Literacy Corps MSU

1. Literacy Corps MSU WRAC Research Cluster & Production

2. Purpose • To conduct longitudinal study of 4 MSU students identified as representatives of groups of concern for retention and persistence at MSU • To learn not only about these students’ experiences of education, but to trace their histories with literacy sponsors.

3. Literacy Sponsors • “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt, Literacy in American Lives 166).

4. Methodology: 5 Phases • 1. Initial interviews with cohorts of 12+ participants on or near campus to gather general preliminary information in the form of oral histories related in some way to participants’ educational experiences and life plans. • 2. Follow-up interviews with approximately half of the original cohort participants (in a nearby location of each participant’s choice) about more specific educational histories including reading and writing practices. • 3. Follow-up meetings with each of the four cohort members to review footage, plot a course for further inquiry, and prepare for participation in Phases 4 & 5 (e.g., instruct participants in camera operations and direct participants to complete SIRB training when appropriate).   • 4. Video footage collected on location by each of 4 final cohort participants--without researchers immediately present. Each participant leads the inquiry in this phase, conducting interviews and making decisions about what aspects of her/his life to explore, and what footage to collect.   • 5. Video footage collected by researchers and participants on location in each of 4 final cohort participants' neighborhood or community and interviews with friends, family members, and/or educators.

5. Phase One: past, present & future self artifacts • Recruit first-year undergraduate students from classes and student-life programs at Michigan State University for a first round of interviews. • Prior to the interview, we will ask participants to bring to the interview session three “artifacts” of their choice representing past, present, and future selves artifacts. • These artifacts will facilitate the solicitation narrative recountings of life events, and serve as preliminary data set from which can be derived more direct questions about literacy experiences and practices. • At least one of the members of the research team will be present during interview sessions. • Phase One Interviews will be videotaped

6. Phase Two: scenes of literacy • Select approximately 6 participants for interviews. • Participants reflect further on the significance of their past, present, and future selves in relation to educational experience and literacy practices in particular. • Participants view portions of P1 interview to serve as a prompt for further elaboration. • Participants select the site of their interviews as a fourth artifact to solicit new stories and to further open opportunities for us to learn about literacy experiences and practices. • As before, at least one of the members of the research team will be present during interview sessions. • Phase Two Interviews will be videotaped.

7. Phase Three: the transition • We will select the 4 cohort members who will participate in the final phases of the sequence.  • The Phase Three interview will include review of footage from Phases One and Two in order to facilitate a common course of inquiry.  • Phase Three moves participants from being subjects of inquiry to becoming collaborators in the inquiry. • Phase Three interviews identify goals of common inquiry and give researchers the opportunity to prepare participants for the ethical and technical challenges of their continued participation. • Phase Three Interviews will be videotaped.

8. Phase Four: participant-conducted, field inquiry • Each of the 4 participants take camera and audio equipment to their home communities for community-based inquiry on location with persons who have emerged in their oral histories in the previous phases as significant potential contributors to the study.  • Expose visually and aurally people and places important to participants’ literate development. • Participants conduct all of the interviews and testimonies on location and select the locations for documentary investigation. • Each participant then adds her/his footage to the rest of the footage associated with her/his project.  • Each participant will review Phase Four footage with the researchers to identify important features and to establish a course of action for Phase Five. 

9. Phase Five: participant & researcher field inquiry • Researchers join participants as they return to their home communities for in depth study on location and with persons from their oral histories in the previous phases of interview. • Participants & Researchers have collaborative agency to expose visually and aurally people and places important to their literate development. • Participants act as both subjects and collaborators in the research on location and will select some of the locations for documentary investigation. • Phase Five interviews feature focused follow-up questions about literacy practices, ecologies, and protocols situated in their home communities.  • Phase Five Interviews will be videotaped.

10. 15-minute video: all 5 phases with Liberty C. Bell

11. Roles • Project Manager (1) • Team Leaders (3) • Team support (???) • Research Cluster or Two (6-10 each?)

12. Production Teams

13. Research Cluster(s) • Plan, observe, and theorize the moves of the production teams • Identify possible venues for scholarly products