ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, “Learning to Dream,” we draw from two intersecting theories: sociocultural theory and the theory of possible selves. We draw from sociocultural learning theory in which the specific cultural activities of language learning and writing are products of social interaction and are embedded in a larger cultural and institutional context. From this perspective, the everyday worlds, social interactions, and relationships which students participate and engage are rich and valued sites of learning. A sociocultural lens also allows for an examination of adolescent girls engaged in a new kind of learning within the writing classroom, which is the social practice of forming and participating in a writing community as a means of imagining their future selves in connection to science. This chapter also describes the first weeks of the project and the ways we invited the groups of girls to use writing to work through the process of dreaming their future selves in relation to science. Students drew representations of scientists, wrote their reasons for participating in the GSW project and wrote about success and hardship they had experienced in connection to science.
