[Xmca-l] Identity through "experiential texts"

[David H Kirshner]

I'm preparing to teach a capstone graduate course for teachers-to-be that includes a focus on identity.
The major assignment is a Personal Literacy Portfolio in which students compile, organize, and discuss artifacts of their past in exploration of their identity. The rationale is that this self-awareness of positioning facilitates engagement with students of diverse cultural locations.

I'm asking for suggestions of course resources.
Rather than a single course reader, I'm looking for "experiential texts"-that is creative products in any medium that can help perturb essentialist ideas of core identity in favor of a more complex, poststructural view of identity as multiple and fragmented. Media can include academic writing in psychology, sociology, philosophy; short stories; poetry; film; works of art, etc.

If you'd like to email me off-line (dkirsh@lsu.edu<mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>), I'll send a compilation of all suggestions to XMCA.

Below is a list of some experiential texts I'm already considering.

David

Walkerdine, V. (1990). Chapter 1: Sex, power and pedagogy. In V. Walkerdine (Ed.), Schoolgirl fictions(pp. 3-15). London: Verso. Reprinted from Screen Education, 38, 14-24, 1981.

PBS Video: http://www.pbs.org/program/nine-months-that-made-you/
9 Months That Made You   -  How a person's individuality is developed, including their sexuality

Documentary on the life of a child kept without language for 13 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/14/genie-feral-child-los-angeles-researchers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZolHCrC8E

Movie: Enemy  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_(2013_film)
The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as two men who are physically identical, but different in terms of personality.

Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. In W. G. Secada (Ed.), Review of Research in Education, 25 (pp. 3-56). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. [identity = kind of person one is recognized as being]

Stremmel, A., Burns, J., Nganga, C., & Bertolini, K. (2015). Countering the essentialized discourse of teacher education. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 36(2), 156-174. [discussed in http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=20275]