Experiences of Alienation and Intimacy: The Work of Secondary Writing Instruction
Abstract
Drawing on critical theories of labor and commodification, this qualitative embedded case study explores how students experience alienation and intimacy in the work of writing for an English language arts class. Analysis of fieldnotes from 30 observations, student writing products, and reflective interviews with focal students and the teacher illuminated the meaningful assemblages where conditions of intimacy permeated instruction. Two practices supported intimacy in working conditions: knowledge about writing built through a collective process of noticing, and open-ended work time characterized by “managed nonmanagement” (, p. 176), or calculated flexibility in rules and expectations. Findings illustrate how a literacy practice might contribute to students’ experience of alienation or intimacy (or both) while writing, depending on conditions of industrialization and commodification. Even as the teacher strove to deindustrialize work, commodification through grades and standardized assessments heightened alienation in the writing environment. The study provides an example of an educational context governed by an industrial system of assessment where local actors (the teacher and students) disrupted alienation by working in smaller scales and more closely with texts.
Faculty Members
- Thea Williamson - Salisbury University
Themes
- educational practices
- impact of industrialization and commodification
- intimacy
- alienation
- writing experiences
Categories
- Humanities
- Teacher education, specific subject areas
- Education research
- Humanities, other
- Education research nec
- English language and literature, letters
- Educational assessment, evaluation, and research methods
- Teacher education
- Education
- Humanities and humanistic studies
- Curriculum and instruction
- Theological and ministerial studies
- English language and literature, general
- Rhetoric and composition, and writing studies