2021 Theses Doctoral

Commonplace and Mirroring for Self-Reflexivity in Secondary Language Arts: A Value-Creative Approach in a Virtual Learning Space

Coggins, Iain M.

Employing Daisaku Ikeda’s iteration of soka, or value-creative education, I detail a small qualitative study with adolescents involving commonplace, a traditional literacy practice of collecting excerpts from a variety of texts, as well as an accompanying inquiry activity of writing memory vignettes that includes a procedure that I call mirroring text. With an interest in self-reflexive responses to reading, my study explores what happens when five adolescent multiliteracies practitioners select, compile, and respond to excerpted multimodal texts, primarily from social media sites.

Conducted in a virtual tenth grade advisory class during the 2020-2021 school closures due to the global pandemic, I discuss the peculiarities and challenges of the virtual learning space and the study activities that occurred therein, as well as the pedagogical implications of commonplace and mirroring for secondary Language Arts.