Subverting School Writing Modes: Young Children’s Linguistic Playgrounds

• In Event: Beyond Words: Action and Animation in Young Children’s Reading, Writing, and Playing

Abstract

In contrast to linear trajectories reflected in literacy policies—which have trickled down to early childhood education (Genishi & Dyson, 2009)—researchers have documented children’s varied and fluid interactions with literacy. Within the “official” discourses and practices of learning to write, children negotiate, blend, and transform such parameters in light of their own resources and interests (Dyson, 2003). These include cultural and linguistic identities (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005), popular culture texts and new technologies (Vasquez, 2010), multiple semiotic modalities (Author 1, 2010), and play (Author 4, 2008). As Campano (2007) argues, children “write not only from experience but also for experience” (p. 18): their composing practices don’t just render realities but create new possibilities. This paper presentation examines how children use writing as a “linguistic playground” (Weinstein, 2010), drawing on multiple semiotic resources—in particular, imaginative play, drawings, and talk—to take on new roles and perform new identities not available through the conventional power structure of schooling.

I draw from a year-long ethnographic study of a writing time in a first grade urban classroom. Data collection consisted of audio-taped and transcribed writing interactions, fieldnotes of twice-weekly participant observation, collected samples of student writing at various stages of development, interviews with the teacher and focal children, and document review of curriculum guidelines and assessments. Analysis proceeded using the constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

Findings indicate that children inserted their imaginative resources within the circumscribed conventions of school-based writing, making genres porous to their expertise in linguistic play and imaginative capacities. Their authoring practices showcase how a playful orientation might serve as a form of critical discernment and a means of asserting agency. Through play, which included oral language, drawing, and performance, the children authored pieces that transgressed the boundaries of adult structures, bringing into relief the way the world is organized, and also how it may be challenged. In the process, they subverted and transformed school modes of writing.

Author

• Maria Paula Ghiso, Teachers College, Columbia University