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ABSTRACT
New Literacy Studies and related scholarship on the use of digital tools in classrooms support the argument that literacy practices can be understood as translingual and transcultural practices within the context of an otherwise monocultural and monolingual setting. Pushing for broader conceptions of ‘mono’ settings and arguing for homing in on the unit of study as a means by which to unpack literacy practices, this paper makes the case conceptually as well as by offering insights from a recent classroom ethnography in a white-majority, English-only, high-poverty, rural sixth-grade classroom in the Midwestern United States. The paper considers the challenges of rural poverty and the complexities of using digital tools by examining the role digital tools, placed resources [Prinsloo, M. 2005. “The New Literacies as Placed Resources.” Perspectives in Education 4 (23): 87–98], play in marginalised settings. The data highlighted offer insights about how researchers and teachers might support and approach ‘mono’ elementary classroom literacy practices as drawing from across spaces as students engage with digital tools and global partners in what should also be understood as transcultural practice with the potential for translingual practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Stewartsville is a pseudonym. All identifying data sources have been renamed ‘State’, ‘Stewartsville’ or ‘Stewart’ County in order to protect anonymity. Names given are also pseudonyms.
2 Following the Office of Management and Budget’s Statistical Policy Directive 14, the Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family’s total income is less than the family’s threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html).
3 Statistics regarding unemployment are drawn from http://data.bls.gov/. Statistics regarding county-specific data come from http://www.’state’.data.in.gov/ and http://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html. Statistics regarding school corporation and school-specific information are found at http://compass.doe.[state].gov/dashboard/.