Computers and Composition Digital Press2011TextStories that Speak to Us: Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives

Abstract | This exhibit looks at the literacy narratives of four minority women who, at the time of collection, were undergraduates. The interviews were focused on literacy, and this exhibit highlights some of the key insights about these four women’s literacy experiences. However, my specific goal in bringing these four women’s interviews together is to look at their perceptions of digital literacy practices and their articulation of digital literacy values. Together, the four young women complicate current notions of what people of color may experience and value in respect to digital literacies. Thus, this curated exhibit may be particularly valuable to literacy educators interested in digital contexts.

Using Street’s (2005) ideological model of literacy, adapted for the case of technology literacy, as well as the work of Banks (2005), Selber (2004), and Selfe (2004), this exhibit argues that the technological literacy experiences of these young women were shaped by four key considerations: the speed at which technologies develop and how teachers address such changes in the classroom, the discomfort and anxiety that often occurs when students are asked to use unfamiliar technologies, the possible sources of resistance that students bring with them to classroom experiences involving composing technologies, and the nuanced and complex understandings of technology that students in our courses often develop outside classroom contexts.

About the Curator | Genevieve Critel received her PhD from The Ohio State University. She studied rhetoric and composition, specifically first-year writing pedagogy and technology. Her dissertation looks at the rhetoric and function of student participation in the first-year writing classroom in the U.S.

Technical Requirements | This chapter includes video and audio materials that require Quicktime to play. However, transcripts are provided for all video materials, and the audio is a recording of text material in the project.

The CCDP is committed to working toward the goal of making projects as accessible as possible for all readers. Readers who cannot access this project in any of the above formats can request an alternative format by contacting selfe.2@osu.edu.

Cite this Exhibit

MLA: Critel, Genevieve. “Remixing the Digital Divide: Minority Women’s Digital Literacy Practices in Academic Spaces.” Stories That Speak to Us: Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. Ed. H. Lewis Ulman, Scott Lloyd DeWitt, & Cynthia L. Selfe. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press, 2013. Web.

APA: Critel, G. (2013). Remixing the Digital Divide: Minority Women’s Digital Literacy Practices in Academic Spaces. In H. L. Ulman, S. L. DeWitt, & C. L. Selfe (Eds.), Stories that Speak to Us: Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press.