Literacies is effectively the case study of the researcher.
Chapter 1:
Gruber lays out the structure of the book, introduces her main subjects (including herself), and an examination of the motivations and history behind her research and subject selection.
Chapter 2:
Young's work on asymmetrical reciprocity helped me understand that I could only respect my participants if I did not assume knowledge about the other that I could never achieve. (Gruber 19)
Above is perhaps the most important of the theoretical groundings Gruber presents in this chapter. She comes back to this "asymmetrical reciprocity" throughout the book, always reevaluating her own assumptions about her participants.
Chapter 3:
The title of Chapter 3 is "Living in Different Cultures: Experiences of the Borderlands," which immediately brings us back to Anzaldúa as a theoretical framework, while effectively describing the position of the subject of the chapter, Alba, a Latina student in Gruber's Basic Writing class, as well as echoing what we already know of the author's experience living in the United States as a legal alien. Gruber calls this chapter part ethnography and part autobiography:
In a sense, this chapter could be considered as blurring autobiography and ethnography which, according to William Tierney (1998) "confronts dominant forms of representation aInd power in an attempt to reclaim, through self-reflexive response, representational spaces that have marginalized those of us on the borders." (30)
Chapter 4:
Chapter 4 introduces Celie, and African-American woman coming to this class from a high school in which her race was the majority. Her experience of her own position as minority is very different from Alba's as is her online communication style. We also see more of Gruber's introspection as researcher with assumptions about African-American experience in the U.S. that leaves her surprised by Celie's history.
Chapter 5:
This is perhaps the most interesting and the most disturbing of the chapters. Gruber details an online discussion of date rape (and then rape more generally) in which she resisted adopting an authoritarian role, and (perhaps consequently) the discussion seemed to get out of hand with several male students blaming rape victims for their victimhood, and Alba potentially being very hurt. Gruber does not shy away from criticizing herself, but gives no definitive conclusions about the episode. It hangs as an ugly hinge for the book, before moving to a more generalized discussion of technological literacy in the Navajo Nation, as represented by two individuals whose voices are not as extensively documented as the previous participants.
Chapter 6:
Chapter 6 is vastly different from the previous chapters in its setting, subjects, and methodology. Specifically, Gruber concentrates on the experiences of two women in the Navajo Nation, Jolita and Mani. They both come from very different backgrounds with and attitudes to technology.
Chapter 7:
The concluding chapter reemphasizes the question-posing purpose of the book as opposed to question-answering. She concludes: "I hope that it can move us beyond established patterns, giving credence to the work of scholars who embrace alternative scholarship such as auto-ethnography and personal narrative" (157).
How does your own technological literacy narrative affect your research? Your teaching?
How might you attempt to incorporate a study of yourself into a case study of others? Do you feel this would be worth doing?
Considering my summary of Chapter 5, how do you think one should handle the question of authority in the inline classroom setting?
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