Rebecca’s Blog

I e-mailed Dr. Guzzetti with some questions about her research on zines:

I read your study in RRQ regarding the three zinesters, and I was wondering if you are still reseaching the writing of adolescent girls?  I am interested in studying adolescent writing and I like the way you combined social justice issues with literacy research.  It seems to me that blogs and MySpace have taken the place of print-based media, but I would like to know what you think.  I am also curious about your suggestion that writing groups be single-gender.  Have you done any research about this specific topic?

Here is her response:

 Thank you for your interest in my work. Yes, I am still studying adolescent girls. That was just one of about 8 publications that I have had that looked at young women’s interactions with new literacies. I published a conversational interview with those 3 girls in Reading Online, IRA’s electronic journal; an article in the NRC Yearbook about their punk rock fandom; an article in RTE about their online journaling; an article in E-Learning about their use of web sites and cyberspace; a book chapter in a forthcoming book by Sanford and Hammel about adolescent girls” critiques of school and bridging the gap between school and home literacy practices; an article in the NRC yearbook about their zining and the zining of one of the girl’s brother, etc.

I think that blogs and MySpace are creeping into schools in the girls’ writing assignments (teachers complain to me about it). My RTE article explores this a bit.

I have not researched single gender wriiting groups per se, but I did research single gender lab groups in high school science classes and published that in the Journal of Research in Sciene Teaching. I believe that Luce Kapler did research single gender writing groups; if you get my IRA book, Reading Writing and Talking Gender in Literacy Learning, you will find a review of studies about gender and writing and see that others have done that resulting in girls being able to have their wriing read without fear of critcisim or ridicule.

Thanks for your questions! You are on the path to becoming a scholar with your thoughtful questions.

Best Regards,

Barbara Guzzetti .

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