In Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, Duffy et al. (2014) noted that one measure of the significance of Deborah Brandt’s (2001) seminal work, Literacy in American Lives, is in the questions it continues to raise for literacy researchers:
- What is the nature of the thing we investigate?
- Why does it matter?
- What are its purposes?
- How do we investigate these and other questions as they change over time? (p. 8)
Ianetta’s DALN contribution touches on each of these questions in one way or another. In reflecting on the genre of the literacy narrative and critiquing, to some extent, the tendency for many narratives to rely on predictable thematic commitments, Ianetta’s story questions not only the fundamental nature of literacy but also of the role of literacy in professional development for graduate students. She states candidly what’s at stake in understanding literacy narratives as a genre. In considering the purpose of the literacy narrative, she notes that success as a graduate student is sometimes connected to possessing what she describes as “a literacy of literacy narratives.” By rejecting some of the entrenched conventions that can constrain more traditional literacy narratives, Ianetta questions conventional and outdated notions about what it means to be a successful graduate student. In doing so, she calls attention to the ways in which traditional, linear, formulaic conceptions of literacy often elide ideological predispositions, leading to overly simplistic and maybe even untrue characterizations of the relationship among literacy, narrative, and identity. In this way, Ianetta’s story not only offers compelling insights into how characterizations of literacy impact professional development, she also, in a sense, is questioning the idea of narrative itself.
In the afterword to Stories that Speak to Us (2013), James Phelan asked readers to reconsider binaristic conceptions of literacy narratives as either fiction or nonfiction. Persuasively arguing that all narratives are constructed, but that some are constructed as fictions and others as nonfictions, Phelan highlights the ways in which constraints imposed on DALN storytellers allow audiences to treat these narratives as constructed nonfictions. Doing so is important because what’s at stake for Phelan is determining the ends toward which literacy narratives are directed. In interesting ways, Ianetta’s narrative does the double work of reflecting on experiences with literacy and on the genre of narratives themselves. In a sense, her narrative enacts aspects of Phelan’s call to resist binaristic conceptions of narrative as either fiction or nonfiction. Ianetta’s act of reflecting on previous narratives about her time spent working in retail—and then her subsequent revising of her narrative to focus on genre today—reveals a storyteller who is seeking, in Phelan’s words, to come to terms with their experiences with various forms of literacy as a way of understanding “who they are now, why they did what they did, and do what they do, what they might do next.”
In the context of Ianetta’s narrative, Phelan’s (2013) questions hold special significance for graduate students and DMAC participants. In making known to the field the constraints Ianetta felt as a graduate student to possess a literacy of literacy narratives, she raises important points about how pedagogy informs and sometimes complicates the development of professional identities. Inquiry and reflection aimed toward the reasons why we professionalize graduate students the way we do surely ranks among the most critical topics for our field to discuss now and in the future. Because Ianetta’s narrative is archived on the DALN, the questions she raises about literacy narratives and professional development will serve generations of future scholars and administrators.
Many might argue that DMAC’s relevance derives from its evolving focus on new forms of digital composing technologies. While we wholeheartedly support this position, we also believe that Ianetta’s narrative specifically demonstrates DMAC’s larger and more ambiguous influence on the profession. In offering assignments like those based on the DALN within a space and with mentoring that encourages participants to explore how attitudes about literacy overlap with conceptions of narrative and identity, DMAC promotes a unique disposition toward teaching with technology—a disposition distinct among other approaches to teacher training and professional development in higher education.