Writing Wounded: Trauma, Testimony, and Critical Witness in Literacy Classrooms (original) (raw)
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Pedagogies: An International Journal
In this article, I explore questions about what it means to carry, live and invite traumatic stories into the space of a literacy classroom. Weaving illustrative moments from the classroom with trauma theory and research, I ask, What does it mean to embrace the incomprehensible in literacy classrooms? How might the incomprehensible be viewed as a productive and connected space in students' academic and social experiences in schools? To delve into these questions, I turn to scholars who conceptualize trauma and its relationship with what we can access through and at the limits of articulation and to two young children's writing and talk. In particular, I situate children's experiences in trauma studies scholar Caruth's ideas about the inadequacy of language in the face of trauma and cultural theorist Massumi's arguments about affect as that which escapes our efforts to structure experience. I argue that incomprehensibility invokes an important metaphorical space of not knowing that demands reciprocal approaches testimony and critical witness responses that can serve to collapse the binaries so often employed in efforts to make sense of children's lives and literacies.
Reading Psychology, 2020
In this manuscript, we foreground the concept of critical affective theory drawing on scholarship from within and outside of literacy education and highlight testimony and critical witness as an example of affective practice to foster students' literacy experiences. Situated within a study of a writing methods course in an elementary teacher education program, we explore testimony and critical witness for its potential as a critical-affective practice that may support relational and justice aims within teacher education courses and school-partnerships. Drawing on video, interviews, and writing artifacts, we focus on two child/adult pairs to illustrate how affective practices were embedded in the literacy routines of work with children and how the critical-affective framework, as well as particular pedagogies and structures of the course, seemed to support teacher candidates to attune to particular moments with children in impactful ways. We also show how children responded to the intentional use of criticalaffective pedagogies designed to center adult educators' vulnerability as invitation for children to serve as witnesses and, in the cases we discuss, how the novice teachers' modeling of risky and vulnerable writing functioned as an important invitation for students to do the same. We found that both the teacher and students contextualize their work as steeped in the affective and highlight the value of their relationship and the practice of collective risktaking as central to their learning together. We conclude with hopes for the field's continued inquiries into the multiple ways we might envision the important intangibles of critical-affective literacies as
Review of The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy
The Professional Educator, 2021
This book review centers trauma and trauma-informed practices in our current teaching context and utilizes Elizabeth Dutro's vast body of experience and research to understand where we are and where we need to go to best meet the needs of today's teachers and teacher educators. Dutro's work stands out due to its focus on literacy and the connection to shared narratives and experiences of teachers and students during this time. Her work makes a compelling case for more compassionate classrooms which take the time to teach social, emotional learning, use trauma-informed practices, and connect with students through formative education. Through this book review, I hope to continue my research in TIP as well as restorative justice and discover other areas in the field that need to be addressed. Through all of our current experiences of trauma worldwide, to me, it seems that this work becomes all the more relevant.
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This article explores how two middle school girls told stories of family conflict and trauma through poetry. Situated within literature on critical literacies and trauma studies, the article uses a case study approach to consider what happens when stories of trauma emerge within the literacy classroom. The authors explore (1) how the girls used poetry to understand and represent their trauma; (2) how the classroom contexts supported the development and sharing of trauma narratives; and (3) how classroom relationships were affected by the sharing of trauma narratives. The authors argue that the genre of poetry and the classroom contexts supported the girls in asserting “narrative control” and opened up spaces for deeper and more collaborative relationships among members of the classroom community. They also contend that the girls' writing and experiences can prompt reconsideration of what topics are “appropriate” for school.
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Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2018
This article reimagines classroom texts as unpredictable 'willful objects' that transmit 'sticky' intensities. The author argues that such intensities permeate classroom spaces and affectively position students in ways that inflict trauma, defined here as an insidious, daily injury that fosters and reinforces a narrow view of race, gender and/or sexuality. Honing in on these more-than-human encounters opens up possibilities to explore how the classroom, as an active body, provides testimony to the historical traumas that live on in the present – on the skin of students and teachers who are obligated to live with and/or bear witness to such injuries. Educators are invited to consider how a kind of healing can occur through a pedagogy of exposure, which seeks to not only expose but also recover traumatic wounds by embracing an affective, albeit risky, relationship to past and present histories of violence.
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