| This research project, informed by ethnographic, case study, and naturalistic research methodologies, focuses on how instructors negotiate the various forms of literacy they have experienced in their past and present. Through the close analysis of an instructor at a small community college, this study examines how theoretically defined forms of literacy are reflected in the instructor's literacy biography and then in his classroom.; This dissertation presents the data collected from a semester-long study where I extensively interviewed the instructor, observed his course, and collected all course-related documents. Based on my findings, I explore how an instructor's past with various forms and ideas of literacy largely affects the way in which he defines and teaches it. I argue that defined forms and ideas of literacy, while theoretically competitive, exist in the composition classroom in mutually sustaining ways. In the composition classroom, the instructor manipulates literacy into “literacy combinations” that embody his experiences and better serve the needs of the students. |
