167-189 Jun 2018
Spurred by burgeoning racist and xenophobic immigration policy and rhetoric, we analyzed the writing of seven second-grade children about their experiences of living connections that span the United States-Mexico border. Informed by research on children's "testimonios" in literacy classrooms and AnzaldĂșa's concept of the border/lands, we drew on feminist and critical poststructuralist theories to examine how children's writing rhetorically and aesthetically engaged with the affective, political, and ideological dimensions of borders and the rhetorical and material violence of hostile policies. Methodologically, we conducted close readings of children's writing, tracing how they disrupted boundaries, including those constructed both physically and ideologically across nations and between concepts, identities, and feelings. This analysis underscores children's keen insights into their political and personal worlds, the importance of writing pedagogies that invite children to engage with the personal and political, and the need for methods of analysis that attend to the poetics of children's perspectives.
Descriptors: Grade 2, Childrens Writing, Race, Ethnicity, Childhood Attitudes, Fear, Intimacy, Rhetorical Invention, Classroom Environment, International Relations, Immigration, Foreign Policy, Foreign Countries, Qualitative Research
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 2
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States; Mexico
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A