Full Description
Through analysis of case studies of young children (ages 3 to 8 years), situated in different geographic, cultural, linguistic, political, and socioeconomic sites on six continents, this book examines the interplay of childhoods, schooling, and, literacies. Written language is situated within particular childhoods as they unfold in school. A key focus is on children's agency in the construction of their own childhoods.
The book generates diverse perspectives on what written language may mean for childhoods. Looking at variations in the complex relationships between official (curricular) visions and unofficial (child-initiated) visions of relevant composing practices and appropriate cultural resources, it offers, first, insight into how those relationships may change over time and space as children move through early schooling, and, second, understanding of the dynamics of schools and the experience of childhoods through which the local meaning of school literacy is formulated. Each case—each child in a particular sociocultural site—does not represent an essentialized nation or a people but, rather, a rich, processual depiction of childhood being constructed in particular local contexts and the role, if any, for composing.
Contents
Acknowledgements
SECTION 1
Stories of Composing in Childhoods
1 Introduction: Gathering Textual Children
Anne Haas Dyson
2 The Situated Cases: Child Agency, Cultural Resources, Language
Anne Haas Dyson and case study authors
Prologue
I. CASES FEATURING CHILD AGENCY: GARETH AND TA'VON
Gareth: The Reluctant Writer
Jackie Marsh
Ta'Von: Negotiating Inclusion in a Stratified World
Anne Haas Dyson
II. CASES FEATURING CULTURAL RESOURCES: DANTI, GUS, AND SHEELA
Danti: Glocalizing Dora the Explorer in Indonesia
Sophie Dewayani
Gus: "I Can't Write Anything"
Barbara Comber and Lyn Kerkham
Sheela: Finding her Voice
Urvashi Sahni
III. CASES FEATURING LANGUAGE: MIGUEL, NATALIA, AND RAFIKI
Miguel the Artista: A Case of Mismatch and Misguided "Reform"
Celia Genishi
Natalia: "I want to speak Tata's Language!" Learning and Awakening the Local Language
Iliana Reyes
Rafiki: A Teacher-Pupil
Esther Mukewa Lisanza
Toward Knitting Together Tangled Cases
Anne Haas Dyson
SECTION 2
Thematic Threads of Continuity and Contrast
3 The Relevance of Composing: Children's Spaces for Social Agency
Barbara Comber
4 Resources for Composing
Peggy J. Miller and Urvashi Sahni
5 The Powers of Language: Toward Remixing Language Policy, Curricula, and Child Identities
Celia Genishi
SECTION 3
On Composing Childhoods
6 Making Space for Missing Childhoods: Implications for Theory, Policy, and Pedagogy
Anne Haas Dyson
Concluding Commentary
Peggy J. Miller
