Sanctioning the Unsanctioned: Exploring Affective Engagement in Literacy Learning

• In Event: 28.091 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Two - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 28.091-3 - Art, Affect, and Becoming: Acts of Composing

Abstract

This research study explored problems of schooled literacy practices through a rhizomatic lens, which allowed for an emergent, affective stance in examining how students engaged with literacy learning in one middle school classroom. Normed expectations of students’ engagement with literacy in schools impose hegemonic control over students’ literacy learning, thus devaluing students’ in-the-moment, affective engagement. Rhizomatic theory was used to explore the ways students aligned to or veered from expected literacy norms. Findings are presented through the affective intensities produced through students’ engagements with literacy learning. I discuss these intensities as unsanctioned engagement and explore how sanctioning such engagement provides more equitable opportunities for students to actively interact and achieve success as literacy learners.

Author

• Kelly C Johnston, Baylor University