S Fransen Dissertation final MENNONITE IDENTITY AND LITERATE PRACTICES IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: A SOCIAL PRACTICE MULTIPLE CASE STUDY A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN EDUCATION by Sharon L. Fransen May 2016 Examining Committee Members: Michael W. Smith, Advisory Chair, Department of Teaching and Learning Wanda Brooks, Department of Teaching and Learning James P. Byrnes, Department of Psychological Studies in Education Mary Juzwik, External Member, Michigan State University ii © Copyright 2016 by name All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT This multiple case study describes the relationships between literate practices of five self-identified Mennonite youth and their faith identities. It also examines other salient identity enactments for each participant and the relationships among salient identities. Specifically, this research addresses the question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? Participants were in 11th grade at a Mennonite high school. Theoretically based on the social practice theory of identity, data sources included field notes from nine weeks of observations in English and Bible classes, interviews with each participant and the English and Bible teachers, written documents from both classes, and two verbal protocols for each participant with self-selected texts, one of which was faith-related. Multiple analytics were used to analyze the various data sources. Findings suggest that the relationship between faith identity performances and literate practices plays out in different ways for different youth based, in part, on the salience of the faith identity. Keywords: identity, literate practices, Mennonite iv To my dad, Whose strong Mennonite faith first grounded mine, And who dreamed of this day before I did. And to my mom, Who has shared books with me since the beginning, And believed in me every step of the way. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While it is, by now, cliché to use the phrase, “it takes a village…,” it is also true that many people have had an important role in helping me and my work get to this point. Over the years, Dr. Michael W. Smith has been a significant mentor, encouraging me and believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself, while also pushing me to places of deeper understanding and better research and writing than I would have achieved on my own. From the beginning, he acknowledged the importance of my faith identity and helped me participate in the figured world of academia and research. Thank you, Michael, for your trust, collaboration, time, wisdom, and guidance. I want to also thank my other committee members for their contributions to this work. Dr. James Byrnes added a thoughtful outside eye to the world of literacy research and asked pertinent questions that resulted in clarity to the final product. Dr. Wanda Brooks taught the second course I took at Temple and modeled critical reading and warm student-teacher relationships. She has served on my committee with the same dual focus. Dr. Mary Juzwik encouraged me from afar with her own religious literacy research interests, affirming for me that faith-literacy research has a place in the literature. Thank you, all. I want to also acknowledge Dr. Avi Kaplan and Dr. Erin Horvat, who were instrumental in their confidence in my scholarship over the years, and who helped me grow in my understanding of identity and qualitative research respectively. I could list many friends who offered encouragement through this journey, but Nancy Henry, Jody Hyatt, Conrad Swartzentruber, Polly Ann Brown, and Eric Bishop vi have known the road themselves and, therefore, have given an additional level of understanding and support. Thank you for not making this journey quite so lonely. I will never know how many hours my sister, Suzanne Marie Hitt, spent proofreading my sections and offering editing advice, not to mention the phone calls for moral support. You’ve always been in my corner. Thank you. I am deeply grateful for the freedom I received from my family to pursue this research. Jeff, you allowed me all the time I needed, accepted my distractions and emotions with grace, and have patiently reassured me all along the way. Thank you. Hannah and Kate, thanks for taking care of yourselves, for pitching in, for missing me, and for believing in me. I promise to start cooking again soon. I love you both. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1 – INTELLECTUAL HISTORY ............................................................... 1 Identity – The Beginning .................................................................................................. 1 Three Waves of Identity Conceptions in Literacy Research ........................................ 4 Five Conceptions of Identity in Identity-Literacy Research ......................................... 6 The Social Practice Theory of Identity ........................................................................... 9 Figured Worlds ............................................................................................................. 10 Positionality .................................................................................................................. 13 Space of Authoring ....................................................................................................... 14 Making Worlds ............................................................................................................. 15 The Social Practice Theory of Identity in Education .................................................. 16 Mennonite Faith and Literate Practices Through This Lens ..................................... 17 Identity-Literacy Research Matters .............................................................................. 20 Reading Comprehension and Identity .......................................................................... 23 The Impacts of Identity on Reading .............................................................................. 24 The Impacts of Reading on Identities ........................................................................... 26 Writing and Identity ....................................................................................................... 27 The Impacts of Identities on Writing ............................................................................ 28 The Impacts of Writing on Identities ............................................................................ 29 Identity and Religion ...................................................................................................... 30 Qualitative Research and the Research Question ........................................................ 32 CHAPTER 2 – REVIEWING AND ENTERING THE CONVERSATION ............. 34 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 34 Identity in Education ...................................................................................................... 34 Multiple Identities ......................................................................................................... 35 Separate. .................................................................................................................... 35 Hierarchic .................................................................................................................. 36 Hybrid ....................................................................................................................... 37 Identity in Literacy Research ........................................................................................ 39 viii Positioning and Artifacts ............................................................................................... 39 Figured Worlds ............................................................................................................. 40 Narrative ....................................................................................................................... 42 Identity-As-Mind .......................................................................................................... 44 Identity in Writing .......................................................................................................... 46 Voluntary Writing ......................................................................................................... 46 Academic Writing ......................................................................................................... 48 Identity in Reading ......................................................................................................... 48 Voluntary Reading ........................................................................................................ 48 Multiple identities ..................................................................................................... 49 Space for authoring ................................................................................................... 51 Identity as pleasure ................................................................................................... 51 In-School Reading ........................................................................................................ 52 Multicultural literature .............................................................................................. 52 Queer-inclusive literature .......................................................................................... 53 Identity, Literacy, and Faith .......................................................................................... 54 Muslim Faith ................................................................................................................. 54 Catholic Faith ................................................................................................................ 56 Baptist Faith .................................................................................................................. 57 Writing About Faith ...................................................................................................... 58 Religious Literacies ......................................................................................................... 59 Biblicism ....................................................................................................................... 59 Religious Literacies in the Public Classroom ............................................................... 60 The Bible as Context-Specific ...................................................................................... 61 Literacies Studies in Faith-Based Educational Context .............................................. 63 Mennonite Educational Research .................................................................................. 64 Sociopolitical Views ..................................................................................................... 64 Self-concept .................................................................................................................. 65 Literacy Learning .......................................................................................................... 65 Worldview ..................................................................................................................... 66 Critique ............................................................................................................................ 67 CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 68 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 68 Study Participants ........................................................................................................... 69 Mennonites .................................................................................................................... 69 Adolescents ................................................................................................................... 70 Identifying Participants ................................................................................................. 70 ix Context of Investigation ................................................................................................. 71 Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 73 Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 74 Observation ................................................................................................................... 77 Written Documents ....................................................................................................... 78 Verbal Protocol ............................................................................................................. 78 Other Sources ................................................................................................................ 81 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................... 81 Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 82 Observations ................................................................................................................. 83 Written Artifacts Analysis ............................................................................................ 84 Bible class artifacts. .................................................................................................. 86 English class artifacts ................................................................................................ 86 Verbal Protocol ............................................................................................................. 87 Rigor ................................................................................................................................. 91 Researcher’s Role ........................................................................................................... 92 CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................... 94 Bible Class Figured World ............................................................................................. 94 The Classroom .............................................................................................................. 95 Actors ............................................................................................................................ 97 Students. .................................................................................................................... 98 Teacher. ................................................................................................................... 100 Guest speaker. ......................................................................................................... 100 Significant Acts ........................................................................................................... 101 Transferring knowledge .......................................................................................... 101 Constructing knowledge ......................................................................................... 102 Making connections ................................................................................................ 103 Asking questions ..................................................................................................... 104 Artifacts ....................................................................................................................... 105 Specific language .................................................................................................... 105 Films and texts ........................................................................................................ 106 Valued Outcomes ........................................................................................................ 107 Meeting the requirements ....................................................................................... 108 Ownership ............................................................................................................... 108 Practice .................................................................................................................... 109 Reading - Bible Class Figured World Intersection ..................................................... 110 Positionality, Space of Authoring, and Making Worlds ............................................. 111 Positionality. ........................................................................................................... 111 Students ............................................................................................................... 111 Mr. Bennett. ........................................................................................................ 112 x Researcher. .......................................................................................................... 113 Space for authoring ................................................................................................. 113 Making worlds ........................................................................................................ 115 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 115 English Class Figured World ....................................................................................... 116 The Classroom ............................................................................................................ 116 Actors .......................................................................................................................... 119 Students. .................................................................................................................. 120 Teacher. ................................................................................................................... 121 Significant Acts ........................................................................................................... 122 Transfer of knowledge ............................................................................................ 122 Attending to meaning .............................................................................................. 124 Artifacts ....................................................................................................................... 125 Specific language .................................................................................................... 125 Written words .......................................................................................................... 126 Valued Outcomes ........................................................................................................ 127 Mastery ................................................................................................................... 127 Application .............................................................................................................. 128 Faith-English Class Figured World Intersection ......................................................... 129 Positionality, Space of Authoring, and Making Worlds ............................................. 131 Positionality. ........................................................................................................... 131 Students. .............................................................................................................. 131 Mrs. Cooper ........................................................................................................ 134 Researcher. .......................................................................................................... 134 Space for authoring ................................................................................................. 134 Making worlds ........................................................................................................ 135 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 136 Case Studies ................................................................................................................... 136 Paige ............................................................................................................................... 137 Other Identities ............................................................................................................ 138 Conscientious student ............................................................................................. 138 Curious learner ........................................................................................................ 138 Devoted runner ........................................................................................................ 139 Faith Identity ............................................................................................................... 139 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices .......................................................... 142 Identities in Bible Class .............................................................................................. 145 Identities in English Class ........................................................................................... 146 Literate Practices ......................................................................................................... 148 Bible class writings. ................................................................................................ 148 English class writings ............................................................................................. 151 Verbal protocols ...................................................................................................... 153 xi Cassie .............................................................................................................................. 157 Other Identities ............................................................................................................ 158 Good student. .......................................................................................................... 158 Dedicated bowler .................................................................................................... 158 Involved family member. ........................................................................................ 159 Faith Identity ............................................................................................................... 160 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices .......................................................... 163 Mennonite-Christian-Reader Identity ......................................................................... 164 Identities in Bible Class .............................................................................................. 166 Identities in English Class ........................................................................................... 167 Literate Practices ......................................................................................................... 168 Bible class writings. ................................................................................................ 168 English class writings. ............................................................................................ 170 Verbal protocols. ..................................................................................................... 173 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 176 Jessica ............................................................................................................................. 177 Other Identities ............................................................................................................ 178 Loving family member ........................................................................................... 178 Conscientious student identity ................................................................................ 178 Involved community member ................................................................................. 179 Faith Identity ............................................................................................................... 180 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices .......................................................... 183 Identities in Bible Class .............................................................................................. 185 Identities in English Class ........................................................................................... 187 Literate Practices ......................................................................................................... 188 Bible class writings ................................................................................................. 188 English class writings. ............................................................................................ 191 Verbal protocols ...................................................................................................... 193 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 198 Shannon ......................................................................................................................... 198 Other Identities ............................................................................................................ 199 Passionate Christian soccer player .......................................................................... 199 Engaged family member ......................................................................................... 200 Good student identity .............................................................................................. 201 Faith Identity ............................................................................................................... 201 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices .......................................................... 204 Identities in Bible Class .............................................................................................. 206 Identities in English Class ........................................................................................... 208 Literate Practices ......................................................................................................... 209 Bible class writings ................................................................................................. 209 English class writings ............................................................................................. 212 Verbal protocols ...................................................................................................... 214 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 217 xii Jacob .............................................................................................................................. 218 Other Identities ............................................................................................................ 219 Student identity. ...................................................................................................... 219 Maker/builder/innovator identity. ........................................................................... 219 Car-enthusiast identity. ........................................................................................... 220 Technology-lover identity. ...................................................................................... 221 Faith Identity ............................................................................................................... 221 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices .......................................................... 224 Identities within the Figured World of Bible Class .................................................... 227 Identities within the Figured World of English Class ................................................. 229 Literate Practices ......................................................................................................... 231 Bible class writings. ................................................................................................ 231 English class writings. ............................................................................................ 234 Verbal protocols. ..................................................................................................... 236 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 240 Cross Case Analysis ...................................................................................................... 241 Salient Identities .......................................................................................................... 241 Salient Identities Expressed in Writing ....................................................................... 243 Salient Identities Expressed in Reading ...................................................................... 246 Elective reading practices. ...................................................................................... 246 Texts chosen ............................................................................................................ 247 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 250 CHAPTER 5 – IMPLICATIONS ................................................................................ 253 Implications for Research ............................................................................................ 253 What Worked .............................................................................................................. 253 Lessons Learned .......................................................................................................... 255 Future Possibilities ...................................................................................................... 256 Implications for Theory ................................................................................................ 257 Identity Relationships ................................................................................................. 258 Complete Operationalized Theory .............................................................................. 259 Implications for Practice .............................................................................................. 262 Identities ...................................................................................................................... 262 Identities and Literate Practices .................................................................................. 264 Reading. .................................................................................................................. 264 Writing .................................................................................................................... 267 xiii REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 269 APPENDIX A: SURVEY TO DETERMINE PARTICIPANT POOL ................... 281 APPENDIX B: CONSENT FORM FOR PARENTS OF STUDENTS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 .................................................................................................................... 282 APPENDIX C: ASSENT FORM FOR STUDENTS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 .. 285 APPENDIX D: CONSENT FORM FOR TEACHERS ............................................ 288 APPENDIX E: ACTIVITY LOG ............................................................................... 291 APPENDIX F: FIRST STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ............................. 292 APPENDIX G: THIRD STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ........................... 294 APPENDIX H: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR TEACHERS ............................ 296 APPENDIX I: CODING SCHEME ........................................................................... 297 xiv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Paige's Bible Writings ..................................................................................... 149 Table 2: Paige's English Class Writings ........................................................................ 152 Table 3: Paige's Verbal Protocol Reponses ................................................................... 154 Table 4: Cassie’s Bible Class Writings .......................................................................... 169 Table 5: Cassie’s English Class Writings ...................................................................... 171 Table 6: Cassie’s Verbal Protocol Responses ................................................................. 174 Table 7: Jessica’s Bible Class Writings .......................................................................... 189 Table 8: Jessica’s English Class Writings ..................................................................... 192 Table 9: Jessica’s Verbal Protocol Responses ............................................................... 195 Table 10: Shannon’s Bible Class Writings .................................................................... 210 Table 11: Shannon’s English Class Writings ................................................................. 213 Table 12: Shannon's Verbal Protocol Responses ........................................................... 215 Table 13: Jacob's Bible Class Writings .......................................................................... 232 Table 14: Jacob’s English Class Writings ..................................................................... 234 Table 15: Jacob’s Verbal Protocol Responses ............................................................... 238 Table 16: Cross Case Bible Class Writings ................................................................... 244 Table 17: Cross Case English Class Writings ................................................................ 245 Table 18: Cross Case Verbal Protocols ......................................................................... 249 1 CHAPTER 1 – INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Identity – The Beginning When I began a high school English teaching job right out of college, in spite of receiving a good education myself, I was reading for the first time many of the books I was teaching. When students asked me, “What happens next?” in canonical classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird or Wuthering Heights, my “just wait and see” response concealed my ignorance. The students with enough enthusiasm for reading to ask such questions inspired me, but much more frequently I met the kind of resistance Reeves (2004) describes in Adolescents Talk About Reading. Too many of my students weren’t interested in reading at all, or at least not in what I was assigning, and too often I saw Cliff Notes peaking out of book bags. Clearly, others did not have the same emotional relationship with reading that I did, nor did they view themselves as part of Smith’s (1997) “literacy club.” By my second year, having begun a Masters of Education in literacy and having read theorists such as Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith, I quickly realized that whether the students thought of themselves as readers and writers and whether they read something was much more important to me than what they read or whether they read a prescribed canon of classics. These were some of my earliest thoughts about students’ self-understandings and their impacts on literacy practices. Jargon such as reading and writing workshop, literature circles, young adult fiction, and independent reading became terminology shared between my students and me as I implemented curricular and text-related changes in my classroom. While these modifications affected my students’ reading and writing experiences, thoughts about 2 oneself die hard, and I still saw how students who did not view themselves as readers and writers often didn’t see themselves as learners either. These self-labels impacted their self-efficacy in school, and sometimes in life beyond school, as well as influencing how they saw themselves compared to other students. Although all my students were capable of reading and writing to complete assignments, I began to understand the additional power of literacy in terms of thinking about self, others, society, and the relationships among all three. Fifteen years later, I sat down to write my statement of goals as part of the application process into Temple’s then-doctoral program – Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology in Education: Literacy. I had been out of the education field for several years, but I remained intrigued with the notion of how students view themselves and how that impacts reading and writing experiences. For my goal statement, I wrote: A topic that interests me is how a high school student’s identity as a reader is formed and how teachers can encourage that identity formation. I taught in a suburban Christian high school where 60% of the students are from Anabaptist- Mennonite homes and congregations. Does that environment shape an adolescent’s self-perceptions as a reader in any ways that differ significantly from other students? If it does, then are there specific teaching strategies that might be more effective than others in shaping and encouraging identity formation in those students as readers? Within this environmental context, are there differences in gender regarding reading or writing identities? At that time, my understanding of identity was simple and colloquial. Identity was how one viewed oneself. It did not occur to me to consider if identity was a singular, unified concept or if people had multiple identities. I did not, in a conscious way, contemplate the relevance of context to identity performance or formation – though my questions above suggest I was aware of context to some degree – and I certainly was not cognizant of other related and contested ideas such as subjectivities or roles. Mostly, it seemed to 3 me, circumstantially, that one aspect related to the level of participation in activities (such as reading and writing in class) was how students saw themselves in relation to those activities. I still believe in the link between self-understanding and behavioral actions, though I had a lot to learn about identity and its connection to literacy practices. Early in my doctoral coursework, I found two fundamental issues related to my interest: how identity is defined and why identity matters in adolescent literacy research. I learned that I was not alone in not knowing how best to define identity and also in my belief that identity mattered to literacy practices. In fact, I found that researchers and academics agreed that identity is difficult to define and has been defined differently depending on the discipline and the time in history. Researcher Cynthia Lewis has helped orient me around a more nuanced and complicated understanding of identity as well as clarified for me how that understanding affects what is studied and what one learns about identity’s impact on literacy practices. Lewis and Del Valle (2009), who study adolescent literacy and social identities, give an historical perspective of the relationship between identity and adolescent literary research in which they describe three waves of identity conceptions within the socio-cultural framework. From this perspective, identity is not “just an individual matter. It is social, cultural, historical, institutional, and political, and all of these conditions mean that identity has material effects related to lived realities in the form of resources, goods, and emotional well-being” (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009, p. 308). As a result, identity in relation to literacy creates opportunities to engage in agency and power relationships. Locating identity in a socio-cultural perspective, then, greatly expands its bearing on literacy and learning. 4 To introduce the landscape, I will begin with two theoretical reviews of identity in literacy research. Three Waves of Identity Conceptions in Literacy Research Lewis and Del Valle’s (2009) three categories of identity do not represent a progression in development from simple to more complex but rather waves that ebb and flow. Loosely chronological, these waves are also recursive, and, to some extent, it is the “larger social and cultural spheres” that determine which constructs of identity are needed and used (p. 319). The first wave, chiefly used in the 1970s and 1980s, examines identity through the lens of “cultural conflict,” in which literacy research studies largely defined identity as “cultural affiliation, with a somewhat stable set of characteristics” (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009, p. 311). This movement in identity definitions attempted to put an end to thinking of different cultures as deficient and instead acknowledged the value of many cultures, a monumental and significant effort in and of itself. Generally, this wave focused on the divergence between school culture and home culture regarding literacy and language use. Lewis and Del Valle (2009) title the second wave, “Identity as Negotiated and Performative.” This wave, from the 1990s through the present, concentrates on the “ways in which adolescents employ particular literacy practices to resourcefully mediate their identities in social settings. These negotiated or performed identities shape and are shaped by literacy practices that serve a social function, positioning the individual in relation to peers, family, or institutional authority” (p. 313). Here, the emphasis is on identity representation in social settings, and, for the first time, out-of-school literacies are studied and legitimized as literacy practices (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009). There is 5 acknowledgement that students have different identities or identity representations depending on the setting and that labels like “reader” and “writer” are only meaningful when they are situated in a context. One could have a very negative self-identity and institutional label regarding in-school literacies yet be very successful in out-of-school literacies (Reeves, 2004; McCarthey & Moje, 2002; Lewis & Del Valle, 2009). This wave accentuates the difference between out-of-school literacy practices and in-school practices and identities, highlighting the depth of expertise and investment adolescents have in their own literacy practices, regardless of their in-school literacy practices or identities. Identity is viewed as both “fluid” and “reified,” as it is performed based on the task and the context (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009, p. 316), and literacy practices help define social identity at the same time that social identity helps define which literacy practices adolescents perform. In the third wave of identity and adolescent literacy research, identity is conceptualized as “hybrid, metadiscursive, and spatial” (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009, p. 317). Beginning around the turn of the twenty-first century, this wave acknowledges digital and transnational spaces in which literacy practices include both local and global activity. Here literacy research and identity formation are positioned in the postmodern world; that is, both the world and our identities in it are characterized by instability, fragmentation, risk, and uncertainty. The research shows the paradoxes such a world creates. This wave pushes at the idea of identity and literacy because now not just texts, but also identities, are hybrid. This wave also situates identity creation in a specific time (enacted) and place (in space) and examines how schools are constructed as a particular 6 kind of space with language and artifacts, and how student identity and literacy practices fit into that space (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009). Around the same time Lewis and Del Valle were reviewing and categorizing identity-literacy research from a historical perspective, Moje and Luke (2009) were examining the field through another lens. Five Conceptions of Identity in Identity-Literacy Research Another literacy researcher, Elizabeth Moje, has helped me to see that the concept of identity has been taken up in radically different ways and that these conceptions matter to literacy research. In 2009, Moje and Luke categorized identity conceptions using five metaphors. All of the heuristic perspectives understand identities to be social, fluid, and recognized by others, and Moje and Luke acknowledge that these metaphors overlap rather than define distinct categories. Each of these conceptions has been used as the basis of literacy research, and they argue not that one metaphor is better or more correct than another, but that each metaphor affords different allowances, moves, and interpretations for the researcher to make. I briefly present them here as a way to see how identity has been understood in different ways in literacy research. First, Moje and Luke (2009) identify identity as difference, in which identity is understood as how people are different from each other based on group membership and how different groups are different from each other. This metaphor is comparable to Lewis and Del Valle’s (2009) first wave and is characterized in literacy research by studies such as Shirley Brice Heath’s (1983) pioneering study, Ways with Words, which both Moje and Luke (2009) and Lewis and Del Valle (2009) reference as an example of 7 language and culture research that points to identities based on culture and differences between cultures. The second metaphor is identity as self. While similar to identity as difference, this concept of identity is focused on how selves develop. This metaphor encompasses both psychologist Erik Erikson’s ideas of a coherent, stable self that develops after a conflicted adolescence as well as social behaviorist George Herbert Mead’s idea that the self develops as a result of interactions with others and is, therefore, unpredictable. Though Mead’s concept was decidedly more socially focused than Erikson’s, both theorists moved the concept of self from an internal, individual perspective to a socially determined one (Moje & Luke, 2009). A similar concept, identity as mind or consciousness, has roots with Lev Vygotsky and other sociohistorical, sociocultural, and activity theorists. Here, identities develop through the activity-consciousness dialectic; that is, each new activity changes reality, which changes one’s consciousness or mind, which then shapes new activities. As the consciousness or mind changes through tool usage such as language, the identity changes also. Literacy becomes a vehicle for self-formation (Moje & Luke, 2009). The fourth metaphor views identity as narrative, in which “identities are not only represented but also constructed in and through the stories people tell about themselves and their experiences” (Moje & Luke, 2009, p. 427). Here, it is through the actual telling of stories about ourselves to oneself and to others that activities transition to self- understandings and identities are constructed. This metaphor, along with the final one, figures prominently in current literacy research. 8 The fifth metaphor views identity as position. From this view, narratives and activities shape identities as well as how people are positioned or situated by others in a particular sociocultural, historical context. Movement across space and time in relationship with others is the foundation of this metaphor, and the hybridity of Lewis and Del Valle’s (2009) third wave is evident as well. As I continued to think about identity academically and in my research work, I noticed that different participants portrayed different manifestations of identities or self- understandings as they related to literacy practices. For example, in one study I conducted that focused only on reader identities, I discussed additional findings that were evident and interesting. First, in looking at the manifestations of reader identities, more than one manifestation occurred; that is, participants understood what it meant to be a reader and constructed reader identities in different ways. Second, I realized that identities other than reader, such as sports player and conscientious student, were not only significant to the participants’ lived experience of self-understanding, but also that the way reader identities influenced and intersected with other identities varied across participants. Some students’ identities seemed clearly connected to their voluntary reading choices; others did not. For some students, some identities appeared to influence or be influenced by their reading and other identities did not. I began looking for a comprehensive identity theory that was broad enough to encompass these various relationships. Though I had been introduced to Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) social practice theory of identity early in my graduate work, it was not until recently that I concluded that this theory provided the theoretical answer I was seeking. The more I read Holland et al. (1998), the more I 9 understood several seeming paradoxes to identity practices and also how literate practices could both influence and illuminate identities. The Social Practice Theory of Identity Drawing from Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Bourdieu, Holland et al.’s (1998) theoretical framework of self and identity purports that each person enacts multiple identities rather than constructing one integrated, unified identity, such as Erik Erikson proposed (Holland et al., 1998; McCarthey & Moje, 2002). Holland et al. define identities as self-understandings within a social context that direct future behavior. These understandings are based on words and actions. As people tell stories about themselves to themselves and to others, they are driven to supportive behaviors; therefore, since identities exist through activity, they must be theorized within social practice (Holland et al., 1998). For example, Mary, a 17-year-old girl, would base her view of herself as a supportive sister and a committed daughter within the context of her family, where she attends her brother’s baseball games and helps her mother clean the house every week. She performs her identity as a faithful Christian within the context of her church congregation, where she attends events regularly. Identities continually form and re-form as persons engage in social activities. With the potential of agency, identity enactments are dynamic, co-constructed, fluid, and relational. Still, over a person’s lifetime, durable identity performances develop and become a lens for him or her to care about and make sense of the world even as these identities are constantly interpreted (Holland et al., 1998). Holland et al. (1998) call this identity process “history-in-person.” Mary will continue to be a sister, a daughter, and, perhaps, a Christian, but her understanding of 10 these identities and the enacted identities themselves will change as she continues to participate in activities. Linking the individual and the cultural, identities are one way of labeling the complex and various links between the private and public aspects of social practice (Holland et al., 1998). As such, Holland et al. contend that identities can be understood in reference to four contexts of social activity: figured worlds, positionality, space of authoring, and making worlds. Figured Worlds Extending Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of field, figured worlds are recognizable social contexts within which identity performances and specific behaviors are situated (Holland et al., 1998). A figured world is “a socially and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which particular characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 52). More than a physical setting, a figured world is an active social community with acceptable behaviors, specific language, and understood symbols, all of which are negotiated by those participating in the world. As individuals participate in the activities of a figured world, they simultaneously help shape the world and are also shaped by it; thus, they engage in identity development and improvisation. Holland et al.’s (1998) examples of figured worlds include Alcoholics Anonymous, mental illness, romance, and academia. In the world of education, figured worlds might include English classes, fifth grade, school sports, or social relations. In my study, possible relevant figured worlds could include the figured worlds of Mennonite faith, teenage reading, and English and Bible classes. The concept of figured worlds has been used in research to describe 11 general societal contexts as well as specific schools and even classrooms. Holland et al. (1998) explain that figured worlds are similar to communities of practice because both concepts view identities as an important outcome of participation within a group. They differ in that the main focus of communities of practice is learning, but in figured worlds the focus is on negotiated meanings and activities with others, taking into account position and privilege, which provide the basis for self-understanding (Holland et al., 1998). Holland et al. (1998) note that figured worlds allow several points to be made about identity development, which I will explain through the example of an English class. First, figured worlds are historically and culturally constructed contexts that participants enter or are recruited into and which develop through the activities of the participants. On the first day of school, Mary, mentioned above, heads into Mrs. Hinkley’s English class. Mrs. Hinkley has taught at this school for ten years. She likes to hear student voices but has clearly established that students will raise their hands before speaking. Mary likes to participate in her classes and has learned that raising one’s hand is generally expected. Second, figured worlds include social interactions in which social rank or position matters (Holland et al., 1998). Mary and her classmates know that most teachers will create the seating chart and that the students will sit where they are assigned. They know Mrs. Hinkley will assign them to small discussion groups or decide that they can choose their own groups. Mary has a certain social position; the teacher has another. Third, figured worlds are socially structured and reproduced; that is, they depend on the interaction of participants for their existence and continuation; therefore, they are 12 not fixed but shift over time (Holland et al., 1998). Several years ago, Mrs. Hinkley leaned toward whole group discussions, but now she more often uses small groups because she finds they work better with today’s students. Finally, figured worlds distribute their participants across several fields of activity as certain types of actors. This distribution provides backdrops of action with human voice and form and gives the participant multiple constructed identities (Holland et al., 1998). At noon, Mary heads to the cafeteria, where she engages in peer, teenage girl conversation, and after school, she attends a church-led Bible study; in each figured world, the rules, discourse, and participation are specific to that activity setting. The focus in figured worlds is on the figures or people, how they participate in the worlds they enter in their daily activities, and how, through this participation, they figure out who they are in these environments (Holland et al., 1998). In some worlds, a person may stay on the fringe, never moving into full participation or fully embracing the related identity; in others, the person will enter completely. Furthermore, figured worlds and their resulting identities can be interconnected, embedded within one another, or separate (Holland et al., 1998). Artifacts, both material and conceptual, are used to evoke these worlds and to mediate between the cultural context and the individual. Artifacts are “the verbal, gestural, and material productions emerging from the situation,” including objects, events, discourses, and even people (Holland et al., 1998, p.17). They are used to develop, participate in, and understand a particular socio-cultural context, with their meaning specific to that context. For example, in the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, poker chips are artifacts that signify varying lengths of sobriety while in the world of 13 gambling, poker chips signify accumulated money (Holland et al., 1998). In the figured world of school, a worksheet often signifies a focus on factual knowledge, whereas a journal entry signifies individually constructed meaning. In an English class, the teacher might use the conceptual artifact of a writing prompt before a discussion to generate ideas. Artifacts within a figured world change through the improvisations of the actors; conversely, actors are shaped and molded through the use of artifacts. Through this use, humans begin to regulate their own behavior and gain a degree of agency (Holland et al., 1998). Positionality Within the context of figured worlds, the other three contexts of identities are based. Embedded in figured worlds, but separated by Holland et al. (1998) as a second context, is positionality. While the figured part of enacted identities centers on known storylines and recognizable actors, the relational or positional part of identities centers on one’s social position and place relative to others in the figured world. Positionality or positioning happens both moment by moment and over time as figures in a world relate to each other. One can position oneself and others, intentionally and unintentionally; artifacts can be positioned and can position the actors. All of these positions invoke and impact ways of being and understanding oneself: “who one is is always an open question with a shifting answer depending upon the positions made available” within discursive practices (Davies & Harré, 1990, p. 46) and participation in figured worlds. Positionality matters more in some worlds than in others, centers on power and status, and is configured differently depending on the figured world (Holland et al., 1998). Actors in a figured world with more rank have more social and material 14 resources, respect, and legitimacy. For example, in the figured world of Christian faith, pastors, volunteers in leadership positions, and committed believers generally have more prestige and power than professed non-believers or persons talking the talk without walking the walk. In school, students position each other and the teacher, even as the teacher positions students. Being positioned requires a response from the positioned person – to accept, reject, or negotiate in some way the social position she or he has been given. His or her response becomes the third context: space of authoring. Space of Authoring In the space of authoring, people are able to affect a degree of agency, to refigure and change their lives. Holland et al. (1998) base this context on Bakhtin’s notions of voice, dialogism, and orchestration as well as Vygotsky’s sense of inner speech and the zone of proximal development. People make sense both of the world and of themselves through the inner dialogues that come from a person’s collective past experiences. People must answer the world and do so by using the social discourses/practices they have learned from others over time to craft a response in a specific time and space defined by others’ positions in the activity (Holland et al., 1998). As one enters a figured world, hears its discourse and participates in it, she or he “tries on” various stances and voices, ventriloquizing in a zone of proximal development until she or he has mastered his or her own stance. Over time, if one sufficiently engages in a world to the point of identity formation, one develops an authorial voice and stance that becomes relatively established; that is, the identity becomes habituated (Holland et al., 1998). To continue the example of Mary, during ninth and tenth grades, Mary participated in every youth group event at her church. Then, in 11th grade, Mary’s attendance at weeknight events 15 decreased due to conflicting sports practices, and, within a few months, she stopped attending youth group entirely. Peers and adult leaders questioned Mary’s choices, positioning her as a less committed Christian. Initially, Mary rejected this position, naming daily devotions as evidence of her committed, enacted identity, which was something she’d heard her mother say. Then, as Mary continued an inner dialogue, her response changed, and she began to invite her peers to her house for a Bible study on a day she did not have practice. Making Worlds The final context of identity is making worlds. Employing Vygotsky’s idea of serious play, Holland et al. (1998) believe that people can envision new realities, try on altered social roles, and experiment with their behavior in ways that can result in new figured worlds or refigured existing worlds. They liken this concept to the imaginative play children engage in, in which they enact roles they are not – a pirate, a teacher, a father – and, in so doing, develop new symbolic competencies. Adults can explore serious social play – “the activities of ‘free expression’” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 272), often in liminal spaces of existing figured worlds. This play can lead to new dialogues and competencies in newly imagined worlds that, over time, have the potential to become a new concretized figured world, which, in turn, shapes identities. These worlds can be a refigured existing world or a combining of two existing worlds to create a new hybridized world (Holland et al., 1998). To extend Mary’s story, in her senior year, her sports- related time commitment increased again. Unwilling to give up her faith identity or her sports practices, she began to think about ways she could do both – thus, effectively, “playing” with the time and space boundaries of each figured world. She started bringing 16 her Bible to read when traveling on the bus to and from games. As other teammates noticed this activity, a few others joined her and began a bus Bible study; Mary’s identity shifted to become a Christian sports player. Each of these four contexts provides a point from which identities in practice can be referenced and understood. Within these contexts, identities are constantly forming, shifting, and sometimes stabilizing through activities, interactions, positioning, and improvisational responses. As I continued to read the field, I learned that the social practice theory of identity had been used to study education and specifically literacy practices. The Social Practice Theory of Identity in Education The concept of figured worlds has been used repeatedly over the last number of years to study identity and literacy practices. Luttrell and Parker (2001) note how different curricular tracks at a high school (vocational and academic) lead to different socio-cultural contexts within one high school and, therefore, how students and teachers define and locate students’ identities according to the hierarchy of cultural worlds in the school. In another study, Rubin (2007) describes the figured world of learning at Oak City High School, in which learning was constructed to be “narrow, repetitive, meaning- free and unrelated to life” (p. 229) as evident in teacher-student interaction, teacher discourse, assignments, and classroom activities. Within this socio-cultural construction, smartness was conceived to be compliance to assigned tasks. In a third study considering the individual, Blackburn (2003) describes how a self-identified high school lesbian used literacy performances in a LGBTQ youth center and her English classroom to better understand her own sexual identity in these two social and historical contexts. 17 Additionally, Holland et al.’s (1998) framework of figured worlds and identity in practice has been used to study adult (Coffey & Street, 2008) and elementary-aged language learners (Dagenais, Day & Toohey, 2006), learner identities in elementary school (Wilson & Schallert, 2007) and high school (Hatt, 2007; Michael, Andrade, & Bartlett, 2007), pre-service educators (Robinson, 2007; Urrieta, 2007) and adult literacy programs (Bartlett & Holland, 2002). In all of these studies, figured worlds provide the context for complex, and sometimes multiple, identity formations and performances. Mennonite Faith and Literate Practices Through This Lens I chose the social practice theory of identity because it is comprehensive in a number of useful ways. First, this theory constructs identity in both words and actions, including not only the stories we tell about ourselves, but also the stories others tell about us. While Anzaldúa (1999) and Mishler (1999) agree that how others view us and tell stories about us are important, these theorists do not include the enactment of these stories in their definition of identity (McCarthey & Moje, 2002). Holland et al.’s (1998) theory, with its emphasis on semiotic mediation, dialogism, positioning, and activity, allows me to consider faith identity and literate practices through both the words and behaviors of the participants as well as how others speak about and interact with them. Additionally, since this construct of identity includes participation in activities, I will be able to explore reader-related identities with the participants. Second, unlike some postmodern theories that view identity as constantly changing, and unlike Erikson’s work, which constructed identity as a singular, unified self (McCarthey and Moje, 2002), the social practice theory of identity constructs identity as multiple, fluid, and changing as well as stabilizing over time for some enacted 18 identities (Holland et al., 1998). This understanding is useful in several ways. First, it allows me to consider multiple identities in practice. For example, in research for past coursework, my research question focused on reader identities, but as I collected data, I realized there were other salient identities in play. This theory allows me to see and include identity enactments other than faith identities that may be relevant to literate practices or to a faith identity, such as a family-related identity. Second, it allows me to examine faith identity and literate practices over a period of time to see how the identity (and literate) practices may have shifted or stabilized. I can include present interactions in my data collection as well as past artifacts and ask interview questions about past and present literate practices and faith self-understandings. Third, the social practice theory of identity uses both cultural and constructivist perspectives to understand identities in practice. It situates identities at the crossroads of living out historical-cultural understandings and the inner mediating work of improvising one’s response in particular contexts of social life to regulate one’s behavior and direct one’s self-understanding (Holland et al., 1998). With this viewpoint, I will be able to see how participants’ practicing of faith identities are unique dialogical combinations of their understanding of the cultural forms of a person of faith and the specific, unique, social encounters they have with others. This dual perspective could be particularly valuable when studying adolescents’ faith identities because there are strong precepts about how to conduct oneself as a Christian, yet adolescents can be at a point in life of constructing their own meanings through their interactions with others. Fourth, the social practice theory of identity allows me to see multiple manifestations of the relationships among various self-understandings. That is, it permits 19 me to see how different students construct different understandings of the domains of faith and reading and writing, including relationships between identities that are separate, hierarchic, and hybrid. This theory encompasses the possibility of figured worlds and performed identities that are independent of each other and separate (Holland et al., 1998), such as a successful chef and a loving dog owner. These enacted identities may not intersect. At the same time, Holland et al. (1998) acknowledge that persons enter into different figured worlds to varying degrees. The more an individual participates in the activities of a figured world, the more expertise she or he develops, the more she or he becomes emotionally attached, and the more salient the enacted identity becomes. As some identities have great salience and others remain marginal, a hierarchy of identities develops that reflects the centrality of each identity for the individual (Holland et al., 1998). For example, in my past research, a student had a sports-enthusiast enacted identity that was so salient he wore professional team clothing several days a week, chose sports-related stories for independent reading projects, and engaged in social conversations that highlighted his knowledge of historic and up-to-date sports information. Finally, two or more identities can be hybridized through the space of authoring and the making of a new world. In the same past research I conducted, Molly, a student who had a competitive soccer player identity and a dedicated Christian identity, found a conflict on Sunday mornings when she was missing church to play soccer, and her mother said she must choose between the two. Molly authored an alternative answer: they could have an afternoon worship service together as a family on game days, and an enacted hybrid identity began to develop of a dedicated Christian soccer player. 20 Many theories that construct identity as multiple address one, but not all, of these manifestations, and some do not discuss the relationship among enacted identities at all, perhaps implying that identities are independent from each other. McCarthey and Moje (2002) suggest that Gee’s (1996) theory built around primary and secondary Discourses is hierarchic with the identities forming from the primary Discourse being more salient and those from secondary Discourses being less so. Several social psychologists, such as Thoits (1991), Stryker and Serpe (1994), and Greenhaus and Powell (2006) also ascribe to hierarchic relationships among performed identities. Anzaldúa is a hybridity theorist who believes identities are relational and shift in their relationships with each other, coming together from the boundaries of disparate contexts (McCarthey & Moje, 2002). Yet, none of these theorists allows for all three manifestations of relationships among multiple self-understandings. Having described the landscape of identities theories related to literacy research and the theory I have selected as the foundation for this research, I now turn to the reasons why studying identity and its relationships to literacy practices is important and why I believe the social practice theory of identity is a good fit for such research. Identity-Literacy Research Matters Moje confirmed my thought that identity is a significant factor to consider when studying literacy research for several reasons. First, one’s identity influences and is a part of how we “make sense of the world, and our experiences in it,” including writing and reading texts (McCarthey & Moje, 2002, p. 228). Second, identity matters because people understand us in certain ways and then use those understandings to inform their actions and language towards us – how they position us. Moje (McCarthey & Moje, 21 2002) offers the example of the various verbal and nonverbal responses she received from passersby when she took a group of Latino teenagers to the mall. As another example, teachers often use their understandings of a particular student’s literate identity to make appropriate assignments. Third, students, and who they understand themselves to be, have been influenced by past school and other experiences, race, gender, families, and larger social and political frameworks; all of this background has a bearing on how they learn, communicate, and respond in a classroom (McCarthey & Moje, 2002). Not only do McCarthey and Moje (2002) argue that identity plays a role in literacy practices, but they also assert that the converse is true (McCarthey & Moje, 2002), arguing that identities can change as a result of a literacy experience. Moje gives the example of reading The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, a novel about the biblical Jacob’s daughter. This text challenged the way Moje thought about her own religious childhood as well as her then current religion and changed her daily practices, including the way she read the Bible and other texts. To use Holland et al.’s framework, the activity of reading The Red Tent caused Moje to rethink how Biblical characters were positioned, or situated relative to other characters, and influenced her answering to the world of texts and her daily life. Her reader and faith performed identities shifted. Finally, McCarthey and Moje (2002) suggest that it is important to question the concept of identity itself, acknowledging that new ways of conceptualizing identity have been proposed, including identity as a “social construction.” This view has an additional educational benefit. When we consider identities to be social constructions, and thus always open for change and conflict depending on the social interaction we find ourselves in, we open possibilities for rethinking the labels we so easily use to identify students. 22 By considering identity as an important concept that needs to be embraced, challenged, and reconceptualized, we might be able to think about students and their literacy practices in ways that will help us reconsider those labels. (McCarthey & Moje, 2002, p. 230) In describing her own research, McCarthey (McCarthey & Moje, 2002) notes that in one classroom study, identities appeared to be fragmentary, contradictory, and context- dependent while in another study, there was overlap and consistency in identity performances, perhaps suggesting that identity performances vary depending on the context or the centrality of the identity. The social practice theory of identity encompasses both of these manifestations of self-understanding. Moje (McCarthey & Moje, 2002) adds that identities can be hybrid and complex, merging and shifting based on context and social relationships. She proposes that youth may be more prone to develop hybrid identities than children or adults because they employ so many different textual forms and literacy practices, and they live on many boundaries: “youth are popularly construed as being between many spaces: childhood and adulthood; work and play; home, school, peer group, and community; … science class, history class, and English class; comic book and Internet” (p. 236). Holland et al.’s (1998) understanding that as people answer the world, their agentic responses can connect different worlds and result in hybridized identities, aligns with Moje’s observations that youth live in liminal spaces and connect with multiple literacy texts and practices. While there is strong evidence and arguments for the reciprocal relationship between literacy practices and identity (Cherland, 1994; Lewis & Del Valle, 2009; Luke 23 & Moje, 2009: McCarthey & Moje, 2002), there is much less scholarship that speaks directly to how enacted identities impact reading and reading impacts identities. Reading Comprehension and Identity Reading is defined as the activity of making meaning using written text and requiring motivation, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension (Leipzig, 2001). The RAND Reading Study Group (RRSG) defines reading comprehension as “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language,” including the reader, the text, and the activity – the purposes and outcomes of reading (Snow, 2002, p.11). Readers bring cognitive abilities, motivations, knowledge, beliefs, and experiences to a text (Snow, 2002), and these conditions are all situated in sociocultural contexts such as the reader’s family, peers, and other communities (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004). Thus, even when reading alone, reading is a social practice (Bloome & Katz, 1997), in which the reader, the text, and the immediate context are inseparable from each other and the larger socio-historical-cultural contexts in which they are enacted (Galda & Beach, 2001), and subjective meaning is made. Related to the idea of reading as a social practice is Rosenblatt’s (2004) reader response theory. She explains that no two readings of a text by the same person at different times or by different people at the same time are ever the same because in every act of reading, the reader creates the meaning as a recursive, organic, self-correcting “evocation” of the text. Even as the reader is forming this meaning, there is constant checking and rechecking with what Rosenblatt calls the reader’s “linguistic-experiential reservoir,” that is, the purposes, present context, background knowledge, and the social, cultural, and personal history of the reader. This reservoir comes together with the words 24 on the page in a transforming process in which meaning is constantly and dynamically constructed throughout the reading act, and it is this reservoir that is changed from the transaction (Rosenblatt, 2004). While the literature emphasizes the importance of background knowledge, it does not explain the relationship of such knowledge to identities. Identities are dynamic and fluid self-understandings, based on words and actions, within a sociocultural context (Holland et al., 1998). Identities are formed and informed by a person’s knowledge and experiences within those contexts, but they are not equivalent to that knowledge. Background knowledge is broader than identities; persons have knowledge that is not encompassed in an identity. Yet, identities are more than knowledge; while knowledge is gained in figured worlds or sociocultural contexts, Holland et al. (1998) attest there are three other contexts that inform identities: how one is positioned, or located in a shared storyline, within such worlds by others; how one responds to this positioning; and how one then envisions new worlds and identity performances. Also, prior knowledge and experiences are interpersonal and external to the individual but become intrapersonal as they mediate thinking, feeling and self-understanding (Holland et al., 1998). The Impacts of Identity on Reading I propose that enacted identities influence reading before, during, and after the reading act. Ruddell and Unrau (2004) name “a developing self” as a motivational component for reading, a concept that includes identity. Students may choose texts that add to their understanding of a developing identity or refuse texts that do not align with an identity. Additionally, an identity can set the purpose for reading; a “good student” 25 may read a Bible passage to get a high grade on a Bible test while a “strong Christian” may read the same passage to better understand how to live out her faith. During reading, performed identities affect the meaning-making process. Identities provide a lens through which prior knowledge is understood; they also influence the activities in which one engages that result in background knowledge. In these ways, they impact comprehension. A “class clown,” for example, may not have read a previous chapter with sufficient focus to make sense out of the following chapter. Furthermore, Galda and Beach (2001) explain that readers have expectations for how others should act and apply these expectations to characters’ behaviors as well. These values come from the figured worlds in which readers participate and define their self- understandings (Holland et al., 1998). A reader’s identities then become a lens through which she evaluates the actions and roles of characters in texts. Galda and Beach (2001) describe a study in which honors students viewed story characters described as regular track students as lazy while regular students perceived the same characters as satisfied and content. I would surmise that the most salient identities for a reader or the most relevant identities to a text and their schemata are those most likely to be activated during a reading act. After reading, as a reader reflects on a text individually and with others, her identities and the figured worlds they reference will continue to be a lens through which she thinks and talks about the textual interpretation (Galda & Beach, 2001). For example, a pastor read the children’s story The Giving Tree to his congregation and then discussed the theme of selfless giving for others because the story described a tree giving of itself in different ways to a boy throughout his lifetime. Read and discussed by 26 women with strong feminist identities, this story is one of a female character depleting herself to please a man, who had little concern for her, and his desires. An avid environmentalist would transact yet a different meaning from the story. The Impacts of Reading on Identities While performed identities impact reading, reading also influences identity performances. The RRGS suggests three direct consequences of reading: knowledge, application, and engagement; however, it also indicates there could be other, longer-term consequences (Snow, 2002). I propose that a longer-term outcome is identity development. Ruddell and Unrau (2004) name gaining new knowledge about oneself as an outcome of reading, and Hagood (2002) found that readers used texts to learn about and understand themselves as they observed characters of different enacted identities. Richardson and Eccles (2007) also found that their adolescent readers employed voluntary reading to contemplate who they were, who they might want to be, and who they didn’t want to become; reading was a “catalyst in the formation of identity” (p. 353). Sumara (2000) agrees that texts are significant “ongoing methods for the integration … of [reader’s] senses of remembered, presently experienced, and projected identities. … The reader’s relationship with fictional characters and situations, then, becomes as influential to the development of the self as any other experience” (p. 273). Wilhelm and Smith (2014) concur as well. Reading, then, is a way to participate in different worlds and identities. Finally, Holland et al.’s (1998) four contexts for the social practice of identities align with the reading process, as reading, too, is a social practice (Bloome & Katz, 1997). As a reader engages with a text, he or she will bring to the reading various 27 enacted identities that may influence his or her comprehension. Then, in the text, he or she will enter into a figured world constructed by the author, and he or she will be positioned in certain ways as the reader (Bloome & Katz, 1997). He or she will then have the opportunity to author his or her own space – to accept, reject, or negotiate the positioning – and to use the textual transaction as an artifact in the possible creation of a new world. Since there might be differences in the ways identity is or can be connected to writing practices as opposed to reading practices, I now turn to a brief discussion on writing and identity. Writing and Identity In the seminal book Writing and Identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing, Roz Ivanič (1998) explores both the theoretical grounds for writing as representation of self and her own research with eight students over the age of 25 who were enrolled in higher education courses and their identity constructions in academic writing. Like Holland et al. (1998), she views identity as multiple, fluid, complex, socially and contextually constructed. Additionally, and again like Holland et al., she believes identity construction includes power, positioning, and some stabilization over a lifetime. A final similarity is the notion that people are agents, within social positions offered to them, of their enacted identities. Similar to my description of reading practices above, Ivanič (1998) views writing as a social practice in which the writer positions herself and performs coherent or contradicting identities depending on choices of discourse throughout the writing; she encapsulates her perspective in this statement she makes of her central argument: “Writing is an act of identity in which people align 28 themselves with socio-culturally shaped possibilities for self-hood, playing their part in reproducing or challenging dominant practices and discourses, and the values, beliefs and interests which they embody” (p. 32). Ivanič (1998) presents four understandings of identity performances related to writing. The “autobiographical self,” the identity related to writing that people bring to any writing event, is related to a “sense of their roots, of where they are coming from” (p. 24). It is socially constructed and changes as a result of a developing “life-history” (p. 24). A second and related understanding is the “self as author,” which is the extent to which the writer sees himself or herself as the author and establishes an “authorial presence.” A third construct is “discoursal self,” on which Ivanič focuses her book: A writer’s ‘discoursal self’ is the impression – often multiple, sometimes contradictory – which [writers] consciously or unconsciously convey of themselves in a particular written text…. [I]t is constructed through the discourse characteristics of a text, which relate to values, beliefs and power relations in the social context in which they were written. (p. 25) The fourth understanding of writer identity Ivanič (1998) describes is “possibilities for self-hood in the socio-cultural and institutional context,” which addresses the socially available possible enacted identities, some more privileged than others, available to an individual within an institutional context. It is out of the socio-culturally supported possibilities of self-hood that individuals construct their discoursal selves. The Impacts of Identities on Writing Enacted identities impact writing because writing is not only an act of conveying content or subject matter in a written text, but, viewed as a social practice, it is also a portrayal of the writer’s self; readers and their relationship to the writer; the writer’s commitment to the ideas and content; and the writer’s assumptions of the reader’s 29 knowledge and values (Ivanič, 1998). Therefore, as a writer brings multiple identities to the writing process, she brings with each of those identities the past history of knowledge and participation in the related figured worlds as well as past and current commitments to those identities. For example, a student in Bible class may approach a class writing assignment with several performed identities, including student in previous Bible classes, loyal family member in an involved Christian family, and her own faith identity. Writing out of identity performances from these or other identities, she will position herself within her writing, perhaps in complementary or contradictory ways, through various textual choices (Ivanič, 1998). These impressions of themselves writers create, whether conveyed deliberately or not, can be considered by the reader. The Impacts of Writing on Identities Writers commit their thoughts to paper for others to see and understand. In the process, the written word motivates the writer to read, review, and reflect on what he or she wrote, which promotes mental growth and thinking. In this way, people think thoughts while in the process of writing they had not had before. Ivanič (1998) suggests writing also helps people to learn the discourses of communities they want to enter. That is, writing is one way to participate in a figured world – to both learn the significant actions, specific language, and valued outcomes of the world and also to help shape and define that world, to answer back and revise the world. By examining literate practices, I intend to consider the reading and writing students do both in and out of school. I understand literate practices to be experiences in which subjective, individual meaning is made within a particular sociocultural context as well as the values related to and the specific ways of experiencing reading and writing in 30 those contexts. This understanding allows me to consider not only the contextualized literate acts in which the students participate but also their thoughts specifically about reading and about themselves as persons who participate in the act of reading. My research interest is not as general as simply literacy-identity research. More specifically, I am interested in performed faith identities and explicitly in the religious denominational identity of Mennonites. Next, I will clarify how I define religion and how it differs from faith, and then introduce Mennonites. Identity and Religion Anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) defines culture as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (p. 89), and he posits religion as a cultural system. He defines religion as (1) a system of symbols with acts to (2) establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (italics in original, p. 90). Thus, for the purposes here, I view religion as a culture, a figured world, in which one participates. Religion is an organized set of beliefs, with specific guidelines and practices, through which one expresses and practices one’s faith. Religion involves other people. Usually this involvement includes interactions with living people, but it could also be interactions with texts or beliefs defined by other people. I am defining faith, in contrast, as beliefs held and enacted by an individual; however, I acknowledge that other 31 understandings of faith exist, such as transcendental experiences, embodiment, and practice. Although faith is not only associated with religion – people have faith that their cars will get them where they need to go – in this study, the term faith implies a particular worldview or spiritual lens. For example, for some Christians, faith is a personal relationship with Jesus and a belief in him as the risen Lord. More specifically, I am interested in the religious group known as Mennonites and their faith experiences. The Mennonites are one of the religious groups that formed out of the Protestant Anabaptist movement; they are named after one of their leaders, Menno Simons, a Dutch priest. In addition to doctrines, the term Mennonite refers to “traditions, folkways, mores, and cultural heritage associated with this particular faith/religious group, much of which is determined by the geographic location of the group” (Bishop, 2005, p. 6-7). It is used both as an adjective as well as a noun referring to a follower of that faith. Tenets of Mennonite faith potentially significant to this study are: a strong sense of community; living out one’s faith or following the example of Jesus in daily actions, behaviors, and decisions; simple living; serving others; peacemaking; and believer’s baptism. Mennonites choose consciously and individually to believe in and follow Jesus and publicly express this commitment through baptism as an adult, an age loosely defined as any time after early adolescence. The first generation of such believers during the Reformation in Europe had been baptized as infants and so were re-baptized as adults, resulting in the name ‘Anabaptists,’ which is still used in reference to Mennonites and related faith groups who ascribe to similar values. 32 With this introduction to identity, literate practices, and Mennonites, I present my research study and question. Qualitative Research and the Research Question Willis (2007) explains that within the hermeneutic and storytelling/narrative frameworks of qualitative research when the purpose is to describe and understand the perspectives of participants within their context, our own background and experiences are strengths rather than liabilities. I openly admit my interest in this topic is based on several personal life experiences. Two self-understandings I enact are being Mennonite and being a reader. I was born to Mennonite parents who themselves grew up in committed Mennonite families. When there were services or events at church, we attended, regardless of convenience or personal interest. Our family friends and most of my childhood friends came from the Mennonite community. There were no K-12 Mennonite educational opportunities where we lived, but my parents were alumni of a Mennonite college, and there was never any question as to whether or not I would also attend a Mennonite college. After college, I taught at a Mennonite high school. Mennonite people, writings, theology, and values have significantly shaped how I understand myself. Identifying myself as a reader has also greatly influenced me. During my childhood, books, reading, and learning were unquestioningly, perhaps unconsciously, important in our house. The two pieces of furniture I remember most vividly are the bookshelf my sister and I shared, filled with books, and a child-sized roll-top desk, useful as a teacher’s desk, circulation center for our ‘library,’ or for letter-writing. My strongest childhood memory is of my mother, sitting on the floor of our room in her blue bathrobe 33 with her back against the wall, reading to us as we lay in our bunk beds at bedtime. In the car on vacation, during services at church, waiting in restaurants, we brought books along, and had our noses in them. Now I want to understand how the factors of literate practices and understanding oneself as Mennonite interact with each other for a small group of students at a Mennonite high school. My personal, professional, and research interests over the past number of years have led me to the research question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? 34 CHAPTER 2 – REVIEWING AND ENTERING THE CONVERSATION Introduction In Chapter 1, I outlined my own thinking and its development around identity, faith, and literacy. Like Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, my thinking was influenced and modified by the written and real voices around me. Kenneth Burke (1941) writes: Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. (p. 110-111) In this chapter, I will review the literature, ‘the conversation,’ that has preceded this study and into which I intend to ‘put in my oar.’ As one way to read the field, I begin by examining general identity studies in education, then studies of identity in literacy, followed by identity studies in reading and writing, studies of identity in literacy and religion, and, finally, Mennonite educational research. Identity in Education There are many studies suggesting the concept of identity is important to consider in regards to learning and to educational settings. Some research considers how classrooms and certain curricular activities can encourage “identity-exploration” (Sinai, Kaplan, Flum, 2012) while other research explores how enacted identities can affect motivation and achievement in various subject areas, including science (e.g. Brickhouse, Lowery, Schultz, 2000; Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2008), mathematics (Black et al., 2010; Sfard & Prusak, 2005), and literacy (e.g. Sinai et al., 2012). Still other studies examine how identity performances impact engagement in school (e.g. Faircloth, 2012; Hatt, 35 2007; Lee, 2007), how school climate and teachers can affect identity development (Rich & Schachter, 2012), as well as how school assignments can impact students’ thinking about future, enacted identities (Yeager, Bundick, & Johnson, 2012). There have been longitudinal mixed-method investigations (Yeager et al., 2012) and longitudinal ethnographies (Calabrese Barton et al., 2013), between-subjects experimental designs (Elmore & Oyserman, 2012) and large-scale experimental design using structural equation modeling (Rich & Schachter, 2012). Though different research questions have been asked and different methods used to explore those questions, the majority of recent researchers understand the construct of identity to be multiple (Lewis & Del Valle, 2008; Moje & Luke, 2009). Multiple Identities Within the agreement of identities as multiple and important to education, there are different perspectives on how identities are related. Three conceptions of this relationship are identities as separate, hierarchic, and hybrid. Some researchers do not address this relationship at all by focusing on only one identity, perhaps implicitly suggesting a belief that there is no relationship among identities – that each performed identity operates independently from any others. Other researchers explicitly articulate relationships among multiple identities. Separate. From this perspective, multiple enacted identities exist but have no relationship. For example, a high school student may have identities as a conscientious student, a caring friend, and a responsible babysitter, but these identities have no connection to each other. One does not dominate over the others or influence the others. This understanding of multiple identities is not explicitly stated in studies and, therefore, 36 appears to be an implicit theoretical assumption when researchers acknowledge identities as multiple but then research one isolated identity (e.g. Leander, 2002; Moje, 2000). Hierarchic. A second perspective is that some performed identities are more significant to a person than others. Within a hierarchic conception of identities, Thoits (1991) argues that different identities are more or less salient to a person’s entire self- concept and that a person gives his or her greatest time and energy to those identities that are most salient to him or her: “multiple identities must be organized hierarchically; …the more salient the role-identity, the more meaning, purpose, and behavioral guidance the individual should derive from its enactment” (p. 105-106). Stryker and Serpe (1994) suggest that a performed identity’s hierarchic position is based on its salience, which they define as a “readiness to act out an identity as a consequence of the identity’s properties as a cognitive structure or schema” in a given situation (p. 17). For example, based on the salience of a fatherhood identity, one father may take his child to a baseball game on a free Saturday afternoon while another father might go fishing with his buddies. Some identities are believed to be more salient than others, and these identities are more likely to be enacted more often and also in new situations. Black et al. (2010), for example, conducted interviews and narrative analysis to determine performed identities related to mathematics. They assert that multiple identities are based on participation in various activities and are hierarchically organized. [W]e argue that the precise hierarchical structure of our identities (i.e. those that are consciously reflected upon by the self as the most significant) at any one stage is essentially dependent upon the leading activity. Thus, the leading activity provides a structural hierarchy to the internal life of the self where certain identities become more or less important to our developing self. (p. 58) 37 From this perspective, identities are distinct from one another, but are understood within an ordered relationship to each other. Hybrid. Another viewpoint on the relationship among enacted identities posits that the boundaries between identities are not so clearly defined – suggesting, in fact, that identities can merge to create new, blended identities. Thoits (1991) asserts that sometimes identities combine into a more complex, higher-order combination, such as husband-father-worker identities working together to signify a breadwinner. Tan and Calabrese Barton (2008) provide an example of a hybridized understanding of identities. They conducted an ethnographic study of two sixth-grade Latinas’ identities-in-practice in their science classroom. In framing their argument, they suggest that as individuals enter a new figured world, they bring with them membership in other figured worlds (thus, multiple identities) that are hierarchically valued by themselves but also valued and positioned by others in the new figured world. Therefore, as one works to “establish an identity in a new figured world, it is important to consider the influence of the other worlds in which one simultaneously inhabits” (p. 49). Even within a single classroom, a student can encounter various figured worlds depending on the activity at hand and, thus, develops a repertoire of identities. In observing the identities-in-practice of the two girls in science class, Tan and Calabrese Barton (2008) found that each girl hybridized multiple identities, including their social identities, by asserting agency and authoring new ‘good science student’ identities as defined differently than originally determined by the teacher. Tan and Calabrese Barton (2008) also emphasize the fluid nature of identities-in-practice in regards to time, space, and 38 activity as well as how cumulative enactments of agency and authoring can result in transformed identities. In summary, I have outlined three possible types of relationships among multiple, enacted identities. From the separate viewpoint, performed identities are independent and distinct, with seemingly no connecting or influential relationship between them. Imagine, for a moment, that identities are outfits in a closet. Imagine a person with several outfits (identities) in his or her closet. From this theoretical stance, a person would choose what to wear depending on the activity, setting, and company, but the outfits have no connection to each other; each is separate and complete. The hierarchic position asserts that within a person, certain identities are more salient than others, and, therefore, there is a greater commitment to and increased performances of these identities. Viewed hierarchically, a person has a closet full of outfits (identities), but he or she almost always chooses to wear the same clothes because he or she likes them best, they fit well, are comfortable, and best express how he or she thinks of himself or herself. From a hybrid identities perspective, enacted identities work together to form something new, while elements of the original identities remain distinct. In this closet, pieces of two or three outfits are worn together creating a new ensemble with recognizable portions of the separate outfits. In keeping with the idea that identities are fluid and dynamic, it would follow that the relationship between identities is also fluid with the potential to change as identities or contexts change. Therefore, the relationships among identities must be seen as dynamic as well. 39 Identity in Literacy Research As stated in Chapter 1, sociocultural studies of literacy that address the concept of identity began in the 1970s and 1980s (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009) but became much more prolific during and since the 1990s. Within this burgeoning field of literacy-identity research, different researchers take up different literacy practices, conceptualize identity in different ways, and often focus on only one identity within an individual; however, there has not been enough examination of the relationships among identities to organize the literature review based on the theoretical understanding of the relationship among identities. Instead, as a way to understand the geography of the scholarship, I have selected representative studies that are relevant to my research phenomenon. The first two studies employ the social practice theory of identity to frame their studies. Positioning and Artifacts One conception of identity is positioning (Holland et al., 1998; Moje & Luke, 2009) or social place relative to others. Moje and Luke (2009) explain, “As people experience certain positions – what one might think of as labels, although not necessarily articulated discursively – they come to imagine future positions and their future selves moving within and across those positions” (p. 430). Leander’s (2002) seminal study highlights the power of positioning in the identity production of one African American 11th grade student, Latanya. At the time of the study, students had created a banner of derogatory words, which a teacher read aloud objectively as part of a unit on racism (Leander, 2002). A focal interaction, lasting almost six minutes, began with Latanya’s use of the word “honky,” which quickly became an identity artifact. Students in the class accused Latanya of not using honky objectively, which students perceived as an example 40 of her ghetto-ness. Latanya first tried to defend her meaning in using honky and then the accusation of being ghetto, both of which reified the ghetto identity rather than repositioning her (Leander, 2002). Leander (2002) concludes that identity artifacts are paramount to stabilizing identities and understanding how and why some identities stabilize and others do not, arguing that as multiple artifacts are employed and interact in a context, certain identities gel. One’s body, stories, gestures, and texts can all be made available as identity artifacts, and once presented in a context, others can use the artifacts for a variety of identity positionings beyond the one intended. Through this interaction of multiple artifacts and their reification knowingly and unknowingly by others, an identity is mediated and stabilized (Leander, 2002). This conclusion aligns with the social practice theory of identity, which purports that artifacts are pivots into figured worlds, allowing participants to learn the world, interact, and form identities. Leander agrees with Holland et al.’s (1998) emphasis on the individual’s agency for new or altered identities, but he also notes that when Latanya exercised agency, her actions were not embraced to modify her identity as intended; rather, her actions were used by others to further stabilize the marked identity. Leander’s analysis on this point, in fact, is a helpful extension of Holland et al.’s framework. Figured Worlds While Leander (2002) highlights identity artifacts and positioning, Luttrell and Parker (2001) emphasize Holland et al.’s (1998) concept of figured worlds to examine the literacy practices in one high school as well as the identity of one student, seeking to understand various school contexts in which students participate in literacy activities as 41 well as the connections among students’ literacy tasks and their identities. Luttrell and Parker (2001) describe two figured worlds at the school: the academic figured world and the vocational figured world. They contend that literacy activities had different meanings in these two worlds, and that the school community did not equally value the worlds themselves. Furthermore, the academic figured world consisted of three tracks creating varying positions of status and identity: regular, honors, and seminar – each of which valued different literacy experiences. Luttrell and Parker (2001) found that different teachers, depending on their place in various figured worlds, positioned the same students differently, suggesting the significance of the figured worlds when observing and understanding identity performances. By foregrounding the figured worlds or contexts within which identities are formed and performed, this study emphasizes the need to study literacy practices in multiple sociocultural settings to understand the various ways participating in literacy events in different contexts can influence identities. Luttrell and Parker (2001) also examine the literacy practices and identities of one student, Alice, in the figured worlds of family and school. In the figured world of family, Alice processed her feelings on family issues through her writing of poetry and journals. In the figured world of school, Alice performed her identity as a compliant-though-not- highly-achieving student in the regular academic track, but she felt that context did not allow her to engage in the kinds of literacy practices that would develop her identity as an authentic writer and reader. Luttrell and Parker (2001) conclude that within the broader figured world of school, some students’ out-of-school literacy practices were accepted while others were not, largely based on one’s place in the hierarchy of the figured worlds. That is, the everyday literacy practices of students in the higher valued figured world 42 were accepted; the out-of-school reading and writing of students in the lower-regarded worlds were not. This suggests that students’ out-of-school literacy practices had differing influences on their school-related identities. Representative of the literature, both of these studies foreground some aspects of the social practice theory of identity to the exclusion or glossing over of others. For example, while the social practice theory of identity argues for shifting and dynamic identity construction, it also presents identities as histories-in-person – identities over time. Though his study lasted 10 months, Leander’s (2002) micro lens on less than six minutes of interaction from the article referenced does not allow for much analysis of identity practice over time. Second, Leander’s finding of the importance of artifacts to identity practice leads him to minimize his discussion of other aspects of figured worlds – the array of actors, actions and outcomes that are valued. Even as Luttrell and Parker (2001) focus on figured worlds, dismissing other aspects of the theory, they, too, do not fully engage all elements of the figured worlds. Finally, while Holland et al.’s theory emphasizes multiple identities and their possible interactions, Leander and Luttrell and Parker study only one identity within the individual. My study aims to comprehensively employ the social practice theory of identity and to examine the potentially different influences literate practices have on multiple identities of a participant. Narrative Leander’s notion of identity as positioning is a prevalent understanding in the current scholarship. A second prevailing conception of identity in the identity-literacy literature is identity as narrative (Moje & Luke, 2009). Situating identity as the stories we tell about ourselves and the way we write ourselves into narratives, Moje (2000) 43 examines the unsanctioned, out-of-school literacy practices of adolescents who self- identify as gangstas. While she acknowledges multiple identities in her findings, she concentrates her analysis on the gangsta identity. Moje found that the literacy activities, including tagging, graffiti, poetry, parody, rap, narrative, journal, and letter writing, served expressive and communicative purposes and also supported identity formation and self-positioning. Additionally, these literacy practices afforded the participant access into a gang, in the same way Holland et al. (1998) describe the pivotal use of an artifact to enter a figured world. Literacy practices helped the youth, once in the social space, to increase their status and participation in the world as well as enabling them to envision a new space or figured world. It allowed them a place to “be part of the story” (Moje, 2000, p. 652), suggesting the identity-as-narrative conceptualization (Moje & Luke, 2009). Moje (2000) notes instances when participants’ actions around a gangsta identity changed over time as well as times of varied manifestations of multiple identities, including faith identities; however, she does not highlight these differences, nor does she focus as directly on how the literacy practices as artifacts or improvisational responses to both specific situations and broader cultural mores contribute to identity formation. How were the gangsta identities understood in relation to other identities the participants claim, such as student or faith member? To what extent, if any, did the same unsanctioned literacy practices serve as identity artifacts for these other identities? As I have found in my previous research, it is important to be aware of any identities that are related to the literacy practices being studied, even if such identities are not initially part of the research question. It is also important to examine the relationships among various 44 identities related to literacy practices as this exploration affords added robustness to the analysis and has shown to be different across individuals. I intend to be open to identities beyond faith identities that are relevant to my participants’ literacy practices as well as to study the relationships among multiple identities that may present themselves. Identity-As-Mind A third conception of identity is identity-as-mind (Moje & Luke, 2009). Lewis and Fabos’ (2005) study on instant messaging (IM) and social identities demonstrates how literacies, and particularly new media, have sparked new ways of relating with others and thinking about oneself – literally changing the mind – (Moje & Luke, 2009) as well as changing how identities are negotiated (Lewis & Del Valle, 2009). In this study, seven teenage participants were interviewed and also gave concurrent verbal protocols to document the IM strategies they were using as they wrote messages to peers. Data analysis revealed that the main function for IM was socializing and a second function was surveillance of parents in the room and peers online (Lewis & Fabos, 2005). While it may appear that IM damages the use of proper English, with its partial sentences and informal spelling of some words, Lewis and Fabos (2005) found instead that, in fact, the participants exhibited great understanding in using various stylistic techniques and in understanding their audiences. The participants were quite interested in correct spelling and responding intelligently as ways of impressing their peers, revealing that one’s identity as an IMer was defined and important. In fact, being a savvy IMer was felt to improve social standing with peers, but their IM identities encompassed more than that: “they were busy, had lots of friends, were doing multiple things, and were interesting as a result” (Lewis & Fabos, 2005, p. 489). These identities were just as real 45 as identities in real life and often aligned with their offline selves. While IM shaped the adolescents’ identities, the identities they brought to their IM sessions were also influential; for example, one participant would not take part in posing – appearing online to be someone other than who one is – because she valued honesty and found posing to be a breech of her identity as an honest person. In this situation, the identity as an honest person impacted her participation in the figured world of IM and, consequently, her IM identity. This study does not allow us to see other in- or out-of-school literacy practices or identities of the participants, though six of the seven adolescents were described by their parents as being good students, and two had begun writing an online book together (Lewis & Fabos, 2005). How do these literacy-related identities intersect with their social identities as constructed through IM? This study also does not address the connections between numerous literacy identities or the connections between literacy practices and multiple identities; however, it does begin to examine particular engagements with texts as they are being written. That is, by examining the participants’ thoughts as they were composing, Lewis and Fabos (2005) considered how specific literacy events contribute as artifacts to identity development. This methodological move suggests that studying the transaction of a person and a text (Rosenblatt, 2004) in a meaning-making process can reveal identity construction as well. Both Moje’s (2000) work with gangstas and Lewis and Fabos’ (2005) research with instant messaging focus on writing practices. As I intend to explore identity performances in both writing and reading acts, I will now highlight a few other studies 46 that examine predominantly voluntary writing or text production and identity before discussing representative literature in reading and identity. Identity in Writing I have organized the studies that focus on the relationship between identity performances and writing events or practices into two categories: voluntary writing and academic writing. Voluntary Writing Mahiri and Sablo (1996) investigated the voluntary writing events of two urban African-American high school students and their purposes for writing. Data included field notes, interviews, and written artifacts from both in- and out-of-school. Findings included that the youth’s writings were primarily autobiographical, reflective of their own lived experiences and the tensions surrounding these realities. Furthermore, their voluntary writing was an important piece of their identity development as their writing reflected their sense of self; however, neither youth was willing to embrace the writer identity based on his and her in-school writing due to content, style, and genre requirements. Mahiri and Sablo call for schools to find ways to acknowledge and accept the written material and authentic issues students experience outside of school as a way to bridge the gap between out-of-school and in-school writer identities. Guzzetti and Gamboa (2004) examined how three teenage girls created and used zines (small homemade magazines) to develop and express their identities. Data collection included interviews, observation, and artifacts over two academic years. Strong identities for each of the participants were punk rocker and social activist, and writing a zine was a way to express these and other identities. In writing together, “they 47 not only used literacy to help themselves as individuals express their identities but also aided one another in forming and representing their multiple identities” (p. 423). As the participants reread past issues, they realized how their writing represented their “changing identities and demonstrated the fluid nature of identity representation” (p. 427). The zine allowed the teenagers a place to develop, explore, and express their punk rock and social activism identities: “They wrote to declare who they were at the moment even as they were evolving as individuals in their views and identities” (p. 431). This research effectively shows adolescents’ negotiating and performing identities through writing practices as well as showing how those practices in turn shape their developing identities in writing and other areas of interest. This study does not show, however, the process the participants used in writing the articles and creating the zines, which might be helpful in further illuminating the possible relationships between writing and identity. Hull and Katz (2006) studied a 13-year-old girl, Dara, and a 24-year-old male, Randy, over three-and-a-half years as they produced multimodal texts of digital storytelling in a community technology center. The research, drawing on Holland et al. (1998), included field notes, interviews, writing artifacts, observations, and digital stories – stories told with the aid of computer-based tools such as images, music, and video, along with written and speech text. Dara developed identities as an “able writer, valued community member, and even a social critic,” which were very different from the identities she had at school (Hull & Katz, 2006, p.69). Randy had always identified himself as a writer and an artist, but had not done well in school and had not shared his writing there. While he wanted to turn his life around, he was not confident he would be able to do so. Randy created his first digital story, combining his own poetry and 48 photography with words and photos of famous African-American activists and artists to tell a story of his life. As a result of writing, both participants formed new identities and a new sense of agency about their present and future selves. Academic Writing Ritchie (1989) complements the studies that consider voluntary writing and identity performances in her investigation of academic writing and identity. More specifically, she examined the points of opportunity and tension for identity development in a college writer’s workshop setting based on Bakhtin’s theory of language. She found that this format allowed for multiple voices and perspectives to be articulated; from these voices and articulations, students could develop their own identities as they wrote. Ritchie noted that the individual histories each student brought to the class were one of the factors that contributed to the “rich texture of possibilities for writing, thinking, and for negotiating personal identity” (p.157). For one participant, these possibilities included a faith identity. I turn now to the identity and reading body of research. Identity in Reading Like the broader identity-literacy practices studies, there are identity studies that emphasize different aspects of the reading-identity relationship, including the context of the reading. Voluntary Reading In the following sections, I describe representative studies in the field that illustrate diversity in the identity-voluntary reading literature. In the first two studies 49 below, multiple identities and their relationships to voluntary reading practices are discussed. In the following section, reading to resist identity positioning is explored, and the final study explores how reading pleasure impacts identity development. Multiple identities. Knoester (2009) explores the question of independent reading habits and identity development. He conducted semi-open interviews with 10 students, aged 11-13, their parents, and their teachers from a small public school in the eastern U.S. regarding their independent reading practices. The teachers and parents were asked about their own reading habits as well as those of the students. Using Gee’s (1996) lens of primary and secondary Discourse, the findings of the case studies revealed that independent reading for these students is a social practice, in which some students enjoyed being read to and reading to others, actively discussed their reading materials with others, and chose texts based on the recommendations of trusted individuals. Additionally, resistance to or engagement with independent reading was affected by students’ social identities regarding their peers. If students strongly identified with peers who resisted reading, they resisted as well, even if their home context was supportive of reading practices. If a student’s social identity was not strongly connected to the social center of the class, he or she was more likely to engage in reading. The findings of this study suggest that social peer identities were more salient than reader identities in the context of school. Knoester (2009) situates the two identities in a hierarchical relationship, in which one is more central to the students’ cores than the other. This relationship is also suggested by Knoester’s use of Gee’s (1996) Discourse theory, which gives the Discourse learned at home primacy over Discourses learned in other 50 sociocultural settings (secondary Discourses). Not all studies are as clear about the relationships among identities, as in the next example. In a second study that examines voluntary reading, choice, and the development of possible selves and identities, Richardson and Eccles (2007) purport that through literacy practices “we directly and vicariously contemplate who we are at any one point in time, who we hope to be in the future, who we fear being, and who we expect to be” (p. 342). Focusing on data collected for the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, this research examined three to five successive interviews conducted with 35 students over a three-year period from late adolescence through one-year post-high school. From these, six case studies were written. The data were analyzed and coded for nature and purposes of voluntary reading, impact on goals and choices, and “identity development through reading” (p. 345). Findings included that adolescents read voluntarily for a variety of purposes and that “reading was an important catalyst in the gestation of identity formation related to both gender and ethnicity and career-related possible selves” (p. 348). In describing three participants’ identities in greater detail, Richardson and Eccles portray two kinds of relationships among identities. Margorie thought of herself first and foremost as a female and only afterwards as an African American, indicating a hierarchical relationship, while Clarence seemed to view himself as a reader, which was separate from a hybrid identity as an African-American male. While two of the students they include in their report strongly identified with their religious faiths, Richardson and Eccles (2007) did not study this aspect of identity even though one student clearly connected her faith with her reading literacies and the other 51 identified more strongly with faith than with gender or ethnicity. This is a limitation in the study that my research will address. Space for authoring. Other research centers on the positioning aspect of identities and how reading can be a tool for answering back to the world in space for authoring. Cherland (1994) offers an in-depth investigation of 7 sixth-graders in Canada, describing how their surrounding culture positioned them into particular gender constructions, leading them to think, feel, act, and understand themselves in certain ways. The girls used fiction reading as a strategy for resistance to and a way to exercise agency over these messages, which in turn, were often met with counter messages that reinforced the dominant gender constructions. While they were not successful in making new worlds, the girls employed reading as a tool to both understand themselves and to answer back to the world. Identity as pleasure. In a recent examination of the kinds of pleasures adolescents experience from voluntary reading, Wilhelm and Smith (2014) acknowledge that identity work is part of social pleasure, one of four important pleasures youth receive from independent reading. Their findings indicate that naming oneself as a reader, and defining oneself and one’s place in the world as such, is a culmination of the other pleasures (play, work, and intellectual pleasures) and can be both intense and enduring for youth. While they delve into how reading influences self-understanding and how such understanding impacts reading choices or process, they categorize this understanding as (inner) work pleasure, which, when added to play and intellectual pleasures, becomes one’s reader identity, offering a complex understanding of reader identity. 52 In-School Reading The aforementioned studies have examined out-of-school reading practices. Other research foregrounds the types of texts read as part of classroom curriculum and how these choices impact self-perception. Multicultural literature. Sutherland’s (2005) work with six 16-year-old black girls is a useful study of race and gender identity. Sutherland acknowledges that “as people read, write, and talk about text, those practices shape (and are shaped by) how those people think about themselves and their place in the world” (p. 366); therefore, she asks the question, “How does the study of literature by and about African-American women shape adolescent African-American girls’ identity construction as they study that literature in school?” (p. 366). All participants attended the same honors English class, which read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison as part of an identity study, and Sutherland then conducted individual and group interviews. Using discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis, she discovered two themes related to the participants’ sense of self: “how a) a Eurocentric view of beauty acts as a boundary in Black women’s lives, and b) others’ assumptions about who they are – thus – how they will and should behave – act as a boundary” (p. 380). Participants used the text to make personal connections to their own everyday experiences and, thus, made sense of their own struggles with daily interactions regarding race and gender identity. Additionally, they used the text to resist identities imposed on them by broader society. Sutherland concluded that literacy and identity are “inextricably intertwined” and that for some students, this “interconnectedness is especially deep and powerful” (p. 398). Of interest in this study is 53 that Sutherland foregrounded the text itself in considering the reciprocal effects of reading and identity. Likewise, Boston and Baxley (2007) and Blackburn and Buckley (2005) advocate for certain types of literature to be included in classroom curriculum because texts themselves bring something to the interaction with the reader; different texts will afford and constrain different interactions. Also researching gender identity, Boston and Baxley (2007) studied how reading multicultural novels with strong, positive Black female protagonists can influence Black middle school females’ gender identity. Working from reader response, critical response, and gender construction theory, Boston and Baxley conducted a content analysis on four major young adult titles featuring female Black protagonists. Acknowledging that race, class, and culture all affect gender identity, they argue for not only the inclusion of such literature in the classroom but also for culturally relevant teaching that emphasizes higher order thinking around issues that connect to the students and are raised in the novels. When such inclusion and teaching occurs, students are motivated to read deeply and, therefore, are more academically successful (Boston & Baxley, 2007). Queer-inclusive literature. Similarly, Blackburn and Buckley (2005) advocate for the teaching of queer-inclusive literature as a way for all students, regardless of their sexual orientation, to be educated about the “interconnections among sexuality, identity, and literature” (p. 202). Their study examined the extent to which U.S. public high school English curricula address same-sex desire, finding that 18 of the 212 responding schools used some materials to address this issue. The authors then recommend several texts to address sexual identity in the classroom, arguing that all students benefit by 54 examining their own sexual identity as well as their perceptions and knowledge of other sexual orientations. In summary, the reading-identity literature addresses both voluntary reading and required reading for school as well as the importance of certain genres of texts, and even particular texts, in relation to identity formation and performances; however, there is a lack of explanation on the micro level of the reading transaction as words are read and meaning is made in the moment. Identity, Literacy, and Faith While a number of studies investigate reader, gender, class, and ethnic identities, a small but growing body of literature is turning toward the connections between religious identities from various faith traditions and literacy practices. This work generally includes both in- and out-of-school literacy events because the faith identity is examined across contexts. Muslim Faith Sarroub’s (2005) ethnographic work with Yemeni girls and their use of “in- betweenness” to be both good Yemeni Muslim girls and also enter the American culture examines multiple uses of texts at home, school, and in the community for the girls to build spaces for acceptable identities regarding gender, religion, ethnicity, and class. In this study, literacy practices were clearly influenced by religious beliefs, including the belief that the Qur’an is infallible and, therefore, immune from critique (Sarroub, 2005); however, Sarroub also argues that their literacy practices helped the girls construct and enact Yemini Muslim identities as well as American teenager identities. Participants recited and referred to sections of the Qur’an at school to explain their thoughts about 55 various topics. They also read the Qur’an each night at home. At the same time, the girls used safe places such as lunchroom tables to read teen magazines and romantic poems, forbidden by their culture and religion at home, yet helpful as they constructed “American girl” identities. The idea of “in-betweenness” suggests that the borders of different identities shifted as the time and place shifted; furthermore, the literacy events and practices for the participants were influenced by the context (Sarroub, 2005). Sarroub argues that teachers need to be aware of out-of-school literacy practices because they impact classroom participation and performance; thus, knowledge of these practices allows teachers to better help students succeed. Though Sarroub (2005) leans on Gee’s (1996) understanding of Discourse to theoretically frame her study, using Holland et al. (1998) would have afforded a more defined analysis of the relationships among the different identities for each girl. Sarroub (2005) initially describes hierarchic relationships between the girls’ identities: Yemini, family, and Muslim identities were most salient, and American identities were secondary. Later on, she describes the identities as independent from each other: “the girls maintained dual identities, which bifurcated according to the gendered, economic, and cultural spaces they inhabited” (p. 44). Ultimately, Sarroub argues that the girls created hybrid identities of American Yemeni girls. From this description, it would seem Sarroub saw evidence of each of these relationships between identities. Sarroub chooses to analyze the girls as a group, but with Holland et al.’s (1998) theory, she could have analyzed each girl’s understanding of her identities, allowing for different understandings of the same identity (good Yemeni daughter) from different girls as well as how each girl 56 constructed the relationships among different identities, providing, arguably, a more comprehensive understanding of the lived experience of identity for the participants. Catholic Faith While Sarroub (2005) highlights reading over writing practices, Reyes (2009) examines the significance of a scrapbook created by Zulmy, a bilingual, Latina 10th grader, and suggests that this text, which evolved out of Zulmy’s science club membership, came to be a safe space for her to voice her Catholic identity in a public context. Reyes’ analysis combines culturist and constructivist views of identity, suggesting that Zulmy’s “church girl” identity is a blending of the cultural religious practices in her life – regular church attendance and listening to her mother’s spiritual stories – and Zulmy’s agency to present herself in social contexts with actions that answer the historical, cultural context and positioning of public school, such as creating the scrapbook. Though the book contained few references to science, it did reflect spiritualist and consumerist identities. Zulmy also included pages of letters and pictures of her friends in the book, signifying her identity as a loved friend and suggesting positive positioning by others. Overlap occurred in these identities and figured worlds as friends wrote on religious themes in their letters to Zulmy. Reyes argues that the scrapbook helps Zulmy construct ever-changing, aligned, and contradictory identities; this artifact mediated multiple identities for Zulmy. Reyes concludes that teachers should be looking for the liminal spaces that students with religious identities create in public spaces. Like Leander (2002), Reyes highlights the identity artifact above other aspects of identity construction. As in Sarroub’s (2005) study, Reyes’ study highlights how faith identities can influence students’ literacy practices, both in- and out-of-school. 57 Baptist Faith Sometimes youth participate in additional literacy practices as a part of their faith identities and related participation in faith-related communities that are not known or valued in a school setting. Kelly (2001) examines the role of literacy practices in community and church contexts with racial and Baptist identities in a study of six adolescent African-American males and a case study of one youth, Anthony. These adolescents participated in a drumming group, a dance troupe, and a Saturday school, all held in a church, where they engaged in literacy practices, learned about their cultural heritage, and developed positive racial identities. Anthony was almost failing public school English; however, he appropriated reading and writing skills learned there for his own purposes both in Saturday School and in personal literacy practices. “He loved to read, and what he read informed his identity as African American;” in fact, he was a strong reader and writer and often directed his personal literacy practices towards identity development (Kelly, 2001, p. 253). He also focused on issues of racial and religious identity for school assignments. Kelly comments that none of the public school teachers were aware of the extent to which Anthony and other students were involved in church activities. She suggests that the “cultures of home, church, and community have a tremendous impact on the identity development of children,” (p. 243) and these identities represent “on-going construction based in the negotiation of the multiple literacies” (p. 257) that inform a person’s everyday experiences. Therefore, Kelly argues for schools to validate and build on these literacy practices and identities. 58 Writing About Faith Williams (2005) makes a similar point, contending that teachers must adequately address their students’ interest in writing about religion. Acknowledging religion as a core identity factor, she also admits that teachers are more willing to discuss race, gender, or social class than religious beliefs. First, the questionable role of religion in U.S. public settings leads most teachers to respect their students’ religious values, but also to hope the students keep their beliefs to themselves so as not to make other students uncomfortable. Second, student persuasive writing on religious topics can result in a literal, unchallengeable reading of the Bible as the only source, which might conflict with the teacher’s belief in knowledge as rational or provable or in “truth” as socially constructed (Williams, 2005). In spite of these concerns, where students are present, faith is present; teachers cannot bar faith from the classroom. Williams (2005) suggests that one response to students’ desire to write about religious issues is to use the occasion to teach about audience awareness and the possible mismatch of religious topics and public school; however, when she has used this reasoning with her students and they change topics, the new writing “lacks passion and enthusiasm, and I sense I have turned an assignment from writing that matters deeply to the students into an assignment they are producing simply to fulfill the requirements of the class” (p. 516). Rather, Williams seeks acceptable middle ground in which she responds to such writing in ways that allow the student to explore significant matters of faith while still adhering to academically rigorous standards. Williams’ (2005) study points beyond the notion that students bring identities with them into the classroom to 59 suggest that when students are denied access to those identities when making choices for texts, assignments can lose their authenticity and students their engagement. Religious Literacies While Sutherland (2005), Boston and Baxley (2007), and Blackburn and Buckley (2005), have considered the role specific texts or types of texts play in identity development, others have explored the Bible as a text separate from other texts and the role it plays in identity formation and literacy practices. Biblicism Mary Juzwik (2014) studied evangelical Christians and suggests that evangelical Biblicism is a literate practice with a transitive relationship among the Biblical text, proper beliefs, and honorable actions. Because of this relationship, evangelical Christians hold the tension between “the necessity of interpretive freedom, allowing the Bible to live anew for each generation of believers (presence in the world), and the unchanging Truth of God’s word (the purity of the Word)” (p. 1). These tensions and relationships between text, beliefs, and actions are mediated in what Juzwik calls “textual communities,” such as congregations or Bible study groups. In these communities, the reverence for the Biblical text as distinct from all other texts is instilled and emphasized at the same time that it is discussed; thus, the Bible becomes an identity artifact and identity work progresses (Juzwik, 2014). Even with textual readings, the Bible is viewed as a literate interaction: “Evangelicals tend to interact with their Bibles as devoted English majors might engage with a much-studied literary text that speaks to them…. The idea is to talk back to and recontextualize the text in one’s everyday life” (Juzwik, 2014, p. 7). 60 In her conclusion, Juzwik (2014) poses several questions for me to consider as well: “How much time do young people spend with the Bible, and how do they spend that time? What are the features of interactions surrounding Biblical reading for young people? What roles surround Bible reading for young people?” (p. 10). She argues for continued scholarship on how religious faiths and traditions influence language and literacy practice both in and out of educational settings, as well as how younger generations come to understand the Bible as authoritative to families or congregations. My study will aim to add to this stream of scholarship by examining if and how Mennonite youth make sense of the Bible and other texts in defining their faith identities. Religious Literacies in the Public Classroom Skerrett (2013) contributes to this field when she examines students’ Christian religious literacies in a secular classroom, arguing that knowledge of students’ religious lives could provide distinct theoretical and instructional understandings for the classroom. Framing religious literacies within New Literacies theories, Skerrett briefly traces the history of religious literacies in the Protestant tradition, explaining that in order to spread the faith, it was necessary for the masses to be able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves and in communities for application to their daily lives. In this way, religion and literacy are inextricably intertwined. Like Juzwik (2014), Skerrett considers how religious literacies can affect persons’ transactions with non-religious texts as well as their engagements with texts in non-religious settings. Ultimately, Skerrett (2013) argues for the intertwining of literacy and religion within specific social, historical, and cultural contexts such that “religious (as with other) identities, literacy practices, values, and goals flow through, transform, and are transformed by the many contexts of people’s 61 lives” (p. 238). In this study, the teacher invited connections between students’ multiple identities, “lifeworlds,” and literacy practices and their academic activities and identities. Specifically, she encouraged students to draw upon their religious expertise when making textual meaning. Skerrett gives an example of the class reading a story in which a man is described as being beaten as he is up on a hill with his arms outstretched. Individual members of the class read this image as a symbol for Jesus with further discussion leading to communal discernment and then agreement, thus paralleling the importance of shared readings and interpretations in many faith communities (Skerrett, 2013). Unlike most studies in the field, Skerrett (2013) begins to differentiate between the modalities of reading and writing, describing first how religious literacies, beliefs, and knowledge are used to advance academic literacies and identities when reading a short story and then, in a subsequent section, how religious literacies are engaged in writing a memoir, noting that while reading Biblical texts was encouraged historically, religious writing was reserved for preachers, persons engaged in biblical scholarship, and copying scripture to aid in memorization (Skerrett, 2013). In contrast, the students in the example above demonstrated clear understanding of central Christian tenets and integrated them into their own socio-historical experiences and contexts. Skerrett’s (2013) study, however, focuses more on religious literacies than explicitly on religious identities. The Bible as Context-Specific By understanding religion as social practice in a figured world and reading as a social practice in a figured world, one must consider that the Bible as a text and as an identity artifact will differ from group to group. Kapitzke (1995) writes, 62 Cultural logic or conventional communal understandings and presuppositions about text, its interpretation and use, are paramount in knowing how to be a Catholic, a Baptist, an Adventist, or member of any distinctive group sharing a common text and discourse. All Christians employ the same constitutive text, but read and use it differently, and therefore read and use text per se differently…. Joint possessions of cultural mores operate processes of text meaning and use, and contribute to diversity and variance between groups despite their engagement with the same text. Selective cultural attitudes to issues of authority, power, and service differentially influence interpretation and social signification of text. (p. 277) This notion of the Biblical text as context-specific is perhaps best understood in light of Fishman’s (1998) ethnography of the Fisher family, a Lancaster County Amish family. Fishman describes their literacy uses within their immediate community, the broader Amish community, the church community, and the school community. The Amish have related religious roots to Mennonites, and there is some overlap of important religious texts; the Fisher family orally read as a devotional, Martyrs Mirror: The Story of Seventeen Centuries of Christian Martyrdom from the Time of Christ to A.D. 1660 (Van Braght, 1938), a tome of gruesome stories of early Christians and Anabaptists who were tortured and died for their faith. Fishman (1998) aims to describe what literacy means to these people in different contexts and how their religious beliefs and knowledge influence their literacy practices. Fishman found that this Amish community believed that meaning was found in the words themselves, printed on the page, taken directly and literally. Fishman quotes Anna, the Fisher mother as saying, “’What’s in the Bible is supposed to be the truth. We don’t have second thoughts about what’s in there’” (p. 63). Sermons are crafted to deliver positive applications of the text to everyday life, and Amish readers then employ this practice with all texts: 63 The Amish readers in my experience extend this approach to everything they read, finding personally applicable “up-building” meaning in both the positive and negative experiences of historical, fictional, and actual individuals, regardless of the text in which they’re encountered. So what the church actually teaches is that meaning comes through scrupulous attention to words, but that the attitude toward and meaning of those words is often predetermined by the community in which they are read. (p. 64) Understanding the Bible as an identity artifact strengthens the tie between faith identities and literacy practices, though it does not assume any one particular meaning of that artifact or how the Bible or knowledge from the Bible will be used in other figured worlds. Fishman (1998) and Eakle (2007) are two of few literacy studies that situate at least part of their research in faith-based educational contexts. Literacies Studies in Faith-Based Educational Context Eakle (2007) studied various literacy spaces in a Christian faith-based school in a small town in Mississippi. Specifically, Eakle examined the literacies within the 8th- grade curriculum through general class discussion, a class field trip to a local museum displaying African-American art, and a visit to a local theater to view and discuss Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. The 100 students at the K-8 school were African-American, as were their teachers. Eakle explains, “Christianity is a source of power that has produced a range of spaces, effects and individuals who advance social causes and minister to those in need” (p. 478). He then reflects that it is, therefore, surprising that there is so little literacy education research focused on Christian faith. Furthermore, he suggests that Christian literacies have both local and global power implications. Christian themes populated most texts used in the classrooms and also presented themselves in students’ out-of-school literacies, including rap. Thus, in this school setting, “ruptures between invisible, possible spiritual worlds and everyday urban life 64 were narrowed; much of this closure was made available through what were considered to be divine textual bridges” (Eakle, 2007, p. 503). Eakle also found literacy events that had the opportunity to produce identity statements valued by the local setting or to address issues of identity, but the teachers chose not to support these conversations. Eakle’s study had a somewhat different focus – spaces and powers – in a different vein of Christianity – fundamentalism – than I am presenting; however, it leaves room for my study to fill in some of the gaps in Christian educational research, especially in terms of literacy education and identity in a faith-based educational setting. In fact, Eakle calls for such further research. Mennonite Educational Research There is a paucity of research on Mennonite high school students, but I am aware of four studies. Sociopolitical Views Sensenig (1991) studied two Mennonite high schools with respect to their sociopolitical views. This ethnographic study examined how each school treated peace issues, nationalism, and ecological issues, and how they dealt with cultural changes. Sensenig found patterns common between the two schools as well as differences regarding his four areas of study. This study does not address issues of reading or faith identity on an individual level, but it can help me understand questions and issues that may be at play at the Mennonite high school I will use as my context. My study might be able to contribute to the understanding of how a school’s version of the “Mennonite vision” influences individual students’ perceptions of themselves as Mennonites. 65 Self-concept Suzuki (1974) wondered if there were any significant differences in the self- concepts of Mennonite teenagers and public-school teenagers. Twenty-five students from each population completed a self-description inventory, which includes questions about the actual self and the ideal self. Findings indicated there were no significant differences between the two groups, although the Mennonite adolescents were more interested in religion and were more likely to think of themselves as non-conformers than the public school participants. This study most closely addresses a concept related to identity. Literacy Learning Walker-Brown’s (1987) ethnography studied the literacy practices of four Mennonite students labeled as learning-disabled at a Mennonite high school, exploring the interaction and relationship between context and the students’ reading attitudes, perspectives, and practices with the aim of constructing a model of dynamic assessment. Using interviews, observations, artifacts, and verbal protocols, Walker-Brown found that a community’s literacy orientation, early school experiences, and the extent to which the students viewed themselves as readers and writers impacted their high school literacy experiences. She concluded that learning-disabled adolescents experienced a lot of separation and needed to experience greater integration in several areas, including instruction and assessment, home and school literacy understandings, and components of the reading process to improve the quality of their literacy learning experiences. Walker-Brown explores the literacy beliefs and attitudes of the Mennonite community context within which her study is based and how these values impacted the literacy 66 practices of her participants, but she does not explicitly explore the connection between a Mennonite identity and literacy practices. Worldview Bishop’s (2005) research asks the question, “How does a young person (first-year college student) shape/re-shape a received worldview in the context of a democratically structured, constructivist English Language Arts classroom?” (p. 2). He also examined how this person might be marginalized or silenced in this classroom. Bishop chose seven young people who had been former students of his at a Mennonite high school and who had attended Mennonite schools for at least four years, K-12. Data sources included: interviews with the students, their former high school teachers and their present college professors; emails; journals kept by the students for the purpose of research; and written student work. The research design was case study, three of which were extended for further analysis of Discourse and “Core-to-Core Culture Confrontation.” As a part of this work, Bishop asked each student to read a chapter of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, the story of an unlikely friendship between a two teenage boys – one a Hasidic Jew and the other a Modern Orthodox Jew. He then reviewed their responses to determine how a Mennonite worldview and Discourse influenced reading transactions. Bishop found that the students encountered core-to-core cultural confrontations in their college classrooms and that they resolved them in different ways. In addition, students often experienced some level of silencing or marginalization in these classrooms. Bishop’s (2005) study examines how Mennonite students’ worldviews impact their experiences and responses in a college Language Arts classroom. It is one of few studies undertaken with a high school Mennonite population, and while it does not 67 address students’ self-understandings, it offers explicit and focused attention regarding the act of reading. This study is helpful for me regarding the population, but it leaves room for my study to add to the literature regarding reading, faith, and identity. Critique In reading the field of identity-literacy research and listening to the conversation in the parlor, I contend there is some lack of clarity on the modalities of literacy practices and how they might influence or be influenced by enacted identities. That is, does reading a text or responding to one allow students to engage in a particular identity work or enactment that is different from what writing affords? Even with in-depth analyses (Cherland, 1994; Sarroub, 2005), with a few exceptions (e.g. Skerrett, 2013), there has not been a clear research focus on particular engagements with particular texts in terms of their reciprocal relationship with performed identities. Furthermore, while many studies theoretically understand identities to be multiple and some acknowledge multiple identities in their findings, few consider the relationship among enacted identities. Finally, the existing research base does not comprehensively investigate various manifestations of the same identities across different individuals. I intend to address each of these critiques with my research question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? 68 CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY Overview As stated, research in identity and literacy practices is becoming more and more significant, and Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of identity is one way to examine this topic. Specifically, this theory views identities as social products, self- meanings, symbolic, reflexive, and a source of motivation for action. Here, identities include agency, semiotic mediation with others, and higher order mental functioning within specific historical, sociocultural contexts (Holland and Lachicotte, 2007). Using this theory creates imperatives for my methodology. My investigation of the relationships between enacted faith identities and literate practices for Mennonite adolescents, like most identity-literacy research, is best suited to qualitative research methods. As reviewed in the last chapter, interview- and observation-based investigations in literacy practices and identities have been increasingly important in understanding adolescents’ identity development and performances as well as how reading and writing impact and are influenced by these identities both in-school and out-of-school; however, as I also posited in the last chapter, these studies too often lack specific attention to the actual reading and writing behaviors in which the adolescents engage. Consequently, in my study, I included both interview and observation data collection, as well as written documents and verbal protocols, to be able to address this issue. The research method I used is multiple case studies (Yin, 1994) because I wanted to understand the complex social phenomenon of my participants’ lived experiences regarding self-understandings or identities. Mine is a “how” question, and I seek to 69 describe the phenomenon of these self-understandings within specific socio-cultural contexts. Study Participants The participants for this study are five Mennonite adolescents who engage in voluntary reading. A small number of participants, such as five to eight, is common in the field of literacy research for qualitative research (i.e., Cherland, 1994; Reeves, 2004; Sarroub, 2005). The literature also establishes a study design of focusing on one population rather than doing a comparison study (e.g., Juzwik, 2014, Kelly, 2001; Reyes, 2009; Sarroub, 2005; Sutherland, 2005.) Many considerations have led me to study Mennonite adolescents. Mennonites First, I have personal knowledge about the Mennonite faith and easier access to this group than to persons from other faith traditions. Second, reading religious texts – most importantly, but not limited to, the Bible – is an important part of faith development and performed identity for many people. Most Mennonites view the Bible as the Word of God, “inspired by God through the Holy Spirit” (Confession, 1995, p. 21) and believe one’s faith community together discerns the meaning of the text and the interpretation for daily living (Roth, 2005). Thus, participation in a figured world is paramount for the Mennonite understanding of scripture. Third, there is a scarcity of research on Protestant Christian faith identities in the education literature even though 75% of youth in the United States self-identify as Christian, 52% as Protestant and 50% believe formal religious participation is important to them (King & Roeser, 2009). 70 Adolescents Research on Mennonite youth is even rarer. Because religion and spirituality are significant to many American adolescents – 84% of youth in the National Study of Youth and Religion identify with some religion –, this identity warrants research (King & Roeser, 2009). King and Roeser further assert that adolescence is a time of faith-related searching, seeking, and questioning, and that religion and spirituality comprise one important influence on identity development during adolescence. More broadly, Flum and Kaplan (2012) cite Erikson (1968) in their assertion that adolescence is a pivotal time for identity development due to the increased cognitive abilities, which support self- reflection capabilities. Identifying Participants I worked with one English teacher, Mrs. Cooper, who taught two sections of British Literature Honors to juniors. All juniors are required to take one semester of a Bible class, called “Story of the Church,” either in the fall or spring semester. To identify possible participants, I asked Mrs. Cooper to distribute to her students a survey (Appendix A), which asked if they were Mennonite and how often (never, sometimes, often) they read various types of texts (books, newspapers, webpages) at home. I then obtained class rosters for the Bible classes to determine which students were in both British Literature Honors and Bible class. I examined the survey results of that group. Based on the results, I met informally with those identifying as Mennonite and reading any of the text types at home at least sometimes and explained the project. I gave them a letter of assent (See Appendix B) to sign and a letter of consent (See Appendix C) to give 71 to their parents to sign and to inform them about the study, according to IRB guidelines. I also asked the English and Bible teachers to sign a letter of consent (Appendix D). Context of Investigation Menno High School (MHS) is a private, comprehensive, co-educational high school, that offers grades 9-12 and maintains an enrollment of approximately 350 students. (All names of institutions and people have been changed to protect confidentiality.) Located on a 75-acre campus, it is supported by the local Mennonite conference. Students at MHS live in twenty public school districts, and the student body connects to more than 90 congregations from different denominations; approximately 30 of these congregations are Mennonite. About 15% percent of the students are international students, and 43% percent of all students identify as Mennonite. A high majority of the faculty and all administrators are Mennonite as are 100% of the Board of Trustees. More than 90% of the recent graduating classes chose to attend college upon graduation and about 5% entered voluntary service assignments. The mission statement of MHS, as found on their website, reads: Menno High School, in partnership with the family and the church, seeks to develop the God-given abilities of students in preparation for responsible stewardship of life as members of God's people in a global society. MHS serves youth and families of ______ Mennonite Conference, _____ District Conference and those who share Anabaptist values. In 1991, MHS adopted a Graduate Profile that provides focus and alignment for the educational program of the school. The Graduate Profile, also published on the school website, states: As one of the schools providing an Anabaptist-Mennonite education (framed within the context of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective), Menno High School recognizes that its graduates are in transition. The education process 72 seeks to honor and develop the uniqueness of each student and his/her role within the community where their gifts, talents and learning are applied. To this end, a graduate of this educational system is a person who: Academic • values and demonstrates life-long learning including skills of problem solving, problem posing, critical thinking and cooperation. • exhibits competency in the basic skills and knowledge of the academic disciplines. • communicates effectively through speaking and writing. • uses, recognizes and appreciates creativity and artistic expression. • incorporates available technology appropriately. Spiritual • embraces a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. • exhibits a growing life of discipleship. • practices spiritual disciplines. • discovers defines and develops her/his God-given gifts. • cultivates a Christian worldview informed by Anabaptist-Mennonite theology and tradition. • articulates his/her beliefs, values and convictions clearly. • accepts the Scriptures as the Word of God and as the fully reliable and trustworthy standard for Christian faith and life. Lifestyle • practices stewardship of all that God has entrusted to her/him. • thinks and operates with a global perspective. • promotes forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation and non-violent resolution of conflict. • participates in congregational/church life. • respects diversity. • models servanthood by participating in service opportunities. • practices wellness of mind and body. • values God's Word, people and creation. While the Graduate Profile suggests that “a graduate of this educational system is a person who” ascribes to the various elements of academics, spiritual life, and lifestyle, it is perhaps more accurate to say that the school would hope their graduates would have or aspire to these characteristics. 73 One assignment used to assess student outcomes in relation to the Graduate Profile is the “Senior Speech,” a 20-minute speech required of all seniors prior to graduation that is open to the public and constitutes the capstone of the Building Community curriculum (Bishop & Fransen, 1998). Bishop (2005) notes, “In those speeches, the graduates reflect on their entire high school experience, and then demonstrate and articulate who they have been over that time period, addressing the categories of Academics, Spiritual Life, and Lifestyle Choices according to the Graduate Profile” (p. 74). These speeches are a reflection of how the students have understood themselves and often include deep reflection and revealing vulnerability. Data Collection In hopes of discovering a “converging line of inquiry” (Yin, 1994, p.92), the data for this study are qualitative data. Qualitative research is useful in answering my research question because it acknowledges the importance of context – of the research setting, myself as the researcher, and the participants. It also invites a wide range of data sources, such as observation, interviews, and artifacts, which are helpful in increasing my understanding. Finally, it allows the possibility of collaborative research, offers an avenue for students’ “voice” to be heard, and provides an avenue for research to impact practice. Specifically, interpretivism fits my needs and research interests because it is grounded in a socially constructed reality and understands research to be subjective from the perspective of both the researcher and the participant. Interpretivism will allow me to view a broader picture and include more of the picture in my research. In addition, while interpretive research begins with a clear question, it also evolves through the process as 74 the researcher learns in depth about the situation, and it values the process as much as the product. While I know what my interests are, there could be factors or answers that arise out of the research that I am not anticipating. I also believe the process will be valuable for me as well as for the participants. Finally, rather than primarily seeking truth or change, I desire a better understanding of how Mennonite adolescents live through and develop their understanding of themselves with regard to literate practices and faith. Data were gathered from four main sources: interviews, observations, written assignments from each class, and verbal protocols. The initial intention of the writing assignments was to be supplementary, along with activity logs (See Appendix E) completed by the participants to help inform the interviews; however, as I collected data and began analyzing, I realized I wanted to include the written documents in a more significant way. Through the various data sources, I wanted to get a thick and rich description of the participants’ enacted self-understandings of faith and its possible relationships to literate practices. Interviews I conducted a set of interviews focused on each participant. First, an initial, individual, semi-structured interview of approximately 30-45 minutes at the school allowed me to learn about the participants’ self-understandings as persons of Mennonite faith and their literate practices (See Appendix F). To help establish rapport and address other salient identities that may have been missed otherwise, I asked questions such as: • Walk me through a typical day in your life. • What is important to know about you in order to understand who you are? • If you have a free afternoon, how do you like to spend your time? 75 To address faith identity, questions I used in the interviews included the following: • Can you tell me about your faith? How do you define or describe it? (Follow- up questions included: You talked about being Mennonite; can you tell me more about what that means to you? Or, I noticed you didn’t talk about being Mennonite; why is that?) • What activities do you participate in that are connected to your faith? • Can you tell me a story that illustrates your feelings about being Mennonite? To address voluntary literate practices and personal literacy history, I asked questions such as: • Why do you read? • Have your reading practices or habits changed over time? • What do you read on your own? • Do you consider yourself a reader? If so, is that important to you? • Do you keep a journal or do other writing for yourself? The Mennonite questions are based on personal experience. The reading questions come out of the literature (Reeves, 2004; Richardson & Eccles, 2007) and are confirmed by my professional teaching experience. I proceeded with a second set of interviews four to five weeks into the observation data collection time period and conducted final interviews (See Appendix G) at the conclusion of the observations. The purpose of these interviews was to clarify questions I had as well as to provide an opportunity for the participants to member check my 76 evolving interpretations and provide their own reflections on that data. I used the activity logs and the field notes as stimuli for these interviews. The interviews allowed the participants to articulate faith understandings of themselves as well as describe their elective reading practices. Interviews, through the lens of interpretivism, allow for new thoughts mediated through the socially constructed context. They also allow me, as the researcher, to learn in depth about each participant and the ways they understand themselves; however, interviews that are directed at self- reflection have limitations if used alone. Because I believe identities are performed and understood in relation to actions and communications with other people in various contexts (Holland et al., 1998), I also conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants’ English and Bible teachers (See Appendix H). These interviews, which occurred after the observation period, centered on how the teachers viewed the focus students and served to triangulate the data from the students (Willis, 2007). Questions included: • Please tell me about participant A. How would you describe him/her? • Please describe what, if anything, you notice about participant A’s reading and writing. • Please tell me what, if anything, you observe about participant A’s faith. The field notes also functioned as stimuli for these interviews. All interviews were digitally audio recorded and then transcribed. Transcription conventions are listed here: (…) a part of the interview that was omitted due to irrelevancy to the point under discussion (word/s) verbal utterance that was not a word, such as a laugh 77 Taken together, all of these interviews shed light on how this group of Mennonite high school students described their understanding of their faith identities in relation to their reading practices, how others positioned them around these enacted identities, how they answered back, and how they imagined possible new worlds and new identities. Observation Although interviews address several aspects of the social practice theory of identity and the concept of identity as socially constructed, as Holland et al. (1998) and others (McCarthey & Moje, 2002) point out, identities are more than words; they are also based in actions, in the participatory activities within figured worlds with other actors. From the constructivist paradigm, the concept of identity is often understood as being multiple – dynamic social realities within a given context constructed by and inseparable from the individual’s actions. Identities are given meaning, and individuals perform identities, based on interactions between themselves and their environment, including other persons, and the symbolic communications surrounding those actions. Therefore, I observed the participants in their English and Bible classes two days a week for the second quarter of the 2014-2015 school year, and I took field notes. My classroom observations were guided by the aspects of figured worlds identified by Holland et al. (1998). Thus, I was looking for artifacts, actors, actions, and valued outcomes of the figured world, as well as the ways the participants were positioned or situated within the activities and practices of the figured world relative to others in the figured world, and how the participants answered back to those positions that contributed to identity construction and performances within those figured worlds. I did not attend to others in the classroom when they were not interacting with the study participants. 78 Detailed field notes with direct quotations were typed on site during every observation and were reviewed and revised for accuracy promptly following the observation. The notes were then parsed into activities as units for coding. These observations allowed me to examine semiotic mediations such as dress, speech, and actions within specific figured worlds relevant to performed faith identities and reading practices; however, interviews and observations still do not systematically address how identities might influence or be influenced by specific reading or writing events. Therefore, I collected documents and conducted verbal protocols with each participant. Written Documents At the first interviews, I asked the participants for writing assignments from their English and Bible classes, and I collected any they happened to have with them. I asked again at the second and third interviews as I began creating a list of specific assignments generated from the documents I was receiving. Sometimes during Bible class when Mr. Bennett was returning papers, he’d ask the participants if I could have a copy. In these ways, I collected at least four documents from each participant from each class. Verbal Protocol My study differs from most literacy-identity studies in that I engaged specific reading behaviors as the participants made sense of self-selected, well-liked texts. Because I understand reading practices to be reading experiences in which subjective meaning is constructed by individuals and communities of practice within a sociocultural context, it was important to see what meanings participants made of texts to understand the possible relationships between their reading experiences and their self- 79 understandings. Levine’s (2014) recent study examines affective evaluation when reading. She begins her article by referencing The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them (Coady & Johannessen, 2006): “In a collection of essays, writers describe reading experiences that influenced their understandings of themselves and their worlds” (p. 283). It is these kinds of reading experiences that I aimed to examine. Also known as a think-aloud protocol, in the verbal protocol, the participant read a text aloud, pausing to verbalize what he or she was thinking, feelings, sensing, or doing while moving through the text. This method has been used to understand cognition (Afflerbach, 1990), the strategies adolescents use when chatting online (Lewis & Fabos, 2005) and processes used before, during, and after reading (Pressley & Hilden, 2004). Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) reviewed more than 40 separate verbal protocol studies related to reading and found that expert readers are constantly shifting the processes they use to constructively transact and make meaning with the text, including activating prior and related knowledge before reading, reflecting on and interpreting the text during reading, and reconstructing and continuing to reflect on a text after reading. My purpose for this protocol was to understand the possible impacts of enacted identities in the transactional, meaning-making activity of reading as well as the influences of reading specific texts on identities. Therefore, to most closely approximate natural reading and have the best match of interests and possible identity influences, like Wyatt et al. (1993) who studied the reading processes used by experts, I invited participants to choose their texts rather than using a common text for all participants. In 80 order to invite students to bring these self-selected texts, I asked questions such as the following during the first interview: • Tell me about your faith; next time we meet, can you bring in something you’ve read related to that in some way? • Tell me the last few things you’ve read that you really liked; next time can you bring in one of those to read to me? In their study, Wyatt et al. (1993) wanted the texts used to be “extremely well matched to the knowledge and interest of the readers” and, therefore, they prompted participants to choose articles they viewed as “extremely relevant to their interests” (p. 52). In this study, I wanted participants to engage texts that were highly relevant to their sense of self as one who reads (a text they really liked) and as a person of faith (a faith- related text with which they resonated). I wanted them to choose texts they were invested in, texts that were salient to them, texts that were artifacts of their figured worlds, texts that allowed them entry into those figured worlds and then to participate fully in those worlds. Therefore, participants chose a selection from a favorite text as well as a favorite faith-related text to use for the verbal protocols. Consequently, the texts read were re- readings rather than first-time readings as is commonly the practice with verbal protocols. This activity was a part of the second, mid-point interview. I modeled the process with each participant and read the following directions: Read the text you brought with you aloud. After each sentence or two, stop reading and tell me what you are thinking, feeling, asking, seeing, noticing, or connecting to. Please tell me any response you have. I was as unobtrusive as possible but prompted participants by asking, “Can you stop and say what’s going on now in your head?” if they read several sentences without stopping. 81 These data helped me to see the relationship between enacted identities and the reading process at the micro-level. By asking for two texts from each participant, I was able examine the extent to which performed faith identities impact meaning-making with related and unrelated content. I also looked across texts to see how the two readings compared for each participant. I asked about their reading goals as well as their choice of texts. Other Sources To further triangulate the data sources above, I asked participants to keep a log of their out-of-school activities, including data such as reading, other activities, and time spent. Though self-documented logs are not always accurately recorded, the logs allowed for information and reflection on activities and identities in the time between the interviews and helped guide the direction of the interviews. Data Analysis My knowledge about students’ performed identities in relation to their literacy practices is my interpretation of the meaning my participants construct from their lived experiences with literate practices and their understandings of identity. Further, my knowledge was created in the interaction between myself and my participants and the consensus we drew after authentic and rich data collection and thorough analysis about the students’ understandings of their identities and their lived experiences with literacy activities in context. I transcribed all audio recordings of interviews and the verbal protocols with hyperTRANSCRIBE and then enter them into hyperRESEARCH, a qualitative research analysis software. Field notes were typed as word processing documents. As I collected 82 data, I began coding as well as writing conceptual memos to start interpreting and understanding the data for each student (Willis, 2007). Interviews In order to analyze the interview data, I first parsed the interview transcripts into clauses, examining students’ use of copulative verbs with noun complements as explicit identity markers, or ways they named themselves, and transitive verbs as expressions of participation in figured worlds. With these tools, I aimed to capture Holland et al.’s (1998) notions that “people tell others who they are, but even more important, they tell themselves and then try to act as though they are who they say they are,” (p. 3) and that “identities are lived in and through activity” (p.5). The explicit statements of identity served as markers from which I looked for supportive actions in the data. For example, Jacob told me, “I am a maker.” This copulative verb-noun complement marks an identity, a self-understanding. Later, Jacob continued, “I’ve made, like, a homemade, like, dart blaster…and I made, like, potato cannons and slingshots and catapults.” Here the transitive verbs provide actions that support the identity. As another example, early in the first interview, Jessica expressed, “I’m a Christian and I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. Um, I believe in God and in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and um, I try to live like that. And I read the Bible…” Sometimes, even without explicit identity statements, there were identity-related actions in students’ statements. To link my analysis directly to my theoretical frame, I also coded the interviews based on the aspects of the social practice theory of identity for both faith and reader identities: figured worlds, positioning, space for authoring, and making worlds. Using this a priori coding scheme allowed me to see how Holland et. al’s (1998) theory played out in a way that 83 open coding could not. Finally, I coded for elements of the reading process including texts, context of reading, and purpose of reading. I used these a priori categories because I revised and added to the codes in order to comprehensively code the data (See Appendix I). These analyses gave me insight into how the participants articulated and performed their self-understandings around faith and reading as well as how others viewed them within certain communities or figured worlds. Observations After I coded the interview transcripts, I looked to see how the identity markers the participants used in the interviews played out in the observational field note data. In keeping with the notions that identity involves participation (McCaslin, 2009) and salience (Holland, et al., 1998; Stryker & Serpe, 1994), I analyzed and coded the field notes, marking each time a student’s name appeared as well as the nature of the entry, as I had done in prior research along the same line of inquiry. I then looked in the field notes for evidence of participation based on these identities. I also coded for elements of a figured world, including actors, actions, outcomes, positioning, and space for authoring. Any data points in which an out-of-school identity, such as sports fan or sports player, occur in the classroom were also noted. This analysis allowed me to examine the actions and artifacts that support faith and reading practices within a historical, cultural context that was socially constructed with others. 84 Written Artifacts Analysis I coded each written document in three ways. First, I used Britton et al.’s (1975) categories of function to describe mature writing. The three main categories are transactional (informative), expressive, and poetic. They also describe special categories including pseudo-informative, in which the student focus on the audience role of the teacher-as-examiner “at the expense of the apparent informative function” (p. 104), and dummy run, in which the writing simply demonstrates that the student can perform a certain kind of writing task. Holland et al. (1998) focus on actors in figured worlds participating in significant actions and valued outcomes. Britton et al.’s analytic tool allowed me to get a global sense of how the writing related to the valued outcomes of the figured world of the class. This analysis helped me to see the participants’ performance of their student identities within their writing. Each participant wrote transactional or informative (Britton et al., 1975) pieces; that is, all the writing I collected was coherent, organized, and conveyed meaning. This analysis afforded me a macro-level view of the writing and one angle into the identity performances of the student in a specific artifact as a whole. The second analysis I used was to count and examine self-mentions. Because Holland et al. (1998) posture self-authoring as a major part of their theory, I was looking for an analytic mechanism that captures how people chose to represent themselves in their writing. To understand the self-mentions, I applied Tang and John’s (1999) typology of authorial presence in a written document based on first-person pronoun use in academic writing. Tang and John (1999) describe six roles or identities that may be represented in academic writing by different uses of first-person pronouns: ‘I’ as the 85 representative of some larger group (most often using we or us), ‘I’ as the tour guide through the writing (often using plural pronouns and verbs such as see, note, look), ‘I’ as the architect of the writing (foregrounds the author’s role in organizing and structuring the writing), ‘I’ as the describer of the research process (uses verbs like read, interview, collect), ‘I as the opinion-holder (uses verbs like agree, disagree, think), ‘I’ as the originator of new ideas in the writing (inserts new ideas into the writing). In this order, these identities suggest a continuum of least powerful authorial presence to most powerful. Tang and John (1999) state that powerful authorial presence means knowledge or expertise but also means “belonging to an ‘author’” (p. S26) as someone who is a “‘maker of meaning.’” (Ivanič, 1994, p. 12 quoted in Tang & John, 1999, p. S26). I coded each written document’s self-mentions with this typology as a way to understand the space of authoring and used the pronoun as the coding unit. While the number and type of self-mentions (personal pronouns) revealed to what extent a student’s identity was invested in a piece of writing, also examining the ideas expressed added a richness to the story of identity performance and writing practices. The third analysis was to code each sentence within the frame of the figured world. As artifacts, these writings functioned as a way for actors to participate in and help shape the figured world; they were one way for the students to enact identities — student identities as well as other identities. The written artifacts themselves, in one sense, were the students’ authoring or answering back. To the extent they completed the task and scored well, they accepted a positioning of good students; however, to get a more nuanced look at identities enacted in writing practices, I wanted to look more closely and apply the aspects of the figured world to the writings. 86 Bible class artifacts. Because I collected the writings as a secondary data set, I did not have the same number of artifacts for each participant, but I coded and analyzed the data I had. I received between seven and ten Bible class artifacts from each participant. Each of these assignments was designed to review information shared in class and also asked each writer to share their own beliefs on the topic. My initial coding scheme included each of the significant actions and valued outcomes for the figured world as well as self-mentions and space for authoring. As I coded, I realized the significant actions mapped onto the valued outcomes and so I combined these categories to code for the following: • Meeting requirements - transfer of knowledge from the teacher or class activities to the student through the writing (Valued Outcome) • Ownership of personal beliefs (Valued Outcome) • Practice of faith beliefs (Valued Outcome) • Self-mentions - assertions of the writer’s authorial presence in the text along the Tang & John (1999) continuum • Space of Authoring - statements that asserted direction beyond acceptance of the general positioning in the figured world or statements that served to shape the figured world English class artifacts. There were six main English class written documents: essays on The Once and Future King, Frankenstein, Great Expectations, and Beowulf; a written response to an independent novel; and an end-of-the-semester reflection (focusing on English class but also considering the semester as a whole for the student). Mrs. Cooper’s essay assignments based on literature positioned her students as competent writers who thoughtfully engaged with texts and expressed those thoughts in writing. 87 The end-of-semester reflection paper positioned students as introspective and critical participants in the figured world. Like the Bible class artifacts, I did not have the same number of documents from each participant. I coded each sentence with the following coding scheme that aligned with the description of the British Literature honors figured world: • Quotation - quotations from texts that had been read as evidence for arguments in the writing (Significant Act) • Language - use of language specific to the discourse of the figured world (Artifact) • Mastery - mastery of ideas or themes in the texts or mastery of the writing genre – the format of the academic essay (Valued Outcome) • Applications - suggestions that the writer has or wants to apply learnings from the texts to his or her life (Valued Outcome) • Faith Connections - a specific application of a text to the writer’s life (Valued Outcome) • Self-mentions - assertions of the writer’s authorial presence in the text along the Tang & John (1999) continuum as described above • Space of Authoring - statements that asserted direction beyond acceptance of the general positioning in the figured world or statements that served to shape the figured world • Description - sentences that described the class (e.g., “Mrs. Cooper brought up all sorts of different ideas and stories.”) Verbal Protocol Holland et al. (1998) assert that participation in figured worlds contribute to a person’s values and knowledge and help define even fluid self-understandings; therefore, I was looking for analytics for the verbal protocols that would allow me to see the extent to which the participants’ values and background knowledge were evident in their 88 responses. To this end, I analyzed the verbal protocol transcripts on two levels. First, I parsed the utterances between textual readings into content units – a segment of speech focused on one idea. My coding scheme for the content unit was as follows: • Comprehending – understanding the literal words and making inferences • Comprehension problems – difficulties in making meaning • Visualizing – creating mental images of textual descriptions • Connecting – relating the text to o the reader’s life experiences o figured worlds (other contexts and frames of action) o prior knowledge o another text • Evaluating – a character, the author, the text, the reader • Reacting – giving an emotional response to the text • Valuing – importance ascribed to the text Previous literacy research utilizing verbal protocols with reading responses informed my coding scheme (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002; Wilhelm, 1997; Wolfe & Goldman, 2005) as did my emphasis on identity; that is, these codes allowed me a good description of how the reader was transacting with text as well as how that reading mapped onto my theoretical understanding of identity. For example, if the reader related the text to life experiences at church or youth group activities, this would map onto a faith identity enactment. If the reader made a connection between the text being read and another text that is faith-related, this move also would support a faith identity 89 performance. If the connection was between the text and a class discussion, this move would support a student identity performance. Pressley and Gaskins (2006) argue that good readers “are very sensitive to the ideas in a text, responding to those ideas, most conspicuously through inferences and affective reactions” and that responses to texts are substantially based on prior knowledge (p.102). Since salient identities for persons reflect high degrees of commitment to these identities (Stryker & Serpe, 1994) and strong participation in activities related to these identities (Holland et al., 1998), a person’s prior knowledge related to those identities would also likely be strong. Therefore, the ways the participants most strongly named themselves in the interviews likely would coincide with strong positive reactions and high valuing of texts or portions of texts that align with those named identities as well as connections to prior knowledge related to the figured worlds of salient identities. For example, I might expect to see evaluations of characters’ actions and words based on the faith understandings and beliefs of the reader. This first analysis produced a description of the response to each textual reading. With this description, I then compared the faith-related textual reading to the other textual reading to see in what ways enacted identities influenced the readings. Additionally, this analysis helped me understand the nuances of the figured world of reading for these students; that is, examining the reading experience with a faith-related text and a non- sacred text allowed me to consider the connections and influences between the figured worlds and performed identities of readers and Mennonites for these students. Because I was again looking for how the participants chose to represent themselves, or author a space for themselves as Holland et al. (1998) would say, I also 90 examined the use of self-mentions (Tang & John, 1999) and looked for connections between these responses and the elements of the figured worlds of English and Bible class. For a second analytic lens, I used Smith and Wilhelm’s (2002) modification of Vipond and Hunt’s (1984) orientation analysis. This analysis focuses on the general, overall approach a student takes with a text and consists of six categories of readings: • Information-driven (literal level reading focused on learning from text) • Story-driven (focuses on entering the story and connecting with characters) • Point-driven (focuses on the ideas, morals, and values of a text) • Association-driven (focuses on personal connections illuminated by the text) • Evaluation-driven (judges the quality of the text) • Experience-driven (focuses on the in-the-moment emotions of the reader during the reading) • Disengaged (focuses on finishing the exercise) This holistic analysis was useful in understanding, in sum, how a participant approached and transacted with a text and, more importantly, in considering how different orientations interacted with performed identities. Because the participants selected the texts and enjoy reading, it seemed reasonable that some participants might have an experience-driven orientation; I did not expect any participant to have a disengaged orientation. Through an identity lens, I expected I could find orientations that were association-driven, and given that one of the texts examined was faith-related, I thought there could also be point-driven readings. I felt that the overall approach a student used 91 with a text could help me understand to what extent the text was being used as an artifact to perform a particular identity (Holland et al., 1998). Rigor To address trustworthiness and credibility of the analysis and interpretation, I took care in the collection, recording, and analysis of data, including keeping confidentiality and securing documents in password-protected storage; I triangulated the data by including multiple data sources from the participant as well as data from significant persons related to the participant. I included data from sources other than the individual because learning how others view and position the participant assisted me in developing follow-up interview questions for the participant and because how others position us can influence our own identities. To the extent that there might have been differences in identity performances across data sources from a participant, I accept this variance as an aspect of the phenomenon, given my understanding of identity as dynamic, socio- culturally constructed, and context-dependent, and not an issue of reliability. I conducted member checks with the participants as a means of confirming my interpretations, to create a chain of evidence (Yin, 1994), and to allow their voices to co-construct the understandings of identities, literacy practices, and their relationships. With their voices and interpretations in mind, I wrote the concluding interpretation based on the greatest coherence to the entire data set. It is also important that my methods and analysis aligned with the selected theoretical framework to put my work in conversation with other studies and settings based on the same theory. It is, therefore, important that I thoroughly report on my study’s setting to allow the reader to determine the level of similarity to other settings. 92 Additionally, I attempted to be transparent in the reporting, including researcher influences, evolving changes during the study, and disconfirming evidence or rival explanations for the findings. In all, I aimed to achieve rigor by “telling a story so richly that the reader can feel it” (Toma, 2011, p. 268). Researcher’s Role This study focuses on the intersection of reading, faith, and identity for teenage Mennonites within the context of a Mennonite high school. I am drawn to this question because of my own strong performed identities as a Mennonite and as a reader, discussed in Chapter 1. Both of these labels have been an accepted part of my self-understanding for as long as I can remember and have always been as natural to me as the air I breathe. While there are times that I think critically and reflectively on these enacted identities, I often take them for granted, just like my next breath. In addition, I taught English for seven years in the school in which I did my research. It was this teaching experience, also described in Chapter 1, which confirmed for me my enthusiasm for reading and enlightened me regarding my desire that every student love reading as well. While I have not taught in the school where this study was implemented for 14 years, the fact that I taught there at one time does affect my perspective on the school. At the time of the study, I was still associated with the school through board membership and retained professional and personal relationships with several faculty members; however, it had been long enough since I was a teacher at the school that no students knew me from that context. My performed identities as a Mennonite and as a reader do give me passion and personal understanding of what I researched. Still, I continued to remind myself to be 93 open to and look for all perspectives. I expected, in fact, that I would discover that there are many different stories about how faith, literate practices, and identity intersect. Rather than being a liability, my personal identities, my teaching experience, and my knowledge of the study’s context proved helpful; however, I also tried to be cautious and aware of how my own beliefs about faith, education, and literate practices could bias or impact my outcomes. My values as the researcher are explicit and formative in choosing this phenomenon, in the development and execution of the study, and in the reporting of the findings. Therefore, my role in the research is to be a “passionate participant” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 112) in all stages of the process and in constructing meaning in the analysis of the data. It is my role to confirm and validate my interpretations with the participants as well as to inform them of the findings so they can make agentic decisions if they so choose. It is also my role to inform the scholarly community about my findings. 94 CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This chapter will address my findings on the research question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? I will begin by describing the two school-related figured worlds most closely related to faith identities and literate practices – Bible class and English class. Following these descriptions, I will present a case study of each student. Bible Class Figured World Mr. Bennett had been a Bible and Social Studies teacher at MHS for 21 years. He received his undergraduate degree from a Mennonite university; he was an active member in a local Mennonite church; and he had two children, one a student at MHS and the other at a local Mennonite K-8 school. Mr. Bennett knew the worlds of MHS and Mennonite faith intimately. At MHS, one semester of Bible was required each year; the ninth-grade course was a survey of the Old Testament, and the tenth-grade course focused on Jesus’ life and examined the Gospels. The 11th-grade course was called “Story of the Church,” and the final required course, for seniors, was “Kingdom Living” and focused on the Biblical understanding of the Jesus way of peace and love. In Fall 2014, Mr. Bennett taught two sections of Story of the Church, the required course for juniors and a class he had taught for several years. The school curriculum guide described this class: The story of the people of God is studied from the birth of the church around 30 A.D. to contemporary times. Emphasis is placed on the Anabaptist witness throughout the history of the church. The book of Acts and other scriptures provide biblical foundations for the course. The textbook Through Fire and Water provides an overview of Mennonite history and the roots of historic peace churches. 95 I observed the seventh-period section of Story of the Church twice a week for the second quarter of the year; the eighth-period section I observed once a week for a double period, resulting in approximately the same amount of time in each section. I wrote 28 sets of field notes, representing approximately 1800 minutes of observation taken from both class sections. The following section describes the physical classroom in which the Story of the Church Bible class was held. The Classroom Mr. Bennett’s room was large. With 24 desks grouped in sets of four in a semi- circle facing toward the front, plenty of room remained for several additional pieces of furniture and empty space. One entered the room from the front right corner of the classroom; a bulletin board and cork strips along the side wall here presented student work. Titled “Issues Events,” the board displayed a few pictures from National Geographic and U.S. News and World Report magazines of current events such as fracking in Pennsylvania, maps, graphs, and a picture of President Obama. A school calendar was also posted. The pictures were more relevant to Mr. Bennett’s “Social Issues” class and figured world while the school calendar functioned as an artifact for everyone in their participation in the figured world of MHS. The strips of cork, which continued halfway across the back wall, supported easel-sized papers. During most of my observation time, the posters resulted from a group project from the Bible class in which the students, in groups of four, presented their thoughts on what defined and influenced truth for them. By the end of my observation time, these posters were taken down; student-created posters about the book of Acts were then displayed. Using significant wall space to present student work positioned the students as important 96 knowledge-constructors, suggesting that they, as actors in this world, actively participated in shaping the world. Also along the side wall were two extra desks and, in the back corner, a square table with two chairs, while a clock hung high on the back wall in that corner. In the middle of the back wall, three large windows overlooked a parking lot. Past the windows, Mr. Bennett had hung a framed family tree of his family’s genealogy that included nine generations; he occasionally referred to it during class discussions. This artifact provided a bridge for Mr. Bennett between his family identity and his teacher identity, but it also served as a way for him to author his space in the figured world of school, as it is an unusual artifact to find in a classroom. Beyond the family tree, in the far back corner, was Mr. Bennett’s “office” space. A two-drawer filing cabinet and two six-shelf bookcases accompanied a desk that held his phone, computer, VHS and DVD players, and bins for student papers. The bookcases contained MHS yearbooks, VHS tapes and DVDs, Bibles, binders, some textbooks, and several shelves of personal books related to history and Christian and Mennonite theology. The bulletin board on the side wall above his desk boasted approximately 20 pictures of his two children at various ages. A photo cube on his desk and a framed handmade painting with the word “DAD” prominently written in the middle were other artifacts of his identity as a father and further evidenced his authoring of this space as something more than just the figured world of Social Studies and Bible teaching. The far side wall included a countertop extending most of the length of the wall with cabinets underneath. The counter remained clear except for a basket of markers, two short stacks of books, a globe, and a classroom set of the primary text for this class, 97 Through Fire and Water: An Overview of Mennonite History (Loewen & Nolt, 1996). On the wall was a copy of the school’s Graduate Profile, and in the front corner of the room stood a round wooden table with three chairs. The front of the room lacked adornment other than Mr. Bennett’s Masters of Education diploma. Centered on the front wall was a long white board, most of which was often covered by a pull-down screen to project lecture slides. On the left end of the whiteboard, Mr. Bennett listed assignments for each of his classes. Attached to the white board on either side of the screen were maps of Europe, Asia, and the world, to which Mr. Bennett referred during his lectures. The room was spacious, sparse, and neutral in tone, allowing the actors to play an active role in physically and figuratively forming and shaping this figured world. Holland et al. describe figured worlds as “a socially and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which particular characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others” (1998, p.52). For clarity, I have organized the data into sections as specified by this definition, although there is overlap as each of the components of figured worlds interacts with the others. Actors Shannon and Jessica were in the seventh-period section of Story of the Church, which met every day right after lunch. This class contained 24 students: 10 boys, 14 girls; 2 Asians, and 22 Caucasians. Paige, Cassie, and Jacob were in the eighth-period class that met four days a week, once for a block or double period (88 minutes). This class also had 24 students: 9 boys, 15 girls; 4 Asians, 1 African American and 19 98 Caucasians. Both sections were heterogeneously grouped; there were no honors Bible courses. These two sections operated similarly enough that I will describe them as a single figured world. Students. In this figured world, the main actors were students and the teacher. In general, Mr. Bennett positioned the students as a whole as engaged students, though not all students accepted this positioning. For example, during the third week, I wrote in my field notes: “Some students are on their devices, doing different things unrelated to the lecture. Writing something (texting?) on a phone, looking at cars, looking at pictures, playing a car racing game.” Sometimes there were several side conversations occurring while Mr. Bennett was lecturing. All of these actions at least suggest an authoring by the students that redefined “engaged” as multi-tasking but perhaps more likely suggest the identity of an unengaged student. Much of the time, Mr. Bennett allowed this negotiating of participation in the figured world, only occasionally using proximity to influence behavior by confiscating a phone or calling a student out on his or her behavior. Mr. Bennett did not appear angry or agitated by these disruptions, and I described the class atmosphere as “relaxed.” For example, when two students were unable to give their presentations, Mr. Bennett ended the formal class about 15 minutes early and engaged different students in small conversations about their lives or interests, current events, or his own personal life and interests. Students seemed to enjoy and value these interactions. Sometimes this informal atmosphere led to students pushing back when Mr. Bennett was positioning the class as engaged learners. For example, the day after the announcement of the grand jury decision regarding the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a few students began a conversation with Mr. Bennett about the case 99 and the evidence. While Mr. Bennett engaged a couple of students on this issue, four or five other conversations broke out among the rest of the students. On another day, Mr. Bennett invited the speaker from the morning’s chapel service, a Muslim he had known for years, to come to his class to help them learn about Muslim faith, life, and culture, positioning the students as curious and respectful learners. While many students listened respectfully during this whole group question and answer session, one student maintained his own conversation with another student and a third student left his seat to plug in his iPad. These actions signaled a rejection of the positioning as engaged learners and, instead, an authoring of a space and role that suited their immediate needs. It is important to note that not all students rejected or negotiated the positioning as engaged students or curious learners. The four girls in this study consistently kept quiet when someone else was speaking and appeared to be engaged in the planned actions of the class. Of all of the participants, Jacob most often negotiated Mr. Bennett’s positioning based on his behaviors, including looking at his phone, eating candy and sharing it with other students, and entering into side conversations during class. On four occasions, the students were organized into groups based on the seating arrangement. In each case, Mr. Bennett gave the class a topic and the task to discuss it among the group members and then share their thoughts with the whole class either by making a poster or by adding their thoughts to the white board. On each occasion, the groups received time in class to work and then to share their ideas; this small and then large group discussion and processing then served as knowledge that the students could 100 use in writing individual reflections on the topics. Mr. Bennett positioned the students as constructors of knowledge, and they accepted this positioning. Teacher. The teacher was the other significant actor in the figured world. Mr. Bennett, a medium-height, Caucasian male in his mid-40s wore casual pants with a collared shirt or sweater. He wore glasses and showed a quick, easy smile. This feature, along with his relaxed, laid-back manner, made him approachable, and students commented during class one day that he was a “very accepting” teacher. Mr. Bennett was willing to talk about his own life experiences and faith as they related to class content. For example, when discussing the pros and cons of Mennonite community, he mentioned his neighbor who wondered why Mr. Bennett had so many beer bottles in his recycle bin – his family collected trash along the road. Perhaps due to class content, or perhaps due to hybrid identities, Mr. Bennett’s teacher identity, faith identity, and family member identity co-mingled in the classroom space. Mr. Bennett was a caring teacher who wanted to have genuine relationships with his students. My participants positioned Mr. Bennett as a kind-hearted teacher who was open to listening to student perspectives. Jacob liked Mr. Bennett’s teaching style, describing it as “open…. I like how he just, he’ll just off and start telling stories and, like, comment on people’s stuff, talking about, like, current events going on.” Jessica noticed he didn’t give his own opinion as often as she’d like “because he wants us to know for ourselves and figure out what we believe.” Guest speaker. Occasionally, other actors entered into this figured world. As noted earlier, one day Mr. Bennett asked the chapel speaker to come to his eighth-period Bible class to answer questions about Muslims. Mr. Bennett referenced other speakers he 101 had hosted in the past, indicating that others are invited to be a part of this figured world temporarily as a way to share knowledge and build relationships. In this way, Mr. Bennett did not author himself as the only authority but invited students, as well as others, to share their thoughts and experiences and, thus, to contribute to the construction of the world. Significant Acts Holland et al. (1998) assert that in figured worlds, a limited range of actions are assigned significance, which helps to define the world. There were four meaningful acts in this figured world: transferring knowledge, constructing knowledge, making connections, and asking questions. Transferring knowledge. Often, Mr. Bennett gave knowledge to the students through a prepared visual presentation that guided a lecture on Anabaptist history or theology. “Get your notes ready,” he would say, “here we go.” Or, he might ask, “Did you get a shot of this one yet?” inviting the students to take a picture of the slide with their iPads. At other times, he strayed from his lecture to weave class content with personal stories. For example, after explaining that Menno Simons believed it was almost impossible to be a Christian without having a faith community for accountability and support, he told the students this story: Mennonites are good at helping people through times of crisis…. When I was 2, my brother was born in night. In the morning, my dad crashed the car with myself and two of my young siblings. The car … collapsed on my dad’s legs. I went through windshield and needed 110 stitches. My dad was in hospital for 3 months. I was in the hospital for one month and then they realized my leg was broken. A Mennonite couple moved into our house and milked our cows for 3 months for free. They lived with us and ate with us. The Mennonite community also planted our crops. In two days, farmers from church plowed and planted 100 acres, and all the 102 women came and made food. For these reasons, my dad will never leave that community. Additionally, Mr. Bennett would connect class content to current events, history, or other classes. For example, in explaining the Mennonite stance on nonviolence, he suggested nonviolent alternative responses to ISIS, Hitler in World War II, North Korea, and Iraq. He also reflected back on the previous day, when he had led a field trip to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., with a different class. Sometimes, he clearly shared his personal position, as on this issue: “I wish I could solve all war without war…. I wish we could spend more time and research on non-violent ways.” And later in the same class in reference to the Iraq crisis, he pondered: What if we would have sent in peace-trained people and supplies for the people who were going to suffer? Americans would have been heroes and we would have saved so much money. I don’t think we’re doing “whatever’s necessary.” I think we’re doing what hasn’t been proven and we’re still doing it. Mr. Bennett, however, was not the only authority in the class. There were also several student presentations on topics such as Martin Luther, Menno Simons, C. S. Lewis, Buddhism, and homosexuality in the church. In these events, the presenting student was the knowledge-giver and Mr. Bennett, along with the other students, became the knowledge-receiver. Once, an outside speaker was the authority, as described above, and texts in the form of films also served as a medium of disseminating information, as I will describe below in the artifacts section. Constructing knowledge. Inviting student actors to construct meaning was also a significant action in this figured world. Sometimes these experiences were individual, such as independently researching a topic or person or writing multiple assigned 103 reflective journal essays. Other experiences were collaborative, as when the students discussed journal topics in small groups, recorded their thoughts on easel paper or the white board, and shared their thinking with the whole class. In fact, even the individual artifacts had a corporate component in either the process or product (discussing with other before writing or sharing finished work with the class). The day the groups made posters, Mr. Bennett ended the class by saying, “On the way out, make a path by the posters so you can see what people said. We’ll go over them next time.” In these ways, Mr. Bennett positioned the students as significant contributors to the shared knowledge of the figured world. Making connections. There were several ways connections were made in this figured world. Mr. Bennett connected Anabaptist history or theology to his personal family, such as when he showed pictures from a recent family trip to Europe in which they visited significant sites of Mennonite persecution, execution, and worship. Mr. Bennett also connected class content to events and people in the real world. After a student presentation on Buddhism, he responded, “Do you think Buddhists go to hell? Let me tell you a story about a guy who goes to [local Mennonite church]. He was Buddhist, and then found Jesus.” Sometimes these links were between historic and current events, such as the day they watched a video about Clayton Kratz, a local 24- year-old relief worker who volunteered to help Mennonites in Russia devastated by war and famine in 1920. First, Mr. Bennett explained that a Clayton Kratz award was given every year at MHS in honor of this man. Then he said, We can ask what would we do, but that situation is actually happening right now so we can ask what are we doing? …In Jordan the refugee camps are overloaded. There’s not enough food, water, space, but still 104 people are fleeing there because of wars and ISIS. An absolute mess. Anybody want to go? Later, he paused the video to made reference to the mustache on the man in military uniform, which was customary of servicemen, and commented that to this day, Amish men do not have mustaches because they consider them to represent the military. Finally, making connections with students was important to Mr. Bennett. One day, when two students who were scheduled to present were unable to do so, Mr. Bennett concluded the formal class 15 minutes before the end of the period. He proceeded to have conversations with small groups of students, making his way around the room. I noted this choice as a significant action, writing, “I believe Mr. Bennett wants to develop relationships with students and can do that during these times.” Asking questions. A significant action in this class was asking questions. Mr. Bennett asked questions; for example, he asked, “Would you agree that [gossip is] the biggest problem [in Mennonite communities]? …What’s our understanding of community that makes us want to tell?” and a vigorous discussion ensued. Mr. Bennett also modeled asking authentic questions, such as asking a Muslim guest speaker about the differences between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. He later admitted to the class, “My biggest mistake was thinking Al-Qaeda was not Sunni. I thought they were Shiite,” and, thus, authored a space (Holland et al., 1998) in which it was permissible to admit misunderstandings. He also modeled reflective thinking: “What would Jesus do in our community, our country? I would guess he’d talk about money and disparity of wealth.” Students also asked thought-provoking questions. After a student presentation on homosexuality, another student asked, “If Jesus never said anything about it, then why is 105 it a big deal?” Sometimes, student questions were tangentially related to the current topic but turned the discussion in a new direction. One day, Mr. Bennett asked, “Is it a cop-out to say ‘whatever is necessary’ and then go to war? It would be cheaper to shower ISIS with 100 dollar bills and send a note that says please stop killing us.” This comment was followed by a student’s question: “Would there be a better way to have dealt with World War II?” After a brief response by Mr. Bennett, another student asked, “Has a more powerful group ever used non-violence against a weaker group?” And after another brief response, a third student asked, “Why do you think we’re so fearful of other forms of government?” When students asked questions, Mr. Bennett often answered in some way and then asked the students how they would answer. In this way, he invited them to author their own spaces within the topics they discussed. Artifacts Artifacts allow actors access into a figured world and also help shape that world (Holland et al., 1998). In addition to various artifacts around the room previously described, other artifacts in the Bible class figured world included discourse, films, texts, and documents written by students. Specific language. Though figured worlds often include specific discourse with meanings relevant to that community, the importance or frequency of such language varies (Holland et al., 1998). I found little evidence of such discourse in my observations of this class, though there must have been some emphasis on certain vocabulary, as Jacob wrote in an essay before I arrived, “So far I am familiar with the terms and concepts introduced…. I am familiar with all the key words and phrases we have gone over so far 106 except for Hermeneutics.” Mr. Bennett did use this term once during my time there: “In Proverbs, what’s the rod? … Rod is a guiding tool, not a beat stick. Hermeneutically, this is the best way we can understand the meaning of the scripture. Yet parents take these verses as justification for spanking their children.” To the extent that specific discourse was used, the focus was on the concept behind the word. For example, one day the lecture focused on atonement. While Mr. Bennett did not dwell on the word itself, he did explain the Mennonite theology of non- violent atonement. A second example would be the word Christocentric. Mr. Bennett explained that Anabaptists have a “non-flat view of Bible – a Christocentric view – that is, all scripture is seen through the lens of Jesus’ ministry. Read Jesus before you read Genesis and Judges and the writings of Paul. Read the Gospels first and a lot.” Films and texts. Several material artifacts evident in this figured world were used to participate in the world and help shape it. Mr. Bennett showed three films during the quarter to convey information to the class. The Radicals (Notwotny & Carrera, 1990) tells the true story of Michael and Margaretha Sattler, early Anabaptist martyrs in Europe; A Shroud for a Journey (King, 2001) tells the true story of Clayton Kratz, a Mennonite relief worker who disappeared in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War; and The Hutterites: To Care and Not to Care (Ruth, 1993) documents life in Hutterites colonies. Mr. Bennett occasionally paused these films to add additional commentary or answer student questions. In addition to showing films, Mr. Bennett told me he assigned reading from the book, Though Fire and Water (Loewen & Nolt, 1996) on Mondays. The Martyrs Mirror (Van Braght, 1938), an account of the persecution and execution of 107 thousands of Christians, including Anabaptists during the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, was also referred to in class but was not read or assigned while I was present. Occasionally, class lectures included scripture references; sometimes Mr. Bennett simply talked about these verses, and sometimes he asked students to read them aloud. After a student presentation on homosexuality, Mr. Bennett read the Genesis story of Sodom and Gomorrah to the class, saying, “We really should read the Sodom story. We really need to read that story.” During a discussion about the same presentation, Mr. Bennett walked back to his bookshelf, pulled out Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective (1995), and read the section on sexuality to the class. Frequently, as he lectured, Mr. Bennett invited students to create artifacts by taking pictures of the slides from which he was presenting, an invitation that students accepted. My field notes read: “Shannon is typing up her own notes of what is on the slide. Jessica takes a picture of the slide,” and “Cassie and Paige take pic of PP slide. Jacob does too with phone. Rest of class does too.” Mr. Bennett also encouraged taking pictures of group work that was shared with the class on the whiteboard. The artifacts of written essays were also used at times as starting points for discussions and will be addressed in the following section. Valued Outcomes In addition to actors and actions, figured worlds have valued outcomes (Holland et al., 1998). By virtue of being an educational figured world, one valued outcome for students in Mr. Bennett’s class was an acceptable grade. In order to achieve this outcome, students needed to meet the class requirements. Thus, one valued outcome for all actors was meeting the requirements. Additional outcomes were ownership and practice of beliefs. 108 Meeting the requirements. It was important that students made an effort to understand the content of the class; however, the effort itself and the idea of transacting with the ideas were the valued outcomes over mastering the content. For example, there were no objective tests to see if the students mastered the details or concepts of Anabaptist history or theology, and notes could be referenced for the one test that was given. Mr. Bennett’s assignments focused on written reflections, which followed most lectures and often included both content and personal thought as in this essay prompt he displayed one day: “What is Truth to you and how does it compare to the reformers of the 1500s? (include notes from Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Anabaptists/Sattler, and Menno).” Mr. Bennett told me that his grading was based on “did you meet the requirements, then you get the grade…. It’s not about right answers, no.” He continued by explaining that a student’s work needs to be “good enough in terms of effort, yes, but good enough in terms of having aligned with my theology, no.” Grades on these assignments were high, usually full credit. I will discuss these written artifacts in each participant’s case study. One larger assignment was a research paper or presentation with a precise rubric, according to which several students, including Paige, Cassie, and Jacob, lost points for their research or in-text documentation. In this instance, a valued outcome for them was high grades, as they each initiated a conversation with Mr. Bennett about the grade and if there were ways to earn more points. He offered that they could earn points back by fixing the areas in which they lost points. In this way, he demonstrated that he valued effort, regardless of timing, to get something right. Ownership. Another valued outcome was owning one’s beliefs. These beliefs did not need to be the same as Mr. Bennett’s personal ones or the ones promoted by the 109 school, but Mr. Bennett wanted students to think through class content and use it to help them determine what they did believe; then he wanted them to own those beliefs. When Jacob’s group was working on the truth poster project, Mr. Bennett remarked, “I’m always asking you to put this into your own thinking.” Later, he told this group, “Can you weave a little Calvin and Luther on this [poster]? …What I want to be able to observe is how you are or aren’t like these Christian reformers.” In explaining the essay on Mennonite community, he asked the class, “What is your personal reflection?” Practice. Beyond having and owning one’s beliefs, Mr. Bennett modeled and desired students to also strive for aligning their practices to their beliefs. He shared with the class, “Do I want to try to have a practice that lines up with theology? I do…. I’m so much centered on putting practice and belief together,” and “If action is theology, and I think it is, action is linked to theology.” This idea was confirmed in his interview with me: I think that I've always been trying to get students interested and eager to keep going, and for me, that always means acting in some way, not just believing. So for me, … having somebody write, like, I believe in Jesus, for example, didn't do as much as actually trying to encourage them to take it to the next notch and do something…. I think that teenagers normally would be very willing to just say something then walk out. So, I think my philosophy is: let's actually get them to interact and do something with it. Mr. Bennett tried to encourage this move toward practice in his lectures, class discussions, and assignments. For example, in early December, after talking about the refugees in Jordan, Mr. Bennett suggested to the class, “There are Christmas projects that MCC is doing, like sending [relief] bundles to [refugee] camps in Jordan. So instead of giving your parents a gift, send a bundle to the refugees in their name. [Your parents] 110 would love it.” Or, in talking about the Muslim guest speaker’s life experience, Mr. Bennett told the class, “Kadeen thought Christians were fakers just like Muslims are fakers until he met James [MHS teacher], who followed Jesus in public as well as in his home, who was the same during the week as on Sunday mornings.” Or, in lecturing about being missional: “You look to the greatest need in the community and try to bring a mission to it. You look at what’s already happening and plug into it. We have money, resources, and volunteers so we partner with them.” This emphasis on action as a part of theological beliefs aligns well with Holland et al.’s (1998) understanding that identity is based not only on valued beliefs but also significant actions and the idea that the more salient the identity, the more commitment there is to participating in the actions of that figured world. Reading - Bible Class Figured World Intersection I observed no sustained reading during my time in Bible class. Students read minimally such texts as lecture notes, their own writing, online personality tests, and unrelated texts, such as emails, online games, or other online texts. On one occasion, Mr. Bennett asked students to look up and read aloud specific scripture verses. Although there was little actual reading, Mr. Bennett shared the Anabaptist view of scripture: Scripture is the center and supreme authority – not on the same level as other books. It is a super, super important text that is to be addressed first before other sources. But the Bible is not a flat document. You can’t just hold it up without clarification. You have to have a method of reading it that gives you more clarity. You’ve gotta take the sections of Jesus as more authoritative than the rest. So the Jesus sections would be our instruction rather than what the Old Testament says. Jesus’ arguments win. If I look at you without my glasses, I can’t tell if your eyes are open or closed. When you look at the Old Testament without the lens of Jesus, you won’t fully see God. You’ll get the wrong understanding of God. Menno Simons says put on the lens of Jesus and then you can see. 111 Perhaps because of this emphasis on the Anabaptist view of scripture, interestingly, the students posed four questions to the Muslim guest speaker about sacred texts: “How does the Qur’an relate to and is different from the Bible?” “Does the Qur’an teach you can beat your wife if she disobeys you?” “Do [Muslims] believe in Old Testament stories?” “What does the Qur’an say about fighting for Allah?” As stated previously, references were made to other important Mennonite-related texts, such as The Martyrs Mirror (Van Braght, 1938) and the writings of Menno Simons, which totaled more than 1000 pages of Anabaptist peace theology. Positionality, Space of Authoring, and Making Worlds Embedded within a figured world are the three other contexts of identity performances and formation — positionality, space of authoring, and making of new worlds (Holland et al., 1998). Though I have touched on these areas throughout the discussion of the figured world of Bible class, here I will further explore these contexts. Positionality. In a figured world, all actors are continually positioning other actors and themselves (Holland et al., 1998). In this section, I will address general patterns I saw in how the teacher and the students positioned the other. Students. Mr. Bennett generally positioned the students as thoughtful, engaged students capable of meaningful articulations and productive dialogue. This position is evident in the written assignments he gave. It was also, and perhaps most, evident one day when he was not feeling well. He opened the class with four question prompts about truth and then asked who would like to lead the class discussion. In both sections, a student volunteered, and an extended, lively, on-topic conversation ensued. On another 112 occasion, after some students had visited the Arlington National Cemetery on a field trip for another class he led, Mr. Bennett asked, Do you think we were disrespectful at Arlington? I don’t mean to be disrespectful to those that make that choice…. I was silent and standing. I was fully respecting that place. I felt like I was and wanted to…. If you feel future teachers are not respectful to Arlington or any of these places, then you speak up. A final example occurred when Mr. Bennett shared a visual diagram for his personal understanding of truth. As he drew on the board, he told the students, “You can critique it.” In this figured world, student voices were valued and positioned with a degree of power and authority. Mr. Bennett also collectively positioned the students and himself as Americans, saying, “We have illegally bombed more countries with drones than ever before. We’re just drone-striking at crazy rates. We’re not any more safe or peaceful than we were before,” and “we’re not getting better at using war to get to lasting peace. There has to be another way. We haven’t been able to get better and better at lasting peace.” In these instances, the collective pronoun “we” signified an identification as Americans. Mr. Bennett. The students positioned Mr. Bennett as knowledgeable on current events and someone they respected for his opinions. The day after the decision in the Michael Brown case, in Ferguson, Missouri, was announced, a student asked him, “What do you think of the response of the African-American community?” Shannon confirmed this respect in our interview: “I love the discussions and like the viewpoint that Mr. Bennett and the other classmates bring.” Jessica wished she knew more of his thoughts: I wish Mr. Bennett would give his opinion more (laughs), and it's hard for me to tell whether he's giving his opinion or just presenting us with some information. I think it'd be interesting to hear, like, what he would think 113 too, but I can understand him not giving his opinions as much because he wants us to know for ourselves and figure out what we believe. Jessica’s preference to have Mr. Bennett “give his opinion more” might also suggest she positioned teachers as authority figures and, as such, desired to know their thoughts; however, as discussed above, students working out their beliefs was a valued outcome of this figured world. Jessica continued, “I like watching him, too, in the class as he responds to other students, like how he, I don't know if avoids, but, like, even if, he can play, like, either part, like he could be devil's advocate.…” Researcher. More often than Mrs. Cooper, the English teacher, Mr. Bennett referred to my presence. On my second day in the class, after a student presented information on C. S. Lewis, Mr. Bennett commented, “That’s an interesting statement in light of our guest today – Lewis was well-read; therefore, he was smarter because of it,” positioning me as a literacy supporter. On another occasion, he positioned me as a Russian Mennonite and asked me to share my grandfather’s immigration story, and on a third, he positioned me as a school board member interested in the process of naming the new integrated school. In addition, knowing I was from Canada, he asked me to comment on the Canadian medical system. Mr. Bennett also frequently brought me assignments from my participants or told them to bring them over to me, positioning me as a researcher, when passing back papers. Space for authoring. With every positioning, a response is required: an acceptance of the position; a rejection, which can lead to the possibility of new worlds; or a negotiation (Holland et al., 1998). Some students in this figured world accepted the positioning as interested, engaged students and listened to or participated in class 114 discussions or worked on the written assignments when class time was given. Almost everyone engaged in small group activities and appeared to produce the required written responses. Many students accepted the opportunity to shape class discussions by answering Mr. Bennett’s questions or asking their own. Due to the openness to shared authority in the figured world, many students helped construct the knowledge in the world. One example in my field notes about Jacob demonstrated this authoring: Mr. Bennett: No one expected the Germans to do as well as they did for the first 2 years. Jacob has phone out and is scrolling down on it. Jacob: There were battles in Alaska, wasn’t there? I’m positive I’ve read this somewhere. I’m pretty sure there were battles there. I’m not sure against who. Japanese took over some soil in the Alaskan islands. It was the only soil that was taken…. then we killed them. It says on US history.com Everyone says none of our land was taken in WW II, but this proves there was. Mr. Bennett: It’s a stretch, but okay. Jacob: But it’s true. Here Jacob worked to contribute to the knowledge of the class, accepting the positioning of an engaged, thoughtful student. Mr. Bennett also created a space for himself that included an identity as a lifelong learner. When a student asserted there were psychedelic drugs in ancient times in Mesopotamia, Mr. Bennett replied, “There is not evidence of this so far. I’m learning something every day, though, so I’d love to learn this.” Additional responses to these figured world positionings will be given in each participant’s case study. Examination of the written artifacts and the interview data will 115 add to the picture of how Jacob, Jessica, Cassie, Paige, and Shannon authored space in this figured world. Making worlds. Discussions during Bible class sometimes took a direction other than what Mr. Bennett had planned, such as when students asked him his thoughts on the Ferguson verdict. In some classrooms, this question would be considered an attempt of the students to alter the world. In this world, students’ construction and contribution to the knowledge and content of the world was a significant action; therefore, such behavior here affected the content of the world but did not impact the governing principles of the world. Summary The figured world of Bible class included Mr. Bennett and the students as well as invited guests. In this world, transferring and constructing knowledge were meaningful actions along with making connections with the content and with each other and asking questions. Specific discourse and material artifacts allowed actors access to participation in the world and to fulfill the valued outcomes of meeting the requirements, ownership of faith beliefs, and practice of faith beliefs. Mostly, Mr. Bennett positioned the students as a whole as engaged students at various points on a faith journey. Both the class in general and my participants specifically positioned Mr. Bennett as the respected leader of the class. Mr. Bennett’s posture in the figured world encouraged students to author their own spaces in response to authoritative voices, including his own, so that students did not have need to make an alternative new world. 116 English Class Figured World Mrs. Cooper had been an English teacher at MHS for 15 years and taught in several schools prior to this position, including a local Mennonite middle school. Her children graduated from MHS in the late 1990s, and she was well-acquainted with the school; she was a well-established actor in this figured world. Additionally, she attended a local Mennonite church and, thus, was a participant in the figured world of Mennonite faith as well. In the fall semester of 2014, Mrs. Cooper taught three sections of American Literature to sophomores and two sections of British Literature Honors to juniors. I observed each of her British Literature Honors sections twice a week for the second quarter of the year. Analyzing 32 sets of field notes, representing 1400 minutes of observation taken from both class sections, I will now describe the figured world of Mrs. Cooper’s British Literature Honors class. The Classroom Mrs. Cooper’s room was light and spacious with large windows on one side wall, a countertop and cabinets on the opposite side wall, a long chalkboard across the front wall, and a soundproof partition across the back. Mrs. Cooper’s main desk sat in the front left corner; another, smaller desk in front of the chalkboard faced the class. The door was in the front right corner of the room. Each time I entered this classroom, I was impressed with the life-sized suit of armor that stood next to the door and then by how many posters, pictures, and books were in the room. Almost all available surfaces were covered with art, photographs, quotes, posters, or other artifacts related to the content of English class. A bulletin board on the back wall displayed 91 square greeting cards, each with an inspirational or thought-provoking, unique quotation. Mrs. Cooper told me she 117 incorporated these as writing prompts when she taught the elective “Creative Writing” in fourth quarter, but by posting them year-round, she was inviting students to read them. Thus, she positioned students generally as readers and thinkers able to engage with the words and ideas of others such as Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt. To the left of this area hung a poster of the Globe Theatre, and in front of it was a cart with about 25 copies of The One-Year Bible. Mrs. Cooper told me she was the only teacher that had these Bibles in her room, so if a student wanted to borrow one, he or she came to her. Housing the Bibles in her room suggests they are an important artifact to Mrs. Cooper personally and are evidence of her space for authoring in the broader figured world of high school English classes. The Bibles also positioned actors in this room as having or seeking a faith perspective. Since students could borrow a copy, they could take action and, with that, author space for themselves as well as possibly figure new worlds. Farther along the back wall was an area devoted to Holocaust information, including a poster, pictures, books, and a 1945 Life magazine. It was not clear that this theme related specifically to any course curriculum; therefore, it may suggest evidence of space of authoring for Mrs. Cooper. Along the back wall in the corner to the outside wall stood two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books from Mrs. Cooper’s personal collection. Some of these titles directly related to classes she taught (i.e., British classics); others were popular fiction (the Harry Potter fantasy series about the life of a young wizard and The Fault in Our Stars, a romance between two teenagers with cancer); still others were less well-known works of fiction and nonfiction. In this physical space, Mrs. Cooper also enacted the space for authoring within the figured world of school and, in essence, blurred the boundaries between her reader and teacher 118 identities. There were four more bookcases in the room, also housing books from her collection; the exception was a large bookshelf by her main desk, which held class texts, binders, and anthologies and positioned her in this corner of the room as “teacher.” The chalkboard itself had a map, four art prints, and pictures of the kings and queens of Great Britain attached to it. Flanking the chalkboard were two floor-to-ceiling bulletin boards. The bulletin board to the left of the chalkboard was devoted to American Literature classes and had children’s playing cards, biographical articles, pictures, and actual books attached featuring Edgar Allan Poe, “Rip Van Winkle,” and Henry W. Longfellow. The right bulletin board was dedicated to the British Literature classes. When I began my observations, it featured Macbeth with an equally varied array of artifacts, including a poster of the Gates of Hell Rodin sculpture from Philadelphia, which Mrs. Cooper discussed in class one day. During the quarter, Macbeth paraphernalia came down and mementoes of Frankenstein appeared, followed by a Great Expectations display. These boards, which positioned students as eager and thoughtful readers of specific texts, were completely covered and included additional items on the floor at times. Similarly, the countertop and wall between that and the upper cabinets were used to display items that changed with the literature studied. When the students were reading a choice of five British novels, there were items such as cartoons, sketches, and magazine articles on the wall and various versions of videos or related books across the counter; Mrs. Cooper referred to these items during class. On the wall next to the windows were 24 colorful posters from floor to ceiling describing different literary terms, such as plot, resolution, hyperbole, foreshadowing, simile, and irony. These posters introduced lexicon for the figured world of English 119 classes and positioned students as active, if novice, participants in this discourse. Thirteen plants hung in front of the windows or sat on the sill and stools along the wall. In the corner around Mrs. Cooper’s desk and around the chalkboard were several framed paintings, positioning Mrs. Copper as an art enthusiast and again demonstrating space for authoring. There were papers all over Mrs. Copper’s two desks and a lectern in front of the three rows of 25 desks arranged in a semi-circle. Circling back to the door, a wooden cross was affixed to the wall at eye level. The room burst with colors, words, books, and ideas. This description provides a physical context for the class, but figured worlds are not so much physical settings as contexts for social activity. As in the section on the figured world of Bible class, I have organized the following sections along the components of figured worlds as described by Holland et al. (1998) – actors, the significance of certain actions, artifacts, and the value of certain outcomes over others. Actors Jacob, Cassie, Shannon, and Jessica were in the fifth-period section of Brit Lit Honors, as they called it, which met right before lunch. This class consisted of 24 students: 10 boys, 14 girls; 2 African Americans, 2 Asians, and 20 Caucasians. Eight identified themselves as Mennonite. Paige was in the seventh-period class that met right after lunch. This class included 12 students: 7 boys, 5 girls; 2 Asians and 10 Caucasians. Five identified themselves as Mennonite. In spite of these differences, the sections as sociocultural historical settings for identity performances operated similarly enough that I will describe them as a single figured world of Brit Lit Honors class. To the extent that there were relevant differences, I will describe them in the following sections. 120 Students. In this figured world, the recognized actors were students and the teacher. For much of the time, the student role was non-differentiated during class; that is, the students were individual, non-differentiated actors or, perhaps more accurately, one corporate body, positioned by Mrs. Cooper at various times as engaged honors students, unprepared students, or good students. To the extent that individual students were identified or positioned singularly, these events usually occurred when assessments or assignments were returned, such as when Mrs. Cooper returned Jacob’s Macbeth test and commented, “The last question, absolutely the best thing you’ve done. The first ones, not so much.” On four occasions, the students were organized into groups or with partners. On my first day of observation, Jacob and a partner were presenting a PowerPoint project based on two of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; in my last week of observations, students chose partners for a quiz on Great Expectations. In these two instances, group work was related to assessment. The other two groupings over the quarter served as a resource for the students. When I began observing, the students were grouped based on a writing aspect (character, plot, symbols, writer’s craft, theme, etc.) related to Macbeth. I never learned how the groups were formed, but based on variations in the size of groups and Mrs. Cooper’s lack of knowledge of who was in which group, I surmised that the students selected the topic of their choice. Mrs. Cooper talked about the students’ using these groups to help them answer questions they had about the reading and to direct their attention (to their topic) as they read; however, there was no class time that I observed given to these group activities nor any reporting back from the groups or related assessment of which I was aware. Part of the function of these groups was to work 121 outside of class time. One day, Mrs. Cooper announced, “In your groupings, exchange emails to answer questions that you have,” and told a student who had been absent, “You should probably talk to the people in your group.” These groups only met once during my visits to complete a quotations worksheet unrelated to the initial purpose of the groups. Students were also grouped later in the quarter according to which book (of five options) they had chosen for their independent reading. The implicit purpose seemed to be the same. These groups were then later used on one occasion to work together on a handout of 54 quotations from Frankenstein. In these two class situations, students were focused on the task and worked collaboratively. While using self-selected groups as resources for each other outside of class positioned students as having some control, the lack of class time given for groups to work or report in class perhaps minimized the effectiveness of the organizing structure. When Mrs. Cooper asked if students had contacted others in their group with questions, she was met with silence, and it appeared as though the students rejected this positioning and simply did not use the groups as intended beyond the classroom handout work. Teacher. The teacher was the other significant actor in the figured world. Mrs. Cooper was a medium-height Caucasian woman in her early 60s. She wore bright color- coordinated outfits with matching shoes and had short hair. Her reading glasses, with the British flag on the temples, were often on top of her head. She was energetic, passionate, and dramatic when she spoke and taught: Mrs. Cooper: So what do you predict for Act 5 [of Macbeth]? Student: Death. 122 Mrs. Cooper: Lots of it! Wow. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Wow. This passion could be attributed to her strong desire to teach, which was motivated by a salient and committed enacted identity, as she told one class: I only wanted to be a teacher since I was 3. I wanted to be a nun, then an undertaker. I set upon to be a teacher. Nothing replaced being a teacher. I even teach on Sundays for Sunday School. It’s not what I do, it’s what I am. You do what you are. It’s a fascinating concept. Mrs. Cooper moved around the front of the room or sat on the front desk when teaching, but when the students were taking a test or working in groups, she moved around the students, attentively engaging them as appropriate. My participants positioned Mrs. Cooper positively as I discuss in the section below. Of the 1049 coded discrete actions I have for English class field notes, 503 were coded for the teacher and 48 were for the other actors as a whole, suggesting that the teacher’s talk and actions dominated the class time. Knowing the actor roles in this figured world leads to discussing the significance of certain actions. Significant Acts Every figured world has acts and actions that are significant to that sociocultural context and community (Holland et al., 1998). In the Brit Lit Honors class figured world, there were two main significant acts – transfer of knowledge and mastery of content. Transfer of knowledge. As can be inferred by the number of teacher codes, much of the time, Mrs. Cooper directed the class, and the students received information. Mrs. Cooper shared different kinds of information. First, she presented material from the texts by either summarizing or reading sections of the text aloud. Interspersed with relating these texts, she would extrapolate in 123 one of three ways. She might explain the section and provide additional resources, such as character lists and maps, or offer tips on how to best read a particular writer based on her experience. Of Frankenstein, she told the class, This is how I read this kind of book. Don’t stop as soon as you don’t know what it means. These kinds of books are often repetitive. Keep reading on till the end of a paragraph and then if you’re still not sure, go back. At other times, Mrs. Cooper expounded on the culture and context of the writing, such as sharing about the author’s life – “Dickens had a rotten childhood. He worked very hard. Every book he wrote is about him. Every one of his heroes is him. It gives him some power he didn’t have in childhood” – or society at the time of the writing: “Rich people didn’t carry money, but working people did.” Sometimes Mrs. Cooper connected themes in the texts to life today, either generally or specifically for the students, as she did when discussing England in the Victorian era: If you were skinny and little, your job was probably a chimney sweep and you were probably dead by age 14. You would have to work for your job and then come home and do your own work. You would only have had one pair of clothes. You’ve had to wash your own clothes and dry them in the damp air. Now, go home and look in your closet tonight and say, I’m a wealthy person, cuz you are. I am too. Or here, as the class concluded their reading of Frankenstein, and Mrs. Cooper commented: “You are responsible for the monsters you create. If you create a monster by taking too much on, don’t hate the monster, but take responsibility. Try to get all kind of lessons out of the book.” In these times, students were positioned to listen attentively. A second way Mrs. Cooper exerted her role as a giver of knowledge was by giving directions or clarifications on assignments or assessments. Sometimes Mrs. Cooper initiated these comments, and sometimes students did. Third, Mrs. Copper 124 frequently asked the class both before and during textual explanations, “What questions do you have?” – thereby soliciting questions for which she could provide the answers. These invitations were often met with silence, although occasionally a student would ask a question clarifying an assignment or a section of text. Fourth, Mrs. Cooper asked the students questions about the readings, such as this example from Great Expectations: Who should Pip marry? Bitty. Will he do it? No, he won’t do that because we don’t do what the world wants us to do. We do what we want to do. Who shows up? Jaggers! What a name! Is he going to be good? Jaggers rhymes with daggers; he can’t be good. Sometimes a few students quietly answered these questions. Most students, including my participants, remained silent, even as they were engaged, suggesting that while Mrs. Cooper was positioning the students as active, verbal participants in literary discussions, they negotiated this positioning. Their space for authoring was to participate by watching and listening to Mrs. Cooper rather than speaking. A notable exception was when she asked who didn’t know what iambic pentameter was. Jacob was one of two who raised their hands initially, although after a minute or two, there were nine hands in the air. In fact, teacher-student interaction and student-initiated questions were valued acts by Mrs. Cooper, though neither happened often. Attending to meaning. Another important act was attending to meaning in texts. Handouts with guiding questions for a text were given to help the students comprehend, but taking one’s own notes when material was presented or when reading a text was considered of greater value. Mrs. Cooper told the class, “You might want to think about the kind of notes you take when you read. You might want to take plot points, and list important quotations or things you feel you can tie to Macbeth or Lady Macbeth.” 125 Specifically, selecting quotations from a text and knowing them for assessments were a valued way of closely reading and engaging with texts. Class time and group work was devoted to identifying preselected quotations for Macbeth, Frankenstein, and Great Expectations on worksheets, and students were assessed on these quotations as well. Artifacts Artifacts can be “verbal, gestural, and material productions” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 17) that emerge from and are used within a figured world. I have already described several physical artifacts displayed around the room; however, there were other artifacts as well, including discourse, texts, and documents written by students. Specific language. Mrs. Cooper introduced literary vocabulary: prose, verse, rhyme, rhythm, blank verse, iambic pentameter, trochee, couplet, alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, Shakespearean sonnet, Italian sonnet, scansion, quatrain, and parody. A second valued discourse was college-preparatory vocabulary as determined by the Sadler-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop series, including words such as antipathy, imminent, banal, obdurate, peruse, and bedlam. Third, Mrs. Cooper drew attention to the discourse of the novel genre, alerting students to the significance of book titles and character names as well as to the reliability of narrators. All three of these discourses positioned the students as high-level, college-bound English students. Finally, Mrs. Cooper spoke a discourse herself that was at times lively and informal and positioned the students more informally; at other times her discourse was serious and thoughtful, positioning the students as introspective and meditative thinkers. For example, with animation, Mrs. Cooper interjected phrases like “Oh, my gosh!” and “What the heck?!” When introducing the vocabulary word “sedulous,” she remarked, “It doesn’t sound like 126 a good word, but it is. HA! Didn’t see that one coming, did you?” When talking about Dickens she exclaimed, “In Tale of Two Cities – oh my! I almost said a bad word.” At other times, Mrs. Cooper was reflective and contemplative, such as when she discussed the ending of Macbeth: If you read this play, it’s about nasty stuff. Brutal. Do you think this doesn’t happen today? How do you think countries get overthrown? They just beheaded the American who went to do humanitarian work, ISIS. This is the world we live in. We believe things get better but the truth is the human heart is still black, still evil. Yes. Yes. The world is still like this. Why? Because there is evil and because we often, like Macbeth, choose to listen to it. There is a choice every person has to make. Be Macduff or be Macbeth. Or the end of Frankenstein: Do you think the creature has a soul? [No response from students.] The creature thinks he has a soul. Does he have a right to take his own life? Does he have the right to track down Victor and kill him? Were they appropriately named? Just thoughts. And sometimes, these two styles combined as when she introduced Great Expectations: “Can I tell ya? You’re going to need such a character list. It’s like opening the curtain to a freak show, and the scary thing is you will see yourself somewhere there as well.” Written words. Several material artifacts in this figured world were used to participate in the world and help shape it. Books, such as Canterbury Tales, Macbeth, Frankenstein, and Great Expectations, were distributed at the beginning of units and collected at the end. Mrs. Cooper used handouts in multiple ways: to introduce content on topics such as Shakespeare’s language use, the structure of sonnets, and meter in poetry; to emphasize ideas or important quotations or direct the reader’s attention in a text, as was the case with reading guides or lists of quotations that students were to 127 identify; or to describe assignments or outline a unit. Mrs. Cooper also encouraged students to create their own artifacts by taking notes when she explained concepts in class and as they read. One day, Mrs. Cooper had students complete a handout identifying quotations from Macbeth. She was not satisfied with their ability to complete this task quickly and afterwards said to them, “What have you learned about taking notes as you read? You need to list important quotes as you go through the play…. Keep a record of the quotes. It will be easier to write the essay. Scanning is not enough.” Additional artifacts included vocabulary quizzes, quizzes and tests on texts, and written assignments. These artifacts served as another marker of a figured world – valued outcomes. Valued Outcomes The final element of figured worlds is valued outcomes (Holland et al, 1998). Mrs. Cooper shared with me her goals for teaching British Literature: I hope that, um, that, first of all, that they love literature more. And I hope they know how to work with it more. And I really hope they – I really hope they – become Brit-philes. I really do. (laughs) …They’re just such cool stories, and you know, like, scientists say that the world is held together by atoms, but it's not; it's held together by stories. And there's some really ripping good ones out there, and why not – why not learn them? In addition to “loving literature,” mastery of content and application of content or skills from the figured world to other worlds were valued outcomes. Mastery. Assessment artifacts revealed mastery of content. Mrs. Cooper made remarks such as, “Know you will have a quiz on this sometime this week, and you need to know this,” and, “You have this written down? Because there will be a test on it this week,” and, “Thirty questions, each worth 1/3 of a point, so you can miss three and still get a decent grade.” That the valued outcome was, in fact, mastery of content was 128 evident the day of the sonnet quiz. When everyone finished, Mrs. Cooper commented, “If I grade them and they’re horrible, we’ll do it again.” In other words, learning the material was the valued outcome over moving forward with the curriculum. Students also showed their understanding of material through partner presentations. On my first day of observation, Jacob and a partner shared Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Shipman’s Tale” with the class using a PowerPoint presentation, including insights about triadic relationships among characters. Mrs. Cooper commented to Jacob as he left class that day, “That was really nice. I appreciated that you got those triangles in your presentation.” Essays were another assessment that Mrs. Cooper often used. I will discuss these written artifacts in each participant’s case study. Application. Another valued outcome was applying class content authentically in the real world, as evidenced by Mrs. Cooper when she introduced the vocabulary words one week: “Look at number 12, another ugly word. Onerous. Anything that’s burdensome. What work do you think is onerous? For me, grading vocab quizzes is onerous work; I’d much rather hear you use the words.” Applying class content authentically also meant deeply engaging with the texts to the point that they impact one’s life. Mrs. Cooper remarked at the end of the unit on Frankenstein, “You look at life differently after reading this book,” and in talking about their independent books, she noted, “Just think of all the people you’ve read in life already through books. When you meet someone like Lydia or Heathcliff, you’ll know to walk the other way.” A related outcome was making connections between class content and other parts of life, including faith, as Mrs. Cooper described on the second to last day of the quarter: 129 I feel like I’m able to talk about ideas with you. We can talk about the ideas in books and how they apply to your life. All of this is practice for reading the real book, which is what? The Bible. That’s what real life is about. If you can receive these words, you can receive those. That’s what it’s for. It’s all practice. Indeed, throughout the quarter, there were connections between class activities and faith identities. Faith-English Class Figured World Intersection Holland et al. (1998) understand multiple identities and figured worlds can be interconnected. Mrs. Cooper connected her British Literature classes to four faith figured worlds or identities 38 times in 32 class sessions. First, as seen in the quotation above, Mrs. Cooper drew a connection to Bible reading. She told the students, “Remember when you get to The King James Bible, and you see some of the psalms; they are in this [sonnet] form.” She also mentioned, “Psalm 46 is called Shakespeare’s song. It’s really probably not true, but these poets probably were called in to work on that. And you can imagine that in the original Hebrew they were songs and poems.” Finally, she commented, “there’s something about the relationship between evil and innocence that is incredibly dangerous. Go back to the garden of Eden. The snake comes in.” Second, Mrs. Cooper referenced chapel services at MHS. During her introduction to poetry and sonnets, she stated: “We’re going to get our [Macbeth] books tomorrow and then you’ll be all over it. O’er the land instead of ‘over’ to shorten the line. They do that in hymns all the time. Next time we sing in chapel, check.” And, “A lot of sonnets are turned into songs. There’s a place at the back of the hymnal where you can look up meter. So at the next singing chapel, look it up.” While reviewing vocabulary words, Mrs. Cooper again referred to chapel: “Sometimes in chapel I’ve seen some scurrilous 130 behavior; it’s not just in saloons.” Finally, introducing the convict at the beginning of Great Expectations, she said, “‘Keep quiet or I’ll cut your throat.’ You don’t say that to a kid. What if I said that to you in chapel?!” Third, Mrs. Cooper mentioned the broader figured world of Mennonites twice, once when discussing Macduff’s violent response to Macbeth — “Because Macduff went to find help, his family suffered. And now he’s going back to get revenge. It’s not what a Mennonite would tell you to do, but this is Shakespeare,” — and then again when explaining that Pip’s name, in Great Expectations, means “seed.” She charged the class, “Sing, ‘in the seed, there is a harvest,’ —come on, you go to Mennonite churches,” referring to a hymn. The second example was intended for students attending Mennonite churches and positioned them as such. Finally, Mrs. Cooper expressed 24 statements relating texts to a Christian figured world. When discussing the porter of hell’s gate in Macbeth, Mrs. Cooper referred to her poster of Rodin’s sculpture The Gates of Hell and then spoke directly in a personal way: Like knocking on the gates of hell. These are in Philadelphia. When you think of this, how can hell have doors…. Satan is in the middle of hell in Dante and in each mouth is a victim. Who are they? Cassius and Brutus (each betrayed best friend) and Judas who betrayed Jesus. It’s the only entertainment that Satan has – who is in his mouth. Who would be there today…What would you put on the gates to your personal hell – chocolate, laziness, seven deadly sins? Later, when discussing Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking and hand washing, Mrs. Cooper recounted the story of Pontius Pilate walking around and around a lake in Switzerland, trying to wash away his guilt and finally killing himself. During Frankenstein, Mrs. Cooper positioned the students both as future college students and also as Christian believers when she discussed Krempy and Waldman, two teacher characters: “Be careful 131 who you choose as a teacher. What did Peter and James and John say when Jesus asks, ‘why are you hanging around here?’ ‘Because you have the words of life.’ This process is what you do at college.” And during the study of Great Expectations, Mrs. Cooper observed: “We all need a Joe in our lives. His name starts with J because he’s a Jesus figure. He loves Pip because he’s Pip. … He shepherds him, pays debts that he does not owe so that Pip can go free.” Additionally, Mrs. Cooper positioned the students as church-goers when she said, “When you were bad in church and you got back in the car, your parents would say, either ‘you know better,’ or ‘that’s not what we taught you.’ Am I the only one that was bad in church? I don’t think so.” Positionality, Space of Authoring, and Making Worlds As noted earlier, embedded within a figured world are the three other contexts of identity performances and formation — positionality, space of authoring, and the making of new worlds (Holland et al., 1998). Positionality. I have noted how various artifacts and class activities have positioned actors in this figured world; namely, students were engaged knowledge- receivers. Now I want to further discuss some additional positionings. Students. Several times, Mrs. Cooper positioned the students collectively as honors students. This positioning was to assure them that they knew more than they thought they did: “you’re honors [students], so I think you know it; you’re just worried that you don’t,” and “Do not doubt yourself. If you think you’re right, you’re probably right. You’re honors.” She also positioned them as students who cared about grades: “Do you want to take it [vocabulary quiz] today? I know about your A’s! [Silence.] Let’s 132 just take it.” Later in the same class and later in the quarter with different literature, Mrs. Cooper elevated the students’ power and position when she asked for their input on assessment: “How would you like to be assessed? On a test? Essay? Presentation? A series of quotations and then you tell what they mean? I have options for all of those. Maybe we should let you have all those options.” This more democratic positioning was only selectively used by Mrs. Cooper; most of the time, she retained the authority. At other times, Mrs. Cooper positioned the class collectively as lazy students, such as when they worked to complete a Macbeth quotations worksheet: You should already have some of these written in your notebook and the line number and who said it. This is what we’re working on. You gotta step it up. Finish the quotations and then we’re moving on to Act Two, which you already are supposed to have read. This positioning as unprepared students was primarily directed at the fifth-period section and reappeared throughout the quarter at times: “I may need to collect the study guides because we only have a few people answering, so I need some evidence that you’re reading.” In contrast, on one occasion, she counted off the 12 students of the seventh- period section and called them “my disciples,” positioning them as devoted followers and making a Biblical connection. In fact, this class was somewhat more willing to answer Mrs. Cooper’s questions and engage in discussion. Lastly, Mrs. Cooper positioned her students, along with herself, as part of the larger world of engaged readers who find themselves reflected in texts. For example, she asked the class: Was Macbeth led on by the witches or was it totally his fault? The problem is, here is this man who we knew to be a good man who is now a bad man, and we’re stuck looking at his face and seeing ours in it. Who among us hasn’t been duped? Done something stupid? 133 Here, Mrs. Cooper identified with her students, using the collective “we.” At other times, as we have seen, she established a position as an authority who needed to help neophyte readers. “I want to give you time to read, but I want to make sure you’re on the right path first,” she said one day. In describing positionings, it is important to remember that while positions are repeated over time, as in the examples above, they are also dynamic with the possibility of changing moment by moment through the activities in a figured world (Holland et al., 1998). The following section of field notes illustrates how positions can change even within a few moments. A. Back to the teachers. Krempy and Waldman are the two kinds of teachers. Dresses well. Too enthusiastic. Waldman is mysterious; kids are drawn to him because they think they’ll hear something mystical and awesome. You better be careful who you choose as a teacher. B. What did Peter and James and John say when Jesus asks, why are you hanging around here? Because you have the words of life. C. This process is what you do at college – choose your classes. Watch out. D. T - Are you harvesting quotes and notes? You better. There could be a quiz. E. Victor wants to know the secret of life. Well, we all do. Problem is, who’s his teacher? Well, you’ll find out. In section A, Mrs. Cooper first talks about the text at hand and positions the students as students in her class. Then she shifts and talks to them as agentic selves who are able to choose teachers. While this action could be relevant in their present lives, it is certainly true in college and she appears to be positioning them as future college students, as is confirmed by section C. In section B, Mrs. Cooper shifts to include a Christian example. 134 While not directly positioning the students as Christians, this statement does assume their knowledge of this reference. After positioning them as future college students in C, Mrs. Cooper repositions the students back to this figured world in section D. Lastly, in E, Mrs. Cooper moves from positioning the students as engaged readers, along with herself, in “we all do” to first-time-readers/students in “you’ll find out.” Mrs. Cooper. Predominantly, the students positioned the teacher as the literary expert in the figured world. She knew the literature well, made interesting connections between the texts and other texts or life, told stories often and effectively, and was passionate about the literature. In an interview, Jessica described Mrs. Cooper as “so smart in understanding the reading and helping us understand the reading.” Jacob commented in his semester-end reflection, “I liked how we would be talking about some theme or topic in the book, and then Mrs. Cooper would have some story to go along with it…. This kind of teaching style makes a class enjoyable.” Cassie loved that “she’s so enthusiastic.” Researcher. Finally, my presence was acknowledged three times in the class while I was there, though one of the participants told me I was referred to as “that lady” at other times when I was not present. Once Mrs. Cooper positioned me as an outsider to the group, once as a fellow reader, and, finally, as a doctoral student. Space for authoring. Previously, I have noted some examples of space for authoring within the British Literature Honors figured world. As stated earlier, every positioning necessitates a response: acceptance; rejection, which can potentially and eventually lead to new worlds; or negotiation (Holland et al., 1998). 135 During class time, the students, including my participants, mainly accepted their positions of knowledge-receivers and as honors students as given them by Mrs. Cooper. Most of the students were attentive most of the time; however, most also rejected the positioning to engage verbally during class. When given the opportunity to give their opinions about assessment or when Mrs. Cooper asked a question or asked for questions, most remained silent, in effect rejecting the positioning. In this case, the space of authoring was passive, a withdrawal from an opportunity to participate and engage more deeply. Still, there were some occasions when students chose to author their own space. First, a few times, students did ask questions that initiated a new line of inquiry from the one Mrs. Cooper had established. Second, after Mrs. Cooper chided the class for not knowing more of the Macbeth quotations on the worksheet and positioning them as lazy, Shannon remarked to Jessica, “I wouldn’t have written this down. I wouldn’t have known these were important. Now I know that they were important to her.” Additional responses to in-class, figured-world positioning will be given in each participant’s case study. Examination of the written artifacts and the interview data will add to the picture of how Jacob, Jessica, Cassie, Paige, and Shannon authored space in this figured world. Making worlds. There was little evidence to suggest that my participants tried to alter the figured world. One clear example came from Jacob in his end-of-semester reflection, in which he suggested some technology-related changes; this example will be discussed in his case study. Rather, the participants, including Jacob, spoke favorably of the class, as captured by Cassie: “I wish I could stay in her class and have her for English every semester but then no one else would get to enjoy it just as much as I have.” This 136 appreciation and commitment suggests they acquiesced to the actions and values of the figured world. Summary The figured world of British Literature Honors class was populated with two types of actors: students and the teacher. In this world, significant actions included transferring knowledge from the teacher or texts to students and attending to meaning in texts. Various discourses and artifacts were used in this world to participate in the activities of the world. Valued outcomes included mastery of content and applying class content to the world outside of the classroom. Additionally, Mrs. Cooper regularly made connections between this figured world and faith-related figured worlds. She positioned students in various ways, most consistently as knowledge-receivers, honors students, and unprepared students collectively. Predominantly, the students as a whole and, specifically, my students accepted the given positioning or authored a passive space to disagree. Chiefly, they accepted the figured world as it was. Case Studies I have described the two school-related figured worlds most relevant to my research question about Mennonite high school students and their literate practices. Now I will share the story of each participant in terms of salient identities, faith identities, elective literate practices, performed identities in the two figured worlds, written documents from each class and responses during verbal protocols as a way of answering the question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? I have ordered the case studies according to the 137 strength of the connection between faith identity and literate practices, starting with the strongest connection, though these distinctions are clearest in the first and last cases. Paige Paige was a bright-eyed, tall, slender, 16-year-old girl. She dressed modestly in jeans and a sweater or in athletic wear with her long brown hair in a ponytail. Her blue backpack was usually full, with a small wooden cross hanging on one of the zipper pulls. Paige described herself as shy, hardworking, and dependable. When I asked her what was important to know about her, she replied, “I would say that probably my faith is probably a big part of it. Yeah, I would consider that to be one of the most important things that people would know about me.” In our interviews, Paige used copulative verbs eight times to identify herself. From these identifications and her use of subsequent transitive verbs for supportive actions, I coded for the following enacted identities: conscientious student (15 notations), curious learner (5), devoted runner (11), person of faith (80), and reader (63). As we shall see, for Paige, her performed faith identity was the most salient. Hierarchically, enacting a person of faith was the central identity that permeated the other understandings she had of herself. Furthermore, her faith and her literate practices intersected regularly and influenced each other reciprocally. While this study focused on the faith identities and literate practices of the participants, my data included evidence of other enacted identities that were important to how the participants understood themselves, and some of these identities impacted or were impacted by faith or reading. I begin each case with these “other” identities. 138 Other Identities I have drawn the following descriptions of Paige’s other identities solely from the interview data, though there will be triangulation in other sections that incorporate other data. Conscientious student. Paige performed as a conscientious student who finished her homework and checked in with teachers if she needed help or if she missed a class due to her participation on the soccer, cross-country, or track teams. After supper each night, she did “all [her] homework” until she got ready for bed. Referring to her weekend activities she said, “in my free time, um, probably just do homework.” She particularly liked four classes: Concert Choir, Conflict Resolution, Chapel, and English. The first three connected to faith: the choir sang faith-related texts; reconciliation is at the center of Anabaptist theology (Becker, 2010); and chapel services at MHS supported the faith development of the school community. The fourth class, English, supported her reader identity. She really enjoyed MHS and her relationships with teachers and friends. Curious learner. Paige contrasted her conscientious student identity to enacting a learner or a curious person identity. She clarified: I mean, a student’s more, like, you know, you’re sitting in class, like, kind of the generic thought of what a student should be, but a learner is, like, you actually are curious and want to learn new things about, like, the world and life, and I think I like learning new things so I would consider myself a learner. Yeah. It’s a difference. Her enacted learner identity intersected with her student and faith identities, as in the following example when I asked why she chose to write about C.S. Lewis for a Bible assignment. She commented: 139 I don’t know; I heard he was, like, a really good philosopher guy, like a Christian philosopher, and I wanted to hear his, like, ideas about that, and I also heard he had a conversion to Christianity and I wanted to hear, like, why and what made him do that, I guess…. And I also knew he was the author of The Chronicles of Narnia [high fantasy children’s series exploring several Christian themes], and I really liked those books so I wanted to kinda know his, like, theology behind it more cuz I know he had, like, symbolism in that and …so I wanted to know more about that. Paige performed her learner identity in service of her good student identity, in which an assignment was an opportunity to learn, and faith-related topics were of interest to her. Devoted runner. A third self-understanding for Paige was performing as a runner. She had been a successful long distance runner for the past three years, and she believed running enhanced her faith: Before I started running, I wasn’t really strong in my faith, I’d say. But then I – it’s kind of taught me to depend on God more instead of myself cuz, like, when I pray I can rely on Him instead of just relying on my strength because sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough strength to get through, like, a hard workout or a hard race or whatever. So yeah, I think that running has definitely been, like, a big part of helping me grow spiritually. Additionally, Paige felt her faith, particularly the practice of prayer, improved her running performances. As Holland et al. (1998) attest, Paige’s identity performances and practices in one world – faith – were woven throughout her activities in other worlds. Faith Identity Paige’s enacted faith identity was central to how she saw herself. She described her faith as “a work in progress, still growing, trust…cuz I feel like trust in God is a big part. And, um, strengthening. Like, it strengthens me to be able to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do without it.” Paige’s understanding of herself as a person of faith permeated and affected other identities and her behaviors, as evidenced in her running and in the following example about Bible class. I asked what she liked about the class. 140 Her response did not reflect a good student identity so much as a committed faith believer: “I really like hearing about [the martyrs] because it’s, like, encouraging that they would –, like, hearing the stories of those that actually died for what they believed.” After telling me her faith was a big part of who she was, she continued, “I still have struggles with it at some, like sometimes, but I think that’s okay because it shows that you actually care if you struggle with it.” Paige was negotiating and authoring space for herself within the world. Holland et al. (1998) would view this struggle as part of the dialogism that is constantly present in two ways: first, as each person interacts with others and the environment; and second, as the words and ideas we receive from others help us to author our own stories and lives. They would also say it is part of Paige’s zone of proximal development within this identity as she works to author her own space in this world (Holland et al., 1998). Holland et al. (1998) assert that while identities are always changing, histories-of- persons develop whereby, over time, some identity performances stabilize and become more central to the individual. Paige acknowledged that while her faith had grown overall as she had grown, the past couple of years her faith practices and identity had “had its ups and downs,” but that it was “pretty strong right now.” Here she named both a fluidity and a stability to her faith identity. Paige grew up with Mennonite parents and had attended a Mennonite church all her life as well as Mennonite schools. She saw these influences as providing a strong foundation for her faith. Over the past several years, Paige moved from blindly accepting beliefs about God from those around her, to doubting, and now owning her beliefs and performances: “I did a lot of praying and, like, 141 now I’m sure He exists because I’ve seen, like, signs, just my personal experiences, like, I’ve seen so many signs of Him, like, everywhere.” Holland et al. (1998) tie self-understandings to words and actions, so in sharing her view of herself as a person of faith, Paige reinforced that identity. Paige claimed both a Christian and a Mennonite identity, specifically identifying with the Mennonite beliefs in nonviolence and adult baptism. As she described for me her past, present, and future actions pertaining to this self-understanding as a person of faith, she again bolstered this identity. Paige also engaged in several actions, significant to the figured world of Mennonite faith, that embodied her faith identity, including attending church, Sunday School and youth group activities; attending MHS and chapel services; praying; and reading her Bible. In fact, although she believed church attendance was important for her faith development, “other activities, like [attending a Mennonite camp in the summer] and like reading my Bible on my own,” were more significant, and she named her Bible as the second most important object in her life after her house. A group of friends from school set out to read the Bible in a year, suggesting the social practice of reading (Knoester, 2009). Paige stuck with it, and even though she did not finish in a year, she was committed to finishing when she could. Paige believed reading the Bible was vital to her Christian identity: Yes, I mean, there’s no way you’re gonna understand, like, how you’re supposed to live your life if you don’t read God’s Word. Like, you can’t expect to…know what you’re doing unless you have instructions. So I feel like reading the Bible is, like, a big part of knowing how to live as a Christian. 142 Paige read the Bible as well as a devotional every night before going to bed. This voluntary commitment to the daily practice of Bible reading indicated a strong faith identity. Paige authored or envisioned a space for herself in the future Mennonite church. She imagined that churches might meet as smaller groups rather than one large group. If this change were to occur, she would feel more comfortable sharing and even leading events. She also articulated a vision for her future faith identity performances: What I would hope it would be is that I would keep reading the Bible and stuff like that, and I would keep trying to, like, live what I believe more and just keep following what God wants me to do, if I can figure that out. Paige’s ability to articulate and foresee herself even more deeply involved in a future faith identity denotes a strong commitment to her present identity as a Mennonite (Holland et al., 1998). Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices Paige described herself as “not a voracious reader, but a reader that reads for pleasure once in a while.” Paige did read voraciously as an elementary and middle school student, but found that her sport and student identity-related commitments took up most of her free time in high school. Still, this self-definition was important to her. She explained: In my free time, when I have free time, I enjoy, um, reading and learning from, like, I like getting outside of my own little bubble…. I like being a reader because it means that you are interested in, like, other people’s stories, and you want to learn more from other people. And I think reading is a good way to do that. Paige’s enacted reader identity supported her learner identity as was evident in her reading goals: 143 Obviously, you can learn a ton through reading, like, about, I don’t know, anything. You could – there’s basically [books] about any subject on earth that you could possibly want so you can become really smart by reading and have a big huge vocabulary; so I like that about it. Beyond learning facts or different perspectives, Paige took an additional significant action in the figured world of reading – application: “Even if they’re fictional, I think it’s still cool to learn about all the characters and …relate their struggles or whatever they’re going through to my life, and I think that’s really good to, like, make those connections in it.” In fact, Paige’s comments for both texts in the verbal protocol support this move, and Pride and Prejudice, which she read for school and didn’t find very meaningful, was redeemed for her because she “learned stuff from it,” and it had “a little lesson at the end.” Fantasy was her favorite genre – “I feel like it broadens my imagination to stuff that wouldn’t normally happen in this world” – though she would pick up a Sports Illustrated or National Geographic that was sitting around the house if the issue looked interesting. Though she didn’t have much time for elective reading and didn’t know of any good book series, she desired to get back into elective reading: “I’m still looking for, like, a really good book that I can sit down and read.” Furthermore, Paige liked the books she read for English class “cuz that’s when I’m actually, like, that’s when I actually get a chance to sit down and read a book.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a particular favorite because it taught her lessons she could apply to her own life. Specifically, Paige made connections between reading and her enacted faith identity, like one of the participants in Richardson and Eccles’ (2007) study, which was evident in three ways. First, she read and enjoyed texts with faith-based themes, such as I 144 Lived to Tell About It by Joey Perez, a personal narrative of a gang member who found God. Perez later spoke in chapel at MHS, creating a link for Paige between her reader identity and her student and faith identities; however, there were other faith-related books as well that she read. She told me: I like books about faith and stuff like that. Like, that’s why I liked Uncle Tom’s Cabin – cuz it was kind of about, um, Uncle Tom, like, going through his faith journey and stuff like that; so, I don’t know if [my faith] impacts …what books I read, but it impacts um what books I end up liking, enjoying…. That’s why I like Great Ex[pectations] – cuz I would kind of relate it to my faith. Just as Kelly (2001) found in her study of Anthony, an African-American youth and the reading he did, Paige’s reading informed her other identities. Second, Paige looked for Christian connections in any text she read: When I read, like, I’m always looking for those, like, connections, and I don’t know if the author meant them to be there necessarily, but I think once, like, an author writes a book, it’s open to anyone’s interpretation, so that’s fine if we can, like, find metaphors or, like, I don’t know, similarities between, like, our faith and, like, the characters…. I don’t, like, stretch it if it’s, like, completely not there, but if it’s there, then I connect it. Third, as previously stated, the main text Paige read on her own was the Bible: “I definitely read it every day…It’s kinda like part of my nightly routine…And even if it’s, like, really late, I’ll just do it.” This activity, related to her faith identity, was habituated (Holland et al., 1998) and served a purpose: “It’s a good time to, like, think back and, like, reflect on what happened in the day and spend some time with God and myself.” Paige highlighted passages that stood out to her, and viewed the Bible as both an instruction book and also a source of inspiration: “It’s, like, motivation for us and it helps, like, bolster us up in our faith.” Paige was also committed to reading Jesus Calling, a popular daily devotional. 145 Paige read the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ ministry, which helped her make sense of the Old Testament, and she thought it was important to take into account the context, culture, and time period in which the Bible was written as she sought to interpret passages. She also believed it important to read scripture with other Christians because hearing their interpretations could inform her own. Reading the Bible from a Christocentric viewpoint and interpreting scripture with a body of believers are common Mennonite practices, suggesting that Paige’s enacted Mennonite identity influenced her Bible reading approach. In summary, Paige used various texts, including the Bible, as artifacts into the figured world of Mennonite faith (Holland et al., 1998). Paige did do some elective writing, keeping a journal under her bed that she would write in “when something big happens or something that impacts” her and she “[feels] like writing about it.” She might write a couple of times a month. Identities in Bible Class I had 86 field notations for Paige in Bible class, 53 of which I coded as conscientious student. Paige took notes, photographed presentation slides, worked in groups to complete class activities, used given class time to write journal assignments, and sat attentively, looking at Mr. Bennett during lectures. She did not engage in class discussion. In fact, the first time she volunteered or spoke in class was during the final week of the quarter. Still, there were no verbal participation requirements for the class, and Paige could fully engage without speaking. In the figured world of Bible class, Paige most often performed a good student identity. A second identity Paige performed was “other student identity.” In these instances, Paige maintained some focus on the activities in the class, such as listening to 146 Mr. Bennett, but also worked on assignments for other classes at the same time. For example, one field note reads, “Paige is doing math? Has calculator out. Paige is asking questions of kid in front about math homework.” Mr. Bennett never called attention to these behaviors and may not have been aware of them as Paige was inconspicuous in her actions. However, even if he had been, in this figured world, such behavior was generally tolerated. From his observations as the Bible teacher, Mr. Bennett perceived Paige as asking questions and thinking about faith: “She’s thinking of how to process the Jesus teachings to our lives today…. She was respectfully understanding ‘Mennonite’ – and it means more serious about Jesus’ teaching – and I thought that was really good, to be able to get at that.” This observation aligns well with how Paige described her own participation in the figured world of Mennonite faith as we have seen and will also be evident in her writings. There were nine notations that described Paige’s clothing, but none of these notations indicated that she performed her faith identity through her clothing. Four other notations described a friend or social identity performance. Most noteworthy, perhaps, of Paige’s identity performances in Bible class is that her faith identity was not evident in classroom activities except for her writing assignments. Rather than speaking up in class, Paige chose to remain quiet, saving her voice for her writing. In her writing, however, she participated in the figured world and in so doing, performed her faith identity as well. Identities in English Class In English class, Paige’s exclusive identity performance was conscientious student. There were 102 field notations for Paige in English class. Fourteen of these 147 described her clothing, and the rest noted engaged student behaviors, such as participation in group work (20 notations), in which she supplied many of the answers or gave leadership to the group, taking notes or completing a worksheet (8), looking at the teacher and responding by nodding or looking in the texts (31), and reading (9). Five times, Paige asked questions to clarify an assignment, an assessment, or a grade, and eight notations evidenced interactions between Paige and Mrs. Cooper initiated by Mrs. Cooper, such as Mrs. Cooper’s asking Paige which independent book she was reading and whether or not she was writing a reader’s journal. Only once did I note Paige’s answering a content-related question. Much like in Bible class, she saved her identity performance for the written assignments, where her faith identity was evident, as I will discuss in a subsequent section. Specific to the figured world of British Literature, Paige participated in the significant acts of receiving knowledge and attending to meaning by taking notes, listening to Mrs. Cooper, and reading the assigned texts. Her mastery of material and application of ideas to her own life – the valued outcomes of the figured world – can be seen in her writings as well as in her discussions with me about certain texts, such as Great Expectations. Though Mrs. Cooper rarely individually positioned students during class, on three occasions she did so with Paige, all of which positioned her as a good student. First, when returning a test to Paige, Mrs. Cooper gave her a thumbs-up sign and said, “Really nice.” Second, Paige inquired about a low score on a summary she had written. Mrs. Cooper responded, “That can’t be right. That would be hilarious. I’ll look into it.” 148 Third, Paige confirmed she was writing a reader’s journal and asked if hers was too long. Mrs. Cooper replied, “That’s not too much to read. Your writing is fun to read.” Paige accepted these positions. She liked Mrs. Cooper and enjoyed the books they read in class. While she preferred taking tests to writing essays on texts she didn’t like as well, she did not feel strongly enough to voice this preference to Mrs. Cooper or, in any other way, to make a new world or alter this one. Literate Practices Paige’s literate practices evidenced her faith identity performances at the same time that her faith influenced her reading and writing practices. Bible class writings. Paige’s conscientious student and faith identities were both salient for her, which was evident in the Bible class writing she did. Although I did not have any codes for constructing knowledge, making connections, or asking questions, 89 of the 154 sentences she wrote collectively in seven essays met requirements for the assignment, and overall, the writing was informative (Britton et al., 1975). This evidence indicates Paige’s performance of her good student identity. Furthering her good student identity performance, each of the seven essays included the other valued outcomes of the Bible class figured world: ownership of personal faith beliefs, practice of faith beliefs, or both. These outcomes, however, serve as more than evidence of a good student identity; they are also indications of a performed faith identity as we shall see. Additionally, each essay included between six and 24 self-mentions; fifty-one of the 85 total self-mentions I coded as originator, indicating a strong authorial presence in the writing (Tang & John, 1999). 149 These data, as seen in Table 1, align with salient good student and Mennonite faith identities as Paige used the Bible assignments not only to perform a good student identity but also as opportunities to describe and perform her faith identity and her commitment to it. This point is illustrated in the following three examples. Table 1: Paige's Bible Writings Essay Assignment Total Sentences Meeting Requirement Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Hermeneutics Essay 39 20 7 3 24 Reforms Essay 14 9 3 0 6 Schleitheim Articles Essay 15 10 5 0 6 Russian Mennonites Essay 21 10 3 0 13 Mennonite Community Essay 12 2 1 9 12 Truth Essay 26 21 3 1 9 Final Essay 27 17 0 4 15 Totals 154 89 22 17 85 First, describing the benefits of Mennonite community, Paige wrote, “I have had personal experiences of this, as I have grown up in a Mennonite church that places community and helping others in very high importance,” and continued with an example: I have tried to do the “Bible in a year” reading plan on my own, and i [sic] eventually lost interest and forgot. However, this past year I did it with a group of 150 my friends, and found it to be much more enjoyable and easy. In this way, we held each other accountable. Reading the Bible in a year is a commitment for anyone, but certainly for an active teenager. This activity of Paige’s faith identity became more consistent with the encouragement and accountability of other actors in the figured world of Mennonite faith. Owning and performing a Mennonite faith identity for Paige was not an individual understanding, but a communal one, as Holland et al. (1998) would argue is true for all identities. Second, Paige referred to reading the Bible twice more, indicating the salience of this activity to her faith identity. Comparing her beliefs to the those of the early Anabaptists in the mid-1500s, she confirmed, “I also hold God’s word in high authority in my life and read scriptures though the lens of Jesus’ ministry (Christocentric).” The Bible is an artifact into the figured world of Mennonite faith and one way for Paige to gain access to and participate in that world (Holland et al., 1998). Last, Paige authors a space for herself (Holland et al., 1998) in the figured world of Mennonite faith when she envisioned ways she could participate in the future: If small-groups become a part of the church, I would feel more comfortable sharing my thoughts in that setting. I might even lead sometimes. Also, if conflicts do arise, I could use my spiritual gift of mercy to be merciful instead of judging people. I also really like unity and togetherness, and that could be helpful to the future of the church. Paige imagined a future church and a place for herself in it. Holland et al. (1998) suggest that identities sediment over time as one takes past experiences and applies them to present contexts and positionings. Here, Paige’s present commitment to her faith identity is strong enough to allow her to imagine continued participation and even reshaping of 151 that world. Paige used the literate events of Bible writing assignments to claim and imagine her Mennonite faith identity. English class writings. The evidence of good student identity performances and the salience of Paige’s faith identity continued in her English class writings. Paige gave me five written documents from English class, with a combined total of 170 sentences. Paige strongly participated in the figured world’s significant action of close, attentive reading, which manifested in using quotations 17 times in her writing and including discourse specific to the class eight times. Additionally, I coded 114 of the sentences as mastery, indicating Paige’s success in this valued outcome of the figured world, and all of the writings were informative (Britton et al., 1975). The quotations, discourse, and mastery all provide evidence for a conscientious student identity performance as do the seven instances of the valued outcome of life application to text ideas or themes, as seen in Table 2. For example, Paige wrote, “Reading Great Expectations, above all, revealed to me what it was to be a true friend. Joe was the faithful and steadfast father-figure throughout the whole book to Pip. I want to be more like Joe.” She then described a true friend as a Christ-like friend, and, as Paige wanted to be more like Joe, she is suggesting a desire to deepen her participation in the figured world of faith. Indeed, like others in the literature (Richardson & Eccles, 2007; Sumara, 2000), Paige used texts and characters to consider who she was and how she might want to change. 152 Table 2: Paige's English Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Significant Action - Quotations Valued Outcome- Mastery Valued Outcome - Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions The Once and Future King Essay 36 5 16 3 2 25 Beowulf Essay 37 6 28 0 0 5 Chaucer Essay 42 3 33 0 0 0 Frankenstein Essay 37 3 31 0 0 2 Great Expectations Essay 18 0 6 4 2 17 Totals 170 17 114 7 4 49 Paige’s commitment to her faith identity can also be seen in the following example about The Once and Future King. She began, “Arthur’s ideas … have stretched my mind and introduced new concepts that have changed my outlook on both the world and life as a whole.” She continued by writing about Lancelot and his concept of God: Lancelot’s view of God was one of the most influential things in this book for me, despite the fact that it is not one of the major themes of the book. The notion that God is like a person, and that you can be in love with him and have a personal relationship with him is…well, remarkable. This idea expanded my mind and way of thinking greatly. She concluded this essay by writing that Lancelot’s perspective on God will “stick with” her for the rest of her life. The faith connection Paige made here is noteworthy since, as she asserted, Lancelot’s view of God is not a central theme of the book. Although the Beowulf and Frankenstein essays do not include faith applications to her life, Paige addressed faith topics in these essays as well. 153 Finally, Paige had 49 self-mentions across these writings, and all but three of the 49 self-mentions were opinion-holders or originator roles, indicating a powerful authorial presence in the writings (Tang & John, 1999) that aligns with her self-understanding as a reader. In addition to the personal pronoun uses above, which illustrate life application and faith connections, Paige’s self-mentions suggested another kind of text transaction – connecting to the characters. Of Great Expectations, she wrote: I felt myself empathizing with the characters and feeling their emotions…. Pip’s journey to become a REAL gentleman was long and painful, and at times, I felt sorry for the miserable life he had gotten himself into. I must admit I really disliked his character throughout most of the book, but a small part of me was clinging to the hope that he would repent his selfishness, give up his quest for fortune, and return to Joe and Biddy. Of course, I loved him again at the end when he did just that. Paige’s English writings evidenced an engaged student and reader through her use of quotations and figured world discourse as well as her mastery and application of class content. Her English class writings also substantiated her salient faith identity. Verbal protocols. Paige’s use of literacy events to both strengthen and perform her faith identity was also evident in her verbal protocols. Both of her text choices clearly had faith themes, suggesting a faith identity performance since I had asked for one text related to faith while the other was the student’s choice. Her first reading was from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which Tom, a slave, is beginning to doubt his faith. He then sees a vision of Jesus and begins to feel joy. The second passage was Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 6-22 from The Message, which is titled “He Tore Down the Wall.” The theme in this text is becoming alive and one in Christ. Paige’s overall orientation to each text was point-driven (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002); she focused on the morals or values evoked in the 154 texts. As the ideas in both texts were faith-related, this orientation further confirms that her faith identity was enacted during these readings. Table 3: Paige's Verbal Protocol Reponses Uncle Tom’s Cabin Ephesians Total Comprehending 8 4 12 Visualizing 2 0 2 Connecting to other texts 2 1 3 Connecting to reader’s life 12 7 19 Connecting to other figured worlds 1 0 1 Evaluating 10 11 21 Reacting 7 0 7 Total 42 23 65 Adding the responses from each text together, Paige’s highest category of responses was positively evaluating the texts or characters in the texts and relating the texts to her life as seen in Table 3 above. Reacting, again positively, and comprehending the texts were the other responses of note, and in total, evaluating, making connections to her life, and comprehending accounted for 52 of 65 responses. As noted above, Paige did more evaluating than any other kind of response in her protocols. Much like Galda and Beach’s (2001) study, in which students evaluated fictional characters positively or negatively based on their own identities, Paige’s evaluation of Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was based on his dedication to his faith. Her 155 admiration reflected her own valuing of faith, and it is through this lens that she evaluated his character: I just like how Tom had a positive attitude through it all. I mean, like, throughout the book, he was, like, - he faced all sorts of troubles and … he was able to, like, keep his faith strong throughout this but this, was, like, the weakest point in his faith, and I thought that was really cool how God sent him a vision, like, right when he needed it most. And I think God does that for people when they really are at, like, rock bottom. Not only did Paige respect Tom for his faith, but in her response she articulated some of her own theology. This artifact that allows her to participate in the figured world of reading also informed or reaffirmed her values within the figured world of faith. Tom had even more influence on Paige, though; his character provided an example for her own behavior or performances of her faith identity. That is, she connected the text to her own life, as can be seen in the table as well as in this example: When I read it, it, like, really, like, gave me hope because I felt like I could relate to it. Like, when I go through tough times I try to focus on God instead of focusing on my troubles. And, I mean, I don’t always do very good at that. So, I guess, this passage, like, I was, like, really admiring how Tom did it, and I wanted to kind of be like him when it happened to me. While Paige admitted she has never been in such dire situations as Tom, she did recount praying for strength before races when she had injuries and feeling that God helped her through those races. As also noted in the table, Paige connected the Ephesians passage to her life as well. After reading, “Christ brought us together through his death on the cross,” she said: So I really like the idea of unity…. We had to take like a [team] captain quiz…and it was like what’s your leadership style, and I got togetherness so I like this idea that Christ brings everyone together and there doesn't have to be any one like left out or anything. 156 Beyond making connections, Paige viewed this passage as informing her faith identity performances such that the act of reading influenced her faith performances: I really like that it actually gives you practical advice on how to live once you, um, get into God’s kingdom and how it kind of describes God’s plan…. All we have to do is trust Him enough to let Him do it…. It’s kind of like a thought process that you have to, like, do because if you go around thinking that you’re the one who saved yourself then that doesn’t really work out so well. There were two other noteworthy areas of response as is evident in the table – comprehending and reacting. Paige shared several responses to both texts which I coded as comprehending. In these instances, Paige restated the text in her own words, beginning with phrases such as, “So I think that’s saying that…” These responses did not have as much identity presence in them as those that were evaluative, connecting, or reactive. In the reacting responses, Paige responded with emotion, such as, “That just kind of made me feel, like, depressed,” or “Well, that’s really awful.” She continued, “Because if someone told you, like, your religion, which is your source of, like, hope, like, doesn’t work, and all the evidence around you, like, is pointing that way, then that would just crush you even more.” Perhaps these emotional responses happened in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and not in Ephesians because of the narrative structure of the text, allowing Paige to enter the text on a more emotional level. Paige’s verbal protocols supported the strong relationship between her reading practices and her enacted faith identity. Summary Paige’s multiple identities were hierarchically related, with her faith identity performances being most central to how she understood herself. This identity crossed contextual boundaries to interact with her other enacted identities, such as conscientious student, curious learner, and devoted runner. Furthermore, there was evidence that there 157 was a consistent reciprocal relationship between her elective and required literate practices and her faith identity performances, as is seen in the themes across data sources such as the importance of reading the Bible, looking for Christian themes or metaphors in any reading, and applying textual ideas to her personal faith life. Next, Cassie’s story was similar to Paige’s in that she enacted a strong faith identity and a strong connection between her faith and her literate practices, though for Cassie, her family played a greater role in that connection. Cassie When Cassie smiled, her big brown eyes glimmered. Tall and slender, this seventeen-year-old wore jeans and sweaters or athletic jackets, like many students at MHS. Cassie described herself as “typically pretty happy,” “outgoing” with her friends and “very shy” with those she did not know. She thought of herself as “independent, strong, and hopeful.” Cassie used a copulative verb-noun complement structure 14 times in our interviews to identify herself. I categorized these usages, along with the complementary actions or behaviors, into the following identities: good student (6 interview notations), dedicated bowler (11), involved family member (22), and a Mennonite-Christian reader (88). Like Paige, Cassie defined her faith identity as central to how she understood herself, and it impacted other identity performances, suggesting a hierarchical structure among her identities. The data also revealed a strong reciprocal relationship between Cassie’s enacted faith identity and her literate practices. 158 Other Identities The analysis of the enacted student, bowler, and family member identities is based solely on the data from the interviews I conducted with Cassie. Good student. Cassie described a typical day as arriving home from school around 4 pm, doing homework, and going to bed. She spent a lot of time on Spanish class during the year and reading for English class during the summer. She found the class Conflict Resolution helpful and applicable to her life. Cassie imagined that Mrs. Cooper and Mr. Bennett might describe her as “a little lazy” because she did not always succeed in turning assignments in on time, even though this was her goal. She also commented, “I don’t want to say something that’s not what they would think,” yet she also tried to “think through all the possibilities” when she wrote assignments. There were examples of faith identity performances in her class writing assignments as will be shown. Dedicated bowler. Cassie bowled for the school team and was also on community summer and fall leagues. When I asked if she saw herself as a bowler, in the first interview, she replied, “I’d say I am cuz I really enjoy it.” In the third interview, she answered, “Um, not right now. Because I’m not doing as good (laughs), but at other times I would.” These responses illustrate two points Holland et al. (1998) make about identities. First, identities are dynamic and constructed out of participation in social activity. One’s commitment to an identity at any given time can wax and wane. Second, even how a person talks about an identity, how they position themselves within a figured world, can change, as it did when Cassie talked to me. Cassie was captain of the school team. One routine she started was including scripture and prayer before and after a game: 159 We kind of have a different person pray every week or every game. Um, so I kinda – I bring up, like, a Bible verse, and then I’ll say, you know, kinda reflect on this, and then we’ll come back together at the end, and we’ll pray about it. Indeed, Cassie’s faith identity filtered into her bowling figured world. Cassie also played field hockey though she did not see this activity as an identity for herself. Even so, Cassie named sports as an activity connected to her faith; she saw a connection between the two. Involved family member. Cassie’s self-understanding included being part of a family. She told me, “I think of myself …as a sister, as a daughter,” and Cassie named her paternal grandparents as important people. She also named her mother as influential in her life; her mother helped her see different perspectives on life that she might not see on her own. While Cassie mentioned family vacations and working together, most of her comments about family included faith. Her mother read a devotional to the three high- school-aged children each morning, and her father gave her his copy of In His Steps, a novel that had belonged to her grandfather and recounts the story of a church that asks, “What would Jesus do?” before making decisions. Cassie also told me the story of going to her grandparents’ house with all of her cousins at Christmastime and Easter, when they read these stories from the Bible: We pass around the Bible, and there’s 22 of us or something so we each read it. And we’ll help the little cousins cuz they can’t read sometimes, but we’ll each read it so we read it, like, 20-whatever times. I love it. Cassie commented that sometimes her brother refused to read. He was “on the edge of what he believed,” yet she took him to youth events in the hopes it would help him. Cassie’s performed faith identity was interwoven with her identity as a family member, perhaps to the point of a hybrid identity of a faith-filled, involved family member. 160 Faith Identity Understanding herself as a person of faith was central to Cassie’s self-perception. When I first asked her to tell me about her faith, Cassie was clear: “I’d say I’m definitely a Mennonite, definitely Christian. Um, I’m very strong in what I believe in. I have opinions. If somebody says one thing and I believe the opposite, I will definitely stand up for it.” Through words, Cassie told herself and others who she was (Holland et al., 1998). Yet, Cassie believed faith also included actions: “You can’t just have beliefs. You have to work those beliefs into your life. And make that known to other people. Like, let them see that, too.” In fact, this statement aligned with Mr. Bennett’s goals for Bible class, and Holland et al. (1998) would echo this idea about identities: identities are based on more than words; they are also based on the actions that are driven by our words. Interestingly, Cassie was the only participant to initially volunteer the word “Mennonite” in identifying herself during the interviews. To her, being Mennonite meant believing in the beliefs of the early Anabaptists and applying these beliefs to one’s life. Such beliefs included believer’s baptism, pacifism, communion rituals, worship styles, and community interpretation of scripture. Cassie had been baptized at age 14, applying that principle to her life. Cassie also identified herself as a “daughter of God… a member of [a Mennonite church], and sort of a member of [a non-Mennonite church].” At the time of the study, Cassie and her mother were attending both the Mennonite church Cassie had grown up in and held closely as well as a non-denominational church focused on the Bible and its teachings. Like Paige, Cassie acknowledged that her faith had changed over time, an experience Holland et al. (1998) recognize as well. Cassie told me, “I used to think of 161 myself as, like, a really devoted Christian, but lately it’s not been the same.” She felt that she had strayed in the recent past, but that talking and attending activities at the new church was helping her to feel more devoted, which she liked. Cassie wanted to be more committed to enacting her faith identity and was changing her actions to align with this deeper commitment (Holland et al., 1998). Cassie participated in several activities related to her faith identity. She and her friends were about to start a prayer group to pray for needs they saw around school. Cassie also attended youth group events at her Mennonite church, where she was positioned as a leader and asked to serve as part of a team to provide input and feedback to the youth pastor. Here, she was given a direct opportunity to help shape that figured world (Holland et al., 1998). She also attended youth group activities at the non- denominational church, which she “love[d],” and which was focused on scriptural text: At the youth group services, they have games for, like, the first 20 minutes, and then they’ll do a Bible study where they dive straight into the scripture, and they’ll highlight every single verse of one chapter that night, and it takes about an hour. Um, so you each bring your Bibles, and you’re, like, highlighting stuff and writing down. So I have tons of notes in my Bible. In fact, Cassie held the Bible above all other books because “God helped write it,” and she believed the Bible was a resource for people: I would hold [the Bible] as a book that, kind of, guides my life, not just a book that sits on my shelf that I’ll sometimes read. It’s a book that, you know, if I’m having trouble with something, I’ll go to that and look up a certain verse that I feel like it’s really going to help me. Cassie frequently read the Bible as well as devotionals. She tried to read the Bible on her own every Saturday, if she remembered, and she had tried to read through the Bible in a year, but had not quite finished. The Bible gave her “the full picture of life and how it’s 162 supposed to be.” At the time of the study, she had four different devotionals that she read at various points throughout the day, including on the bus in the morning to help keep her centered: I do it to kind of give me something to think about throughout the day because otherwise I just think about, “What’s going to go on today? Am I going to have problems with my friends, or am I gonna, you know – what’s for lunch?” These typical teenage thoughts were not where Cassie wanted to direct her mind. Instead, she proactively participated in faith identity activities, including giving her friends Bible verses to encourage them when they were having problems. The Bible and devotional books were important artifacts for Cassie to enter the figured world of faith (Holland et al., 1998). Additionally, these readings impacted her faith, while at the same time, her faith impacted the reading that she did, which I will discuss further in a subsequent section. Finally, as noted previously, the social practice theory of identity (Holland et al., 1998) includes the idea that as people perform identities in the midst of social activity, they author spaces for themselves and sometimes imagine altered worlds. Cassie wrote a paper for Bible class in which she discussed her feelings about changes she had seen at her Mennonite church and, in essence, answered back to those in authority at the church who were making decisions with which she did not agree. For the future, Cassie imagined an altered world of the Mennonite church in which her faith would be stronger, but also one in which there would be outside influences trying to distract her so that she would need to “go back to the Bible” to keep herself grounded. She also envisioned staying involved in the church and working with youth, which would allow her to continue to shape that world. 163 Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices Cassie’s reading and faith reciprocally impacted the other. Cassie saw herself as a reader, though she later qualified this assertion, noting that during the summer she was definitely not a reader as there were too many other activities. During the school year, she definitely was a reader. As seen in Cassie’s bowling identity, this clarification aligns with the notion that identities, and people’s commitment to them, are dynamic (Holland et al., 1998). Being a reader to Cassie meant paying attention to a text, thinking about what it meant, and applying it to faith, friends, or struggles. Enacting a reader identity was important to Cassie as a way to learn new things, as “something to do,” and as “an escape from everyday life,” giving her something else to think about. I asked if this last purpose also served for the faith-related reading she did. She replied, “Yeah, especially, like, if I’m having a hard day at school, and I’ll turn to one of those, and I’ll just open it up and read.” Cassie loved C. S. Lewis because his books “kind of give the reader a picture of Christianity but don’t actually show that it’s Christianity,” but she also enjoyed adventure stories and mysteries, which she purchased at the local Mennonite used bookstore. In fact, Cassie’s bedroom bookshelves are organized by category: faith books, mysteries, biographies, and “deeper stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else.” Cassie’s reading was organized in other ways as well. Often she took diligent and thorough notes when reading for school or reading her Bible. The consistency of interaction with texts across text types was more striking with Cassie than the other participants. There was also consistency about the ways Mrs. Cooper and the non- denominational church pastor addressed texts, such as examining them closely, digging deep into each verse/chapter. 164 On a quote wall above her bed, Cassie collected quotations from texts she read, including The Once and Future King. She did not write in a journal, responding that she just did her underlining and writing in her Bible, which became a faith journal of sorts. Mennonite-Christian Reader Identity Although I have described Cassie’s performed faith and reader identities separately, there is enough overlap for me to consider them as hybrid. Furthermore, several family members were important actors that promoted the connection between reading and faith. She read Lancaster Farming, a community newspaper, with her dad, reading through the recipe section and clipping ones they wanted to try. She also took this newspaper to the bowling alley on Saturdays and would text pictures of items of interest to her mom. Her grandmother had a stack of books she was always encouraging Cassie to read. Perhaps more importantly, several family members were the source of faith- related reading experiences. As noted earlier, Cassie’s aunt provided regular opportunities to read certain Bible passages in community, and her mother read aloud daily devotionals, which Cassie loved. Friends and family had given her books. Cassie’s father gave her In His Steps: Um, well, my dad passed it down to me and, at first, he was, like, you need to read this, it's, it's changed me, and I said, well, how's it changed you? And he said, it's just given me a different way to think about things. And I said, okay, well, if it's given you a different way to think about things, then I do need to read this. And then after reading the whole book, I said, I can't just read it one time, I need to read it multiple times. And then it'll help me understand it and hopefully understand even more about Christ and about our church and other things. So, it's just been really helpful actually. So I have read it 7 times, and hopefully I'll start reading it again, but I haven't had the time lately to. (laughs) Cassie’s father’s experience with the book and the impact it had on him motivated Cassie to enter into the text more than the fact that it was a gift. Once reading, she found it 165 powerful enough – “that book has completely changed what I’ve thought” – to read it repeatedly in an effort to deepen her faith understandings and enacted identity: Like, is this what God wants for me? Is this the way that I should be doing this? I never really thought that before and now, like, after reading it so many times, I’m like, why didn’t I think of this before?! Cassie also used other texts to strengthen her faith identity with the goal of impacting her life. She had not always read devotionals but intentionally started because the past year had been “a little bit harder” and the devotionals kept her more “centered.” She went to her faith bookshelf when she needed sustenance: “If I feel like, okay, I really need to read this one right now, then I’ll just open that one up and start reading where I left off,” even if that last reading was months ago. Non-religious books also impacted her faith as this example from The Once and Future King illustrates: Arthur starts out as this little boy that didn’t have anything, and then he grew up into this really big king that nobody thought was going to be him. And I kind of want to do that with my life; like, I’m this little girl that nobody really thinks about, and then I’ll have this impact on somebody someday…. just being able to, like, maybe change somebody from a nonbeliever to a believer. Reading affected her faith which affected her daily life. Cassie’s faith also impacted her reading. For example, Cassie said she would not choose to read a book about war “mostly because I’m a pacifist so I don’t believe in that kind of thing.” Cassie’s pacifist stance came from her Mennonite faith. Sometimes she thought about how her faith was being impacted by her reading and sometimes not, depending on the book. Generally, she felt she read most books with a faith lens, and that this stance impacted her interpretation of the text. Like Paige, she looked for character representations: “even if it’s, like, a mystery, I’ll try to look at it; like, is there a certain character in this book that might portray someone else?” Cassie enacted a Mennonite- 166 Christian reader identity whose reading and faith reciprocally influenced each other; both impacted her words and actions in daily living. Identities in Bible Class Cassie’s primary identity performance in Bible class was good student as I coded 43 of 76 total field notations for this identity. Cassie sat attentively and listened (19), wrote essay assignments (12), participated in group work (5), spoke up in class (4), had her Bible on her desk (2), and took photos of the teacher’s notes (1). Twice Mr. Bennett spoke directly to Cassie in one-on-one settings, once about errors on a writing assignment. A second identity performance I noted was social teenager. I had 10 notations coded as social in which Cassie talked or laughed with friends, often while looking at a tablet or phone. These actions occurred during down-time and were acceptable actions in the figured world. Twice I noted off-task behavior, and twice Cassie was working on other homework. Mr. Bennett did not call attention to her or to others when this behavior transpired. Eight of my notations referenced Cassie’s clothes, twice she was absent, and twice I noted conversations she had with me as a participant in this study. Mr. Bennett shared that for most of the semester, he had positioned Cassie as a good student “that tries really hard, that works really hard, that tries to follow guidelines and get a good score.” She had recently turned in an assignment in which she did not follow most of the guidelines, and he had also noticed she did not always pay attention to other students when they talked in class, causing him to question his original impression. This scenario demonstrates how positioning can shift over time (Holland et al., 1998). 167 Mr. Bennett’s perception of Cassie’s faith, based on his observation, was that it was not entirely “self-owned” or “developed.” This perspective matched Cassie’s own comments to me that her faith was influenced by others’ opinions. Identities in English Class Cassie had always loved English class, and British Literature Honors was no exception. She loved Mrs. Cooper and how enthusiastic she was about the texts. In our conversation, there was nothing she wanted to change in this figured world. Cassie performed her good student identity almost exclusively in this class in the areas of general engaged behavior, such as looking at the speaker (14 notations), taking notes (10), reading (4), working in groups (3), and working on or turning in assignments (2). These behaviors aligned with the significant actions of the figured world such as transferring knowledge, attending to meaning, and creating artifacts in the service of these actions. Of the remaining field notations, I coded 13 as clothing (6 of these sports- related; 7 modest teenage clothing). I did note that one day she wore a cross necklace, though she did not appear to consistently dress as an identity performance. Other codes included being absent (2), study participant (3), social (2), and technology use during down-time (2). There was little positioning of Cassie individually by Mrs. Cooper during my observations. Once she commented to the class that Cassie’s group “was really good about looking for clues in the sentence” to discover who said the listed quotation. Here Cassie’s group was positioned as good students working successfully at the significant action of attending to meaning. In our interview, Mrs. Cooper positioned Cassie as a student who worked on her own terms: “She’s much more willing to work on a paper late 168 – read the whole book first, put down what she thinks. If she get’s a B, that’s okay…. She is very honest, and she’s refreshing.” Mrs. Cooper surmised Cassie did not want to do a lot of intense work, suggesting that Cassie did the work “her way,” and did not obsess about every point or deadline. Mrs. Cooper described her as “a good thinker and a competent writer,” sometimes losing points on usage or style. This positioning affirmed Cassie’s own view of herself as a student; thus, her space of authoring would likely be to accept the positioning (Holland et al., 1998). Literate Practices Cassie’s literate practices further evidenced her commitment to enacting her faith identity and the influence of that identity on her reading and writing. Bible class writings. Cassie performed both her student and faith identities in her writings for Bible class. Cassie shared ten assignments with me, nine of which are represented in Table 4 below. The remaining text was an 8-page paper entitled, “Do I Fit with My Church?” in which she articulated her attitude toward her Mennonite church, including that she agreed “fully” with what her parents believed was right and wrong, suggesting the importance of her parents to her faith identity. As noted regarding the other participants, all of Cassie’s Bible class writings were informative (Britton et al., 1975), and 104 of 139 total sentences I coded as fulfilling one of the three valued outcomes of the figured world, indicating Cassie’s performance as a good student. Two of these outcomes, ownership and practice of personal faith beliefs, also provide evidence for a faith identity performance as is illustrated in the following two examples. 169 Table 4: Cassie’s Bible Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Meeting Requirements Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Acts Essay 15 8 2 3 12 Reforms Essay 8 4 3 0 7 Zwingli-Luther Essay 7 1 4 0 7 Mennonite Community Essay 8 4 0 4 5 Schleitheim Articles Essay 14 8 5 2 7 Russian Mennonites Essay 27 12 5 0 13 Dock Mennonite Essay 24 5 3 3 34 Truth Essay 15 10 2 0 6 Final Essay 21 16 0 0 8 Totals 139 68 24 12 99 In an essay describing how she defined truth, Cassie concluded with the declaration, “I believe in adult baptism, symbolic communion and that scripture is the supreme authority over everything else.” Here Cassie clearly named and claimed Mennonite theological values and with these words gave an identity performance that helped to define who she was to herself and to others (Holland et al., 1998). Living out her beliefs was also important to Cassie’s faith identity and supports Holland et al.’s (1998) premise that identities are word and actions. Cassie wrote, “My view of scripture is that it is best if you read through the scripture first and then think 170 about how it applies to your life…” While she moves from a first-person pronoun to second-person in this statement, her identification with this belief was confirmed later: “Just as Philip helped the Ethiopian understand the passage, we should also be of help to others.” In another essay, she wrote about living in the world but not being of the world: “We constantly have to watch out for the language on the radio in songs we listen to, in t.v. shows we watch, and even in books we read.” Through the Bible writing assignments, Cassie performed her faith identity. Both the number and type of self-mentions Cassie made, as noted in Table 4, are also significant. Cassie had more self-mentions than any other participant, overall indicating a strong presence in the writing (Tang & John, 1999). Forty-nine mentions were originator and opinion-holder uses, which Tang and John (1999) argue are the most invested authorial presence. For example, Cassie wrote, “I believe that infants are not old enough to make that decision by themselves and therefore should not be baptized until later in life.” Another 48 self-mentions were representative uses in which Cassie used first-person plural pronouns to identify herself with either a small group in Bible class – “We concluded at the end of discussing this story as a group, that prayer is a necessary part of our Christian journey” – or with a broader faith group – “As Mennonites, we are supposed to love everyone like Jesus did, but yet it is one of the hardest things to do.” English class writings. Cassie’s English class written artifacts illustrated both student and faith identity performances. Like the other participants, Cassie’s writing was informative (Britton et al., 1975) and conveyed that she had the knowledge Mrs. Cooper was working to transfer; I coded 88 of 131 total sentences as mastery as seen in Table 5 below. Cassie had seven quotations in her writings, which is fewer than most of the other 171 participants; however, she clearly attended to meaning, which was another significant action in this figured world. Table 5: Cassie’s English Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Significant Action - Quotations Valued Outcome- Mastery Valued Outcome - Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions Shaping the World The Once and Future King Essay 20 2 17 0 0 1 0 Beowulf Essay 45 2 34 0 2 12 0 Frankenstein Essay 37 3 27 0 8 15 0 Great Expectations Essay 14 0 10 0 1 3 0 End of Semester Essay 15 0 0 2 0 45 5 Totals 131 7 88 2 11 76 5 Regarding the other valued outcomes of this figured world, I also found two applications as noted in the table illustrating that Cassie was, indeed, performing a good student identity. For example, Cassie went beyond noting important quotations in The Once and Future King to applying these quotations to her bedroom wall: “I had so many different sticky notes, and I can honestly say, I think I went a bit overboard on it, but now because of that, I have a few more of my favorite quotes on my quote wall.” In an interview, she told me, “I’m never going to forget [those quotes].” The ideas conveyed in these lines were important to Cassie, and she wanted to remember and embody them. 172 I found faith connection responses in three of the essays, as seen in Table 5. These responses were sentences with a personal faith component through which Cassie identified herself. For example, in the Frankenstein essay, Cassie took the same theme as some other participants of comparing God’s creation to Frankenstein’s; Cassie included eight faith connections and 16 personal pronouns while three of the other participants had none. She wrote about Victor’s aborted attempt to create a bride for the monster, who was devastated, and then continued, “God will not break our heart in this way. He loves us too much and would never forsake us so.” She then ends the essay: God will never leave us because he is our spiritual best friend, and best friends stick together through thick and thin. Deuteronomy 31:6 from the New Living Translation of the Bible says, “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you. Though not as strong an authorial presence as first-person-singular pronouns (Tang & John, 1999), all of the representative self-mentions were of Christians, an identity Cassie considered central to how she understood herself and with which Cassie identified. Cassie’s enjoyment and love of the literature, the third valued outcome of the world, was evident in her semester-end reflection as she talked about her favorite books and having a “terrific learning experience reading these books.” Cassie’s English documents contained a total of 76 self-mentions, which illustrate enactments of both her faith identity as seen above and also her student identity. She began her end-of-semester-reflection: I came into Brit Lit. Honors a bit overwhelmed and thinking I was never going to be able to accomplish the work that I needed to get done, but after having Mrs. Cooper for a few days, I knew it was going to be a fun, inviting, and exciting class. 173 Cassie expressed reservation about her ability to succeed in this world. She entered at the edges of the world, unsure as to what her role would be, yet found her place in time. Cassie happily accepted her position of student-as-receiver-of knowledge, as this comment confirmed: “Overall I had a terrific learning experience reading these books and would not have learned some of the lessons without Mrs. Cooper pushing us to read the books that we did and from all the talking that she did.” Rather than authoring a new space or suggesting an altered world, Cassie affirmed the world as it existed: “The only thoughts or suggestions I have from this year is for Mrs. Cooper to keep doing what she’s doing…. Because of her positive energy I wish I could stay in her class and have her for English every semester.” Verbal protocols. The strong reciprocal connection between Cassie’s enacted faith identity and reading practices was illuminated in the verbal protocols in four ways. The connection was seen first in Cassie’s choice of texts; Cassie brought two faith-related texts to read aloud. I have already described In His Steps and the significance that book held for her. The second text was a passage from Little Pilgrim’s Progress, a simplified version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the Christian allegory in which the everyman character journeys from this world to heaven, with many pitfalls and burdens along the way. When asked why she selected this text, she replied: “I was looking at all the books on our shelves that I’ve read, and I pulled this one out. Well, I need to read this one. I need to go through this.” Cassie used texts to enter the figured world of her faith, to strengthen, develop, and enact that identity (Holland et al., 1998). It is interesting to note that Cassie did not choose the Bible as one of her texts. 174 The second connection between the readings and her performed faith identity was that the overall orientation for each text was point-driven (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002), as it was for Paige’s selections and responses as well. While Cassie engaged emotionally and personally with the texts, as we shall see, it was for the purpose of agreeing with the values and ideas each text expressed. Third, when looking more closely at the responses themselves, the solid link between Cassie’s performed faith identity and reading was evident in the high frequency of connecting responses (29 of 69 total responses), as seen in Table 6 below. Table 6: Cassie’s Verbal Protocol Responses Table 3: Cassie’s Verbal Protocol In His Steps Little Pilgrim’s Progress Total Comprehending 5 5 10 Repeating text 4 4 8 Visualizing 1 1 2 Predicting 1 0 1 Connecting to other texts 0 1 1 Connecting to reader’s life 13 14 27 Connecting to prior knowledge 1 0 1 Evaluating 2 5 7 Reacting 12 0 12 Total 37 32 69 Furthermore, these responses consisted of different moves Cassie made. Some of the responses completely tied into her enacted faith identity. For example, after reading a 175 passage from In His Steps in which the pastor wanted everyone in the congregation to ask themselves what Jesus would do before any actions for a full year, Cassie responded: So then I thought, well, what if I did that? And I tried it for, like, a week or so and I was, like, Oh my gosh. I can’t do this cuz it was so hard, but I’ve been trying to, like, do it again, but it’s – it’s just so hard. (laughs) Cassie told me why this idea was so powerful for her: “We always put ourselves first – before everything, and we always think about the worldly things before Jesus, so I figured it would draw me closer.” Cassie not only tried to practice what she read about, but she also wanted to ask friends to make the same commitment and to ask her youth pastor to preach a similar sermon. Other responses that started as comprehending turned into connections, such as this one which occurred after Cassie read about little Christian’s struggles: So if he can’t even get across – safely across the stream – how is he going to do this rest of his journey? He’s obviously going to have to look to King or Jesus, um, and he does that a lot in this book, which is comforting to me that Jesus is always there, that he’s going to look after us, that he’s watching us. Here, Cassie moved from comprehending to predicting to connecting, which suggests the importance to her of connecting her reading to her life, and in this case, her faith life. Self-mentions are the fourth way the relationship between Cassie’s faith and reading practices was evidenced. Cassie shifted her use of pronouns within responses to include herself, thereby indicating identification (Tang & John, 1999), as she did in this response to Little Pilgrim’s Progress: That was comforting. Just again knowing that the king, or Jesus, is always going to be there for you. That he’s watching, he’s going to take hold of our hands and place our feet on solid ground and, you know, put us where we need to be. Keep us safe. The connections Cassie made to other texts and prior knowledge were also faith-based. 176 Worth noting, many of the non-connection responses, in fact, were intertwined with personal ownership, such as this evaluating response: “So, saying that the King will take care of you, that’s just – it’s so nice.” The idea is “nice” because Cassie included herself in the group that “the King” will look after. She again included herself in this example of repeating text referring to living a Christian life: “’Perhaps I had better wait until I am older.’ Maybe, sometimes, that is a good idea to wait, but there’s – there’s always something we can do when we’re younger to get us ready for that, older, um, thing.” Cassie included herself in the “we.” A final example can be found in this reaction to In His Steps: “I was, like, oh my gosh! If I can’t do it for a week, how are they doing it for an entire year?!” Cassie’s emotional reaction conveyed investment in the concept, which was illustrative of her enacted faith identity. As noted in Table 6, Cassie made several comprehension responses. Many of these responses included questions pertaining to the text that showed engagement. For example, after reading about groups discussing the pastor’s proposition in In His Steps, Cassie responded, “So then I was thinking, what would they be talking about? What would they be thinking? Like, would they all have different opinions on it?” It is interesting to notice that predicting was not a frequent response for Cassie or other participants, even though these passages were familiar texts and so the students would have been able to anticipate the texts. Visualizing was also not a common response. Summary A central identity Cassie enacted was her faith identity, which was clearly visible in her involved family member and dedicated bowler identities. Her faith identity was not performed in classroom observations, but it was performed in both her Bible and 177 English class writings, illustrating Cassie had strong reciprocal interactions between her faith identity and her literate experiences. This relationship also surfaced in interview data and the verbal protocols in terms of text choices and connections Cassie made to those texts. The next participant, Jessica, relied on an enacted faith identity that was central and strongly connected to her reading and writing experiences, though perhaps not quite as clearly articulated as the other two girls’ faith-literacy relationships. Jessica Of medium height, 17-year-old Jessica had long blond curly hair and sparkling blue eyes. Dressed either in athletic wear or jeans and a neutral top, she carried her backpack and sometimes her flute. Quiet in class, Jessica appeared relaxed in our interviews, laughing frequently and maintaining good eye contact. In these settings, Jessica used eight copulative verb-noun complements to describe herself as well as supportive actions that resulted in the following enacted identities: loving family member (7 interview notations), conscientious student (7), involved community member (14), person of faith (43), and reader (36). In addition to hanging out with friends and making crafts or room decorations, Jessica played soccer for MHS and participated in the school band. While she enjoyed these activities, they were not important to her understanding of herself. Thus, even though Jessica exhibited commitment to these activities, I did not count them as identities (Holland et al., 1998). Like Paige and Cassie, Jessica performed a strong faith identity that had some bearing on her other identities though her faith identity performances were not as consistent as Paige’s and Cassie’s. I categorized her enacted identities as hierarchically- 178 related. Additionally, there was evidence across data sources that Jessica’s faith identity and literate practices reciprocally influenced each other. Other Identities The following descriptions of the other identities are derived exclusively from the interview data. Some of the identities will be corroborated with other data sources in subsequent sections. Loving family member. Jessica quickly named her family as “definitely” being the most important people in her life, and she continued, “specifically my parents because they have just been a huge impact on my life no matter what.” Jessica had an emotional attachment (Holland et al., 1998) to this enacted identity. Her family hung out together, ate Sunday lunch together, and attended church Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings together. Jessica’s faith identity and loving family member identity also intersected as they had participated in family devotions together, and her brother’s opinions about Bible reading had impacted her own: My older brother was really into, um, verses that people would take out of context (laughs), so whenever someone would quote a verse in church or say something, he’d be, like, that is so out of context (little laugh) and so just, like, making sure things, making sure that when I read, I read it how it was meant to be read when the author wrote it. Being a part of Jessica’s family included participating in faith activities on a regular basis, and these two figured worlds overlapped. Conscientious student identity. When Jessica arrived home from school, she did homework. Saturdays she did homework, and Sunday afternoons she did any remaining homework. She was committed to turning assignments in on time, and she wanted to be seen by her teachers as a good student. She enjoyed Mrs. Cooper’s teaching 179 style and found Bible class “fascinating” in terms of all the topics discussed and students’ reactions to these discussions, including her own. Involved community member. Jessica described herself as “an important part of the school,” which I coded as involved community member. When I asked her to elaborate, she mentioned three ways in which she saw herself as an important part of school: knowing students and being encouraging and friendly to them; knowing teachers personally and talking with them; and contributing to community life in roles such as student senator. In fact, Jessica served as vice-president of the student senate, which she enjoyed: “I think it’s exciting to know what’s happening with the school and, like, have more of an input and more of a say than most people would have …and to learn how to run a good, successful event.” She helped organize a suicide awareness event and collected jeans for homeless teens. She was also an active member of both the banquet planning committee (MHS’s prom equivalent) and the Arts Day planning committee (a day of class competition based on artistic presentations and representations). For Arts Day, Jessica researched speeches from four civil rights leaders and created a script of their quotations pieced together. Jessica admitted she likes to lead. Additionally, after hearing about the opportunity at school, Jessica volunteered one afternoon a week at a neighboring, low- income housing community where she helped younger students with homework and other activities. Jessica saw herself as an active community member, and this performed identity gave Jessica access to resources, spaces, and power that other participants and other students did not have (Holland et al., 1998). Several of the activities in this identity involved serving or helping others, which is a central tenet in Mennonite theology. Thus, 180 an argument could be made that Jessica’s enacted faith identity was connected to the involved community member identity, but Jessica did not explicitly make that link. Faith Identity As Paige and Cassie saw faith as essential to their sense of self, Jessica’s faith identity performances were also central to how she saw herself. Unlike the other participants, Jessica attended public school until she chose to attend MHS for its faith perspective: “I came here wanting to, with the hope that I’d be able to express my faith more here.” When I asked if that had happened, her answer revealed that this enacted identity was salient enough that her performances were not bound by physical context, since she authored a faith space for herself in both schools’ figured worlds regardless of how she might be positioned by others (Holland et al., 1998): In one way, it’s been harder actually because at [public school] I felt, like, the resistance, kind of, from some classmates or peers, and I was, like, more challenged to try to grow in my faith because I was closer to … more non- Christians so I was more challenged to grow my faith, but then, as well, here, I’m more encouraged to grow my faith so it’s – I think it’s pushed me wherever I, kind of, went. Additionally, this response indicated that Jessica’s faith identity performances, while still evolving, had also been a part of her history-of-person (Holland et al., 1998). Jessica continued, “I’m a Christian, and I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. Um, I believe in God and in Jesus and the Holy Spirit and, um, I try to live like that. And I read the Bible.” This description highlights Holland et al.’s (1998) depiction of an identity – using words and actions to convey a self-understanding. In our interview, Jessica did not mention being Mennonite. When I made that observation, she reflected: 181 That’s interesting. I didn’t notice I didn’t say that…. I go to a Mennonite church, but I don’t remember people saying all the time about being Mennonite…. like we don’t discuss the title “Mennonite” much and so I think when I came to MHS, I definitely heard the word Mennonite a lot more…. I guess I would consider myself Mennonite, but (pause) I think more so I’m just a Christian....I’m just being a Christian and trying to do that more than trying to be a Mennonite. Later, she commented, “I think peace is definitely the right way to go and that there’s, um, so many different paths we can probably take rather than being violent so I think in that area I would be Mennonite.” In spite of Jessica’s seeming hesitance to call herself Mennonite, in her Bible class writings, she enacts a Mennonite identity, illustrating that identity performances are dynamic and dependent on socio-historical contexts (Holland et al., 1998). Jessica learned a lot about Mennonite history and doctrine from Bible classes and chapel services. Being an actor in the figured world of MHS had greatly increased her exposure to the discourse and values of Mennonite faith. While Jessica may not presently fully embody a Mennonite identity, Holland et al. (1998) would argue that her greater participation in this figured world may lead to a deeper commitment to this identity in the future. In fact, Jessica defined her faith as “growing.” While she said her beliefs haven’t changed, she had questioned more and tried to better understand the basis of her beliefs over time. Jessica participated in many activities in the figured world of faith. She loved worship services on Sundays and was baptized at age 14, an artifact (Holland et al., 1998) in the Mennonite figured world. Jessica had also participated in mission work with her church, and she routinely attended and enjoyed Wednesday evening activities at her church. At the time of this study, the teenage girls were reading a devotional together. There were additional ties between the figured world of Jessica’s church and elective 182 reading events. For the past few years, church members had been encouraged to memorize a scripture passage, which Jessica did, and she brought one of these passages to the verbal protocol for this study. Furthermore, when a baby is born in this congregation, the infant is assigned a prayer warrior. The couple who prayed for Jessica also loaned her a copy of the other text she brought to the protocol, Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis, an autobiography about an eighteen-year-old who went to Uganda for a year, stayed, adopted 13 children and founded a ministry to feed and educate children there. Jessica participated in a Bible study at MHS, but she did not find it particularly meaningful because it was an open discussion on a faith topic: “For me, I like everything to come back to the Bible, and so I’m always, like, wanting scripture verses, when the Bible study, it’s usually just saying what we think or what we’ve been taught in the past.” The Bible was an important artifact for Jessica’s faith identity (Holland et al., 1998). Jessica read the Bible most evenings before bed and sometimes in the mornings as well. She was in the process of reading through the entire text, which she reads “more than any other book.” She frequently writes notes, question marks, highlights, or underlines in her Bible because it helps her connect to the text. Jessica liked many of the New Testament books because “they’re encouraging and motivating to, like, my everyday life,” and she liked the Gospels because “it talks about Jesus and, um, it shows us what his life was like, and, um, I feel like you kind of have to know the Gospels for anything else to make sense.” Jessica also received a “verse of the day” and short devotional from Bible Gateway, a Bible website. Though she did not read them every 183 day, signing up for these daily emails indicated a commitment to enact her faith identity and reinforced the connection between that and her literate practices. Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices When I asked Jessica if she considered herself a reader, she replied, “I think so. Probably less and less though, sadly. I wish I read more but I don’t read as often as I used to, which I wish I did.” She then noted that this identity was important to her because reading opened up new ideas and made her “so much smarter” although she named her purpose for reading as enjoyment and getting lost in stories – realistic fiction about people her age. She liked books she could relate to and imagined herself as one of the characters. With free time, Jessica generally read either realistic fiction or her Bible, if she was behind on that reading. In fact, during the time of the study, Jessica and Jacob engaged in more elective reading than the other three participants. Having earlier read the entire Christy Miller series by Robin Jones Gunn about a Christian girl’s growing up, Jessica had recently reread one of these books, and during the data collection, she finished or read parts of I Am Malala: The Schoolgirl Who Stood Up to the Taliban, Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, The Sugar Queen, and Life On the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter, two of which had faith connections and three of which she borrowed from Mrs. Cooper. Mrs. Cooper, then, was not only a teacher but a fellow actor in the figured world of reading; this double role illustrates the interrelatedness of figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998). As in Paige’s and Cassie’s case studies, there was evidence that Jessica’s enacted faith identity impacted her reading in multiple ways. First, it helped her evaluate 184 characters and texts. For example, when I asked her if she liked Jane Eyre, she responded, “I thought it was alright. I liked it. It was interesting with, um, their, like, beliefs about God and stuff. They just didn’t seem to match up [with their actions],” which made Jessica question the sincerity of their beliefs. This statement also reveals some of Jessica’s theology – that beliefs need to be accompanied by actions, a core belief of Mennonites. In a second example, her faith identity affected her evaluation of Malala: I’m not sure of her religion and what she believes…. I really admire her, like, courage, and the things she’s done is, like, amazing but, um, for me, someone’s like, in my mind always higher – I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it – if they’re a Christian, kind of. More generally, she told me her Christian faith determined whether she agreed or disagreed with a character’s actions, much like Galda and Beach’s (2001) students’ identities impacted their interpretations of characters. Second, Jessica’s faith influenced the books she chose to read. Although Jessica acknowledged that most books did not completely align with her faith beliefs, and she was comfortable with that, she also admitted she would not read a book that appeared to be “real sinful” or would “not be pleasing to me or to God.” Later, she explained she did not want to read books that she could not argue against: “I wouldn’t read a book about all the reasons God isn’t real by some famous scientist because I’d be scared I wouldn’t be able to – he’d sound too smart for me (little laugh), and I wouldn’t know what to say.” Jessica’s faith, then, was a porous filter through which she chose texts and through which she evaluated characters and their actions. Reciprocally, Jessica’s reading at times impacted her faith. As an example, Jessica told me that reading and discussing Frankenstein caused her to think about the 185 connection between the creator and the created: “I just thought that was interesting – how if we were the creators of anything it would be awful … and how thankful we can be that we have a good Creator and how horrible off we would be if we didn’t.” Jessica’s elective writing consisted of emails to her parents as a way of communicating during the school day and writing the Arts Day civils rights script. While Jessica did not keep a journal per se, she did have a box where she kept prayers or other artifacts she had written based on working out her feelings. Identities in Bible Class Though Jessica’s faith identity was significant for her, it was not evident in my field notes; instead she consistently performed her conscientious student identity in Bible class. Of 99 field notations, 79 evidenced a conscientious student – engaged behaviors such as looking at the teacher and listening (39), group work (13), presenting material (9), taking photos of notes (5), reading (4), writing an assignment (4), and asking a question (1). Of the remaining notations, 11 described Jessica’s clothing, which was either modest teenager or sports-related, but neither of which appeared to corroborate with other data as an identity performance. Four notes related to social encounters outside of instructional class time, and two corresponded to talking to me as a participant in this study. Mr. Bennett positioned Jessica as “a peacemaker” in the classroom: “You put her in a classroom, and you can put her in any group you want, and they’ll get stuff done and get along.” He also noted that she moved well between cooperative and independent activities, her writing was fluent, and her vocabulary was on a high level, which he 186 attributed to her reading. This positioning of Jessica aligned with her strong conscientious student identity performance in this class. Though her performed faith identity was not reflected in the field notes, Jessica was, in fact, engaged from a faith lens as well as a student lens. Jessica acknowledged to me that she was quiet in this class, saying, “I just find it fascinating to think about all the topics we talk about…. And how the class responds – I think that’s interesting too.” For example, after a group project in which the students were to describe where they found “truth,” Jessica told me she was sad: Most people, when they made the posters, said that it’s not a lot from the Bible, mostly from common sense, things they know or what they’ve been told – and I just thought, well, what about the Bible? And it just seemed to me that if common sense is different for everyone, and if you don’t have, like, a foundation for truth, then how do you make decisions, and how do you know what you believe…? By internalizing class discussions, Jessica was asking questions, making connections, and taking ownership of her beliefs, all significant actions and valued outcomes of this figured world. Holland et al. (1998) would call these actions authoring space in the inter- related worlds of Bible class and faith. Jessica made one comment about the figured world of Bible class that signified a desire to alter that world. She wished Mr. Bennett would share his own thoughts and opinions more often though she recognized he might have reasons for not doing so. Mr. Bennett also shared with me that from what he had observed, he would characterize Jessica’s faith as “very strong” and “traditional,” in the sense of applying Bible passages directly to one’s life. As she noted about the school Bible study and in the example above, Jessica did like faith conversations to tie strongly to scripture. 187 Identities in English Class Jessica consistently performed a conscientious student identity in the figured world of British Literature honors class, where she sat in the second row toward the far right of the class. Of 62 total field notations for Jessica in this class, 40 indicated a conscientious student identity performance. She participated in group work (5), took notes (10), read (6), asked clarifying questions (4), and otherwise engaged in the class by looking at the teacher (11). Specific notations provide additional evidence as to the depth of participation Jessica exhibited in significant acts in this figured world, such as attending to meaning: “Jessica has sticky tabs throughout her Macbeth book” (November 10) and “J is taking a lot of notes” (December 9). Further solidifying a student identity, two of my notes reference her absence from class. Upon her return, she stayed after class to ask about make-up work. The extent to which Jessica produced the valued outcomes of this figured world will be evident in the section on English writings. Mrs. Cooper positioned Jessica as a “good” and “methodical” writer and definitely situated Jessica as a reader: “She’ll often come in and get a book and then take it home over the weekend, and come in and go, ‘oh, that was such a good book’.” Actually, Jessica and Mrs. Cooper talked often about books after school. When asked about Jessica as a student, Mrs. Cooper quickly remarked, “You could clone her” and called Jessica a “born learner,” continuing: She comes in like this: she’s got her notebook out and writes down everything you say, and then you have the feeling she goes home and reviews it because she knows all of the stuff, and it’s not in words that I use so it’s in her own words already. I know, she should be an English teacher. (laughs) She probably won’t. She’ll probably be a missionary. 188 It is interesting to note that not only does Mrs. Cooper’s description of Jessica as a student align with other data, but she also positions Jessica as a missionary, which indeed is an interest of Jessica’s, as we will see, and confirms a central, enacted faith identity. The second enacted identity that I noted in English class is involved community member (6). One day after class, Jessica looked at a book on the 1960s Mrs. Cooper had mentioned during class and then borrowed it to help her garner ideas for the civil rights script. Later in the semester, on a day when Mrs. Cooper was playing a DVD, Jessica moved between watching the video and editing her script. This example illustrates that identity performances are dynamic and based on social activity in an historical context (Holland et al., 1998). Of the remaining notations, 11 related to clothing, two to socializing at the end of class, and one to being a participant in this study. There was no evidence in the field notes of Jessica’s performing a faith identity during English class though her writing for this class did reveal some focus on faith. Jessica noted that she was quiet in both Bible and English classes, choosing instead to listen to others and to share her thoughts in the writing assignments as her space of authoring (Holland et al., 1998). In both the interviews and written assignments, Jessica did not desire to change the figured world of English class or make a new world. Literate Practices Jessica’s literate practices further evidenced her commitment to faith identity performances and the influence of that identity on her reading and writing. Bible class writings. Like Paige and Cassie, Jessica evidenced her conscientious student and faith identities in her ten Bible class writings. In the figured world of Bible class, the significant action of transferring knowledge is seen in the valued outcome of 189 meeting the requirements. Of 176 total sentences, I coded 131 as meeting requirements, as evidenced in Table 7. All of the pieces were informative (Britton et al., 1975). Jessica, indeed, was performing a conscientious student identity. Table 7: Jessica’s Bible Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Meeting Requirements Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Mennonite Community Essay 25 8 6 2 28 Sword Essay 15 0 2 5 33 Acts Essay 26 9 7 0 22 Constantine Essay 19 19 0 0 0 Reforms Essay 14 11 3 0 1 Zwingli-Luther Essay 10 3 6 0 8 Truth Essay 15 9 5 0 11 Russian Mennonites Essay 17 5 3 0 16 Amish Essay 12 9 1 0 4 Final Essay 23 13 0 1 15 Totals 176 131 33 7 74 A second significant action was asking questions. In the sword essay, Jessica asked four questions related to the context of whether she would engage in violence if her family’s lives were threatened as she wrestled with imagining how she would behave. 190 In addition to meeting requirements, there were two additional valued outcomes for the figured world of Bible class – ownership of faith-related beliefs and practice of those beliefs. Jessica’s writing also supports a student identity in that there were 33 instances in which she owned faith-related beliefs such as, “Luther also believed in infant baptism, when I believe it should be one’s choice to be baptized;” “I think that it would be fine if Mennonites were in government positions;” and “I also believe that everything should be tested with scriptures to see if it is right or wrong.” There were also seven instances when Jessica wrote about faith practices or faith-related actions, as seen in this example: “I am [Mennonite], and I enjoy going to a Mennonite school where we talk about our beliefs…. As a Mennonite, coming to a Mennonite school has greatly benefited me.” While these examples provide evidence for a conscientious student identity, they also illuminate a committed and enacted faith identity as a Mennonite. In both of these figured worlds, Jessica uses these written artifacts as a way to both participate in the world and also, more specifically, to author her space in the world (Holland et al., 1998). Jessica had 137 self-mentions, which occurred in nine of the ten Bible class documents. All but 25 of these mentions were originator uses or opinion-holders, indicating a strong authorial presence (Tang & John, 1999). In addition to the examples above, a final example of one of these self-mentions also provides an illustration of making new worlds in which Jessica predicts the church of the future: Because the amount of youth and young people going to church is decreasing, the church will get smaller and smaller. I guess they would move out of buildings and begin to meet in small groups at a common place. I would enjoy being a part of these small groups, and would participate in conversation more. I would like being able to discuss things and learn, then take action and make a plan to help make a difference. 191 Jessica envisions a faith-related figured world in which she would feel more willing to participate in discussions, but also a world in which beliefs are linked to actions. This link of beliefs and actions aligns with the figured world of Bible class, Jessica’s involved community member identity, and Mennonite theology. Jessica is imagining an altered figured world of church life and also new ways for her to participate in and shape that figured world (Holland et al., 1998). English class writings. While Jessica’s conscientious student identity performance was the strongest enacted identity in her English class writings, some evidence exists of her performed faith identity as well. Jessica gave me six papers she wrote for English class for a total of 199 sentences. One hundred twenty-three of these sentences I coded as mastery, suggesting the writing was informative (Britton et al., 1975), and 27 as quotations, as seen in Table 8. Both of these categories indicate Jessica’s successful participation in the figured world of British Literature Honors class. There was only one instance of applying ideas from the class to her life, and there were only two assignments in which there were self-mentions. Therefore, it could be that Jessica understood the structure of the other writings to not include first-person pronouns and direct life application. The connections between Jessica’s enacted faith identity and her writings can be seen in two ways. First, as shown in the table, Jessica referenced faith three times in her end-of-the-semester essay. She commented that when Mrs. Cooper taught, she brought the discussions around to faith: “Everything comes back to real meanings, real Christians, and a real God.” Then, Jessica writes that after she graduates, she would like to spend time overseas doing mission work. Her last comment acknowledged that God knew her 192 future even though she did not. In both the English classroom and in her life’s application, faith mattered to Jessica. Table 8: Jessica’s English Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Significant Action - Quotations Valued Outcome- Mastery Valued Outcome - Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions Shaping the World The Once and Future King Essay 52 9 43 0 0 0 0 Beowulf Essay 33 7 26 0 0 0 0 Frankenstein Essay 41 9 32 0 0 0 0 Independent Novel – Jane Eyre 17 1 8 0 0 10 0 Great Expectations Essay 15 1 14 0 0 0 0 End of Semester Essay 41 0 0 1 3 59 4 Totals 199 27 123 1 3 69 4 Second, although Jessica didn’t make personal faith connections in any other writings, she did choose faith-related topics in three other assignments. She wrote about the Christian themes in Jane Eyre, contrasted Frankenstein and God as creators, and compared Beowulf to Christ. Furthermore, in the latter two essays, she included quotations from the Bible to support her arguments. 193 Jessica included 69 self-mentions combined in two of her pieces, as noted in Table 8. All but seven of these instances were originator or opinion-holder uses, indicating a strong authorial presence (Tang & John, 1999) in the writing. Furthermore, several of these uses illustrated a reader identity performance. For example, in her end- of-the-semester essay, she wrote, “Canterbury Tales I also really enjoyed, and I think I even read more stories than we were supposed to…oops. I was disappointed when we didn’t read the whole book, but I know we had a lot of things to cover.” While Jessica showed deference to the figured world of the class and its agenda, her enacted reader identity yearned to finish the text. There were also self-mentions that related to other identities, such as Jessica’s student identity in the figured world of the class: “I absolutely loved this class! I learned so much and enjoyed a lot of the books.” The four data points I coded as shaping the world were affirmations of the figured world rather than attempts to change the world; yet, with affirmations, Jessica was expressing her voice related to how the world functioned. Jessica appreciated Mrs. Cooper’s teaching and felt as though she was always learning from her – “Maybe it’s because she takes the books and finds something deeper in them. Something more, something that I would have never noticed or looked twice at, and shows us how it points to something else.” Verbal protocols. Reciprocal influence between an enacted salient faith identity and Jessica’s reading practices was also evident in the verbal protocols. First, Jessica chose two faith-related pieces, indicating that her faith at times influenced her reading choices and that her faith identity was performed (Holland et al., 1998). As noted earlier, Kisses from Katie recounts the true story of an eighteen-year-old American girl who 194 volunteered in Uganda and stayed to adopt 13 orphaned girls. Romans 8 and 9 from The New American Standard Bible translation was Jessica’s second text. Part of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, this passage includes the titles “Deliverance from Bondage,” “Our Victory in Christ,” and “Solicitude for Israel.” Second, like Paige’s and Cassie’s, Jessica’s overall approach to each text was point-driven (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). That is, her responses were in service to a focus on the ideas presented in the texts – ideas that aligned with her enacted faith identity, such as serving others in the name of Jesus and living into God’s love. Jessica’s identity performances as a person of faith also influenced her transactions with the texts, and, finally, her readings influenced her faith identity, as is evidenced in connections she made with the texts. As noted in Table 9, in order of frequency, Jessica responded to the texts by connecting (33 of 86 total responses), evaluating (28), comprehending (17), and reacting (3). Jessica’s faith identity was enacted in each of these types of responses. Jessica connected to the Kisses from Katie passage in three ways. First, she made a connection with the figured world of MHS when she referenced a chapel speaker who talked about doing mission work in Philadelphia. Second, she made a connection to prior knowledge she had about international mission trips, learned from a speaker at her church. Finally, Jessica connected the text to her life. For example, after reading a listing of what Katie missed from home, Jessica responded: So, she’s, like, listing all these things she still longs for in America in her old life, and this, um, kind of scares me because I want to go on missions sometime, and I know that I’m going to feel these things (laughs), and I’m wondering if that’s okay (laughs) to feel those things. 195 Table 9: Jessica’s Verbal Protocol Responses Kisses From Katie Romans Total Comprehending 5 12 17 Comprehending problems 0 5 5 Connecting to other texts 0 4 4 Connecting to reader’s life 11 10 21 Connecting to prior knowledge 3 4 7 Connecting to other figured worlds 1 0 1 Evaluating 11 17 28 Reacting 3 0 3 Total 34 52 86 Jessica connected the Romans passage to other texts (a faith song and other parts of the Bible), to prior knowledge she had of the verse (“Um, this is another verse I’ve also heard a lot, um, from people mostly who are struggling or suffering as a verse of encouragement.”), and to her life. The latter connections were both application-based and inclusion-based and, therefore, revealed a faith identity performance. For example, in response to Romans 8:4, Jessica said, “I really like this because it’s like a reminder for me that even, like, our minds need to be set on things of the Spirit and not things of the 196 flesh or worldly things. I like that verse.” This example also shows that connecting and evaluating responses could be interwoven, and they often were. Jessica gave several evaluating responses to each text, as can be seen in the table. In Romans, she “really liked” verses and described verses as “encouraging.” Referring to the passage as a whole, she told me, I’m able to relate to it and it, um, puts it in words that I can mostly understand. It’s like a pump-up speech (laugh) or like it’s just encouraging and just, I feel like it hits a lot of points that I believe in and – like, slavery into freedom, and nothing can separate us [from God], and it’s just encouraging. From Kisses from Katie, Jessica read, “I wanted to be challenged endlessly; I wanted to be learning and growing every minute.” She then commented, “Um, yeah, I guess I can relate cuz I don’t know – I want to be challenged, and it just shows her motivation, and it makes me admire her.” Because Jessica connected the texts to her performed faith identity, she also had positive evaluations of the text. For both texts, as the table shows, the third most frequent response type was comprehending. Most of these responses did not have an explicit connection to an identity performance; however, in some of the comprehending responses for Romans, Jessica again used first-person plural pronouns to explain the text, suggesting she included herself in the audience, identified with the text, and performed her faith identity in her response. For example, Romans 9:19 reads, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’” Jessica responded, “So, it’s like, well, do we have an excuse then, because (laughs), like, why does God still find fault with us because it says that He made us this way.” 197 Jessica also performed her reader identity twice when her responses focused on the structure of a verse, such as “Um, when I read this structure, ‘who will bring a charge against God’s elect?’ And then kind of answers the question, ‘God is the one who justifies.’ And then it says, ‘who is the one who condemns?’ And then it says, ‘Christ Jesus is He who died.’ (laughs).” Rather than responding to the content, here Jessica noted the organization of the text. A surprise in the data, shown in Table 9, is the comprehension problems Jessica encountered with the Romans passage, one she had identified as a favorite of hers and one previously memorized. She did admit she had to read these verses “like, five times” to understand some of them, and the context of my presence and needing to speak her responses aloud may have affected her. Interestingly, in one of the responses, she again used a first-person pronoun. Romans 8:19 reads, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Jessica responded, “I don’t really get this because I’m not sure what it’s saying or cuz I thought that we were the sons of God, and I’m not sure how the anxious longing of the creation waits for the revealing?” Jessica’s use of “we” again suggests that she identifies with people of faith and considers that a part of her self-understanding. Jessica’s reacting responses, noted in the table, were embedded in connection responses, which illuminated a faith identity performance. In one response to Kisses from Katie, Jessica said, “That’s just encouraging…. She’s really passionate about what she’s writing and doing what God wants her to do. I just feel – I get excited when I read what she writes because I want to do this kind of stuff….” 198 Summary Jessica’s enacted faith identity was central to how she understood herself and hierarchically related to her other performed identities as loving family member and conscientious student. The data did not evidence an explicit relationship between her involved community member identity and her faith identity, though several of her actions within this identity aligned with a faith perspective. Additionally, Jessica’s elective and assigned reading and writing practices both confirmed and were supported by her faith identity in terms of reading choices, evaluations of texts and characters, and connections she made with texts. In contrast to Jessica, though Shannon’s story confirms salient faith identity performances, the connection to her literate practices was less frequent than the other girls’ stories. Shannon Often, Shannon walked into class quietly talking with a friend, carrying her Under Armour backpack and dressed in athletic clothing – sometimes her team’s apparel, sometimes more general active wear. Other days, she wore jeans and a sweater. Once she sat down, her socializing stopped. For the rest of the class period, she was quiet but engaged, including in small group settings. She was medium height with brown hair, big eyes, and a quick smile. Shannon used five copulative verb-noun complements in the interviews to describe how she saw herself; these statements of self-understanding, along with supportive action statements, aligned with four significant identities: passionate Christian soccer player (22 field notations), engaged family member (22 notations), good student 199 (11 notations), and person of faith (61 notations). She also described herself as “active” and “curious about life.” She enjoyed “spending time with friends” and “cleaning [her room].” Shannon’s enacted faith identity was salient for her, though not as encompassing as it was for Paige, Cassie or Jessica. Like the other girls’, Shannon’s faith identity performances intertwined with her other identity enactments, most strongly with her soccer player and family identities, leading me to characterize her overall identities relationship as hierarchical and her engaged family member and passionate soccer player identities as hybrid with her faith identity. Yet, there was minimal interaction between her elective literate practices and her faith identity; instead, her soccer player identity appeared to have more influence. Other Identities Before describing her faith identity, I will discuss other salient enacted identities with interview data alone, though some of these identities will be supported with other data in other sections. Passionate Christian soccer player. Shannon defined herself as “a soccer player.” She had played soccer since she was four or five for community leagues, travel teams, and school teams; therefore, “a decent amount of weekends” she had tournaments, which “usually [took] up the entire weekend.” One of the important people Shannon named was her club soccer coach, who had a “huge impact” on her. She received emails from college coaches and noted the results of college tournaments. Soccer intersected with Shannon’s reading and her faith. One of Shannon’s texts for her verbal protocol was about a Christian college female soccer team, and she did 200 other elective reading related to soccer. When I asked her if she saw a connection between her soccer and her faith, her response was quick – “definitely.” She continued: It’s a passion that I know God gave me, and so wanting to do my best for Him is important to me and, like, I’ve always prayed before games, and I don’t know, just somehow I feel like it strengthens my relationship with Him. Shannon also felt her faith impacted her playing behavior to be fair and avoid negative actions. Engaged family member. Shannon named herself as “part of a family.” She had three siblings, two of whom were adopted from the Ukraine. Shannon maintained that this experience had had a huge impact on her life: “I’m definitely a different person now…. I guess it, like, taught me how to, like, work with other people and become less self-focused and stuff like that.” Furthermore, the actual adoption process included several roadblocks that were miraculously cleared. Shannon explained, “Just that whole, having to, like, lean on God and stuff helped build my trust in Him and then seeing all that come together in the end; [that impacted me] even more.” All family members were expected to do chores, and they took regular trips together to visit extended family. Enacting an engaged family member identity included an active faith component. All her life, Shannon and her family had been a part of a church-related small group that met bi-weekly for Bible study. Moreover, Sunday evenings were reserved for family time: “We have dinner together, and then sometimes we play games; sometimes we’ll have family devotions.” Sometimes these devotions included scripture-based professional videos her grandfather produced. At the time of our interview, the family was reading through a devotional suggested by their church, and last summer during their family vacation, the family took turns reading aloud John Ortberg’s Soul Keeping: 201 Caring for the Most Important Part of You, which focused on being attuned to the state of one’s soul. Shannon enjoyed this text. She saw herself as part of a family who valued Christian faith. Good student. Shannon also saw herself as a good student. She worked on homework every night from supper until bedtime and usually did “a lot of homework” on Saturdays. She named MHS as an important place for her and the teachers as important people in her life. She highly valued getting good grades as well as “doing the best” she could. Data from the field notes and her writings also supported this performed identity. Faith Identity Like Paige, Cassie, and Jessica, Shannon perceived her enacted faith identity as central to how she saw herself. Her first description of herself was, “I’m a Christian.” As Holland et al. (1998) articulate, identities are self-understandings based on words and actions that affect future behavior, and words and actions informed Shannon’s faith identity. Since birth, Shannon had attended a Mennonite church, and once old enough, she had participated in youth events. She also read the Bible and devotionals on her own on a semi-regular basis. Yet Shannon believed that any activity could reflect a faith identity: “Like, I don’t think just, like, one action or, like, two or three actions, like, represent you being a Christian. I think it’s, like, everything you do, what you’re doing when you’re doing whatever you’re doing (laugh).” For Shannon, her performed faith identity pervaded much of what she did and was the lens through which her other identities were performed. In line with Holland et al.’s (1998) notion of histories-in-person, Shannon described her faith as having grown over time: “There’s obviously been ups and downs, 202 but, like, as a whole, it’s definitely grown a ton stronger. And I still am confused and have doubts, but I, like, think I have a strong foundation and it’ll keep getting stronger.” Later she added, “It has a foundation, but it, like – it isn’t, like, a straight progressive line. It’s, like, constantly going up and down.” Here Shannon articulates the fluidity of identities even as they can stabilize over time. As she makes meaning for herself regarding her faith, Shannon, like Paige, is working to author her place and space in that world (Holland et al., 1998). Like Paige and Jessica, Shannon did not mention “Mennonite” until I asked her about it, although she had indicated she was Mennonite on my initial survey. Her response explained her self-understanding: I guess I wouldn’t consider, like, a specific denomination, like naming yourself something that important to me…. I would agree with most, if not all, the Mennonite values, but I guess it’s just not, like, something that I would consider, like, it’s important to consider myself a Mennonite. Like, I think being a Christian and believing in God is more important than what denomination you are. Later, she continued, “I would consider myself a Mennonite; I just don’t consider that, like, title being too important.” In fact, as she stated above, several of her beliefs aligned with Mennonite theology. For example, Shannon was “very against killing other people or fighting in that way,” and she didn’t want to be baptized until eighth grade or later because if she were younger, she didn’t think “it would be meaningful.” While she acknowledged a Mennonite identity, Shannon viewed herself more as Christian than as Mennonite, even though most of her faith-related activities were in the figured world of Mennonites and her theology aligned with Mennonites. Holland et al. (1998) suggest that at times persons use different words or labels to explain the same identity. Therefore, at 203 another point in her life, it is possible that Shannon might be more inclined to use Mennonite to describe her enacted faith identity rather than Christian. Shannon had not been baptized because she wanted her grandfather to baptize her, and he died when she was 11, too young for it to be meaningful. She said, “That threw me off…. I’ve thought about it since then, but it hasn’t happened.” These remarks also show the strong connection between Shannon’s family members and enacted faith identities. They acknowledge the importance of the other actors in a figured world and one’s interactions with them as one participates in that world and claims an identity (Holland et al., 1998). As previously stated, Shannon saw a connection between her faith and her soccer playing, suggesting a hybrid identity as a passionate Christian soccer player. More specifically, Shannon believed her soccer player identity performances impacted her enacted faith identity: I think it’s helped me to, like, grow in my faith – if that makes any sense – but, like, I guess, like, our team or me personally and some teams I’ve been on, like, we’ll pray before games, and then it’s just, like, seeing things happen during the game and, like, what, like, not necessarily if we win or not but just, like, how people are acting and stuff. Shannon described her faith presently as being “between middle and strong” and attributed some of that strength to the Bible class she attended: “It gave me, I guess, 40 minutes a day to just think, and that helped, like hearing what Mr. Bennett had to say and stuff…. It had me, you know, like, thinking a lot during class.” Though this statement does not draw a connection between her faith and student identities, it does indicate that the figured world of Bible class engaged her faith identity as well as her student identity. 204 Shannon was the only participant to name a pastor as an important person in her life. Shannon always felt welcomed by her pastor who was “ready to hear anything you have to say.” Here, Shannon acknowledged another actor and named the significance of interaction with others within a figured world and the importance of words as a part of identity performance (Holland et al., 1998). These points were also emphasized as she described a summer series in Sunday School class in which youth and adults shared their faith journeys; sharing the history of one’s faith identity through narratives was a significant act in that figured world. While Shannon did not like talking in front of people, she told me she would consider sharing her story, which would be an example of authoring a space for herself (Holland et al., 1998). Another indication of Shannon’s commitment to her faith identity was evident in her response to whether her faith would be important to her in the future: “Yeah, definitely. (quick response) Yeah, I think – I hope it continues to grow.” Quick, clear responses were not typical for Shannon, but here she did not hesitate. Later, she added that she saw herself as being involved in a church in the future. Shannon was committed to this identity and, as Holland et al. (1998) would say, authoring a space for herself in the world, however the future church might change or grow. Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices Shannon did not consider herself an “avid reader” and, in fact, never directly answered my questions about reader identity, which suggests she did not enact a strong identity as a reader, if she identified herself in that way at all. However, she did respond to my questions by saying she enjoyed reading in the summer and during school breaks when she had time. She considered reading to be one of her hobbies. Holland et al. 205 (1998) state that individuals develop “different degrees of engagement” (p. 98) in figured worlds and might consider Shannon’s equivocation part of a developmental approach toward a deeper identification as a reader in the future. Shannon read to learn, to “see someone else’s point of view or sometimes just, like, for fun or, like, getting away, like putting yourself in somewhere else for the time.” She did not have a favorite author. Generally, if given a choice, Shannon read realistic fiction, and recently she had read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, the popular teen romance, which she “loved.” She had also done some reading about William Wilberforce, a leader against the slave trade, for a Bible paper, which she “really enjoyed actually.” In our first interview, she was interested in reading a book by C.S. Lewis over Christmas break, but found herself reading Jane Eyre and Great Expectations for English class instead. One night, however, when she was bored, she picked up a Harry Potter book; she’d read the series two or three times, and the books were “by far [her] favorites.” Reading for Shannon sometimes involved other identities such as engaged family member as her family read together on vacation and at home as part of their faith practices. Additionally, the soccer team text she brought to the verbal protocol was one she and her father had read together a couple of years ago. Her soccer player identity was also enacted when she read an article about leadership on a college soccer team the week before one of our interviews. Finally, some of Shannon’s reading aligned with her faith identity. She had a devotional that she really liked and which led her to read a few related Bible verses; she read this devotional about half the time during the school year and every day during the summer. This difference in practice over different seasons or years resonates with the idea that identities and one’s participation in relevant activities in 206 any given figured world ebb and flow over time (Holland et al.’s 1998). While Shannon did hold the Bible in higher authority than other books and did consider reading the Bible an important activity in seeing herself as a Christian, she did not think reading the Bible was the only important activity for this identity. Shannon did not keep a journal or write much electively. Identities in Bible Class Of 98 field notations for Shannon in Bible class, I coded 71 as conscientious student identity performances. The other notations were for clothing (14), off-task behavior, such as looking at the floor when someone was talking (5), research participant (2) and socializing (2). The clothing was reflective of either an enacted sports player identity or a typical teenager identity performance. The minimal off-task behavior and socializing were not necessarily identity performances. In performing a conscientious student identity, Shannon frequently copied presentation slides or typed her own notes into her iPad. Mr. Bennett noticed her organizational skills and dedication, explaining to me that she had all the notes taken in class on her iPad so that she could scan through to get the ones she needed for the open- note-essay test they were writing in class. Thus, Shannon consistently participated in the significant action of transferring knowledge by receiving it in ways that allowed her to enact the valued outcome of meeting the requirements. While Shannon did not verbally contribute to group work, she would follow the conversation, which I called “passive participation” in my notes. Likewise, during class discussions, Shannon did not volunteer but listened as others spoke. On the few 207 occasions that she didn’t appear engaged, she was quiet, looking out the window or at the floor for a few minutes before training her eyes back on the class activity. The one exception to her passive participation occurred the day the class went to the gym to play “cornerball,” an Amish playground game that has some similarities to dodgeball. Participation was voluntary, but Shannon chose to play, and my notes indicated a different level of engagement: “She is smiling as she runs around avoiding the ball. She keeps eye contact with the ball, moving quickly and strategically to avoid getting hit…. Shannon looks brighter than I have seen her in classes.” In the end, she won the game, and when I asked her about playing, she admitted, “I loved it…. There’s something to the moving around that I enjoy.” When Mr. Bennett returned a Bible writing assignment to Shannon, unlike the other participants, she wanted me to keep the document rather than making a copy for myself and returning the original to her. This move might suggest that the grade, not the content, was what mattered to her, which would support a performed student identity rather than a faith identity. In fact, as we shall see, she did not frequently use the assignments as a space to explore her faith. Furthermore, this move might suggest a lower level of investment in the assignments of this figured world than perhaps she felt in other classes. Mr. Bennett described Shannon as a “reserved genius” who did not reveal much about her faith in class or in writing. He wondered if she were “a kinesthetic learner” who “wants to speak her faith with body movement,” which wasn’t often possible in class. 208 Identities in English Class The primary identity Shannon performed in English class was conscientious student (29 field notations). As I found in the Bible class field notes, I also had notations related to clothing (12), socializing (3) and being a participant in this study (3). Three notations describe Shannon’s place in the room and two were related to sports. In this world, where transferring knowledge from the teacher to the student and attending to meaning in texts were the significant actions, Shannon took notes (6 notations), participated in group work (4), read (5), and engaged in listening to Mrs. Cooper (9). One of my notes read, “Shannon appears to be past page 100 in her book…. Shannon takes a fair amount of notes on iPad.” Shannon was also attentive to the valued outcome of mastery of the figured world, as she turned in or received back assignments and assessments (5). Regarding her reader’s journal on Jane Eyre, she told me, “It’s nice to get a good grade on it. But I also enjoyed reading it so that made me, like, want to make something good from the end of it.” In general, Shannon appreciated the figured world of British Literature Honors class because it exposed her to texts she would not have read on her own and helped her have “greater understanding” than had she read them on her own. Just as in Bible class, Shannon did not choose to use her voice in whole or small group settings. Even during social time, Shannon would listen to the conversations around her rather than join in. Yet, Shannon performed the identity of a conscientious student. There were other identities that impacted her participation in this figured world. For example, one day she was absent, and a student told Mrs. Cooper that Shannon was on a college visit, possibly suggesting a self-understanding as a future college student. 209 On another occasion, Shannon had been absent the previous day for a soccer tournament. I also had three notes that I coded as participant when she and I had quick conversations or traded blank and filled activity logs; all of these interactions were initiated by me. Mrs. Cooper positioned Shannon as “the quiet dynamo” who “puts all her thoughts on paper.” She continued, “She’s the kind of writer who, not because she wants points, but because she knows how to manipulate the text, can put things in there that shows she read it. Or to back up points.” Mrs. Cooper believed Shannon had done all the class reading. This perspective corresponds with Shannon’s use of quotations in her writings for English class as well as her own admission that she completed the reading for class. Mrs. Cooper’s positioning of Shannon aligned with Shannon’s self- understanding and enactment of a conscientious student. Literate Practices Shannon’s literate practices showed some evidence of the influence of her faith identity on her reading and writing, though this connection was not as strong as for the other girls in the study. Bible class writings. Shannon’s salient faith identity was enacted in her Bible writings, but not to the extent that it was for some of the other girls. In nine writings, I coded 94 of the 143 sentences as meeting requirements, suggesting the writing was informative (Britton et al., 1975). The high number of sentences coded as meeting requirements also suggests Shannon’s performance of her good student identity was strong throughout these assignments, as meeting requirements was one of the valued outcomes of this figured world. The other valued outcomes of owning one’s personal 210 faith beliefs and practicing them were also evident to a lesser extent, as can been seen in Table 10. Table 10: Shannon’s Bible Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Meeting Requirements Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Hermeneutics Essay 12 3 2 1 12 Acts Essay 22 19 2 0 9 Constantine Essay 15 14 0 0 1 Reforms Essay 17 16 0 0 1 Zwingli-Luther Essay 11 2 5 0 13 The Ban Essay 11 6 2 0 5 Russian Mennonites Essay 11 3 5 2 14 Amish Essay 12 10 0 0 2 Final Essay 32 21 1 1 17 Totals 143 94 17 4 74 As a comparison, whereas Paige had 22 examples of ownership and 17 examples of faith practices in seven writings, Shannon had 17 examples of ownership and four examples of faith practices across nine documents. Furthermore, although each essay had at least one self-mention, the highest category of Shannon’s 74 self-mentions was representative (31), which Tang and John (1999) consider the weakest authorial presence. Still, she wrote clearly and owned her beliefs about salvation, communion, baptism, 211 hermeneutics, and violence. The following two examples illustrate the presence of her enacted faith identity in her writings. First, in an essay describing hermeneutics, Shannon explains her own Bible interpretation practice as well as her beliefs about hermeneutics: Through growing up in a Mennonite church, I do interpret the Bible (sometimes) through a “Jesus Lense.” It’s usually not easy to interpret the Bible considering how different the culture/society is today compared to how it was in the Old Testament. Because of this, I think it’s definitely important to look at what Jesus said about the matter. Jesus came as a model for us, so his teachings and actions should certainly play a large role in how we interpret the Bible - but maybe it shouldn’t be the deciding factor in our interpretations all of the time. Here Shannon makes several moves. First, she aligns herself with her Mennonite faith background and Mennonite theology related to interpreting scripture and understanding Jesus as a model. Second, she moves from a first-person singular pronoun (“I do interpret…”) to a first-person plural pronoun (“how we interpret…), suggesting either less ownership in the idea or an alignment with a larger body of believers. Third, she authors a space for herself in the figured world of Mennonite faith by not fully agreeing with this practice but instead twice – one personally and once globally – asserting that using a ‘Jesus lens’ is not an absolute strategy. In a second example, Shannon asserts that each person must decide for himself or herself if participating in the military or supporting the government’s military action is acceptable; it is not for others to judge this decision. She then concludes the essay: “I personally wouldn’t be able to kill another person because in God’s eyes they’re just as precious.” In this case, Shannon states not only a belief but also a plan of action. That is, her faith identity allows for some actions and precludes others, just as Holland et al. (1998) suggest identities are based on words and actions. 212 English class writings. As one would expect, Shannon’s enacted good student identity was evident in her English class writings; however, there was no faith identity performance in these writings. From Shannon, I received six documents from English class – five essays and a reader’s journal for Jane Eyre, her independent novel. The reader’s journal was 14 pages, single-spaced, and 9-point font. It began with a list of 50 characters and a page and a half of quotations from throughout the book. The rest consisted of bulleted entries for each of the 38 chapters in the areas of “plot points,” “questions,” “words,” “thoughts,” “quotes,” and “other.” Some chapters’ entries totaled more than a page long; others were as short as 8-10 lines. This reader’s journal was perhaps the quintessential artifact for participation in the significant action of attending to meaning in the British Literature Honors figured world. Shannon engaged deeply with Jane Eyre, authoring a space for herself as a dedicated and reflective reader and English student. For this document, I did not count sentences. In the other five writings, there were a total of 159 sentences. Shannon’s dedication to and performance of a committed good student identity was evident not only in her reader’s journal but also in the other writings as well, with 33 quotations and 86 sentences that exhibited mastery of content. Her writing was informative (Britton et al., 1975). When these data points are compared with the two other valued outcomes of the figured world, however, the contrast is striking (See Table 11). While Shannon was committed to enacting a good student identity and doing what was required of her – she told me it was “nice to get a good grade” on the reader’s journal – her writings contained little evidence of the other two valued outcomes of the figured world. 213 Table 11: Shannon’s English Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Significant Action - Quotations Valued Outcome- Mastery Valued Outcome - Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions The Once and Future King Essay 40 13 27 0 0 0 Beowulf Essay 44 13 31 0 0 0 Frankenstein Essay 32 5 19 0 0 13 Great Expectations Essay 12 2 9 0 0 2 End of Semester Essay 31 0 0 2 0 42 Totals 159 33 86 2 0 57 The application she did write about is noteworthy, though: This year I think I started to learn to look deeper into the books instead of just looking at the story line and rather seeing the themes and ideas and the humor that the authors meant for the readers to catch, that I guess I never picked up on before. I would love to reread a lot of the books we read this semester so I could learn more from them now and find all the little hints and ideas that need a second glance to find!” As stated earlier, Shannon did not fully embrace or enact an identity as a reader, and she repeated this assertion as she started her final essay: “I’ve never been much of an English person.” Yet, she desired to participate in significant actions in that figured world, such as re-readings. She saw a future for herself in that world that was more committed than her present action and self-understanding. A close look at the self-mentions, as noted in the table, reveals that all of the self- mentions in the Frankenstein and Great Expectation essays were first-person plural 214 pronouns, representative of humanity, and indicating Shannon was not deeply “in” the writing. A contrast can be seen in the final reflection essay, in which 36 self-mentions were originator uses and only six were representative, with four of these instances being representative of the English class, indicating Shannon was identifying as a class member. In fact, Shannon wrote that “this semester was by far the best English class I’ve ever been in,” that she “really enjoyed” some of the books they read, that she “loved loved loved Jane Eyre,” and that she wished the class would last all year. Given that Shannon did not think of herself as an “English person,” these responses denote a shift in her participation in the figured world of English classes, which could, in the future, lead to a shift in her self-understanding (Holland et al., 1998). Though Mrs. Cooper allowed space for shaping the world in asking for suggestions, Shannon wrote, “I honestly don’t have any.” She saw no need to shape the world differently. Verbal protocols. Although Shannon performed a salient faith identity, there was less reciprocal influence between her faith identity and her reading practices than there was for Paige, Jessica, and Cassie, as was evident in her verbal protocols. Shannon’s faith-related text was the first chapter of the book of James, which has the headings “Trial and Temptations” and “Listening and Doing.” Shannon’s second text was a passage from The Messiah Method: The Seven Disciplines of the Winningest College Soccer Program in America by Michael Zigarelli that introduced the method by which their soccer teams frequently win. As Shannon read the James passage, her approach was point-driven (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002), focused on the major values portrayed in the text that related to her enacted faith identity. With the second passage, 215 Shannon also had a point-driven orientation, directed at the value of “team” over “individual.” This orientation aligned with her salient soccer player identity performances. As can be seen in Table 12, Shannon’s most common responses for both texts were comprehending and connecting to the reader’s life. In contrast, all of the other students were highest in connecting responses, perhaps suggesting they all had a stronger relationship to reading in general than Shannon had, which the interview data would support. Table 12: Shannon's Verbal Protocol Responses James The Messiah Method Total Comprehending 6 8 14 Comprehending Issues 3 0 3 Visualizing 0 2 2 Connecting to prior knowledge 0 1 1 Connecting to reader’s life 6 6 12 Evaluating 1 1 2 Reacting 2 2 4 Totals 18 20 38 Given that Shannon chose these texts and had read them before, it is not surprising that she had high response numbers for comprehending both texts, as shown in the table. Instead, the fact that she struggled with comprehension and ultimately gave up 216 on certain verses when reading James is unexpected after she told me she chose this passage because it was “probably one of [her] favorites in the Bible,” and it was “easy to relate to and helpful.” As an example, after reading verse 15 and following, she responded: “And I guess I can’t really say I understand what that is saying. (laugh) Um. Yeah.” Interestingly, in three of the comprehending responses for James, she used second-person pronouns, distancing herself from the meaning of the text: “Um, I guess it was just, like, when you go through trials or, like, hard times, it’s hard to see the good in it….” Shannon had underlined several verses, including verses 2-4 and 12, which she said were favorites, and all of which address perseverance during trials. Indeed, I coded these favorite verses as connecting to reader’s life though her responses consistently used the first-person plural pronoun and were of a more general nature. Regardless, as noted in the table, Shannon’s second highest response for each text was connections. James 1:12 reads, “Blessed be the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God had promised to those who love him.” Shannon responded, “I guess that’s just, like, encouraging that when we’re under trial, God will be there, and He promises us that we’ll get, like – when we get through it, He’s – like, He’s there the entire time, and that, like, He knows we can do it, and He has promises for us.” This verse had a heart next to it as well as “Kayla [SLWC 2012].” When I asked about this notation, Shannon explained a more personal connection: “When I was at camp, …she, like, made us all bookmarks, and that was the verse on it and … and then that’s, like – I read that, and I liked it a lot, and then I read the whole chapter.” While this response did not address application of the texts to Shannon’s daily life, it did 217 illustrate a faith-reading event. Shannon also associated this passage with the experience of adopting and transitioning to life with her brothers, which I learned in a follow-up interview. It is worth noting that Shannon’s connective responses to the soccer text were longer and more personal than her responses to James, suggesting perhaps a stronger connection between the reading and her enacted soccer player identity than between James and her faith identity. For example, after reading about focusing on the team rather than the individual, she responded: The team over individual really strikes me, I guess. Just, I’ve played with so many people that are just individual over team and it, like, the idea of playing on a team where that’s first, and it’s not about yourself, it’s about team, is appealing. And, like, playing for others instead of yourself. Additionally, the two visualizing responses to the soccer text were instances of her seeing herself on the field practicing skills. Summary Shannon’s enacted faith identity was the most central for her and formed hybrid identity performances with her enacted soccer player and engaged family identities. A good student identity enactment was also important to her understanding of herself. While she enjoyed reading at times, she did not claim a reader identity. Not as committed to Bible or devotional reading as Paige, Cassie, or Jessica, Shannon did find reading faith-related texts to be one important activity of many for her faith identity. There also did not appear to be as strong a connection between her faith identity and other reading she did; instead, her soccer player identity seemed to play a more dominant role in her reading activities. 218 Though there were individual differences among them, Paige, Jessica, Cassie, and Shannon all performed salient faith identities that impacted and were impacted by their literate practices to varying degrees, both in- and out-of-school. In contrast, Jacob also enacted a faith identity, but his story is different in how he understood that identity and to what extent his faith was connected to his literate practices. For Jacob, there was little connection between reading, writing, and faith. Jacob Most days, Jacob walked into class wearing khaki pants, canvas sneakers, a black Wawa or Outer Banks (North Carolina) sweatshirt, and sporting a black backpack slung over his shoulder. In addition to being on the school bowling team, Jacob worked two jobs. Jacob described himself as “intelligent.” He continued, “I do pretty well at school for the most part.…Ah, I like working on stuff with my hands – cars, projects, like building stuff, designing things.” In the interviews, Jacob used copulative verbs 12 times to identify himself along with several supporting activity details, which together described five identities: student (17 interview notations), maker (21), car enthusiast (33), technology lover (23), and person of faith (72). A cluster of the maker, car-enthusiast, and technology-lover identity performances were central to Jacob and drove much of his behavior. Additionally, these enacted identities and his elective literate practices reciprocally influenced each other. Jacob enacted a faith identity but, unlike for the other participants, it was not salient. Moreover, although he engaged in daily elective reading activities, unlike Cassie, Paige, and Jessica, he did not see himself as a reader. 219 Other Identities For Jacob, a cluster of these “other” enacted identities were most salient to him and were connected reciprocally to his literate practices. I will introduce Jacob’s performed identities, other than his faith identity, with data exclusively from the interviews. Student identity. Jacob saw himself as a student, who worked on homework in his free time and did “pretty well in school for the most part.” When I asked how he saw himself as a student, Jacob answered, “I tend to think of myself as, ah, smart, I guess. Like, I take all the honors classes and, like, AP.…So I try to go for the harder classes, get good grades.” Grades were important for his future; he wanted to study mechanical engineering. Additionally, Jacob lamented that MHS did not have more courses related to engineering. In fact, Jacob’s enacted student identity was somewhat driven by his present self-understanding as smart, but also motivated by his future desires, related to his most salient identity – a maker. That is, his student identity performances were motivated by and in service of his maker identity and his desire to commit further to this identity in the future (Holland et al., 1998). Maker/builder/innovator identity. Multiples times on different occasions, Jacob referenced an enacted identity as an innovator or in his words, “a maker; I like building things.” He liked working with his hands to design and produce gadgets: “Like, I have a shop in my basement…. I’ve made, like, homemade, like, dart blasters and stuff with, ah, like, air seals and plungers and tubes, and I made, like, potato cannons and sling slots and catapults, trebuchets.” He also crafted a large magnifying device out of an old projection television and loved to tinker with his car. 220 Though at times Jacob described this identity, his car-enthusiast identity, and his technology-lover identity independently, more often these identities clustered. Holland et al. (1998) asserts that identities “bump up against one another” (p. 238) such that performances and practices of one identity exist not in isolation but rather in varying degrees of interrelatedness. I suggest that Jacob’s performed maker identity was most central to him because it motivated other identities, such as his student identity, as well as his elective reading events; at the same time, it was often hybridized with his car- enthusiast and technology-lover identity enactments. Though the enacted maker identity, clustered with these other two identities, was most dominant, I have discussed it only briefly as the focus of the study was on faith identities; however, as we will see, these performed salient identities are woven throughout the case. Car-enthusiast identity. Jacob also saw himself as a “car-enthusiast,” which hybridized, at least at times, with his enacted builder identity. Jacob owned a 1988 BMW 735-I that he liked to work on, and he sold items on eBay to have more money to put toward car projects. Reading online was one way Jacob gained knowledge about cars – how to take them apart and put them back together: I'll, like, read a bunch of stuff up on, like, certain cars and, like, that kind of stuff. And that – that'll get me to look at more stuff. And, just stuff that, um piques my interests. So, like, I was looking up, last night, things about this car I want to work on, like the motor. And most of the stuff I read is just, like, forums and articles on different – like, mostly instructional stuff or informational, that kind of stuff. Jacob loved learning about cars and used elective reading in service of this identity, which, in turn, fed his identity as a maker and builder. 221 Technology-lover identity. Jacob also enacted a technology-lover identity. This identity manifested itself in different behaviors. First, Jacob had been a part of MHS’s robotics program for the past three years, including attending a world competition in California his freshman year: “I did the programming and I helped them with the design.” Second, Jacob used technology to gain knowledge necessary for his maker identity. Though he loved technology itself, technology was also a tool to further his commitment to and performance as a maker. Jacob’s attraction to technology was also evident in his use of his phone or iPad during classes and throughout the day. Sometimes this usage enhanced his student identity performances, and sometimes it distracted him from them. Technology also played a significant role in Jacob’s reading practices in multiple ways as I will discuss in subsequent sections. Faith Identity Jacob described his faith to me: “It's not the strongest; I'm not really that kind of person that screams faith at everyone. I mean, I pray once in a while. I read the Bible occasionally, go to church, Sunday School. I enjoy youth groups and worship.” He continued his description: Um, probably behind the scenes. It's not really – like, I mean, I should – I should put more thought in, like, try making it a more prominent part of my life, but right now it's not that, not as big a part of my life as it should be…. There are several items to note here. First, he repeatedly described his faith by what it was not – “not the strongest,” “not as big a part of my life as it should be” – and also by what it “should” be. Second, this hedging suggests an understanding from Jacob that his behaviors in this figured world do not fully align with the significant actions, and, indeed, his prayer life and Bible reading bear this out. Still, he shifted in the middle to what he 222 did participate in and enjoyed related to faith, suggesting at least a minimal level of commitment and ownership. Jacob had attended local Mennonite churches all his life, and he considered himself Mennonite, but he did not consider that label to be important to him: Ah, I mean, it's not the biggest part of me. I mean, yeah, I go to a Mennonite school and a Mennonite church. My family's always been Mennonite, but I mean – I haven't really, there's nothing really about it that – about being Mennonite that's that, like, crazily a part of my life. I'm being a Christian; I'm a Christian and all that but not necessarily like, like – I don't find – I don't find being Mennonite the most important part. Well, like, I think – I mean, all the denominations, they all have their differences and stuff, but as long as, like, God and Jesus are part of it, it's not that big of a deal to me – all the small differences, like you're baptized as a child or as an adult. That's not as important to me. Jacob’s Mennonite identity was nested (Holland et al., 1998) in his identity as a Christian. Furthermore, it was tied to relationships and institutions. For example, twice when asked what it meant to him to be a Mennonite, Jacob referenced to people and places: “I mean, for me, it's just, like, the kind of church and school I go to…. And I mean, not too terribly much other than, just, like, that's where my family's been.” In fact, other actors, relationships, and institutions did impact Jacob’s enacted faith identity, such as his parents’ decision to attend Mennonite churches and enroll Jacob in Mennonite schools. Because his father worked at MHS, Jacob had “grown up” there. Because his extended family directed a Mennonite camp, that camp became an important place for Jacob. Jacob claimed the importance of family and friends as “the most influential people in my life [who] teach me and influence me to be who I am.” Jacob also named his church and youth group as important to him. 223 Relationships with people of faith and their institutions seemed to be more foundational to Jacob’s faith identity than personal faith beliefs, as evidenced in this exchange about adult baptism, a central tenet of Mennonite faith: I mean, I've never been baptized, I've – I mean – I've thought about it, but it's not something I, like, I'm rushed into. And, like, if – if I was baptized as a child, I mean, I don't think it would make too much of a difference, so, like, I don't think it, like, matters when you are as much. …I mean, yeah, I agree for some – for the most part that, yeah, you should – you should be baptized when you make the decision to for yourself. You shouldn't be, like, forced into it as a baby, but I don't know. I don't find it the most important aspect. Jacob expressed some ambivalence about believer’s baptism and his language is again riddled with the word “should,” indicating perhaps a lack of centrality to his participation in the figured world of Mennonite faith (Holland et al., 1998). Still, Jacob’s personal choice to not be baptized at this point in his life ironically aligns with Mennonite theology in the sense that Jacob has not made faith a “prominent” part of his life at present. Therefore, not getting baptized could be viewed by other actors in the Mennonite world as a responsible decision. Another core Mennonite belief is that Jesus preached and taught the way of peace and, thus, his followers should do likewise. When I asked if Jacob associated any beliefs with his understanding of himself as Mennonite, he claimed this one: “Ah, well, I guess that pacifistic thing, like non-violence. I mean, I think there's some times where violence might be necessary, but for the most part – I mean, yeah, it's better to be peaceful.” Even here, Jacob was not resolute. Jacob liked the Mennonite church and surmised he would still attend a Mennonite church in his future – “Probably just cuz that's what I've grown up with. That's what I'm accustomed to,” – but he did not think he would be much more involved than he was 224 presently – “I don't – I don't think I'll be, like, part of the – I don't know, committees or any of that.” Perhaps because of his limited investment in the enacted identity, Jacob did not imagine altered worlds (Holland et al., 1998) or predict the future of the church. Jacob’s teachers questioned his level of commitment to his faith identity but recognized they might be mistaken. Mrs. Cooper attended the same church: “Actually, he was in my Sunday School [class] for, like, three weeks, and he – he doesn't seem to be interested, but for all I know he's really listening, but … he doesn't present as an interested person.” Mr. Bennett agreed: “He just answers as best as he can, but I don't think he's being very real.…I think his faith is just sort of something to check off.” He continued: “I think he kind of likes his church and his youth group. But I would say he's not eager to even really develop his faith. It's probably not a high priority.” In fact, his teachers’ interpretations of his faith identity performances aligned with his own assessment. Though not as salient to him as other identities, Jacob was a social actor in the figured world of Mennonite faith. Reader Identity and Elective Literate Practices Jacob did not consider himself a reader, but he did engage daily in literate practices that serviced several of his enacted identities. Jacob did not hesitate to share this self-perception: “I wouldn’t say I was a reader, no. I don’t really like just sitting down with a book, like, in an afternoon or something.” Yet, he also told me he read online two or three hours a day: Yeah, like, at lunch or, like, between classes, I'll just, like, get on some forums and, like, read some stuff and continue it later. I mean, at home when I have more free time I'll, like, read more, like, consistently, like, in a row, but…yeah, whenever I can check stuff.…Check it in one class, catch up in another. Pretty interesting. 225 This reading did not “count” for him in defining a reader, and, therefore, he did not view himself as a reader. He also admitted that with school reading he was “always behind, far behind.” And yet he read for himself “whenever” he got the opportunity. Online reading was an almost constant activity for Jacob around other obligations. Reddit, an open source, online community, was a favorite website as were news sites and forums about cars. Sometimes Jacob read Wired and Car and Driver at home, but he preferred online reading to print for two reasons. First, the access was greater and faster: “like, in print, it’s just what’s there. Online you’ll read something, and if you want to get more information, you can just look up specific topics and, so, [if] something catches my interest, I’ll look up more stuff on it.” For Jacob, reading often led to more reading, which is true of participation in figured worlds and especially for salient identities (Holland et al., 1998). Still, reader was not an image he had of himself. Instead, he performed a technology-lover identity that included literate practices. The second reason Jacob preferred online reading was that technology allowed for community involvement, another aspect of literacy Jacob enjoyed and could not find in printed materials: I’ll read, like, the main articles and stuff, but the comments kind of make it interesting – gives everyone’s opinion – and then people comment on people’s comments, and you just get, like, a chain of people just talking about some stuff. They’ll just, like, go off on a certain aspect of an article…. I like reading the progression of, like – there’s, like, conversations that happen. Not only did Jacob like reading the transactions of other readers as they left comments, but he often commented, himself, as well. In this figured world of forums and blog posts, a significant act was not only reading text but also having an opportunity to author one’s 226 own space with comments. Jacob actively participated in both of these actions, which helped define and shape the figured world and position other readers and writers, all elements Holland et al. (1998) suggest are part of identities. Yet Jacob did not have this self-understanding because of how he defined “reader.” The focus of forums on community and the invitation for anyone to comment and contribute has an interesting parallel in Mennonite faith, in which there is a strong belief that it is difficult to be a Christian alone. A faith community is needed for support and accountability as well as to interpret scriptures, as I have mentioned. In fact, Mennonites believe that the only way to understand scripture is to read and discuss it together with others. Jacob ascribed to the value of people reading the Bible together: “I think that helps. Yeah, to get different people’s opinions on it and see, like, different people get different things out of it. I think that’s important to, like, hear everyone else, like, how everyone else is getting, understanding it.” Jacob’s reading supported his enacted identities, such as car-enthusiast (sites dedicated to Nissans, BMWs, Mini-Coopers), technology-lover (articles on Wi-Fi switching and operating system jailbreaks) or maker (how to build a go-cart and use of CAD for 3D modeling). His reading also supported a curiosity about the world; he told me, “Yeah, I like learning about different things.” His activity log included texts about self-portraits, the Pope’s views on evolution, turning car batteries into solar panels, and an article on a new font: “Yeah, it was an open source; he released it for free. It was a font that was supposed to help people who were dyslexic read better.” Jacob’s Bible reading was initiated by others or occurred in groups. For example, he read for Bible class projects or in Sunday School settings, behaviors which suggest a 227 good student or group member identity performance rather than a belief-based faith identity. Yet, surprisingly, at times, Jacob read beyond the required passage: “Sometimes we’ll have to, like, look at verses, and sometimes I’ll just, like, read the whole passage just to, just to, like, read, … just to kinda get more of the story.” He was drawn to stories in the Bible, but these stories did not have much connection to Jacob’s life, as he explained in a Bible class assignment: While I think scripture is important [in determining truth], I don’t find it to be the thing that gives me the most truth. … I am more influenced by family and friends then [sic] the bible [sic]. Jacob did not feel his faith impacted his choice of other texts that he read nor did he see reading as a way to learn about himself except in the sense of “discovering that … this [topic] interests me more.” Rather than taking notes when reading voluntarily, he simply remembered information or saved and later reread texts. He found it more important when reading the Bible to consider the author and context than with contemporary news articles because the Bible “was written, like, forever ago, so, I mean, it was a completely different culture and society. Like, now – stuff that’s written now is, like, I’m living in that culture and society; it’s easier to understand the context.” Identities within the Figured World of Bible Class I had 145 field notations for Jacob in Bible class, more than for any other participant. Jacob’s identity performances were dynamic. Sometimes, he performed an engaged student identity – listening to presentations (28 notations), writing journal responses (8), using technology to engage (9), and participating in class discussions (19) that connected with his elective reading. For example, here Jacob contended the Japanese had taken US land during World War II: 228 Jacob has phone out and is scrolling down on it. “There were battles in Alaska, wasn’t there? I’m positive I’ve read this somewhere. I’m pretty sure there were battles there. I’m not sure against who. Japanese took over some soil in the Alaskan islands. It was the only soil that was taken. It says on USHistory.com. Everyone says none of our land was taken in WW II, but this proves there was.” Jacob contributed a new line of thinking into the conversation and helped to construct knowledge, based on what he had read, and used technology to confirm his information. He accepted the positioning as an engaged student in the class and participated in the directed activities of the class, helping to shape the world. More often, however, Jacob did not perform an engaged student identity and instead authored spaces that highlighted various other identities including technology- lover (14) and car-enthusiast (8). The quick movement between engaged student and other performances can be seen in the following field note. Mr. Bennett explained the activity to the class – “As a group, make a poster that answers the question, how do you determine your concept of truth? (right from wrong)”: Jacob’s group is not coming together. One girl is talking to someone from another group. Another is looking at a slide with Jacob. Jacob and other girl are starting to work. Jacob is suggesting things to his group – scripture, church, movies, yourself. Jacob makes an airplane and flies it. He wants it back but Mr. Bennett is looking his way so he refocuses. Jacob has airplane back. He overhears Mr. Bennett talking to me about a field trip for another class and Jacob joins the conversation. Jacob starts talking to someone about his grades for another class. Jacob says to Mr. Bennett, “we need some help.” Mr. Bennett: “this is looking very good. Can you weave a little Calvin and Luther on this? What I want you to be able to observe is how you are or aren’t like these Christian reformers. You’re acknowledging a lot of other influences that they are not.” Jacob to his group: “So I guess we need to do something with Zwingli and Luther.” Jacob threw airplane across the room to another group. Now he’s helping his team get the right slide to write on paper. Now he’s showing a group member pictures on phone, unrelated to class. Jacob tells his group, “we still have to state our core belief.” 229 Jacob began by performing an engaged student identity. In fact, he even provided leadership, which continued throughout the exercise; however, it was interspersed with his authoring of other spaces. He flew an airplane, talked about other classwork, and showed classmates pictures from his phone. This pattern of inconsistent performance of an engaged student identity was indeed consistent with his participation in both figured worlds that I observed. I also coded for clothing (8) and study participant (3). Identities within the Figured World of English Class I had 94 field note entries for Jacob. More so than other participants, Jacob’s performance as an engaged student was inconsistent in this figured world, as it was in Bible class. As stated previously, on the first day I observed, Jacob shared a slide presentation. Mrs. Cooper responded favorably, as Jacob had clearly put effort into the project. Later that day, I wrote, “Jacob does not take notes but is paying attention. Slouched back in his seat.” Although transfer of knowledge through note-taking was a significant act in this figured world, Jacob chose to pay attention in a lounging posture without taking notes. He was authoring his own space (Holland et al., 1998) rather than fully accepting the general positioning of a good-student identity. The pattern of inconsistent participation in significant actions continued. One day’s notes progress from “Jacob is writing notes,” to “Jacob has pencil to paper but doesn’t look like he’s writing,” to “Jacob is falling asleep.” This inconsistency was evident in his work as well. When Mrs. Cooper returned the Macbeth test, she told Jacob, “The last [essay] question, absolutely the best thing you’ve done. The first one, not so much.” These examples show that a person’s participation in a figured world and, therefore, their authoring and positioning by others are dynamic, with the possibility of 230 changing minute by minute as Leander (2002) described. At the same time, there is a pattern of behavior or habit that builds to form a predominant identity within a figured world, even as the actor can still adapt his identity and participation with agentic change in the future (Holland et al., 1998). Mrs. Cooper’s interpretation of Jacob suggested one reason for this variance in behavior: When he wants to write, if he likes the book, …boy, he's all over it. And, he can be really good. Sometimes to the point where you think, is this the same guy that wrote the last paper that got a, you know, crappy grade? But then you think, eh, yeah, the difference is, he was interested in this book. She further reflected that while “he doesn’t present as an interested person, … he’s a very capable thinker. He is.” Jacob was a more consistent participant during group activities based on quotations from literature. In his group, Jacob read quotes aloud, volunteered to find answers, and even took leadership: “Okay, let’s go back and star all the ones that we think will be on there. Let’s mark all the big ones, 54, 41, 16.” My notes continue: “Jacob goes through and gives ideas of which could be on the quiz.” Whether motivated by the social context of the small group setting, the desire to get the needed information to do well on the quiz without putting in all the work himself, wanting to perform a leader or conscientious student identity, or some other motivation, Jacob took the opportunity to accept the general class positioning as engaged-conscientious reader-students. Jacob was late to class (3) and absent (2); at no time did I hear him ask about what he missed. Additional performed identities noted were technology-lover (3), car- enthusiast (2), and research-study participant (2). There were 12 notes for clothing. 231 Jacob’s interviews confirmed ambivalence about English class: “English class to me, it’s not my favorite class. It gets boring at times. …but, so, I like group work, like, that’s better than just sitting and reading along with the teacher.” English class was a figured world in which Jacob was engaged, but not completely. Literate Practices Jacob’s literate practices further evidenced the connection between his salient identities and his reading and writing practices, while also illuminating the limited relationship between these practices and his faith identity. Bible class writings. I received eight essays from Jacob with a total of 254 sentences. I coded 171 sentences as meeting requirements, suggesting Jacob was successful in achieving this valued outcome. As evident in Table 13, Jacob also expressed ownership of his beliefs and some practice of his faith. These data indicate that Jacob performed a student identity, while also aligning with the self-admission that Jacob’s faith identity was not as important to him as other identities. Still, the beliefs and practices here corroborate the interview data regarding certain beliefs. As Table 13 shows, Jacob used personal pronouns in each of the eight Bible essays with a total of more than 100 self- mentions (12 representative uses, 6 opinion-holder uses, 83 originator uses). These data suggest Jacob had a strong authorial presence (Tang & John, 1999). All of the writing was informative (Britton et al, 1975). Though Jacob did not read the Bible much, he had clear beliefs related to this practice, which he articulated in one essay: So I guess you are asking me how I interpret the biblical texts. I think the texts should not be taken literally as they are written word for word. I used to think this way – that what is written is what is meant, but now I have come to understand it 232 differently. We have to take into account how things were back when the Bible was written. We have to understand the culture in which these stories took place. It is interesting to note that Jacob began with a statement of practice and then moved and sustained a position of ownership of belief, as if he did not want to commit to this significant action. Jacob moved from a singular personal pronoun to the plural pronoun ‘we,’ perhaps distancing himself from personal Bible reading. Table 13: Jacob's Bible Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Meeting Requirements Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Hermeneutics Essay 17 4 5 0 23 Mennonite, Hutterite, Amish Essay 47 40 1 0 10 Zwingli-Luther Essay 29 22 2 0 7 Russian Mennonite Essay 26 17 1 2 18 Dock Name Essay 34 11 7 0 10 Mennonite Community Essay 20 18 0 0 2 Truth Essay 35 17 7 0 21 Final Essay 46 42 0 2 10 Totals 254 171 23 4 101 233 In another essay, Jacob clearly claimed and enacted his Mennonite identity. In this piece, the self-mentions moved from a broad group (“There are a lot of Mennonites in our community and I like most of them.”) to his family (“My family is Mennonite and its [sic] not to [sic] bad.”) to an explicit identity statement: I am a fan of the Mennonites [over the other two groups] mostly because I am one. I think the Mennonites have the most positives about them. The biggest one being ok with technology and modern amenities. I would not like living without my car and social media. While owning his Mennonite identity, the value he saw was not based on theology but on cultural allowances that connected to his technology-lover and car-enthusiast identities. Jacob did orient his enacted Mennonite identity around beliefs in a different essay: I’m not sure what I would do if I was a conscientious objector in lands where exemption from the military is unavailable. I would probably try my best to get thrown out or put on some peaceful duty such as cooking or repairing vehicles or the likes. I would do my best not to be involved with the actual conflict. Here, Jacob owned the Mennonite pacifist position while also indicating a desire to live it out as well. His final thoughts in this essay suggest he is authoring some space (Holland et al., 1998) within the figured world of Mennonite faith when he commented: “I don’t really feel any conflict between allegiance to Christ’s kingdom and my government…. I think we can be both loyal to out [sic] country and to God.” Although some Mennonites would agree with Jacob’s stance, others would put allegiance to God above allegiance to any country. Finally, Jacob spoke to his anticipated future participation in the church: Ten years from now my role at my church will be similar to what it is now. I took that spiritual church test and my results showed that I would not be working with the church very much. I expected this because for most of the questions I did not find myself wanting to do any of it. I’m not sure what others will do to change the church in the future but I don’t think I will be part of the change. 234 Jacob performed a Mennonite faith identity, but it was not a salient one. English class writings. Jacob’s English class writings were consistent with the findings that Jacob’s student performance was changeable, that he did not connect with English class readings, and that he did not prioritize his enacted faith identity. Jacob gave me four English written documents with a total of 167 sentences. Jacob included only four quotations, and there was only one example of class discourse. Although these acts of the figured world were minimal, he did write with coherence to produce informative writing (Britton et al., 1975). Table 14: Jacob’s English Class Writings Essay Assignments Total Sentences Significant Action - Quotations Valued Outcome- Mastery Valued Outcome - Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions Shaping the World The Once and Future King Essay 49 2 33 0 0 13 0 Frankenstein Essay 39 2 33 0 0 6 0 Independent Novel – Pride & Prejudice 44 0 38 0 0 7 0 End-of- Semester Essay 35 0 0 0 0 32 12 Totals 167 4 123 0 0 58 12 I coded 123 sentences for mastery, indicating success in achieving this valued outcome; however, he told me there were several books he did not read. Thus, the mastery came from transfer of knowledge from Mrs. Cooper rather than his own engaged reading. 235 Perhaps, because he was not focused on faith or did not like English class texts, faith connections and applications were not evident in the writing, as noted in Table 14 above. For example, in The Once and Future King essay, Jacob explained the idea that right was more important than might as a powerful concept in the book. This notion aligns well with Mennonite theology of peacemaking, but Jacob did not make the move to insert his faith identity into this assignment. Likewise, in the Frankenstein essay, Jacob compared Victor’s creation of the monster with God’s creation of humans. While other participants included personal statements about their relationship to God, Jacob did not. In fact, all six self-mentions in the Frankenstein essay were representative of Christians and, therefore, suggest limited authorial presence, as Tang and John (1999) argue, “[u]sed in this way, the first person pronoun, far from giving the reader information about the writer, effectively reduces the writer to a non-entity” (p. S27). Jacob’s ambivalence in performing a good-grade student identity can be seen in his writing in several ways. First, while he did not admit, as he did to me, that he did not read all the class-assigned texts in his end-of the-semester essay, he did comment on them: While I didn't always enjoy the reading, in the end most of the books were good. Probably my favorite book was Beowulf. It was a bit annoying to read sometimes with its odd style of writing, but I liked the plot, and it had good action. In these sentences, each with self-mentions, Jacob answered Mrs. Cooper’s general positioning of the class as engaged, enthusiastic reader-students by negotiating this posture and distancing himself from the figured world and the positioning. He later noted that several texts were not in a genre or style that he enjoyed. Jacob was trying to find a 236 place for himself rather than being firmly established within the significant act of reading in this figured world. Yet, Jacob fully endorsed one method Mrs. Cooper used to transfer knowledge: Mrs. Cooper brought up all sorts of different ideas and stories. This is part of the reason I enjoy this class. I liked how we would be talking about some theme or topic in the book and then Mrs. Cooper would have some story to go along with it…. This kind of teaching style makes a class enjoyable and fun to be in. By acknowledging his pleasure in “this kind of teaching style,” Jacob was endorsing this act of the figured world and his position as a knowledge-receiver; however, there was something more at play here regarding identity. Mrs. Cooper saw Jacob as enacting a story-lover identity: “I see him as a story person, but I don’t know that he always does the reading.” This notion of liking stories aligns with Jacob’s liking some stories in the Bible, including Revelation, which he commented had “weird stories that [caught] my interest.” Finally, Jacob offered a suggestion in his writing to alter the figured world of English class – to have assignments more consistently posted on the electronic learning management system: It would be nice to have things on PowerSchool. I always check PowerSchool at night when I am doing homework to find out what I need to do and Brit Lit stuff is never there. Not a huge thing just one thing I would have like to have been done. Otherwise I think everything else about the class is good. Jacob was making a play to alter the figured world through an action that aligned with his enacted technology-lover identity for the service of his good-grade student identity. Verbal protocols. Jacob’s salient performed technology-lover, maker, and car- enthusiast identities were evident in his verbal protocols as was the lack of connection between his faith identity and his elective reading practices. First, Jacob brought me 237 copies of two online texts about cars that he then read from his iPad screen. Jacob’s choices of how and what to read evidenced his salient identities. The first text, “How to Build Ka24de,” was from a website called Zilvia, a forum for Nissan cars. He explained why he chose this text: “[it’s] the engine for the Nissan 240SX, which is one of my favorite, low budget cars that I want to get. … I’ve been looking into this kind of stuff that I would do to the car once I got it.” The second article was entitled, “What Would Jesus Drive? Ranking the Bible’s Best Cars.” Jacob admitted, “Yeah, I wasn’t too sure what to do for an article like that cuz I don’t really read too much, like, faith-based religious things.” This text was organized as a count down from ten to one with a photo of a vehicle followed by a Bible verse and a short commentary. For example, a picture of a Honda Accord was followed by John 12:49, “I do not speak of my own Accord.” A sentence connecting the verse to the vehicle image followed: “In Acts, the apostles pulled a classic clown stunt and gathered ‘all in one Accord.’ How they knew about it though is anyone’s guess, since, as Jesus never really talked about his Honda.” Unlike the other participants, Jacob did not have point-driven orientations (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002) for either text. With the first text, his approach was information- driven, learning what he could in anticipation of owning such an engine some day. For the second text, Jacob’s approach was experience-driven, in which his responses expressed emotions about the images suggested by the text or emotions based on his knowledge of the vehicles being discussed. Interestingly, the faith piece resulted in a greater diversity of responses than the engine text, as Table 15 shows. Jacob’s most frequent type of responses for both texts, 238 however, were connections, though connections to his life were much stronger in the Nissan text than in the faith-related piece. Jacob made comments connecting the Nissan text to prior knowledge as well as to his life, and, often, Jacob’s prior knowledge came from life experiences – “So I’m thinking, yeah, I’ve had, I’ve had towels I’ve used on stuff that just, they rip apart and leave specks everywhere so getting good towels is a good idea.” Or, “So, I’m just thinking, head gasket, that comes, um, from overheating the car, which I almost did to my other car.” Table 15: Jacob’s Verbal Protocol Responses “How to Build Ka24de” “What Would Jesus Drive?” Total Comprehending 3 5 8 Connecting to other texts 0 3 3 Connecting to reader’s life 11 2 13 Connecting to prior knowledge 4 12 16 Visualizing 0 3 3 Evaluating 6 3 9 Predicting 0 6 6 Reacting 2 6 8 Totals 26 40 66 Other connecting comments were based on the future or the hypothetical: “Just thinking about what it would take to rebuild one of these cuz I want this car at some point.” And later: ‘I’m thinking I would do ARP head studs cuz they’re the best head 239 studs.” Even the connections to prior knowledge Jacob made in the faith-related text were based on his car knowledge: “I knew it was a Honda Accord right away,” and “I knew it was a Dodge Dart from looking at it.” In fact, his lack of familiarity with scripture was evident in some responses. Jacob read, “Peter 2:17, Dry springs and mists are ‘driven by a Storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved.’ Then he responded: “I'm just thinking, I've never heard that verse before.” Jacob’s responses indicated a car-enthusiast/maker identity performance. As noted in the table, Jacob made comprehending comments on both texts as well. Most of these responses did not explicitly associate with identity, though a few included personal pronouns. For example, Jacob read, “Here I will explain start to finish {the} Ka24de build from {the} bare block up. In addition, I will add the 248 hot cam install.” He then responded, “So I’m just thinking, this guy’s rebuilding a Ka24 engine, which is an engine for a car I like, and he’s, uh, putting in a new cam, which will make it run faster, more horsepower.” With the phrase, “an engine for a car I like,” Jacob inserted himself and his car-enthusiast identity into the response. Jacob also evaluated and reacted to both texts as can be seen in Table 15. He evaluated the writer’s car-related decisions rather than anything specific to the writing, indicating that he was reading from his car-enthusiast identity as in the following example: So I'm thinking, yeah, I, I wouldn't really buy that kind of stuff from eBay necessarily cuz eBay has crappy stuff for the most part. … And $800 total sounds a little high considering you get a whole used motor for $4-500. Jacob had more reacting responses to the Jesus driving piece than to the Nissan text. Again, some of these responses indicated prior knowledge coming from his car-enthusiast 240 and maker identities. For example, after reading about the cost of machine work, Jacob commented, “And I’m thinking $900 is a lot for the machine work.” Jacob’s reacting comments were based on his car knowledge: “God promises vintage muscle cars to bad people in the form of the Pontiac Tempest.” I find that amusing cuz the Pontiac Tempest wasn't that great of a car so God promises vintage muscle cars to bad people because it's not that great of a car. Finally, for the Jesus driving text, Jacob made predictions, as seen in Table 15. Jacob read the scripture verse and then predicted which car was being featured: “’Exodus 19:13, Only when the Ram's horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.’ So I'm thinking, yeah, this is definitely going to be about Dodge Ram.” Jacob’s prior knowledge of car models was activated, indicating that his car-enthusiast identity was triggered and performed. Jacob’s enacted car-enthusiast and maker identities aided his comprehension and influenced his evaluation of, reaction to, and prediction of texts because Jacob brought both prior knowledge and prior experience to the reading. Summary Jacob enacted a salient cluster of identities, which included car-enthusiast, maker, and technology-lover. These three identities influenced the texts he chose to read as well as the transactions he had while reading. Conversely, his elective reading added to his knowledge base of the figured worlds associated with these identities as well as his interest in learning about the world. Jacob’s faith identity, based more on social relationships than beliefs or personal practices, intersected with literate events primarily as initiated by others. There was little self-directed interaction between reading and faith. 241 Cross Case Analysis In the previous pages, I have described my findings in the figured worlds of British Literature Honors class and Story of the Church Bible class. I have also presented a case study of each participant, outlining salient identities including faith, elective literate practices, performed identities in English and Bible classes, and the relationships between their identities and reading and writing events. Now I will examine the data across participants by examining the findings in three sections – salient identities, how these identities were expressed in writing, and how they were expressed in reading – because when investigating phenomena in multiple-case studies, researchers look for commonalities across the cases as well as the “situational uniqueness” (Stake, 2005, p. ix- x) of the cases. Salient Identities Four of the participants strongly identified themselves by their faith identities, whether they used the label Christian, Mennonite, or both. Performances of this identity were central to how Paige, Jessica, Shannon, and Cassie understood themselves. Not only did they make this assertion with their words in our interviews, but they also participated in activities from the figured world of faith (Holland et al., 1998). In addition to attending church services with their families, which all five participants did, Paige, Jessica, and Cassie participated in daily individual activities such as Bible or devotional reading. Furthermore, for all of the girls, their faith identities were hierarchically related to other identities they had. For example, Paige, Shannon, and Cassie all enacted salient identities related to sports. In each of these cases, the participant’s faith identity became 242 a lens through which they, at least partially, viewed and participated in their athletic experiences. Paige believed she gained strength through answered prayer; Shannon felt her faith impacted her actions on the field; Cassie shared Bible verses with her team before a match; and all of them prayed before competitions. Cassie’s, Jessica’s, and Shannon’s enacted faith identities were also strongly connected to their performed identities as loving and involved family members. Cassie’s family shared a daily devotional time, and her extended family read the Bible together at gatherings, while Jessica’s understanding of interpreting scripture was influenced by her brother. Shannon’s family included two internationally adopted brothers who had impacted her faith greatly, as did family read-alouds of faith-related books. Paige’s faith identity influenced her favorite classes and, accordingly, her conscientious student identity as well as her curious learner identity. Jacob enacted a salient hybrid cluster identity of technology-lover, maker, and car-enthusiast, with his maker identity being primary. This hybrid identity was largely how he defined himself in terms of how he spent his free time – working on cars, programing robotics, or making contraptions at home. As he participated in these worlds, specifically the figured world of technology, he used that knowledge in the service of other identities, such as his student identity – typing most of his assignments, finding information on the internet to contribute to class discussions, and making technology suggestions to alter the figured world of English class. Jacob admitted openly that his faith was not strong. His enacted faith identity was not as salient as other identities performances nor as significant for him as it was for the other participants. I also maintain that it had a different focus than the girls’ faith identities. While the girls’ faith 243 identities centered around beliefs and living out those beliefs, Jacob’s faith was based in social relationships, culture, and institutions. For Jacob, Mennonite meant his immediate and extended family as well as the church and school he attended and the social relationship and opportunities they afforded. Salient Identities Expressed in Writing All of the participants performed engaged student identities in the writing they did for both classes to the extent that they produced the valued outcomes of meeting the requirements (Bible class) and mastering the material (English class); however, the other valued outcomes of these figured worlds that overlapped with reader and faith identities were not so clearly achieved by everyone, as can be seen in Tables 16 and 17 below. Bible class writings. The other two valued outcomes of the Bible class figured world were ownership of personal faith beliefs and practice of those beliefs, which dovetail with an enacted faith identity. Faith identity performances were salient for Paige, Shannon, Cassie, and Jessica. It is not surprising, then, to see that each of them owned faith beliefs in their Bible class writings, and that their percentages for sentences with personal faith beliefs were higher than for Jacob, whose enacted faith identity was not as central to how he saw himself. Furthermore, Jacob’s faith identity performances were not based on beliefs so much as relationships and culture. Perhaps also to be expected, the percentage of self-mentions expressed by each of the girls was higher than Jacob’s percentage, indicating the girls had a stronger presence (Tang & John, 1999) in the writing than Jacob did and aligning with the centrality of their faith identities. 244 Table 16: Cross Case Bible Class Writings Participant Total Assignments Total Sentences Meeting Requirements Ownership of Personal Beliefs Practice of Faith Beliefs Self- mentions Paige 7 154 89 22 (14%) 17 (11%) 85 (55%) Shannon 9 143 94 17 (12%) 4 (2%) 74 (52%) Cassie 9 139 68 24 (17%) 12 (9%) 99 (71%) Jessica 10 176 131 33 (19%) 7 (4%) 74 (42%) Jacob 8 254 171 23 (9%) 4 (2%) 101 (40%) What is surprising is the minimal number of faith practice statements by Shannon and Jessica, compared to the percentages of these statements by Paige and Cassie, as noted in Table 16. Given the strong faith identities and the multiple activities related to these identities for each of the girls, I would have expected to find greater consistency across the references to faith-related practices. Paige and Cassie expressed their faith identity practices in their Bible class writing more consistently than Shannon and Jessica, who did so minimally. Mr. Bennett did not explicitly ask for faith-based practices in the writing assignments; therefore, perhaps, Shannon and Jessica did not think to include mention of such activities. As might be expected, Jacob also expressed his faith identity practices minimally. English class writings. For the figured world of English class, in addition to the valued outcome of mastery of material, two other minor, but still valued outcomes, were application of reading into one’s own life and making faith connections. As noted in Table 17, each of the girls mentioned application to their elective reading practices in their English class writings. None of them had many instances of application, but that might be explained by the little amount of elective reading they did. On closer examination, the percentage of applications might indicate the degree to which the 245 participant felt commitment to an enacted reader identity. For example, Paige felt strongly about her reader identity, and she had the highest percentage of application comments in her writings. It is noteworthy that Jacob, who did not perceive himself as a reader, had no mentions of application. Ironically, he read more on a daily basis than any other participant. Paige, Cassie, and Jessica also made faith connections in their English class writings, which would indicate that not only did they complete this valued outcome of the figured world, but also that their faith identity was found in these writing assignments, while Shannon’s was not. Again, not surprisingly, Jacob had no faith connections in his writings. Table 17: Cross Case English Class Writings Participant Total Assignments Total Sentences Quotations Mastery Applications Faith Connections Self- mentions Shaping the World Paige 5 170 17 114 7 (4%) 4 (2.5%) 49 (29%) 0 Shannon 5 159 33 86 2 (1.2%) 0 57 (36%) 0 Cassie 5 131 7 88 2 (1.5%) 11 (8%) 76 (58%) 5 Jessica 6 199 27 123 1 (0.5%) 3 (1.5%) 69 (35%) 4 Jacob 4 167 4 123 0 0 58 (35%) 12 The self-mention data is somewhat skewed because Paige’s end-of-the-semester essay, in which the most self-mentions occurred for each of the other participants, could not be located by Mrs. Cooper or Paige. That notwithstanding, it is interesting that Jacob’s authorial presence (Tang & John, 1999) was as strong as the other participants even though he did not see himself as a reader. Jacob’s salient hybrid identity of maker/car-enthusiast/technology-lover not prominently enacted in his writings, though it was evident in the following two examples; 246 these appearances are noteworthy because there was no direct connection between class materials and assignments and these identities. First, in a Bible essay, he expressed that he liked Mennonites better than Amish or Hutterites because Mennonites were “ok with technology and modern amenities.” He continued, “I would not like living without my phone and car and social media.” Second, in an English essay, he suggested that consistent use of technology by Mrs. Cooper to post assignments and due dates would improve the course. Salient Identities Expressed in Reading In examining the cases for salient identities expressed in reading, I will note three areas: elective reading practices, types of texts chosen for the verbal protocol, and types of responses in the verbal protocol. Elective reading practices. Although each participant’s elective reading practices were unique, the data revealed some commonalities across participants. For example, Paige and Jessica read their Bibles almost every day, if not daily, and participated with friends in trying to read through the Bible in a year. Cassie tried to read her Bible every Saturday and attended multiple church events per week that focused on in-depth Bible study. Furthermore, Cassie and Jessica interacted with the Biblical text by underlining, highlighting, and writing notes or questions in the margins, thereby demonstrating the interaction between this text and their everyday lives as an identity artifact (Juzwik, 2014). These girls also each read at least one devotional text regularly, and Cassie read four. For Paige, Cassie, and Jessica, a clear and strong reciprocal interaction existed between their performed salient faith identities and their Bible and devotional reading practices. 247 Though Shannon’s Bible and devotional reading was less regular, at least during the school year, she named these activities as significant to developing and performing her faith identity. In her case, her family read faith-related books together, which Shannon enjoyed and which impacted her faith identity performances. Similarly, Cassie’s mother read devotionals to the children, and her extended family read the Bible together at certain gatherings. For Cassie, Shannon, Jessica, and Paige, who all saw their faith as being central to how they understood themselves, reading was an important component of their faith figured world. While not all of the elective reading they engaged in was overtly faith-related in nature, Paige, Jessica and Cassie admitted they looked for faith connections or metaphors regardless of the text and evaluated characters through a faith lens as well. As Jacob’s faith identity performances were not salient, his elective reading practices did not intersect with faith; however, when he was required to read scripture, he would sometimes read more than was required, suggesting either his faith identity or his curious person identity was triggered and enacted. Jacob’s most salient identity enactment was a maker, and this identity was activated with his elective reading practices. He read informational and instructional texts allowing him to develop his knowledge base related to cars, technology/robotics, and general building of a number of side projects. Texts chosen. The texts each participant chose for the verbal protocols can be seen as an identity performance in itself. Paige, Jessica, and Cassie all chose two faith- related texts, suggesting the strong centrality of that identity for their self-understanding as well as the strong connection for them between reading and faith. Interestingly, 248 Cassie, while selecting two overtly faith-related texts, did not include the Bible. In contrast, Shannon brought one faith-related text, as required, which was the Bible, but the other text was about soccer, which evidenced a second strong identity for herself, that of a soccer player. While the text was about a soccer team at a Christian college, the text did not mention faith, nor did Shannon’s responses reflect faith in her protocol. Similarly, Jacob’s second text was not faith-related either, but rather explained how to rebuild a car engine for a car he hoped to own soon. In his case, he admitted that even finding a faith-related text to bring was difficult as he did not often read such material, thus evidencing the lack of connection between his faith identity and his regular reading practices. Types of responses. Each participant shared a range of responses during their verbal protocols, as can be seen in Table 18. There are several items worth noting in the table. First, when combining the four categories of connection responses, connecting becomes the most frequent response of each participant (32% - 48% of total responses). In fact, 129 of 323 total responses across participants were from the connections categories. This robust emphasis on personal connections to the texts indicates an interaction between the texts and the students’ identities, such that they were both performing identities and also strengthening their identities by reading (Holland et al., 1998). For example, for Cassie, the most frequent response overall was connecting to reader’s life, perhaps indicating an even stronger association to her faith identity. It is also worth noting that for Jessica, Cassie, and Shannon, the number of “connecting to reader’s life” responses were within one point of each other for each text, perhaps suggesting that each 249 text associated equally with an identity, even though one of Shannon’s texts focused on soccer and one on faith. Table 18: Cross Case Verbal Protocols Participant Paige Shannon Cassie Jessica Jacob Total Connecting to reader’s life 19 12 27 21 13 92 Connecting to prior knowledge 0 0 1 7 16 24 Connecting to other texts 3 0 1 4 3 11 Connecting to other figured worlds 1 0 0 1 0 2 Comprehending 12 14 10 17 8 61 Comprehending problems 0 3 0 5 0 8 Visualizing 2 2 2 0 3 9 Predicting 0 0 1 0 6 7 Evaluating 21 2 7 28 9 67 Reacting 7 4 12 3 8 34 Repeating text 0 0 8 0 0 8 Total 65 37 69 86 66 323 Paige expressed more personal life connections to Uncle Tom’s Cabin than to Ephesians, though for her, both of these texts were faith-related. Perhaps most telling is Jacob’s data, in which he had 11 personal life connections to “How to Build Ka24de” and only two for “What Would Jesus Drive?” As noted in the table, the second most frequent category was evaluating, in which the students positively judged the content or characters in a text. In the verbal protocols, the only negative evaluating responses came from Jacob when he disagreed with the author’s choices in rebuilding the engine. The fact that the rest of the evaluations were positive suggests alignment between the values in the texts and the students’ identities. 250 The third most frequent response type across the participants was comprehending, and the fourth most frequent was reacting, as seen in Table 18. Both of these response types were also positive and, again, indicate alignment and engagement between texts and identities. It was surprising, however, that two participants, Shannon and Jessica, had comprehension problems, given the texts were self-selected and well-liked. In both cases, the issues arose with the Biblical passages they chose. Regarding the overall orientation of each reader to each text, all of the girls had point-driven approaches (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002) with both of their texts, suggesting a strong alignment between the values represented in the texts and the significant values relevant to their salient identities. Interestingly, Jacob took an information-driven approach with the text that related to his salient maker identity; this approach aligns with Jacob’s general purpose of any elective reading – “to gain more knowledge.” In this way, his orientation was true to his authentic reading practices. With the faith-related text, Jacob’s orientation was experience-driven, enjoying the text based on his car knowledge and, thus, being influenced by his car-enthusiast identity rather than his faith identity. As expected, no one exhibited a disengaged orientation. Summary As one would expect to find with participants who all claim a faith identity and engage in some elective reading practices, examining the data across the cases illuminates some commonalities in salient identities and how these are expressed in writing and reading events. Paige, Cassie, and Jessica, who claimed salient faith identities, also performed them in their writings for school, their text selections for the verbal protocols, and their responses during the protocols. 251 Perhaps also as expected, there were distinct situations across the cases, too. While Shannon claimed a strong faith identity, her enacted soccer player identity was also strong, which may have impacted her choice of texts for the verbal protocol. Her writing also did not convey as strong a faith identity performance as the other girls’. Jacob declared a faith identity, but it was not a leading identity for him in the way it was for the others. Rather, his enacted maker identity was most central to him, as was evident in his text choices and the responses he made in the verbal protocols. While there was some evidence in his writings of his faith identity, like Shannon’s, it was not as strong a performance as the other participants’. These findings suggest that a religious faith identity performances play out in different ways for different youth in terms of their literate practices. For Paige, there was a strong and clear reciprocal relationship between her faith and her literate practices that manifested itself in multiple ways. Likewise, Jacob’s story is also uncomplicated, though with a different outcome; Jacob experienced no interaction between the elective reading and writing he did and his enacted faith identity. Cassie, Jessica, and Shannon each had more unique and complex interplays between their faith and their literacy practices, depending on a variety of factors, including family involvement in literacy events, the amount of reading they did, and the degree to which they saw themselves as readers. It also seems plausible that the relationship between literate practices and identities is strongest when both the identity and the literate practices are highly salient for the individual. That is, Paige was deeply invested in her self-understanding as a Christian and as a reader; Jacob’s cluster maker identity was central to how he saw himself, and the 252 time he invested in elective reading was significant. Both of these participants had strong relationships between these enacted identities and their literate practices. 253 CHAPTER 5 – IMPLICATIONS In Chapter 4, I described and discussed the findings of my research, and, ultimately, answered my research question by stating that identities, faith-related or otherwise, are enacted differently for different youth in relation to their literate practices. In this final chapter, I will discuss the implication of this study and my findings for research, theory, and practice. Implications for Research In reflecting on the work I did, I am satisfied with many choices I made, though some I will change in my future work. What Worked There were several aspects of the study that worked well, including the social practice theory of identity, the different data sources, and the Mennonite population. Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of identity allowed me to examine multiple identities for each participant and how the identities related to each other, to study both words and actions as identity markers, to consider how identity performances were stable or dynamic across time, and to reflect on the four contexts (figured worlds, positionality, space of authoring, making worlds) of these identity enactments. Social practice theory of identity was comprehensive enough for me to be thorough in answering my research question. Multiple data sources provided me with different perspectives from which to consider my question. In many respects, the data worked to corroborate and triangulate across each participant’s case study. Although the words spoken by my participants in the interviews provided some of the most direct statements of self-understanding, it was 254 important to be able to observe their actions in figured worlds relevant to faith and literate practices. Hearing from the teachers in interviews and seeing their interactions in the classrooms allowed me to better understand the contexts of positioning and authoring space for the participants in these figured worlds. Similarly, the written artifacts I collected from each class added both clarity and complexity to the student identity performances in these figured worlds as well as to the related identities of faith and reader. These artifacts were originally collected as a catch- all “other source” to triangulate the interviews, field notes, and verbal protocols and, therefore, I did not have the same documents or even the same number of documents for each student. Even so, they became an important data source for both the identity performances in the classroom and as they related to faith and literate practices, partly because they were discrete writing events that I could then analyze against the reading events of the verbal protocols. Inviting each participant to choose his or her own texts and bring in two texts for this event worked well, as the choices themselves were identity performances, and the texts were physical artifacts that helped the students participate in the figured worlds of their salient identities. Finally, interviewing each participant three times proved worthwhile. I found these exchanges to be personally rewarding; they were fascinating interactions in which the allotted time flew by. Related to the study, it was important to have multiple connections over time to allow for member checks and follow-up questions as I initially analyzed the other data sets. Focusing on Mennonites for this research was beneficial due to the paucity of research with this population. Additionally, studying one group rather than two 255 contrasting populations allowed me to concentrate on the similarities and nuanced differences within this group of Mennonites, which might have been overlooked had I compared two groups. Finally, my own identity as a Mennonite allowed me access to and knowledge of both the specific Mennonite population at MHS as well as the broader figured world of Mennonite theology, history, and cultural context. Lessons Learned While many aspects of this research were successful, I would reconsider a couple of choices in future work. First, though some of the activity log entries were useful for me in focusing my second and third interview questions, they were sometimes too general to be helpful, and often the participants forgot to complete them or to give them to me despite my reminders and requests. They repeatedly apologized, but their behavior did not change. Perhaps a different form or a different method of collection (maybe electronic) would have produced better results. I learned, or re-learned, that high school students are busy and involved, and so I was grateful for the logs I did receive. A second, related revision I would consider is choosing younger participants, due in part to the demanding schedule of upper-level high school students. Originally, I planned to study seniors, but I did not have enough potential participants who fit the criteria. Even the juniors who participated in the study did not do as much elective reading as I was initially expecting. I chose to study upperclassmen because I thought their age and maturity would allow for deeper reflection on their faith, and some of the participants did talk about how their faith had grown and changed in the recent past; however, some also talked about how their reading practices had declined during the 256 same time period. Ninth or tenth graders, or even middle school students, might have had more consistent and recent elective reading experiences to share. Finally, engaging in a verbal protocol was a new experience for all of the participants. Even though I read the prompt to each of them and modelled a protocol myself, several of the participants struggled to know when to stop reading or what to say. Overall, the hesitations improved with the second text and the further into a text they read, but I would have liked to have had time for them to complete a “practice” protocol before they started on the two texts they chose. Such a practice could have been with a Mennonite-related piece that I chose and that would have been the same for each participant, allowing me to study responses to the same text across participants. Future Possibilities I continue to nurture interest in the topic of identities and literate practices, and throughout this study, I have entertained additional questions in related areas that would lend themselves to further research. It would be interesting to perform a longitudinal study starting with upper elementary students, perhaps fifth or sixth graders, and to collect data every several years through high school or into adulthood to better understand how identities develop, stabilize, and change over time as persons interact and participate in various figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998). Consequently, such a study might also reveal how the relationship between a faith identity and literate practices evolves, grows, or stagnates. I would also like to research Mennonite youth who attend public school to learn if and how that figured world impacts the relationship between their enacted faith identities and their literate practices. Relatedly, I am interested in how my findings might change 257 if I studied Mennonites from other geographic areas or Mennonites from more conservative Anabaptist branches, such as Conservative Mennonites or Old Order Mennonites. It would also be intriguing to ask the same research question but to study a population from a different denomination or religion. While past history has put Mennonites at odds with Catholics, awareness is increasing that, in spite of continued differences, there is common ground and respect between the two groups (Roth, 2013), making the idea of a comparison study with youth from both groups attractive. In terms of methodology, I would consider adding interviews with parents as well as other persons named by participants as significant to their faith development to better understand the figured world of faith for each participant. Observing worship services, youth events, Bible studies, and Sunday School classes would also add to my understanding of the faith identities of the participants. Additionally, asking all participants to write a faith-related piece based on the same prompt, or, as mentioned earlier, to respond to the same faith-related text, would allow for a more direct comparison of faith identity performances in the literate practices. Implications for Theory I noted two main gaps in the existing identity-literacy literature. First, studies generally did not address more than one performed identity, or, if they did, they did not address the relationship among different identities. The second gap I noted was that studies that used Holland et al.’s (1998) theory tended to concentrate on a few aspects of the social practice theory of identity and then gloss over the other features of the theory or did not utilize them at all. I attempted to address these two gaps in my research. 258 Identity Relationships As I analyzed the data, I accounted for any identities that were named by the participants, which included identities in addition to reader and faith identities. Some of these other identities were related to their faith identities, and some influenced their elective reading. Had I only focused on faith identities and reading, I may have missed these connections. For example, Paige, Shannon, and Cassie had sports identities that were connected to their faith identities and practices while Jacob’s hybrid maker-car enthusiast-technology lover identity greatly impacted his reading practices. By including more identities, I was able to see a more comprehensive view of both the participants’ multiple identities and also how any of these identities impacted or was impacted by literate practices. Furthermore, I tried to understand the way the students constructed understandings of themselves as Mennonites and other salient identities in relation to other activities in their lives such as literate practices. Each of the girls quickly named themselves as Christian, and, for Paige, this performed identity was clearly the hierarchical identity lens through which she thought, evaluated, and acted in many other figured worlds. Cassie enacted a similarly strong Christian identity that she brought to her reading and her sports activities; this identity was supported by her family’s actions and values. The overlap between faith and reading was strong enough in this case that I suggested Cassie had a Mennonite-Christian-reader identity. Jessica performed a salient and central faith identity, but she also performed other identities that did not explicitly connect to her faith, such as her community leader identity, which appeared to be separate. Her reading practices were sometimes impacted by her faith identity, but not 259 consistently. Shannon enacted intertwined faith and family identities and faith and sports identities. In the latter case, I suggested a hybrid identity of passionate Christian-soccer player. For Jacob, his performed faith identity and his maker hybrid identity were separate. In this way, the social practice theory of identity (Holland et al., 1998) was a good theoretical choice because it allowed for the construction of self-understandings to manifest themselves in different ways. Even as I describe these relationships, it is important to remember that they are located at a point in time and that the salience of any particular enacted identity or its relationship to any other identity can change, depending on the participation in related figured worlds and the accompanying sense of self-understanding (Holland et al., 1998). I did wonder if, perhaps, weaker identities have fewer connections to other identities, such as Jacob’s faith identity, which seemed to be a weaker performed identity for him and also separate from his other identities. Additional research should be done to continue exploring the different relationships among enacted identities. Complete Operationalized Theory In my study, I aimed to use the whole social practice theory of identity and apply it to my phenomenon. I wanted to think not only about artifacts or figured worlds, but to consider all of the elements of figured worlds: actors, significant actions, artifacts, discourse, and valued outcomes. I also wanted to include and analyze the positionality and the participants’ answering back in those figured worlds. How were teachers answering back to the positioning of traditional school spaces? How did they position students, and how did my participants respond – accept the positioning, reject it, negotiate? How did the students respond in their writing? Did they take up opportunities 260 to suggest new possible worlds? How did the performed student identities intersect with their faith identities or elective reading practices? Rather than only using part of the theoretical framework as my lens as is more common in the literature, I was comprehensive in my theoretical foundation and my use of the social practice theory of identity (Holland et al., 1998) as a theoretical scaffold. Additionally, I needed a way to see how identities might be performed in reading and writing events. In order to try to get at performed identities in literacy events, I made two moves that I have not seen in the literature. First, I used multiple analytic tools for both the writing artifacts and the reading protocols, and second, I used the theoretical framework as one of the analytics on the data sources from the figured worlds. With the written artifacts, I first applied Britton et al. (1975)’s categories of function, which gave me a macro-view of their performed identities as students. While this analysis of the writing was the most general, it allowed me to see the informative function (Britton et al., 1975) as a valued outcome of the figured world and the documents themselves as artifacts in the figured world of either English or Bible class – as a way for the students to participate in the figured world, potentially to be shaped by it and also to shape it. The second analysis I conducted with the written documents was Tang and John’s (1999) analytic of both counting self-mentions and examining how the personal pronouns were used to determine the level of authorial presence in the writing as well as with which communities or figured worlds students were identifying if they used plural pronouns. Looking at how many times and in what ways the writer referenced himself or herself gave me another angle into the performed identities in the writing. 261 Finally, I worked to operationalize the social practice theory of identity itself in the writing, which I will describe below. I also used multiple analytics with the verbal protocols. On the macro-level, I applied Smith and Wilhelm’s (2002) orientation coding to help me understand the student’s overall approach with the text. This macro lens allowed me to consider a general level of identity performance with each student and each text. For example, for Paige, Cassie, Jessica, and Shannon, the faith-related text resulted in point-driven reading, suggesting their faith identities were engaged, whereas for Jacob, the faith- related text resulted in an experience-driven reading, focused on his enjoyment of the text based on his knowledge of vehicles and, therefore, engaging his car-enthusiast identity. Second, I coded content units within responses to see how the transactions with the text might suggest various identity performances. I also examined the use of person pronouns in the units to see when they might serve as identity markers (Tang & John, 1999). Finally, I wanted to see moves both within the classrooms and within the written documents that could serve as markers of actions, values, and outcomes of figured worlds; positionality; answering back; and posturing of new worlds. Consequently, I coded field notes and interviews with the following categories: figured world (with subcategories for significant actions, artifacts, discourse, and valued outcomes), positioning, space for authoring, making worlds. I also applied the significant actions and valued outcomes of the Bible and English class figured worlds to the writing assignments from those classes to connect student and other identities to the writings. 262 Operationalizing Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of identity in this way is not a move I have seen in the literature. Thus, my study included not only multiple data sources but also multiple analytics in an attempt to be thorough and to provide thick and rich descriptions of the data. I worked to both consider the social practice theory of identity comprehensively and then to operationalize it as an analytic for the data. Implications for Practice I have recently accepted an administrative position related to curriculum and instruction in a Mennonite K-12 school. From this frame of reference, I offer the following implications that this study might have on practice. Identities First, this study shows that various identities are performed in the classroom. Although several of the participants predominantly performed conscientious or good student identities most of the time within the classroom setting, not all participants did so all of the time. For example, Jacob’s car-enthusiast, social, and technology-lover identities were performed as well as his student identity, and he moved fluidly among identities. It seems it could be important for teachers to be aware that students are constantly performing identities and that these performances shift and change over short and long time frames. I saw the potential power these other identities could have in the classroom, and I would like to work with teachers to figure out ways to investigate possible impacts to student engagement or achievement. At the same time, I acknowledge there could be barriers to the kinds of positive impact I envision. For 263 example, a student’s “good student identity performance” could undermine attempts a teacher might make to include and invite other identities into the classroom. Rather than reifying past identity performances, teachers could be alert to changes throughout a class period, from one assignment to another, and over the course of a semester. One example of such awareness was Mr. Bennett’s response regarding his observations (and subsequent positioning) of Cassie as a student. He was surprised by her research paper entitled, “Do I fit with my Church?” in which she wrote her opinion but provided no research. He told me it “wasn’t an intellectual argument, and it wasn’t very academic.” She rewrote it, included research, and received a good grade; however, Mr. Bennett saw a different identity performance in the paper than he had previously: I think my opinion changed with that paper. So I would have said she’s – ah – one of the students that tries really hard, that works really hard, that tries to follow guidelines and get a good score. And then after that paper, she didn’t follow most of the guidelines. It’s like she didn’t even look at the rubric…. And then after that, I started noticing just the way she was behaving and I started noticing she wasn’t paying attention to a lot of the other students when they talked, and I was just, like, wonder what’s going on here. So, um, I started looking, you know, a little differently at her stuff. Mr. Bennett positioned Cassie as a student differently based on the identity performance he noted in her writing. It could also be that Cassie wrote this paper predominantly as a faith identity performance rather than a student performance, which could explain the inattention to the assignment guidelines. Because identities are fluid, it might be wise for teachers to be prepared for identity performances to shift. Additionally, teachers should be prepared for changeability in how students perform self-understandings and relate them or not to their literate practices, as Mr. Bennett observed in Cassie. Similarly, just because Jacob, at 264 this point in time, does not relate his understanding of himself as a person of faith to his elective reading does not mean that he cannot or will not relate them in the future. Likewise, Paige’s strong connection between her literate practices and her faith identity enactments may or may not continue or may shift as she enters college. Identities and Literate Practices Second, this study shows that the potential exists for relation-making between faith identities and literate practices – both school-related and elective. Thus, as potential exists for such relations, and since faith identities are salient for some students, teachers could consider how, in the activities for their classes, they might trigger such connections. Reading. There were several times when Mrs. Cooper created opportunities for such connections. For example, Mrs. Cooper often introduced faith-related interpretations for the texts read in class, such as describing Joe in Great Expectations as a “Jesus” figure or offering an essay option for Frankenstein to compare God’s creation to the creation of the monster. In these instances, Mrs. Cooper led the students in reading a text through a faith lens, as Paige, Cassie, and Jessica then also did in their verbal protocols. In fact, these girls clearly took the values they had as Christians and applied these to their evaluations of literary characters in both school-related readings and elective reading events. The beliefs associated with their own enactedfaith identities became the lens through which they interpreted texts and judged characters, much like Galda and Beach’s (2001) students. Paige and Jessica also made faith connections in their writings, both citing and relating MHS chapel experiences to their experiences in 265 English class. Thus, teachers may want to acknowledge and have knowledge of the salient identities of their students as they study and interpret texts. A further suggestion that could trigger more relation-making between students’ performed faith identities and reading practices would be to create opportunities for individual text selection. During the time I observed in Mrs. Cooper’s class, the text selections were tightly controlled. The students’ “independent” reading for the quarter was a choice of one of five classic British novels. Yet when I asked my participants to bring in one faith-related text and another of their choosing, three of the five chose a second faith-related text. When there is more freedom regarding texts, there is more opportunity for identities to influence text selection. This idea proved true for Jacob and Shannon, whose enacted maker and soccer player identities, respectively, were salient for them and drove their text selections. Moreover, through reading, readers learn about themselves and think about themselves, who they are and who they might like to be (e.g., Hagood, 2002; Richardson & Eccles, 2007; Ruddell & Unrau, 2004; Wilhelm & Smith, 2014). Paige acknowledged this influence: Reading Great Expectations, I can, like, relate to Pip sometimes in the fact that, you know, I want, like, success and stuff like that, but I have to, like, remember not to get too caught up in it, I guess, which is kind of what Pip did. And it kind of made me think about that for myself, I guess. And that I didn’t want to end up like Pip and that I might end up like Pip, but I hope I don’t because it’s – you have to, like, care about the people that have done – like, mean the most to you and have done stuff for you. You just can’t neglect them, like, and yeah, that kind of made me learn more about myself through reading about him. Furthermore, the motivation to read, the amount of reading completed, and the length of and quality of responses can increase when there is a relationship between the text selection and the reader (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004). Jacob, for example, read 266 considerably on a daily basis but was consistently behind in reading for English class and completed little of the required reading because he did not see himself as an English- class-kind-of-reader, which was the only definition he had of “reader.” Not surprisingly, he had little to say to me or in his written assignments about the British literature studied in class. Yet he read for himself daily, and weeks after his elective online reading, he could tell me about the texts he had read, which fed his cluster maker identity. When the reading fit a salient identity for him, he read and transacted in meaningful ways. These data confirm Ruddell and Unrau’s (2004) finding that self-understanding can be a motivating force for reading. Thus, if we want to encourage youth to read, we need to consider increasing the opportunities for connections between their salient identities and texts available or acceptable for in-school reading as well as expanding the definition of what it means to be a reader; as a result, youth like Jacob might find themselves included in that characterization. Additionally, three of the five students brought to the verbal protocol a Bible passage for their faith-related text, suggesting that the Bible was an important text for them. In private Christian schools, then, where faith formation is a goal, there may be room to include the Bible as a text in courses other than Bible classes, or to at least converse about how reading the Bible is the same as or different from reading other texts, what reading strategies might be relevant for Bible study, and how this particular text relates to one’s faith. Though Mrs. Cooper referred to scripture and kept a set of Bibles in her room, students never accessed them as a text during my time in the classroom nor was there discussion about using the various comprehension strategies Mrs. Cooper suggested (i.e., character lists, noticing important quotations, taking notes) with scripture. 267 Writing. The explicitness of class activities can also impact the evidence of valued outcomes and affect the triggering effect of self-understandings. For example, Mr. Bennett told me in an interview that he highly valued practice of faith beliefs rather than only the beliefs themselves. This significance was evident in the stories and examples he shared in class; however, this value was not clear in the essay prompts he assigned, in which the focus was on the valued outcomes of meeting requirements and ownership of beliefs. While Paige and Cassie did, in fact, make the connection between their beliefs and their faith identities though practices and wrote about such in several instances, the other students only rarely related their faith practices to these written assignments. Though Jacob might not have had faith practices to write about, Jessica and Shannon would have had faith practices to describe. Being explicit about including faith practices in the writing prompt might have encouraged more students to connect their actions based on their faith self-understanding to these writing events or to make deeper, more developed connections. While overt language in prompts may help, teachers may also need to be clear in welcoming identity performances other than student identities into their figured worlds, even in a situation as seemingly obvious as incorporating faith identities into Bible class assignments. Identities help set the purpose for reading (Ruddell and Unrau, 2004). If this relationship is perhaps true for writing as well, then not only the assignment prompt needs to be overt, but also the invitation to address the assignment from more than a “student” identity – in this case, from a faith identity. Students can enact different identities within a given writing assignment (Ivanič, 1998), yet the dominant identity from which the writing occurred could also have affected why Jessica and Shannon did 268 not include many faith practice references. Writing from a good student identity, they closely followed the assignment prompt and adding nothing more whereas Paige and Cassie, perhaps, wrote as much from a faith identity as from a student identity. This study aims to describe the ways in which a group of Mennonite youth who read perform identities as they read and write, both for themselves and for others, such as teachers. The participants’ stories were different, and the relationship between their faith identities and their literate practices differed; yet overall, identity mattered in their literate practices, and their literate practices mattered to their salient identities (McCarthey & Moje, 2002). It is my hope, as I have “put in my oar” (Burke, 1941, p. 111) into the parlor conversation, that this research, indeed, has added to the discussion in helpful ways, perhaps directing future dialogue in different directions than had I stayed out of the room altogether. 269 REFERENCES CITED Afflerbach, P. (1990). 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How often do you read manga/comic book/graphic novel at home? often sometimes never 6. Do you read any other kinds of text at home? Yes No If yes, please list ________________________________________________________ Name: ___________________________________________ 282 APPENDIX B: CONSENT FORM FOR PARENTS OF STUDENTS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 Informed Consent: Parent Permission Form Dear Parent or Guardian, My name is Sharon Fransen. I attend Blooming Glen Mennonite Church, and I am a doctoral student in Education at Temple University. I am conducting research as part of my doctoral dissertation. I have chosen to study Dock seniors in their English and Bible classes. I am interested in looking at students who see themselves as Mennonites and like to read in their free time. I am writing to ask your permission to include your child in my study. The title of the study is: Mennonite Identity and Reading Practices in High School Students: A Social Practice Theory Multiple Case Study. Here are some things you should know about the research study: • Someone will explain this research study to your child. • Your child can volunteer to be in a research study. • Whether your child takes part is up to you. • Your child can choose not to take part in the research study. • Your child can agree to take part now and later change his or her mind. • Whatever you decide, it will not be held against you. • Feel free to ask all the questions you want before and after you decide. • By signing this consent form, you are not waiving any of the legal rights that your child otherwise would have as a participant in a research study. The estimated time in which your child will participate is October 20, 2014 to January 20, 2015. The study will include the following things: • I will interview your child 3 times for 30-45 minutes during a study hall or after school. These interviews will be audio recorded. • Your child will be asked to keep a simple activity log of his or her activities outside of school. 283 • Your child will be asked to choose 2 texts to read aloud to me and talk about that reading experience. • I will observe your child twice a week in their English and Bible class during Quarter 2. • Your child will be given an opportunity to review and respond to my recorded data as well as my analyses of that data. The benefit you will obtain from the research is knowing that you have contributed to the understanding of this topic, and your child may benefit from reflecting on his or her faith and reading experiences. Please contact me with questions, concerns, or complaints about the research and any research-related injuries by calling me 267-664-1742 or emailing me at sfransen@temple.edu. This research has been reviewed and approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board. Please contact them at (215) 707-3390 or e-mail them at: irb@temple.edu for any of the following: questions, concerns, or complaints about the research; questions about your rights; to obtain information; or to offer input. Confidentiality: Efforts will be made to limit the disclosure of your personal information, including research study records, to people who have a need to review this information. However, the study team cannot promise complete secrecy. For example, although the study team has put in safeguards to protect your information, there is always a potential risk of loss of confidentiality. There are several organizations that may inspect and copy your information to make sure that the study team is following the rules and regulations regarding research and the protection of human subjects. These organizations include the IRB, Temple University, its affiliates and agents, Temple University Health System, Inc., its affiliates and agents, the study sponsor and its agents, and the Office for Human Research Protections. Your child’s name will never be used in reporting the results of this study. 284 Signature Block for Children Your signature documents your permission for the named child to take part in this research. Printed name of child Signature of parent or guardian Date q Parent q Guardian Printed name of parent or guardian Signature of person obtaining consent and assent Date Printed name of person obtaining consent and assent Date Because the research requires recording your child’s voice, please indicate if you are willing to allow your child to be audiotaped by checking Yes or No below. I give my permission for these tapes to be used from: October 20, 2014 to completion of the study. Data will be stored for three (3) years after completion of the study. I understand that I can withdraw my permission at any time. Upon my request, the audiotape(s) will no longer be used. Yes ____ No_____ 285 APPENDIX C: ASSENT FORM FOR STUDENTS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 Informed Consent: Assent for Participants Under 18 Dear Student, My name is Sharon Fransen. I attend Blooming Glen Mennonite Church, and I am a doctoral student in Education at Temple University. I am conducting research as part of my doctoral dissertation. I have chosen to study Dock seniors in their English and Bible classes. I am interested in looking at students who see themselves as Mennonites and like to read in their free time. I am writing to ask your permission to participate in my study. The title of the study is: Mennonite Identity and Reading Practices in High School Students: A Social Practice Theory Multiple Case Study. Here are some things you should know about the research study: • Someone will explain this research study to you. • You volunteer to be in a part of the study. • Whether you take part is up to you. • You can choose not to take part in the research study. • You can agree to take part now and later change your mind. • Whatever you decide, it will not be held against you. • Feel free to ask all the questions you want before and after you decide. • By signing this consent form, you are not waiving any of the legal rights that you otherwise would have as a participant in a research study. The estimated time in which you will participate in the study is October 20, 2014 to January 20, 2015. The study will include the following things: • I will interview you 3 times for 30-45 minutes during a study hall, after school, or at a time convenient for you. These interviews will be audio recorded. • You will be asked to keep a simple activity log of your activities outside of school. • You will be asked to choose 2 texts to read aloud to me and talk about that reading experience. • I will observe you twice a week in your English and Bible class during Quarter 2. 286 • You will be given an opportunity to review and respond to my recorded data as well as my analyses of that data. The benefit you will obtain from the research is knowing that you have contributed to the understanding of this topic, and you may benefit from reflecting on your faith and reading experiences. Please contact me with questions, concerns, or complaints about the research and any research-related injuries by calling me 267-664-1742 or emailing me at sfransen@temple.edu. This research has been reviewed and approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board. Please contact them at (215) 707-3390 or e-mail them at: irb@temple.edu for any of the following: questions, concerns, or complaints about the research; questions about your rights; to obtain information; or to offer input. Confidentiality: Efforts will be made to limit the disclosure of your personal information, including research study records, to people who have a need to review this information. However, the study team cannot promise complete secrecy. For example, although the study team has put in safeguards to protect your information, there is always a potential risk of loss of confidentiality. There are several organizations that may inspect and copy your information to make sure that the study team is following the rules and regulations regarding research and the protection of human subjects. These organizations include the IRB, Temple University, its affiliates and agents, Temple University Health System, Inc., its affiliates and agents, the study sponsor and its agents, and the Office for Human Research Protections. Your name will never be used in reporting the results of this study. 287 Your signature documents your permission to take part in this research. Signature of subject Date Printed name of subject Signature of person obtaining consent Date Printed name of person obtaining consent Because the research requires recording your voice, please indicate if you are willing to be audiotaped by checking either Yes or No below. I give my permission for these tapes to be used from: October 20, 2014 to completion of the study. Data will be stored for three (3) years after completion of the study. I understand that I can withdraw my permission at any time. Upon my request, the audiotape(s) will no longer be used. Yes ____ No_____ 288 APPENDIX D: CONSENT FORM FOR TEACHERS Informed Consent Letter Dear Teacher, My name is Sharon Fransen. I attend Blooming Glen Mennonite Church, and I am a doctoral student in Education at Temple University. I am conducting research as part of my doctoral dissertation. I have chosen to study Dock seniors in their English and Bible classes. I am interested in looking at students who see themselves as Mennonites and like to read in their free time. I am writing to ask your permission to participate in my study. The title of the study is: Mennonite Identity and Reading Practices in High School Students: A Social Practice Theory Multiple Case Study. Here are some things you should know about the research study: • Someone will explain this research study to you. • You volunteer to be part of the study. • Whether you take part is up to you. • You can choose not to take part in the research study. • You can agree to take part now and later change your mind. • Whatever you decide, it will not be held against you. • Feel free to ask all the questions you want before and after you decide. • By signing this consent form, you are not waiving any of the legal rights that you otherwise would have as a participant in a research study. The estimated time in which you will participate in the study is October 20, 2014 to January 20, 2015. The study will include the following things: • I will interview you 1 time for approximately 30 minutes during a planning period, after school, or at a time convenient for you. This interview will be audio recorded. • I will observe your senior level English or Bible classes twice a week during Quarter 2. • You will be given an opportunity to review and respond to my recorded data as well as my analyses of that data. 289 The benefit you will obtain from the research is knowing that you have contributed to the understanding of this topic. Please contact me with questions, concerns, or complaints about the research and any research-related injuries by calling me 267-664-1742 or emailing me at sfransen@temple.edu. This research has been reviewed and approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board. Please contact them at (215) 707-3390 or e-mail them at: irb@temple.edu for any of the following: questions, concerns, or complaints about the research; questions about your rights; to obtain information; or to offer input. Confidentiality: Efforts will be made to limit the disclosure of your personal information, including research study records, to people who have a need to review this information. However, the study team cannot promise complete secrecy. For example, although the study team has put in safeguards to protect your information, there is always a potential risk of loss of confidentiality. There are several organizations that may inspect and copy your information to make sure that the study team is following the rules and regulations regarding research and the protection of human subjects. These organizations include the IRB, Temple University, its affiliates and agents, Temple University Health System, Inc., its affiliates and agents, the study sponsor and its agents, and the Office for Human Research Protections. Your name will never be used in reporting the results of this study. 290 Your signature documents your permission to take part in this research. DO NOT SIGN THIS FORM AFTER THIS DATE à Signature of subject Date Printed name of subject Signature of person obtaining consent Date Printed name of person obtaining consent Because the research requires recording your voice, please indicate if you are willing to be audiotaped by checking either Yes or No below. I give my permission for these tapes to be used from: October 20, 2014 to completion of the study. Data will be stored for three (3) years after completion of the study. I understand that I can withdraw my permission at any time. Upon my request, the audiotape(s) will no longer be used. Yes ____ No_____ 291 APPENDIX E: ACTIVITY LOG Activity Log - fill in activities & reading that you do. Reading = making meaning of a text of any length (books, magazines, newspapers, websites, pictures, emails, texts, etc. Week: Monday - Activities Tuesday - Activities Wednesday - Activities Thursday - Activities Friday - Activities Saturday - Activities Sunday - Activities 5 am :30 6 am :30 7 am :30 8 am :30 9 am :30 10am :30 11am :30 12pm :30 1 pm :30 2 pm :30 3 pm :30 4 pm :30 5 pm :30 6 pm :30 7 pm :30 8 pm :30 9 pm :30 10pm :30 11pm :30 Name: 292 APPENDIX F: FIRST STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL Research Question: How do Mennonite high school students who engage in leisure reading enact identities in their literate practices? I am interested in learning more about you and what’s important to you. I’m also interested in reading and faith, so I have several questions I’ll ask you about yourself, reading, and faith. You can choose not to answer any question and you can choose to stop the interview at any time. No one will know what your answers are to any of the questions. While I write and talk about your answers, I’ll use a fake name to identify you that you may choose, so no one will know it’s you. General 1. What is your name and age? 2. Walk me through a typical day in your life. 3. If you have a free afternoon, how do you like to spend your time? 4. How would you describe yourself? What is important to know about you in order to understand who you are? 5. What are some of the most important things, people, and places in your life? Faith 1. Can you tell me about your faith? 2. Next time we meet, can you bring in something you’ve read related to that in some way? 3. How do you describe or define your faith? 4. Are there any activities you participate in that are connected to your faith? 5. (Follow up questions might include: You talked about being Mennonite. Can you tell me more about what that means to you? Or, I noticed you didn’t talk about being Mennonite. Why is that?) 6. Can you tell me a story that illustrates your feelings about being Mennonite? 7. Do you go to church? Where? 8. Do you read the Bible? 293 9. What do you like about Bible class? What don’t you like? (2nd interview) Reading 1. Tell me the last few things that you’ve read that you really liked. 2. Next time, can you bring in one of those to read to me? 3. What do you read on your own? 4. If you could choose anything to read, what would you choose? 5. Have your reading practices or habits changed over time? 6. Why do you read? 7. Do you consider yourself a reader? Is that important to you? 8. What do you think it means to be a reader? 9. What are 3 or 4 things that you’ve read recently that you really liked? 10. What do you like about Brit Lit class? What don’t you like? (2nd interview) Do you have anything else you want to tell me that would help me understand you? Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about yourself or reading or faith? 294 APPENDIX G: THIRD STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL General Identity Questions 1. What pseudonym did you choose? 2. When I think of myself and who I am, I think of different things in different places. For example, I am a mother, I am a student, I am a wife, I am a reader, I am a member of my church. How would you finish this sentence for yourself, I am … 3. What are your hobbies and school involvements? Faith Questions 4. Would you say your faith has changed over time? In what ways? 5. What would you consider to be important things or symbols of your faith? Would the Bible be one? 6. Would you say reading the Bible is important to your faith? Faith & Reading Questions 7. Do you think your faith and your beliefs about God and Jesus impact what you choose to read? 8. Do you think they impact how you read? 9. Does your family read the Bible together as a family? Reading Questions 10. What did you read over Christmas break? 11. Do you consider yourself a reader? What does that mean? How would you define ‘reader?’ 12. What would you say your goals in reading for yourself are? Class FW Questions 13. How do you think Mr. Bennett or Mrs. Cooper sees you? Other students in the class? How do you feel about that? 14. Thinking about Frankenstein, Great Expectations, and your independent novel for Brit Lit, what, if anything, did you learn about yourself from reading any of these books? 295 15. Did reading any of them impact your faith? 16. Did your faith impact how you read them? Final Questions 17. Do you have a journal or other writing that talks about your faith or the reading that you do? Would you be willing to share that with me? 18. If I have additional questions for you as I am working with the data, would it be okay if I contacted you? Specific Questions to Each Participant 296 APPENDIX H: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR TEACHERS 1. How would you describe a. Jacob b. Jessica c. Shannon d. Cassie e. Paige 2. What identity labels would you use to describe them? Example - engaged student, conscientious student, baseball player 3. Please tell me what you notice about their reading and writing. 4. Please tell me what you observe about their faith. 5. How would you describe them as a student? 6. Please describe your teaching style. 7. Please describe the class context of period 5/7/8. 297 APPENDIX I: CODING SCHEME Interviews and Field notes General codes Class description MHS Copulative verb – noun complement Predicate adjectives Transitive verbs Verb choice Language Self-generalizations Not-fully aligned with FW Surprises Writing Faith-related codes Bible class figured world (FW) Faith activity Faith identity – FW Faith identity – positioning Faith identity – space for authoring Faith identity – making worlds Faith-social Mennonite identity Mennonite theology Mennonite vs Christian Faith-reading intersection Figured Worlds Actors Artifacts Groups Significant acts Specific language Teacher Valued Outcomes Participants Cassie Jacob Jessica Paige Shannon Reading-related codes English class FW Reader definition Reader identity – FW Reader identity – positioning Reading identity – space for authoring Reader identity – making worlds Reading – Bible Reading – context Reading practices Reading purposes Text type Other identities Family Friends-social Sports Student Technology Teenager Work Cars Builder/maker Robotics Runner Outdoor/active Learner/curious person 298 Written Documents Macro-level Informative Pseudo-informative Dummy run Self-mentions Representative Tour guide Architect Describer of research Opinion-holder Originator Micro-level Bible class Meeting requirements Language Ownership of beliefs Practice of beliefs Self-mentions Space of authoring English class Quotations Language Mastery Application Faith connections Self-mentions Space of authoring Description Verbal Protocol Macro-level Information-driven Story-driven Point-driven Association-driven Evaluation-driven Experience-driven Disengaged Micro-level Comprehending Comprehending problems Connecting to another text Connecting to other FWs Connecting to prior knowledge Connecting to reader’s life Evaluating Predicting Repeating text Valuing Visualizing