Student voice and teacher agency: storytelling in letters of recommendation for college admissions

Abstract

We analyze eight letters of recommendation written by high school teachers for first-generation college students, so as to illustrate narrative strategies that can make letters more effective in providing support for students’ college applications. Amidst recent criticisms of the limited utility of letters in college admissions, we argue that they can provide valuable context to students’ applications and present data in letters that shows how teachers make their students stand out. We draw on Bakhtin’s notion of voice and Bamberg’s theory of narrative positioning to examine teachers’ portrayals of their own and their students’ voices, especially through constructed dialogue. We show that such portrayals play a key role in allowing teachers to bridge the gap between students’ personal experiences and admissions officers’ institutional expectations by positioning teachers in a supportive and authoritative role, on the levels of the storyworld and the storytelling world.