Boxed In and-and Busting Out

Playing in the Borderlands of Literacy Education

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29697

Keywords:

literacy education, elementary literacy, Elementary teachers

Abstract

Working with a group of Alberta Grade 1 and 2 teachers we have observed and heard described several of the complexities they face in practicing well amidst multiple and competing dimensions of contemporary literacy instruction. The outcomes-driven machinery of their provincial context, their school district’s system for communicating classroom assessments, and the increasing dominance of synthetic phonics are factors the teachers note as constraining their knowledge, skills, and ways of being/doing, and that of their students. When these material expectations are positioned against other commitments to literacy education and diverse ways of being/becoming literate they both intend a certain future and serve as reminders of literacy education’s philosophical and practical “trouble without end” (Tsing, 2015, p. 2).

Conceptualizing instructional contexts and practices as research assemblages, the study in which this paper is based investigates how early elementary teachers work at, with, and within the current conditionings of school-based literacy practices. Drawing on teacher interviews, photographs from within literacy teaching and learning situations (Snaza, 2019), and extended observations with a Grade 1 French Immersion teacher and class, the purpose of this paper is to explore liveable possibilities in reading, writing, and language instruction for the “right now” of literacy education (Kuby et al., 2019). Focusing on examples in which teachers seek “and…and…and…” pedagogies (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 25) our purpose is not to settle the troubled waters of literacy education but to trace contours of possibility as teachers encounter literacy education’s boxes and boundaries and exceed their confines. We follow teachers’ material and social participation in curricular attentions to affect and cultivations of newness as a practice of care for and curiosity about a shared world in early elementary literacy instruction.

Author Biographies

Dr. Ronna Mosher, University of Calgary

Ronna Mosher is an Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Learning in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include curriculum studies, literacy education for young learners, and the epistemologies and ontologies of educators’ professional practices. Her recent work explores playful(l) literacy practices in Grade 1 and 2 classrooms and in outdoor storied play.

Dr. Kimberly Lenters, University of Calgary

Kim Lenters is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Calgary where her research focuses on the social and material worlds of children’s literacy development. Kim’s work has consistently focused on those students whose literacy practices are seen to be out-of-step (and therefore, generally unwelcome) in classroom spaces. Most recently, Kim’s work has examined the relationship between play and literacy in spaces beyond preschool and kindergarten settings.

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Published

2024-10-22

How to Cite

Mosher, R., & Lenters, K. (2024). Boxed In and-and Busting Out: Playing in the Borderlands of Literacy Education. Language and Literacy, 26(3), 10–32. https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29697

Issue

Vol. 26 No. 3 (2024): Special Issue: Literacy Teachers Navigating Turbulent Times in Canada.

Section

Article

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