Claiming Rules and Wielding Discourses: “The Arguing Started Once All the Rules Were Written Down”

• In Event: Negotiating Identities, Cultures, and Discourses in Educational Settings

Abstract

This paper moves across the boundaries of the playground, school, and home to understand how elementary-aged children collectively engaged in playful literacy practices to co-author a “sacred” and inventive recess game. This qualitative research draws on data collected during a two-year ethnographic study (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) exploring literacy learning in a kindergarten-6th grade multiage classroom. The data sources include field notes, audiotapes class conversations, written student artifacts (including a rulebook for the game), and student interviews. Mediated discourse analysis (MDA) (Scollon, 2001) is used to examine the game as a nexus of practice. The results highlight the need for literacy research to move beyond the “classroom-as-container” approach and to take a more fluid approach to place/context.

Author

• Beth A. Buchholz, Indiana University