Tales of Two Eighth-Grade Artists: Acceptance and Rejection of Visual Narratives in the English Curriculum

• In Event: Arts-Based Pedagogies as Literacy Practices and Assessments

Abstract

This narrative inquiry study sought to understand what happened when two middle-grade students who engaged in art outside of school had the opportunity to experience visual texts and tasks in an English Language Arts context that typically privileged language. The two constructed multimodal narratives, one for each of the eighth-grade student-artists, showed how both students’ storied trajectories across the duration of a five-week unit of study differed from each other and defied the expectations of the classroom teacher. This study suggests that no student will experience the curriculum the same way as another student and also indicates that the kinds of meaning-making practices students enjoy in their lives beyond school may not transfer to classroom contexts and tasks.

Author

• Stephanie F. Reid, University of Montana - Missoula