"You Need People to Have Place:" Rural Students' Perceptions of Place, Writing, and Community

Abstract

This study details student perspectives about a place-based unit of study in a rural twelfth-grade English class. This study relies on a foundation of Critical Rural English Pedagogy and contextualizes its findings with understandings surrounding place-based education, text selection, writing, and learning in community over time. In addition to analyzing students' writing, the teacher-researcher incorporates student interview reflections about the unit and their writing. Two main takeaways emerge through data analysis: trust students to choose and make time for talk. Students valued their choice of both topic and genre in their final writing assignment, and they were able to engage with the nuance of their topics freely. Students also enjoyed the moments in which they connected to each other and shared ideas about their writing.