Making and the Meshwork: A Conceptual Review of Research on Culturally Sustaining Adolescent Literacy Pedagogies

• In Event: 43.079 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Six - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 43.079-8 - Critical Issues in Teacher Education, Literacy, and Communication

Abstract

This review of recent ethnographic adolescent literacy scholarship finds that making activities, especially participation in verbal arts and youth-directed research, are conducive to the aims of culturally-sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2012). These making activities are analyzed with reference to Deleuze and Guatarri’s (2004) notion of “lines of becoming” and Ingold’s (2013) theories concerning “making” and “meshwork.” Through their participation in digital, dramatic, theatrical, musical, scholarly, presentational, and artistic making practices, students enacted the diverse languages, dialects, and artistic and communicative ways associated with various sociocultural lifeworlds while collectively constructing hybridized modes of communication and expression. The article concludes with an examination of the possibilities and constraints for incorporating making practices and makerspace-style learning configurations in secondary schools.

Author

• Laura Carter-Stone, Vanderbilt University