: Listening to Adolescent

ABSTRACT
Title of Dissertation: LISTENING TO ADOLESCENT
HEARTSONGS: PHENOMENOLOGICAL
POSSIBILITIES IN TEACHING WRITING
Mary Ann McKenzie Hartshorn
Doctor of Philosophy, 2007
Dissertation directed by: Professor Francine Hultgren
Department of Education Policy and Leadership
College of Education
University of Maryland
This hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry, is called by the question: What
is the lived experience of high school students who share something they have
written from the heart? The metaphor of the human heart opens my understanding
of the experiences of thirty-two students who write and share their writings in
sophomore English class. My understanding of this experience deepens during afterschool
conversations with twelve of those students. Text, offering words for
hermeneutic pondering, was compiled from conversations, journals, student writings
and sharing activities. All voices were taped and transcribed to provide a visual
remembrance of these lived experiences.
The methodology underpinning this human science inquiry, is identified by
Max van Manen (2003) as one that “involves description, interpretation, and selfreflective
or critical analysis” (p. 4). Through my students’ heartfelt words, I see them
write their way to self-discovery. The importance of “lived space” (van Manen, 2002,
p. 102) is brought forward, and lets me understand that students need to feel at
“home” in school if they are to be successful. As we create a sacred space together,
my students and I experience safety and freedom. In this space we find our “identities”
and hear our heartsongs. When sharing those songs, students announce
their fears of failure, death and the swift passage of time; their memories; their
longing for communication and disappointment in not connecting. We dwell together
in the unique, sacredness of each other, opening a listening space where relationality
“allows us to transcend ourselves” (p. 105). It is here that we... [continues]

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