The Productive (In)actions of Do-Nothing Literacies

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Given the increased regulation of official literacy instruction—including teacher actions, texts and instructional content, and children’s attention—across many classrooms worldwide, this symposium proposes an alternative response to these persistent calls for reform: doing nothing, or rather, what Odell (2019) describes as a refusal that allows for the restoration of attention. In the spirit of refusing the capitalist and colonialist logics of literacy instructional policies, this symposium offers four papers, utilizing post-qualitative inquiry in contexts within and beyond school, that explore the possibilities of restoring attention towards creativity, care, critical thought, and capacity building for more-than-human relation building in literacy education.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Daniel E. Ferguson, George Mason University

Papers

• Upholding Children’s Rights to Literacy in One Japanese Preschool - Daniel E. Ferguson, George Mason University

• Play as a Critical Participant With/in a First-grade Literacy Assemblage - Kimberly Lenters, University of Calgary

• Gettin’ Show Ready in the Livestock Barn: Refusing Neoliberalism Through Multispecies Kinships - Jaye Johnson Thiel, University of Alabama

• “Inconvenient” Book Choices: Becoming Un/censored - Bessie P. Dernikos, Florida Atlantic University; Alyssa Niccolini, Goethe University Frankfurt

Session Organizer

• Daniel E. Ferguson, George Mason University

Discussant

• Gail M. Boldt, Pennsylvania State University