Breaking Gender Expectations

“Gender is like an ocean”: Exploring the intersections of queer literacy research and teaching through filmmaking

“…They could include photos of their younger selves, their families, or the experiences they are sharing about. Simon et al, 2018) about gender diversity in starts with asking students to think about the ways gender operates in their lives. This feels even more urgent and necessary now than when we originally made Gender is Like an Ocean in 2017.…”

“…The research and filmmaking process involved crosssite inquiry, approved by the ethics boards of the school district and the University of Toronto. Through audio recordings, film, and photography, we documented nine class sessions with 17 teacher candidates and 30 grade 8 students who participated in conversations and arts-based activities, including photovoice projects (Simon et al, 2018), and five student-led creative projects. All activities in our project were a part of the official curriculum for middle school students and teacher candidates' assignments in Rob's literacy methods course.…”

Queer Compositions in a U.S. Secondary Classroom: Genre, Citationality, and Linguistic Racism

“…Other studies focused on queer composition in sec ondary schools, yet rather than examining curriculum or teachers, these reports focused on youth, usually queer youth, writing to affirm queer identities, often their own queer selves, and advocate for queer com munities, even as the youth's writing at times entailed risks of homophobic, transphobic, and racist regula tion (Blackburn, 2002;Cruz, 2013b;Greenbaum, 1994;Johnson, 2017;Michell, 2009;Simon et al, 2018;Vetter, 2010;Wargo, 2020b). Com plementing these studies, Wenk (2016) focused on stu dents' and teachers' perceptions of writing curricula.…”

“…Following other studies of adolescent literacies beyond het erosexual hegemony (e.g., Blackburn, 2003;Helmer, 2016;Johnson, 2017;Ma'ayan, 2011;Moita Lopes, 2006;Simon et al, 2018;Wargo, 2018), I draw on sociocultural perspectives of literacy and queer theories, both of which foreground the social, cultural, and political, as articulated by Blackburn and Clark (2011). Broadly, literacy scholars have taken up queer studies' "commitment to interrogating the social pro cesses that not only produc[e] and recogniz[e] but also normaliz[e] and sustai [n] identity" (Eng, Halberstam, & Muñoz, 2005, p.…”