Hobson,

Sarah
INQUIRY III: Writing, Language, and
Language Acquisition Autobiography

Inquiry III, Part I:

This is an opportunity to reflect on the relationships between the literacy
frameworks, events, and practices you encountered as an adolescent and the
language and language knowledge you acquired. It is also an opportunity to
reflect on the assumptions about writing, language, and language acquisition you
developed over the course of in and out of school writing as an adolescent.
To prepare for this inquiry, please gather, reflect, and include in your
autobiography the following questions. Please also use the readings to interpret
the kinds of literacy, writing, language, and language acquisition frameworks you
encountered.
What kinds of writing assignments did you encounter as an adolescent in
school?
What did teachers do to help you prepare for those writing assignments?
o What kind of activities with reading/writing?
o What kinds of brainstorms?
o What kinds of feedback did you receive from your peers, teachers,
other audiences?
o What kinds of writing assessment did you receive?
What did you learn about the connections between the writing you
encountered and the language practices that mattered to your teachers?
o What kinds of languages and language practices were you encouraged
to explore through reading and writing?
o For what purposes and for what audiences did you write?
o What were you learning about the kinds of language practices that
were acceptable and encouraged in school?
o In what ways did those language practices privilege or not your
literacies and identities?
o In what ways did those language practices privilege or not the
literacies and identities of your peers?
How did you learn grammar?
o In what ways were you able to acquire or learn grammar?
o In what ways was grammar taught in conjunction with writing or
reading?
What kinds of language acquisition and literacy frameworks informed the
practices of your teachers?

 What understandings of yourself, your race, your languages, your cultures,

your literacies, your peers, others outside of your classroom and society
did you acquire through your literacy and language learning?
What kinds of writing were you engaging outside of school?
o For whom and for what kinds of purposes and audiences were you
writing?
What were you doing with language in your out of school writing?
What were you learning about language(s), about yourself, others,
cultures, society, and the world through your own writing?
What kinds of literacy frameworks and practices were you using to develop
as a writer?
What assumptions did you/do you have about writing, language, language
acquisition as a result of these prior encounters?

Inquiry III, Part II:
This is an opportunity to reflect on the assumptions of a current
adolescent(s) in regard to literacy, language, and language learning. Drawing on
the kinds of questions posed in part I of this inquiry, please complete an
interview with an adolescent in your site through which you learn about his or
her writing experiences in and out of school.
o Drawing on what you learned from the same kinds of questions posed in
part one of this inquiry, describe the kinds of literacy events the
adolescent(s) you interviewed have encountered in and out of school and
what they have learned about literacy, language, and language acquisition
within the context of reading, writing, researching, and relating to texts, to
others, to themselves, and to the world.
o Please reflect on the assumptions the adolescent(s) makes concerning
language and literacy.
o Then, compare and contrast your in and out of school literacy, writing,
language, and language acquisition experiences and assumptions with
those of the adolescent you have interviewed.
o Drawing upon course readings, please describe the kinds of language,
language acquisition, literacy, and writing frameworks you are now
constructing. Continue to draw from the core class questions in your
syllabus to answer these questions.