Making spaces in professional learning for democratic literacy education in the early years

Incorporating digital animation in a school play: multimodal literacies, structure of feeling and resources of hope

“…It was a big responsibility .’ Nevertheless, during the interview, there are still traces of ‘schooled’ Louis in his body language, the deference and averted eyes in the face of authority figures, as if in expectation of being told he has done something wrong, even as he talks with pride of what he has achieved and what he has been entrusted with. The new structure of feeling in which Louis is transformed into a ‘capable meaning‐maker’ (McKee et al, 2019, p. 67) is still emergent, vestiges of the previous structure in which he was more marginalised, still in evidence.…”

“…We would like to argue that our observations of our young filmmakers and producers and the structures of feeling that emerged during the project point to this process of reconciliation of the hegemonic and the oppositional. Accordingly, we have co‐opted the idea of resources of hope as a way of arguing for what Mckee et al (2019, p. 68) call ‘democratic literacy education’ to counter ‘anaemic skills‐based literacies’, offering teachers and pupils creative autonomy. We have developed the acronym HOPE ( Hybridity , Opposition , Presence and Experience ) to frame our findings as a way to celebrate the inclusive nature of these emergent literacy practices, excited by the potential to make available new roles and disrupt entrenched classroom hierarchies, particularly for those children who feel disenfranchised by established literacy practices.…”

“…We argue that this lens allows us to analyse affective responses as an aspect of the interplay between school structures and ‘intersubjective social relations and processes’ (Kirk, 1999, p. 45). Like Tett and Hamilton (2019) and Mckee et al (2019), we draw on Williams's (1989) ‘ Resources of Hope ’ to promote ‘connected, purposeful literacies, joyful engagement in learning, and new relationships between children, teachers, materials and their meaning‐making’ (McKee et al, 2019, pp. 68–69).…”

“…We were particularly interested in the creation and manipulation of 2D silhouette puppets and the ways in which making animations for a specific purpose and audience allowed pupils who are often disenfranchised in school to lead on and own parts of the show. We present analyses of the processes and conditions that facilitated alternative roles and practices and that provided opportunities for: moments of meaning‐making invested with intensity of feeling through embodiment, enactment and interaction with tools and artefacts (Burnett & Merchant, 2018) and pupils reconceiving themselves as ‘capable meaning‐makers’ (McKee et al, 2019, p. 60) through the introduction of multimodal making practices understood as inclusive and facilitated by shared cultural repertoires (Cannon, 2018, 2022; Hawley, 2022; Parry et al, 2011). …”

The literacies‐as‐events in the day of a life of an octogenarian: literacies of thriving as habits of a lifetime and (im)materially constituted

“…We undertook the study to learn more about the literacies of late life that can too often be ignored or belied. Indeed, policy‐makers who produce institutional and programmatic curricula (Doyle, 1992) in neoliberal times have focused on literacy skills pertinent to the economy in adult education (O'Brien, 2018), early childhood education (Sims, 2017), higher education (Nicholson, 2019) and school education (McKee et al, 2019). Policy‐makers' lack of attention to literacies outside this range can result in a lack of attention from literacy researchers, hence skewing the landscape of literacy knowledge.…”