An Inquiry into Black Girls’ Self-love Literacies

Barrett Rosser

Reading/Writing/Literacy

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Diane Waff

Diamond, Emerald, and our loving community…

Where is the love?

Salecia Johnson

6 years old

Middle school girls

Child Q

15 years old

I read the word and the world.

Why wait?

Self-love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing, celebrating, preserving, or protecting one’s own or another’s physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual growth.” (p.36)

Research Question(s)

What happens when high-school-aged Black girls are engaged in an out-of-school inquiry group to read, write, and talk about the practice of self-love?

Practitioner Research: “establish a context sensitive methodology for gathering and analyzing data after formulating questions and engaging with dialogue intended to clarify and make transparent our own ideological perspectives” (Waff, 2009, p.75)

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Setting: Penn Women’s Center, Independence Historical National Park - Poe House & Washington Square, The Colored Girls’ Museum, digital/virtual spaces

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Participants: purposeful sampling of 13 Black girls ages 14-18 years old; recruiting through PhilWP, community connections, social media

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Description: out-of-school inquiry group, literacy activities, modified descriptive reviews, “Kitchen Table Talks”, guest speakers, field trips.

Design & Methodology

BGLP Enrollment

(7) Science Leadership Academy at Beeber

(5) Hardy Williams Mastery Charter School

(4) Universal Audenreid Charter High School

(3) Mercy Career & Technical High School

(1) G.W. Carver High School of Engineering and Science

(1) Philadelphia HS for Creative & Performing Arts

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(1) Shoemaker Mastery Charter High School

(1) Martin Luther King High School

(1) West Philadelphia High School

(1) Parkway West High School

(1) Upper Darby High School

(1) William Penn Academy

(1) Academy of Palumbo

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Descriptive Review Process

Teachers in the Philadelphia Writing Project and other practitioner inquiry communities have a history of using descriptive review processes for looking closely at student work.

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Protocol

Student Data

Audio Clip (1:20:25 - …)

Describing

Noticings

• Use of repeated language (fathers, break, judgment, ashes); using the word and going back to it.
• Most of the poem the author is talking about someone else; except - “I am fleeting… I ill be ashes… locked inside my mind)
• Juxtaposition - mom is nurturing but also will betray you
• The toxic theory is… she chose him - reading lines with the title
• The power of the parental figures
• Line 3 - wasn’t expecting this juxtaposition; “until you learn.. Betrayal” another
• Line 12 - is crossed off (made a decision to go a different route)***
• Language around death (ashes, soul, shrine)
• Hereditary - repeated
• 19 - 21; made a connection between self and other
• 31 - 31; the mother’s aren’t afraid…
• Although the parents are mentioned… (herself on 35-36,38) she talks about THOSE happy girls THOSE father
• Playing with sounds (bandaid pain) (bombastic/bombs) - alliteration

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Interpreting

• Misspellings show that it might have been written off the cuff?
• Connects to Compano…
• Raw experience into her own life
• Disturbed by the fact that she’s repeating… she is judging others?
• What can we do as educators to see that she doesn’t have to fall into the pattern.
• Toxic Theory Title
• I had to get it out. It must come because the monument won’t tell you the story. The canister won’t tell you the story if I don’t tell you first.
• Bgs have a lot of information inside that they have to grapple with all the time while trying to manage; what we see/ what they present is different than inside. They might see her as something else, not knowing her story.
• Her soul in ashes; her body is still around. Her mother came and took those ashes, and said be like me. Bunch of ashes in a can. Will she be closer to her mom or her dad.
• Underneath - I hear you. I hear that you’re tired and you’re exhausted. She shouldn’t be this tired. The time (10 minutes) - the only time we are at rest is when we’re gone. I’m probably only going to be at rest when I’m gone. (SPIRIT MURDER, Bettina LOVE
• Grappling with relationships of parents - she chose him. Who is her father going to pick? Patriarchal gender dynamic. The mother chooses the father instead of her as the writer.

Assumptions

• Word choice
• Is this about her life?
• Structure is impactful/short and long phrases
• Is is appropriate to grapple with these relational questions? What is it about her identities that are shaping her…
• Speaker is TALKING to a girl…
• GIRL, — some males might talk to a female like this
• A word of wisdom…
• This is a light thing “trivial”
• What else is happening that it’s trivial?
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Implications…

• Lines 37-39 “ashes for eternity” : hopelessness; what messaging is she getting in school/ how does it connect with her feelings?
• art/poetry is a form of power self-expression…
• Imagine if she didn’t have the space to express… what does suppression do?
• Let students dictate what the “expression” looks like… “what do you need?” (self-love practices/literacies?)
• Whole child…
• Out of school vs. in school writing… (facilitator…?)
• Once released… now what?!
• Support, accessible… I have positive experiences but others don’t
• Do we SEE/HEAR kids?! What does this look like? Opportunities? Possibilities to SEE and HEAR. (now WHAT?!)
• A space for inspiration (and still the “Ops”)
• This inquiry space with teachers —> sustainability
• Power in the inquiry space
• JOY/POWER in the community…

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Reflection

Springboard for other writing

Form - applicable to other writing

An hour with one students work… a text that can be read in a variety of ways… dissection academic texts vs. writing about something meaningful.

“I liked how we really got to know the student. Get to know her more intimately… We are also getting to know ourselves. We could operate the systems we are operating in. The systems she is participating in and what is our role, and how are we implicated in this… Not something we do enough. Being part of a larger society and community and how we understand things. “

I wonder what’s the power of the power of the affinity space. The role of the facilitator… how affinity spaces can serve as spaces to build different literacies.

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More questions

• Through more work and inquiry… not alone in the struggle.
• The opps now…