I would love to know more about and the scopes of these worldviews.

I have had limited glimpses into my student’s worldviews. These have come from their literacy timelines and narratives and to some extent their research topics. In their literacy timelines, it was interesting to see what political events they mentioned during certain years. Many mentioned Barack Obama being elected President and Donald Trump being elected president. While I would love to know more about how students experienced these events and how these events shaped their worldview, I have not had the opportunity to hear this or engage further.

Current happenings most noted in their literacy timeline included the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh – which also came up in their scavenger hunt where someone pointed out some graffiti on campus that said ‘Kavanope.’ I couldn’t gather much of this mention but gathered that students were on board with the sentiment. Another part of the scavenger hunt that stood out was some poster on campus for the LGBTQ community. The tone with which that was mentioned seemed supportive, which speaks somewhat to an inclusive worldview.

In the literacy narratives, there were quite general narrative arcs that lend themselves to obvious or safe conclusions, such as a parent or teacher supported their interest in literacy. Not many engaged explicitly with socio-economic status as Brandt did or other complex and larger forces that would reveal a certain position or worldview.

Recently, during the process of introducing the research project and reviewing what students are interested in has also revealed a little bit about their worldviews. One research pair is investigating political beliefs and how literacy exposure has affected this. One of them is part of a student democrats club and so there is some hint of a left-leaning worldview. One student had racist underpinnings to her topic – at least in the framing of it – in that she blamed rappers for popularizing foul language. Another student had a visceral reaction to the research example of examining coverage of NFL protests – seemingly opposed to the protests, but this was not explicitly stated.

These moments have been somewhat fleeting and so I am not sure how coherent their worldviews are. I am definitely interested in hearing their perspectives more.