The discourse of literary analysis is dynamic and ideological, shifting as writers navigate conventions and practices to meet their rhetorical purposes in particular contexts. While scholars have engaged ideological analyses of students learning to write literary analysis essays in university contexts, few studies have documented student writers’ experiences of disciplinary enculturation in secondary English language arts classrooms. In this case study, we address this absence by using the concept of stance to examine how the identity of one student—Katarina—informed her interactions with the discourse of literary analysis as it was understood and instantiated by her teacher. In our analysis of essay drafts, field notes, artifacts, and interview transcripts, we found that the convergence of Katarina’s identity as a creative and emotional person and writer with the possibilities for selfhood afforded to her in this context contributed to her stance toward the discourse. We examine points of tension across two of Katarina’s essays that illuminate her ideological struggles as she navigated the discourse of her classroom. Our findings point to the utility of stance as a conceptual tool for researchers and educators to take a critical perspective on students’ writing processes in the context of the ideologically laden, authoritative demands of secondary classrooms.

It is common practice to enroll adolescents in classes designed to improve their reading. Previous studies of literacy intervention classes have focused on students’ acquisition of reading skills and strategies, but few studies have considered how reading identities may contribute to literacy learning. To address this gap, I used theories of positioning and identity to answer the question: How did students’ understandings of literacy and their own reading identities interact with the figured worlds of their literacy intervention classrooms? I analyzed interviews, field notes, and artifacts for two students and teachers in different classrooms, focusing on students’ acts of agency. Analyses revealed that both students’ identities as good readers conflicted with the figured worlds of their classrooms, but they responded differently. One challenged the norms of his classroom in a manner contrary to his teacher’s expectations and was unable to disrupt his positioning as a struggling reader. The other acquiesced to the norms of her classroom in ways her teacher recognized as characteristic of a capable reader, ultimately upsetting her struggling reader subject position. The findings reveal that students’ acts of agency and teachers’ interpretations of those acts are informed by students’ perceptions of themselves as readers and teachers’ understandings of literacy and learning in intervention classrooms. The findings problematize the practice of placing students in classes that position them as deficient. Additional research that attends to sociocultural factors in classrooms is necessary to understand the academic, social, and personal implications of particular approaches to literacy instruction and intervention for individual students.