Autoethnography of How Childhood Trauma Memories Affect Social Literacy Practices Inside and Outside the Classroom

This dissertation, written as a series of autoethnographic stories and reflections that represents my understanding of how traumatic experiences among children and teens is often overlooked as a factor impacting the social literacy practices in classroom. This study uses autoethnography to examine the psychological impact of my own childhood traumatic experiences in relation to my adulthood. In this autoethnography, I share and examine my personal story of traumatic experiences and how I coped with the traumatic experiences to grow mentally and spiritually. This dissertation is an autoethnography that uses heartfelt, reflective writing of memories of trauma with the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of my identity using storytelling. This storytelling and writing helped me get through the emotional times and make sense of my life during and after traumatic experiences that affected my academic success. This autoethnography is about journaling, writing personal poems and song lyrics and observing my daily life through the sometimes difficult or traumatic memories that show up in my life from time to time that affected my childhood and adulthood inside and outside the classroom. It is about narrative healing, storytelling, and transformation through the practice of autoethnographic writing.