Leveraging the Jigsaw: An After-School Program Speculative Design for Inclusive Reading Teaching

• In Event: Reconfigurations of Bilingual Special/Inclusive Education Through Speculative Design Experiments

Abstract

Purpose
Afterschool programs promote learning (Author, 2017; Bustos Flores et al., 2014; Lalueza et al., 2020), but may not allow permeability across spaces. Speculating with designs for permeability is important for bilingual children, who might be situated as disabled based on reading difficulties (Authors et al., 2020). This proposal explores permeability possibilities in the Varied Ways of Reading (VWR), an afterschool program for bilinguals with/without disabilities working with pre-service and in-service teachers. Assuming that individuals favor knowledge and artifacts from culturally cohesive groups, or activity systems (Engeström 1987), this study explored: How does the initial design of the VWR evolve as a result of the participation of different groups? What kinds of speculative designs for inclusive reading teaching does the VWR experience suggest?

Theoretical Framework
Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) perceives learning as mediated by cultural internal and external artifacts (Wertsch, 2007). This understanding of learning requires the consideration of children’s funds of knowledge and existing institutional and classroom practices (Gallego et al., 2001). There is a need to re-mediate artifacts that have historically failed bilingual children with disabilities, while also privileging White and monolingual English speakers. Vygotsky situated children with disabilities as active learners who can agentively compensate for possible difficulties by altering how they interact with the environment (Vygotsky, 1993). Bilingual children must play an active role in their own learning, one that has typically not been recognized.

Methods & Data Sources
This qualitative study included three in-service teachers and eight pre-service teachers in an exploration of varied ways of reading with 15 bilinguals with/without disabilities. The VWR met for 1.5 hours/twice weekly for six months, inviting families monthly. Data were collected from the children’s work and conversations during the VWR sessions, and from weekly collective conversations with pre-service and in-service teachers. The CHAT-based analysis involved identifying tensions and actions that were traced back to activity system elements (e.g., rules, artifacts, object) and historical contradictions (Engeström, 2009).

Results
The analysis showed how tensions stimulated collective actions compelling the VWR design to evolve. As children called for a program more aligned with their interests, and in-service teachers and families pushed for the integration of other knowledge and practices, the collective leveraged this “jigsaw”, as described by a pre-service teacher, creating a hybrid space across knowledge and artifacts. Tensions and actions centered around three themes: (1) language expectations and practices; (2) children’s interests and literacy development, and (3) understandings about the outside community. Based on the VWR, we speculate that multilingual multiliteracy events across modes (i.e., two-dimensional, and three-dimensional digital animations) involving the children’s multilingual and multicultural community, benefit children and pre-service and in-service teachers.

Scholarly Significance
Our work highlights the relevance of permeability across knowledge and mediating artifacts from various groups for afterschool programs. The fluidity of the VWR design created an inclusive space where bilingual children with and without disabilities were empowered to make a difference in their learning. Children’s engagement allowed educators to transgress static understandings of development expanding possibilities for bilingual children’s sustainable literacy engagement.

Authors

• Patricia Martínez-Álvarez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Belinda Arana, Teachers College, Columbia University