Ongoing Unflattening: Trio-Ethnographic Accounts of Pedagogical Imprints

• In Event: 35.047 - Unpacking Unflattening: Interdisciplinary and Multimodal Inquiry in Teaching and Research

Abstract

Shortly after Sousanis’s (2015) graphic novel, Unflattening, was released, the three of us underwent a dialogic team reading process with the goal of writing a book review. While that book review eventually came to fruition (Authors 1, 2, 3, 2016), our work together blossomed into what we identified as a trioethnography (Breault, Hackler, & Bradley, 2012). Through our dialog, which was multi-modal, in-person and online, and much more rich and complex that we anticipated, we found ourselves co-constructing new knowledge through self- and other-interrogation, giving way to new approaches to meaning making. Our trioethnographic process (Authors 1, 2, 3, 2017) yielded three findings: (a) unflattening consciousness and reflection, (b) mimicking form, thinking beyond words, and (c) connecting the dots. The first finding, unflattening consciousness and reflection, referred to the ways in which notions of flatness and unflattening pervaded our consciousnesses and gave us a new lens through which we could (re)interpret understandings of the past vis-à-vis reflection. The second finding, mimicking form, thinking beyond words, referred to how our dialog began to mimic the style of Sousanis’s (2015) work. We moved from strict textual communication into visual forms such as photography, drawing, and diagramming. Our final finding, connecting the dots, referred to the ways in which we each connected the text to myriad educational philosophers and theorists as a way to (re)examine our own educational philosophies. This finding represented our attempts to map lineages of thought about education, highlighting what and who we have drawn upon within our pedagogical work. This last finding is the focus of the present paper. We are almost four years removed from the start our engagement with Sousanis’s work. Here, we consider the ongoing ways in which our engagement with this book and each other led to new approaches to teaching—and learning, by extension.
Within the full paper, we delve further into this third finding. Each of us has vast experience teaching at the college level, including at two- and four-year institutions, with undergraduate and graduate students, and in a variety of disciplines such as education, English, and women’s and gender studies. While none of us has formally used Sousanis’s (2015) work—as in a required textbook—we each bring to the forefront the tacit ways in which our original and ongoing engagement with his work has shaped and continues to influence aspects of our educational philosophies and pedagogical work with college students. Some examples include the following: (a) complementing a biographical essay on an influential queer woman with an aesthetic board on Instagram or Pinterest, meant to visually convey the woman’s essence; (b) moving traditional in-class presentations into a Twitter conference; and (c) critically examining the book jacket creation process by making book jackets and reflecting on the messages conveyed therein. Each of us has pushed the boundaries of traditional text-based and logocentric educational practice by infusing the visual. By encouraging students to work with a broader pallet of ways of knowing, we highlight Sousanis’s influences on us—and our students.

Authors

• Amanda O. Latz, Ball State University

• Jessika O. Griffin, Indiana University - East

• Ashleigh Bingham, Ball State University