I decided it's time to come clean about some of the reasons why I have tended to post less frequently to this blog. It's part professional and part personal.
The professional part has to do with an exciting collaborative participatory action research project I have been working on this past year. Together with a local Rochester community development agency, Northeast Rochester Development (NEAD), we have been studying the transformation of an urban "corner store" into a healthy gathering space and a space to find healthy food. Tired of living in an urban food desert, NEAD purchased the store across from its main office and began to change what was offered therein. I have been privileged to be a researcher since the beginning. We started a Freedom Market blog if you want to follow our process.
It's been interesting to study the literacy practices in the store and community. At first, they seemed to focus on transactional exchanges and label reading, but I've also begun to see a lot of formal forms circulating (much like Fine and Weiss found in their study of working class families). Lately, however, I've started to focus on broader practices of "reading" the space of the store and the community as key local practices. I hope to be presenting this work at AERA in April 2013.
The personal part has to do with my son who has Tourette/OCD/ADHD. He has been struggling the past few months and is now in residential placement. Working with him and with the varying agencies we deal with has taken a lot of time. I also have a blog that chronicles our adventure if you are interested. Now that I write this I can see a discussion of the ways in which Marcus is written and read (as de Certeau discusses) across the varying spaces of his life right now. Unfortunately, those readings are not always positive.
Hang in there, more literacy related postings to come:)
The professional part has to do with an exciting collaborative participatory action research project I have been working on this past year. Together with a local Rochester community development agency, Northeast Rochester Development (NEAD), we have been studying the transformation of an urban "corner store" into a healthy gathering space and a space to find healthy food. Tired of living in an urban food desert, NEAD purchased the store across from its main office and began to change what was offered therein. I have been privileged to be a researcher since the beginning. We started a Freedom Market blog if you want to follow our process.
It's been interesting to study the literacy practices in the store and community. At first, they seemed to focus on transactional exchanges and label reading, but I've also begun to see a lot of formal forms circulating (much like Fine and Weiss found in their study of working class families). Lately, however, I've started to focus on broader practices of "reading" the space of the store and the community as key local practices. I hope to be presenting this work at AERA in April 2013.
The personal part has to do with my son who has Tourette/OCD/ADHD. He has been struggling the past few months and is now in residential placement. Working with him and with the varying agencies we deal with has taken a lot of time. I also have a blog that chronicles our adventure if you are interested. Now that I write this I can see a discussion of the ways in which Marcus is written and read (as de Certeau discusses) across the varying spaces of his life right now. Unfortunately, those readings are not always positive.
Hang in there, more literacy related postings to come:)