Thoughts on the Lewison and Heffernan Reading

"Rewriting Workshop: Creating Safe Spaces for Disruptive Stories" focuses on the benefits of collective group work for a class of third grade students who are reading, writing, and learning about social issues that are not as easily talked about on an individual basis. In the particular third-grade class that they focused on for their study, the teacher integrated a form of critical writing pedagogy called "social narrative writing" where students were given an opportunity to discuss "disruptive stories" within the confines, the classroom, in a safe environment. These students worked in collective groups and wrote their narratives in the third-person. Talking about such issues as bullying, gender, sexuality, obesity, disabilities, etc., particularly when you are a victim of one of these issues, is a frightening process that could ultimately make the issue worse. These young students have to worry about retaliation for 'snitching', that is, if the administration, teachers or their parents even react to the allegations. The children created picture books, with narrative, based upon the readings that their teacher had read to them. These picture books were the result of collaborative group work that dealt with issues that face students in the school setting, such as those mentioned above.

Lewison and Heffernan differentiate between what they call process writing pedagogies, and critical writing pedagogies. They claim that "process writing pedagogy emphasizes the importance of student creativity, expression, and ownership of text (Calkins, 1986/1994; Graves, 1983). Critical writing pedagogy uses the personal focus of the process approach, but also highlights the sociological implications of personal issues" (437). Lewison and Heffernan argue that the most important difference between these two types of pedagogies is the concept of 'voice'. The concept of voice in this type of writing is vast. The focus here is how the concept of voice, especially when voice is the embodiment of a collective group, allows a sense of safety for these students to discuss issues that they might otherwise be afraid to talk about.

In the conclusion of their paper, Lewison and Heffernan quote Fairclough (1989), who "discusses a struggle between what he terms "inculcation" and "communication." He describes inculcation as the way domination is perceived as inevitable because it is hidden or naturalized; communication, on the other hand, serves as a "mechanism of emancipation" (p. 75), (460). In the process of creating the picture/narrative books, students were able to think about, and talk about power relations within the classroom, and on the playgrounds; inculcation, and the freedom to address these issues within the safety their groups; communication. Because the children were creating these narrative within the confines of their groups, there was a sense of safety through collaboration that they wouldn't have had if their narratives had been created individually.

Lewison and Heffernan hope to "continue to examine the potential of using social narrative writing as a way to create safe spaces in classrooms, spaces where, in Lensimire's (2000) words, kinds can struggle to become" (461).  Although I doubt that I will teach such young students, I feel that this type of collaborative group work is invaluable, especially when discussing social, personal, or political issues where students share their "personal" opinions. Students of all ages tend to clam up when asked to express how they feel about a particularly disruptive topic; social narratives created within groups shifts the onus of opinion from the individual to the group as a whole, which creates a much safer environment for expression.