In this instrumental case study (Stake, 2005), I explored students' construction of literate identities against the backdrop of word consciousness-oriented (Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008; Scott & Nagy, 2004; Stahl & Nagy, 2006) vocabulary instruction in their ninth-grade English class. In particular, I examined how the two focal participants' identity construction influenced their positioning of themselves as vocabulary experts within and outside their ninth-grade English class. Data collection included 29 interviews with 10 student participants; 8 interviews with the classroom teacher; and 36 hours of classroom observations over four months. Analyses of the data suggested that the focal participants took important strides toward ownership (Stahl & Nagy, 2006) of the vocabulary they encountered during the study and during their reading outside of school, but that their willingness to position themselves as vocabulary experts appeared to be influenced by the local, institutional, and societal contexts (Fairclough, 1995) of their lives. Specifically, Matt demonstrated expertise in the local and institutional contexts, but accepted the position of "the dumb one" assigned to him by the people in his societal context. Beth declined to demonstrate her vocabulary expertise in the institutional context, but reveled in her power in the societal context. These data suggest that, as researchers investigate how to bring what we know about effective vocabulary instruction in the earlier grades to secondary settings, we must include consideration of the complexity of adolescent identity. We must attend to the complex interplay between literate practice and identity construction, especially for young people living in the "inbetween space" (Moje, 2002) of adolescence. If students in our classrooms are going to take up the agentive positions offered by a word consciousness-approach (Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008), teacher educators must ensure that pre- and in-service teachers are also word conscious.
Metalinguistic awareness and the vocabulary-comprehension connection. In
R. K. Wagner, A. E. Muse & K. R. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition:
Implications for reading comprehension (pp. 52-77). New York: Guilford. Nagy,
W. E. ...
