Folding the Margin: Rhythmic Doodling as Immanent Self-Regulation in A Confucian Mathematics Classroom

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Abstract

This study reconfigures "off-task" behaviors in Chinese grade-one mathematics classrooms through Deleuze's ontology of folding. Analyzing Qiuran's rhythmic doodling during a "9+" task, the study demonstrates how such acts constitute immanent self-regulation: material-affective folds sustaining engagement within Confucian disciplinarity. Multimodal analysis reveals Qiuran’s doodling enacts a triadic process: (1) Folding entangles boredom and textbook margins into a differential manifold; (2) Inflection redirects attention via haptic-semiotic transduction (line-drawing as proprioceptive modulation); (3) Unfolding actualizes mathematical agency (solving 9+74=83 in 13s). Challenging distraction-as-deficit models, the study argues seemingly distracted acts----e.g., doodling, pencil-tapping, and peer glances—-form sociomaterial assemblages where play and calculation co-constitute mathematical invention. This assertion dismantles on/off-task binaries, advocating pedagogies recognizing embodied rhythms as vital negotiations of institutional attention.

Author

• Lin Chen