Final Revisions: Discoursal Negotiation of Identity

Issues to Resolve:

1. Ending

Martha: Note in particular that both Reviewer B and I suggest some revision of the final section of the paper. I suggest dividing it into two sections, Implications and Conclusions and have made an attempt at this for you to consider.

Reviewer B: I think the paper could end more strongly. The ending is kind of a let-down, not as inspirational as the paper itself. I wonder if the author could give more time to come up with a better final "take-away" point.

2. Length of Manuscript

The paper has grown rather long and I wonder if it couldn't be shortened somewhat by close editing, as some points are discussed in so much detail that they almost seem belabored and I fear the focus on identity construction is almost lost in the general discussion of the findings that leads into the more specific findings about identity. The different identities the adult student shows in his writing constitute the main point of the paper, and it takes perhaps too long to get to that key point. I feel that the focus is almost buried in the very long lead-up to the three identities listed more than two-thirds of the way through the paper. I felt kind of tired of reading, frankly speaking, by the middle of the paper then got interested again once the different identities were pinpointed. Some judicious editing to trim the earlier part of the discussion of findings is probably advisable.

Reviewer Feedback (WP)

From the Editor:

In general, the reviewers and I feel that your paper is promising but can benefit from further development.

It is important to carefully consider the reviewers' input, which suggests the need to expand your paper and perhaps also refocus it somewhat, in addition to my editorial input, in making your revisions.

From Reviewer 1:

1. It is also more important than you claim: it not only illuminates the writing challenges of adults struggling to construct an academic identity, but, since the academic identity must be constructed by all writers in the academy, it illuminates the writing challenges of nearly all writers in higher education. (And you can say this without abandoning your assertion that adult writers returning to the academy have special needs.)

2. Depend a bit less on Ivanic. Her theory is important but does not need to be explained for its own sake. Your analysis of Tony’s shifts in identity is the heart of this paper.

3. After you present the artifact, analyze it immediately, NOT with reference to identity but with reference to apparent features of coherence and consistency. The main suggestion I am making is to analyze the artifact without reference to identity issues right after it is presented, including a brief explanation of the article (by Levine) with which it engages, making plain the apparent contradictions in tone and thought that will then become illuminated later by your explanation of how the author’s discoursal moves reflect different constructions of self as his essay proceeds.

In other words, go over the contradictions in ideas/positions first—then, after they are clearly in our minds, you can explain that the reason for those contradictions lies in the adopting of different selves at different points in the writing. You want to do this because the power in your analysis come from being able to look beyond the surface illogic and explain the reasons for it. It will also be more effective for readers if you explain the stance of the original article (Levine’s) to which Tony is responding. Is this a report or an argument? Is there anything about the Levine text that might shape the way Tony’s adoption of selves changes?

If you have a word-limit constraint, I would suggest condensing, re-arranging or even dropping the section “Possibilities for Self-Hood” and, in general, avoiding a mechanical rehearsal of all aspects of Ivanic’s theory. As you say, quite rightly, the really interesting heart of your paper is your ability to explain as shifting selves what most writing teachers would consider to be uncompleted or poorly resolved thinking on Tony’s part (the contradictory ideas about Gen Y employees that his essay reveals): “The central point I would like to make about the Entitlement Generation is that the discoursal moves that Tony makes in the essay construct a workplace as opposed to an academic identity. But this workplace identity is, itself, not wholly coherent or cohesive.“

4. The central insight your paper offers is that when writers seem to be “unable to think clearly,” that is, to write from contradictory standpoints in a paper, they may well be doing so because their sense of self shifts during the act of composition. In other words, in terms of emphasis and subordination, your last point in the sentences I quoted above is really your most important point. You could put it like this:

The central point I would like to make is that a writer’s inability to achieve a coherent or cohesive stance in writing may well be a refection of the writer’s multiple selves, which have yet to coalesce into a single, controlled voice. In Tony’s case, these various selves reflect an attempt to construct a workplace rather than an academic identity.

This emphasis shift makes your paper more directly relevant to all writers, not just adult writers, struggling to construct an academic self.

So, as I say, there’s really no compelling need here to explain Ivanic’s ideas in full—for example, her distinctions among kinds of selves (autobiographical, discoursal, authorial). You can certainly use her most relevant ideas, but use them to set up your very interesting explanation of Tony’s case, not for the sake of explaining Ivanic per se.

Think about the section divisions. Here are some ideas:

1. Ivanic seems central to your paper—why not include her in the theoretical framework? Maybe you could distil her most important ideas here so that you don’t have to explain more of her theory than you really need.

2. The discussion section is quite short relative to the results (findings) and sounds like a conclusion. In effect, the paper seems to end twice. (Conclusions often step out of the paper to take a larger view of what has been presented, which is exactly what your discussion section does.)

I would suggest combining the discussion section with the results (Findings and Discussion)—which to all intents and purposes you are doing already—and dropping the discussion section as a section. The material that is there may find its place into the combined section or it may not. (Is it necessary to your case?) Alternately, you might try combining your discussion and your conclusion sections—combining and narrowing to a tighter single conclusion. Either way, the discussion will properly occur as you explain your findings, which, as I say, you are doing already.

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To Move/Change:

1. The analysis must move up closer to Tony's paper. Two options here:

a. Move the section called "Possibilities for Selfhood" to before Tony's essay and right after the assignment from the teacher (makes sense).

b. Take "Possibilities for Selfhood" out or condense it or just move it to after the actual analysis. (worth looking at...what would this look like--to first do the analysis and then step back and see what can be taken from the "Possibilities for Selfhood" section).

I kind of like option A.

The reviewer writes: "there’s really no compelling need here to explain Ivanic’s ideas in full—for example, her distinctions among kinds of selves (autobiographical, discoursal, authorial)." Perhaps what she's suggesting here is that, both in the theoretical framework section and later in the Findings/Discussion, I move away from what she calls at another point a "mechanistic" or "mechanical" interpretation, using Ivanic (the very thing I thought I was SUPPOSED to do). This advice asks me to reconsider the sub-headings I am using in the Findings/Discussion section and to NOT organize the second part of that section around Ivanic's key terms. What other sub-headings, I wonder, might I create?

2. The ending. One thing for sure. The Findings section needs to be renamed "Findings and Discussion." From there, though...

a. Combine Discussion and Conclusion?

b. Leave Discussion and ditch Conclusion altogether (or vice versa)?

c. If I refocus the whole essay on identity, will I need to fundamentally change the end of the essay to return to the larger issue of identity (and not adult students--as the Discussion section does)?

3. I have a section called "Theoretical Framework" and one called "Approach To Analysis." I think the second should be cut and the framework from Ivanic should be/could be folded into the Theoretical Framework section, as the reviewer suggests.

To Add:

1. Small: A section in which I analyze Tony's essay for coherence, etc. and a section in which I briefly summarize the Levine article.

2. Large: The focus of the article is more on identity issues and ALL writers and secondarily on identity issues and adult student writers. (?) Or is this just a smaller point I want to go to at the end of the article, but keeping the focus mostly on adult students (yes).

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• Your analysis of Tony’s shifts in identity is the heart of this paper.
• ... the power in your analysis come from being able to look beyond the surface illogic and explain the reasons for it.
• ...the really interesting heart of your paper is your ability to explain as shifting selves what most writing teachers would consider to be uncompleted or poorly resolved thinking on Tony’s part...
• The central insight your paper offers is that when writers seem to be “unable to think clearly,” that is, to write from contradictory standpoints in a paper, they may well be doing so because their sense of self shifts during the act of composition.

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From Reviewer 2:

There is room for more extensive discussion of the content of the essay and of the instructor's reponse, to make the paper more substantial. This can be done by making more explicit analysis of the data and including more of that in the paper itself. My version did not include the instructor's comments, though this was supposed to be attached. Even if it were, it is part of the author's job to analyze that data explicitly in the paper itself.

Reviewer Feedback

Editors have recommended that you revise and resubmit

Thank you for considering Enculturation as a venue for your work. The reviewers of your essay see great promise, but they have both recommended that you revise and resubmit. As you'll see below, the reviewers make a number of recommendations. Both reviewers have concerns about some of the conclusions you draw from your textual analysis, and they also both feel that Tony (and his writing) get a bit lost as the essay progresses. Both reviewers suggest that Tony needs to take a larger role in the piece. Though, Reviewer 2 also suggests the possibility of not making Tony's essay the central concern. S/he also grants that this would be a fairly radical revision.

How you address revisions will ultimately be up to you, but I hope that these reviews provide you with a way forward as you consider whether or not to resubmit this piece for review with Enculturation.

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Reviewer 1:

As the author notes, the trend in post-secondary education towards adult or non-traditional students is growing. This manuscript focuses on one participant and one piece of writing. I find the concept of identity and how it relates to adult students interesting and worth pursuing, especially within a qualitative study. So, I appreciate the work behind this submission. Moreover, I find the use of Ivanic's conceptualization of identity useful for exploring adult students (even all students, in some respects). I appreciate the writer's background on Tony, the participant, especially the role of education in Tony's life.

However, I must admit that after the description of Tony and Tony's educational background, I found myself missing Tony. He disappeared in the analysis of the essay. We get Ivanic's framework and the writer's analysis of the essay, but we don't get Tony's reflection on the essay. This is problematic because Tony discounts the class and notes his lack of effort. So, it seems problematic to rely on one essay for conclusions about identity. There are more than a few assumptions about what Tony might mean or might be showing in certain passages. But, we don't get Tony's interpretation of the passages. If relying on one essay (and an essay that already was central to another article), the writer might be careful as to how much can be concluded from the essay.

Also, I found the writer's and Tony's conception of writing or literacy slippery. This was troubling for me as the writer and Tony moved between home, work, and school. In these different contexts, literacy was conceived differently. When switching between the two main sections (Tony and essay), the conception of writing shifts, yet the analysis doesn't recognize that shift. In turn, we get conclusions at the end that seem disconnected from some of the previous essay.

Finally, I'm nervous that in the discussion section the writer undermines her/his conclusions. In the description of adults and participants for the larger study, the writer comments on varying identities and roles, many of which were inconsistent between participants. I appreciate the analysis of the demographic data and participant data and this does not necessarily change conclusions. However, this issue might be incorporated into manuscript rather than revealed in discussion.

I'm wondering if the larger study has any writing from on-the-job? I'd like to see various genres and documents rather than one essay from one class. I hope this feedback helps!

Reviewer 2:

This article addresses important questions about how individuals negotiate multiple identities in their writing, and it shines a light on a generally under-studied population: nontraditional (i.e., adult) students. I found your case-study approach perfect for discussing these issues, and your thick description of Tony Vaccaro is incredibly engaging. I found myself wanting to know more about him as the article progressed. You rely quite heavily (a bit too heavily?) on Roz Ivanic's _Writing and Identity_, but her work provides a helpful framework for discussing Tony's literacy practices.

The first two-thirds of the article are remarkably strong. With the exception of a few minor spelling and punctuation errors, your prose is smooth and polished. You have skillfully woven your case study into the larger fabric of literacy and identity studies, and the description of your methods is comprehensive without being tedious. The "Theoretical Framework" section at the beginning of the article is quite thin, but you successfully integrate theory throughout the rest of the article.

The article loses its momentum when you get to the key artifact: Tony's essay, "The Entitlement Generation." Several times throughout the article, you mention that your analysis of Tony's various identities will draw primarily from this one artifact, which heightens your readers' expectations for the essay. However, the essay itself is underwhelming, not only as a piece of college writing, but as an artifact worth studying in this context. In the essay, Tony doesn't explicitly discuss himself, his education, or his professional background, so much of your analysis of Tony's discoursal self comes across as ungrounded and idiosyncratic. In the section "Constructing a Discoursal Self," you draw several conclusions that don't seem to be supported by Tony's essay, and some of your findings here feel more like amateur psychology than textual analysis. With the exception of this section, I found the article to be quite sound, but given that Tony's essay is at the heart of the article, this section needs to be carefully reconsidered.

At the conclusion of the article, after citing Ivanic on the importance of students examining their own life-histories, you write, "I cannot read these words without wondering what the opportunity for such critical reflection might have afforded Tony." I found myself wondering the same thing as I read your article. Considering the nature of this study, would it be possible for you to reconnect with Tony and ask him for his reaction to your analysis of his essay? His response might confirm your findings (and thus strengthen that all-important section of your article), or he might shrug off the entire thing ("Oh, that? I wrote it right before class started."). Either way, re-introducing Tony's viewpoint in the final section(s) of the article would prevent the article from veering away from its strong beginnings.

I would like to see this article published, but I'm not convinced the findings match the sound methodology and the excellent prose. An even more radical solution to the problem would be to reframe the article without Tony's essay, or with the essay playing a much smaller role. Any gap left by the missing (or minimized) essay could easily be filled by more data taken from your interviews with Tony and/or more analysis of his interview responses, which are fascinating and seem worthy of greater consideration.

Genre Transfer in Developing Adult Writers (Popken)

How is it that developing writers draw strategies and principles from discourses they already have some control over and apply them to discourses they are trying to acquire? (3)

...adults nearly always acquire written language against a backdrop of writing they have previously experienced. Therefore, a distinguishing characteristic of adult written discourse acquisition is the point of transition between the discourses they are familiar with and the ones they are not (3).

...what has yet to be explored are the specific discourse strategies that writers use within their global movement into community knowledge--i.e. how adults simultaneously look back (to previous discourses) and look ahead (to ones they are trying to acquire). What I am suggesting, in other words, is that we approach written discourse acquisition similarly to the way second language acquisition has been studied by English as Second Language theorists: by looking at the interplay of discourse1 (the known) and discourse2 (the unknown) in the acquisition process. (4)

The present paper explores how adult writers perceive and acquire the conventions of unfamiliar discourses through the conventions of their already experienced ones. (4-5)

...much of what acquiring written discourses really comes down to is acquiring fluency with genres of a community. Moreover, beyond this initial acquisition, "development" for a writer amounts to two things: constantly enlarging the number of genres one controls and, as Mikhail Bahktin suggests, appropriating genres for one's own, using them creatively. (80). (5)

The transition made by writers from genres they have experienced into ones they have not is extremely pronounced when college freshmen move into the scholarly community. However, any of us can also experience transitions from the unknown to known genres throughout our personal or professional lives. (5)

I am using the term "written genre transfer" to refer to a predominant strategy during the "interdiscourse state"--a condition during which some writers fill the void in their control of an unfamiliar genre by using properties from genres they are familiar with. (6)

Positive/negative genre transfer (see p. 6/7)

Moreover, a writer's storehouse of previously-experienced genres is not necessarily limited to the ones he/she has actually written. Though evidence is somewhat tentative in this area, theorists such as Stephen Krashen argue that writers can acquire discourse by reading. Marcia Farr and Harvey Daniels suggest that when people read they

unconsciously internalize the patterns of written language they are encountering at many levels, including vocabulary, sentence varieties, ways of addressing the reader, strategies for achieving textual cohesion, patterns of organization, means of supporting assertions or providing details, and other elements of written language. (60)

It is likely, then that genre properties which developing writers bring to new contexts are fragmented bits and pieces of previously written or read texts. In some writers these fragmented remembrances of texts past seem to pop up at any time to interfere. (8)

...the rhetorical demands which students encounter outside our work with them are often quite different from what they have encountered in our classes. (12)

...if we know more about the transfer strategy, we can probably do more to prepare for writing in those novel contexts.

To Read

Swales, J. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in research and academic settings. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Berkenkotter and Huckin T. 1995 Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/culture/power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Baker, d., J Clay and C. Fox (eds) 1996. Challenging Ways of Knowing: In English Mathematics and Science. London: The Falmer Press. (See Street, "Academic literacies")

Brad's Workplace Writing and Brandt

There are interesting and useful connections to be made between the way Brandt describes her research participants experiences with work and Brad's experience's. Look at the section called "Overview of the Participants" of the article "Writing for a Living: Literacy and the Knowledge Economy." There are some useful passages there that I can grab and use.

...an ongoing project based on interviews with people employed in writing-intensive positions. (168)

Writing-intensive positions are defined as ones that engage people in writing for 30% or more of the typical workday. Writing is a broad term, including any activities that involve alphabetic inscription (from data entry to stenography to authoring of original, extended texts), preparations for writing (i.e., digesting information and planning), and the review and editing of the writing of others. (168)

All of the people I interviewed either produced texts as a primary service for their company (securities dealer, scientist, underwriter, lawyer, magazine editor, mortgage broker, accountant, marketing director, educational materials designer, and Web designer) or pro- duced texts as a means of internal communication and coordination (regional development director and software manager). In fact, those in the former group also wrote at times for internal coordination, and those in the latter group at times produced texts as services. (173)

Almost everyone read the writing of other employees and had their writing reviewed by others. (174)

Several of the nonjournalists I interviewed, including the lawyer, the mortgage lender, and the insurance underwriter, had published articles in magazines or newsletters on topics related to their work, as had the educational materials designer in his capacity as a union leader and activist. (174)

Furthermore, 8 reported experience with teaching in connection with their work, whether that was teaching other employees something about writing, giving in-house or conference presentations on their innovations, or teaching, as the mortgage lender put it, “to drum up business.” (174)

Tony and Identity

Items of analysis

To own certain genres

To aspire to others

Run Report--what is the run-report, what kind of subject does it construct? What is Tony's experience with it (both writing it and teaching it)...repeated exposure to specific workplace genres may be a unique characteristic of many adult learners

Domain3 articles--same questions as above, what kinds of articles do they publish? Who writes them? Why does Tony aspire to write them? There is definitely a link between Tony's identity as an EMS educator and sense of authority ("you tend to be taken a bit more seriously") and his desire to write for Domain3. Doing so enables him to gain professional authority, to demonstrate knowledge.

Why do we aspire to learn to write certain genres? What does learning to write certain genres afford us or allow us? Well, genres and identity are linked. If you write THIS kind of genre, you must be THIS kind of person. So, genres are a way of declaring and perhaps advancing one's identity. A way to "begin acting with that orientation" (Bazerman). Tony is engaged, at hte time when I interviewed him, in the process of becoming a professional EMS educator. And his process of assimilation into this role is linked to his desire to write an article for a publication like Domain3. He wants to do so because that's what EMS educators do and he is in the process of becoming an EMS educator. So, that genre reflects, not necessarily the knowledge of his previous genre, the patient-care report, but an effort to try out a new genre and a new identity. Writing that article allows him to become the thing he aspires to...

Tony's essay--a site where identity negotiation is carried out?

Tony's work story

Tony's school story growing up

Applying the Theoretical Framework (Part 1)

See: "Indigenous Interests": Reconciling Literate Identities across Extracurricular and Curricular Contexts" 139-162 in Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing.

While we view the different perspectives that older students bring as resources, teaching them well will likely require that we rethink our notion of whom we teach and our assumptions about them. Having older students may ultimately affect our assignment-making, class discussions, and dynamics inside and outside the classroom just as having students from a variety of linguistic and ethnic backgrounds often does.
—Beverly Moss and Keith Walters (“Rethinking Diversity” 166)

In addition to the increase in the number of students from diverse ethnic backgrounds who will attend college in the coming years, the average age of students attending college will continue to rise, a tendency already clear in many schools. Consequently, no longer can we expect our first-year writing courses to be made up of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old students fresh out of high school. Our older students may include wives, husbands, single parents, military veterans, full-time workers, and part-timers of many sorts… Although we know of no research concerning the ways in which the presence of this population might affect the writing classroom, we know from personal experience that these students have different kinds of goals and different strategies for reaching them than their younger classmates.

--Beverly J. Moss and Keith Walters, “Rethinking Diversity: Axes of Difference in the Writing Classroom” (451)

• Point 1: Adult students are not a monolithic population, what perhaps best defines the adult students in higher education is the diversity within this population.

• Point 2: One way of thinking about this diversity is offered in an NCES study that found two different groups of adults who participate in higher education—employees who study and students who work. These are two different kinds of students who bring different histories and experiences, motivations, and goals to the classroom. One key difference between these two groups is the role of employment or work—whereas students who work often work part-time and pursue their studies on a more full-time basis, employees who study take classes more slowly and are often defined by their relationships to their work.

• Point 3: While both employees who study and students who work participated in the NSC study, I will be focusing primarily on the a single case study of an employee who studies, Tony Vaccaro. I will use Tony’s case as a way of raising questions, generally, about the role of literacy and schooling in the lives of adult students classified as employees-who-study.

• Point 4: Because adult students like Tony did not pursue the “typical” route through post-secondary study and are often positioned as newcomers or outsiders by the institutions in which they enroll in the fact that they must often take first-year writing courses, there may be a tendency to think of such students in terms of what they lack: basic or functional writing skills, confidence in literate abilities, success with academic literacy, a positive orientation towards literacy instruction. They are defined by what they don’t have—a college degree. If we apply the standard model to these students, the linear model where one graduates from high school, pursues higher education, and finds work, it may appear that these students have missed something or are missing something—and that it is, thus, our job to give that something that they do not have to them. We think of them as a glass that needs to be filled.

• Point 5:

So I have these two notions—

Whereas, once, schools were the primary disseminators of literacy, over the course of the twentieth century, Brandt asserts, the number of literacy “sponsors” expanded to the point where Americans’ literacy now develops at the hands of a diverse range of “sponsors.” “A proliferation of sponsors,” Brandt writes, “also means that people who move—sometimes from culture to culture—transport their literacy from one context to another or must adapt and amalgamate practices learned in one sphere to meet the new demands of another sphere” (198).

What I am interested in, in this book, is the movement of students from one literate context to another. Here is where I can connect to Wenger—because what these individuals are really doing is moving from one community of practice to another—each of the five employees who study who participated in this study were embedded to a considerable to degree in their workplace communities of practice. Thus, I am thinking of adult students less as students who are missing something or empty, but rather, as individuals like me or anyone else, negotiating their way between different communities of practice and the literate demands they face in these locations. I now see these students as facing “the challenges faced by all literacy learners.” The problem is somehow the notion that academic literacy precedes other forms of literacy.

Of her research participants’ literacy stories, Brandt writes,

these accounts suggest that what is unprecedented about literacy learning (and teaching) in the current climate is not so much a demand for literacy that seems chronically to outstrip supply, but rather the challenges faced by all literacy learners in a society whose rapid changes are themselves tied up so centrally with literacy and its enterprises” (651).

Literate identity: “one’s sense of oneself as a literate person in the world” (140)

Tony’s literate pursuits at NSC are shaped to a considerable degree by two factors:

1. His previous relationships to literacy activities and academic communities.
2. His current participation in his workplace community of practice

To a considerable degree, his ability to participate in the NSC community of practice were shaped by his earlier experiences of literacy instruction and the sense of himself that he had constructed as a result of those earlier experiences.

It occurs to me that Tony is balancing two conflicting identities. There is the identity of competence that he is able to produce in some instances in the workplace—particularly when he is allowed to employ multimodal composing tools and there is the identity of competence he has assumed by the nature of his status within the field (EMS educator/consultant, paramedic, Training Coordinator within ACME). And then there is the legacy of the identity that he carries from his earlier life, which is one of incompetence and failure and frustration.
Tony is balancing his multimembership.

So, the process of entering into a community of practice—in some cases, the COP is entirely new, one has no experience with or of it. In other cases, one may have experience with it, a history of involvement.

Key Terms: Marginal and Peripheral, boundaries, trajectories

My key term: Histories of participation (Wenger doesn’t really talk about the histories of participation that individuals bring to their participation in communities of practice)

I have argued that we know who we are by what is familiar and by what we can negotiate and make us of, and that we know who we are not by what is unfamiliar, unwieldy, and out of our purview. We not only produce our identities through the practices we engage in, but we also define ourselves through practices we do not engage in. Our identities are constituted not only by what we are but also by what we are not. In other words, non-participation is, in a reverse kind of fashion, as much a source of identity as participation. (164)

Non-participation is an inevitable part of living in a landscape of practices (165)

A coherent identity is of necessity a mixture of being in and being out (165)
TONY: I don’t read novels.

Wenger explains that there are two ways in which participation and non-participation can interact:

• Peripherality: some degree of non-participation is necessary to enable a kind of participation that is less than full. Here, it is the participation aspect that dominates and defines the non-participation as an enabling factor of participation.
• Marginality: a form of non-participation prevents full participation. Here it is the non-participation aspect that dominates and comes to define a restricted form of participation. (165-66)

Peripherality and marginality both involve a mix of participation and non-participation, and the line between them can be subtle. Yet, they produce qualitatively different experiences and identities, so it would be wrong to associate them to closely. (166)

Would I define Tony’s engagement as “a restricted form of participation”? Sort of. I am thinking about that story he tells of being left in the raft while the boat sails away—a powerful metaphor of non-participation or marginality.

The difference between peripherality and marginality must be understood in the context of trajectories that determine the significance of forms of participation. (166)

Whether non-participation becomes peripherality or marginality depends on relations of participation that render non-participation either enabling or problematic. (167)

A range of forms of participation with four main categories:

• Full participation (insider)
• Full non-participation (outsider)
• Peripherality (participation enabled by non-participation, whether it leads to full participation or remains on a peripheral trajectory)
• Marginality (participation restricted by non-participation, whether it leads to non-membership or to a marginal position).

I am thinking about Tony’s story of joining the marines after high school—there was no way he was going to continue with school.

The mix of participation and non-participation through which we define our identities reflects our power as individuals and communities to define and affect our relations to the rest of the world. It shapes such fundamental aspects of our lives as:

1. how we locate ourselves in the social landscape
2. what we care about and what we neglect
3. what we attempt to know and understand and what we choose to ignore
4. with whom we seek connections and whom we avoid
5. how we engage and direct our energies
6. how we attempt to steer our trajectories

I’m thinking of the contrast in the stories Tony told about his American Pop Culture course and his speech or oral presentation class—how he was drawn to the latter and generally did as little as possible in the former. I’m also drawn to the terms neglect and ignore—thinking about his avoidance of the paper in favor of the PPT presentation and his avoidance of the first-year writing class altogether.

How non-participation in an institutional context can become a defining characteristic of practice. (169)

…the identities of non-participation that they develop with respect to the institution and to the content of their work are an integral part of their identities of participation in their own communities of practice. (172)