Grace Enriquez | Lesley University (original) (raw)

Books by Grace Enriquez

by Christian Ehret, Christine Mallozzi, Hilary E . Hughes, Kerryn Dixon, Jaye Johnson Thiel, Anne Crampton, Mia Perry, Amanda Claudia Wager, Jacqui Dornbrack, Elisabeth Johnson, Rachel Oppenheim, Karen Wohlwend, Stephanie Jones, Marjorie Siegel, Stavroula Kontovourki, and Grace Enriquez

The essays, research studies, and pedagogical examples in this book provide a window into the emb... more The essays, research studies, and pedagogical examples in this book provide a window into the embodied dimensions of literacy and a toolbox for interpreting, building on, and inquiring into the range of ways people communicate and express themselves as literate beings. The contributors investigate and reflect on the complexities of embodied literacies, honoring literacy learners and teachers as they holistically engage with texts in complex sociopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts. Considering these issues within a multiplicity of education spaces and literacy events inside and outside of institutional contexts, the book offers a fresh lens and rhetoric with which to address literacy education policies, giving readers a discursive repertoire necessary to develop and defend responsive curricula within an increasingly high-stakes, standardized schooling climate.

Papers by Grace Enriquez

The Reading Teacher, 2017

Given the vast range of diversity among children's backgrounds and needs, literacy educators must... more Given the vast range of diversity among children's backgrounds and needs, literacy educators must consider multiple ways in which children learn and interact with texts. Moreover, policies that increasingly require frequent assessments of children's literacy achievement place pressure on educators to find immediate ways to impact children's learning. This qualitative inquiry explores three graduate students' yearlong engagement in literacy-related action research within ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, urban K-6 classrooms. Grounded in a social practice perspective on literacy and a sociocultural perspective on literacy learning, we examined participants' constructions of action research as they developed research questions, entered various research sites, and engaged in a cyclical process of research-reflection-action in order to impact student learning in those classroom communities. With these case studies, we argue that for teachers to fully embrace and incorporate action research into their practice, they need to go beyond completing the steps to frame action research as a constant way of thinking, a daily practice, and an ongoing process of continuously spiraling mini-cycles that change instruction in incremental, yet ultimately powerful ways.

A young child's literacies and identities are constantly, yet imperceptibly, in motion, as she re... more A young child's literacies and identities are constantly, yet imperceptibly, in motion, as she reads the text of her kindergarten literacy curriculum and negotiates its multiple demands for literacy success. J ewel is a child in motion. A member of a family who emigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh, Jewel moves across languages (Bengali, English), identities (e.g., Bengali girlhood, kindergartener), and, when her family is able to make the trip to Bangladesh for a summer or longer, national borders. In school, we can see the movement in her literacies as she writes, draws, and designs texts on pages and screens during the daily writer's workshop in her classroom, and in the weekly digital writer's workshop held in the school's computer lab. Across these social spaces, Jewel shifts her body, her texts, and her identities in ways that offer a glimpse of the fl uid meanings literacy has for this child of globalization.

Journal of Children's Literature, 2014

New England Reading Association Journal, 2014

Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Mar 2014

This article examines the significance of the “struggling reader” identity on students' classroom... more This article examines the significance of the “struggling reader” identity on students' classroom experiences. Drawing upon sociocultural theories of literacy, performance theories of education, and psychosocial qualities of identity, I argue that such an identity is felt, lived, and embodied throughout students' daily interactions. Once identified as struggling readers, students internalized a sense of loss and exclusion while reading in the classroom and attempted to reposition themselves as readers through various embodied performances with print.

New England Reading Association Journal, 2013

Journal of Education, 2013

This qualitative case study presents the perceptions of Derrick, a Black urban adolescent male wh... more This qualitative case study presents the perceptions of Derrick, a Black urban adolescent male who enjoys reading but beheves that inconsistent school discourses hinder his success and enjoyment as a reader. Findings show that Derrick's purposeful work while reading was limited and misunderstood because, among other factors, there was a pervasive effect of test-driven reform. I argue that his critique of formal reading instruction reveals that even progressive approaches to education are not immune to the discursive power of the accountabihty and standardization movement, and that resultantly, the active and avid reading engagement of this Black adolescent male was ultimately neglected, inhibited, and dismissed.

English Teaching: Practice and Critique, Sep 2011

Examining the body as a site and product of various ongoing discursive processes can provide insi... more Examining the body as a site and product of various ongoing discursive processes can provide insight about how identity impacts students' learning and understanding of their classroom experiences. This qualitative case study investigates how two, urban, eighth-grade students responded to being identified as struggling readers, concentrating specifically on their embodiment of those responses while reading. Drawing upon socio-cultural theories of literacy, performance theories of education, and psychosocial qualities of identity, I argue that the struggling reader identity -which often labels and positions students through deficit lenses rather than recognises and builds upon the strengths or multiple ways students make meaning of printed text -is felt, lived, and embodied as part of students' daily interactions in schools. Findings show that the embodied performances of both students revealed a deep, internalised sense of loss, grief, and exclusion in the classroom while reading. Yet, both students also attempted continuously to rewrite their identities as readers through a variety of other embodied performances with texts.