Spotting Foolbirds

Abstract

Many of the literacies students possess go unnoticed or untapped in schools. In some cases, these hidden literacies are not seen or valued because they are not viewed as appropriate or relevant in relation to officially sanctioned, school-based literacies. The literature has shown that these hidden literacies are indeed valuable and relevant and need to be recognized and utilized, yet they continue to hide out in classrooms. Drawing on the body of work on hidden literacies and the metaphor of camouflage, this case study details hidden literacy practices during classroom literacy events in an English language arts classroom. Vignettes are presented featuring three different focal students actively hiding literacies through three different means—covering up, lying low, and blending in. This article suggests that looking for and focusing on instances of hiding in plain sight during literacy events can expose telling juxtapositions between students’ full repertoire of literacy practices, in the foreground, and the “appropriate” or normative literacy practices of schools, or backgrounds, against which they disappear.

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