Lana's Writing Suggests A Powerful Metaphor For Literacy And Literacy Learning: Orientation

We can't treat all adult learners, like most mandatedmove us closer to an educational model addressing
curricula treats them, as if they've come simply tothe whole person, the mind and the body.
"brush up" on basic skills and recover what isLana's writing also suggests a powerful metaphor for
perceived as lost educational ground because, forliteracy and literacy learning: orientation. This
students like Lana, they are discovering altogethermetaphor builds on Neilsen's (1989) definition of
new educational ground, new uses for literacy, forliteracy as the innately human "process of learning to
language, and for writing as learning. We might alsobe at home in the world" (p. 2). Our worlds—past,
consider Lana's case in relation to research onpresent, and future—are constructed (and
trauma, particularly psychologists like Pennebakerreconstructed) through language; literacy (written,
(1997, 2004; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986), whospoken, read, or heard language) can be conceived
examine the health benefits—physical andof as processes of orientation to our worlds. A
mental—of writing about trauma and traumaticpowerful component to this orientation is learning the
experiences.various ways that language has already oriented us in
Finding that individuals who keep traumaticrelation to state and social power structures, or, in
experiences bottled up and secret tend to sufferLana's words, how someone else's pen has already
from more serious health conditions at higher rates"swallowed [us] whole."
than people who talk about their experiences,The writings in her learning journal reflect past
Pennebaker initiated the first ever psychological studysituations using metaphors, similes, sarcasm, humor,
of expressive writing in the mid-80s, research that herhyme, and other tropes typically associated with
continues today Replica Omega and that points tomore experienced writers. "I like to write. I write
the therapeutic value of writing to reduce depressivedown quirky little poems Omega Replica Watches
symptoms and the anxiety associated with theand stuff. I've been trying to work on similes
stress of emotional trauma. Pennebaker's longand...what's that other one...metaphors." Her poems
program of research is not widely known in adultfocus on family situations and relationships, and the
education but, nonetheless, suggests that designingsimplicity of her lines and rhymes creates tension
curricula that allow students, like Lana, to write aboutagainst the complexity and paradox of the narrator's
past traumatic experiences and phases in life wouldrealizations.