“Because I’m Smooth”: Material Intra-actions and Text Productions among Young Latino Picture Book Makers
Abstract
As theorization of multimodal text processes and productions continues to outpace classroom practices, research that contributes understandings of how composers are living out multimodal processes is needed. In response, we turn to thinking with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) as both a methodological and an analytic approach to understand how multimodal composing processes and products come to be. We provide strategic sketches (Leander & Boldt, 2013) focused on third graders “Efrain” and “Trinidad”, not aiming to display the data in a traditional sense, but instead to ask of ourselves, the data, and theory: What material intra-actions emerge among two young picture book makers? What social, cultural, and material worlds are performed in their final picture book productions? Thinking with theory and data was an effort to experience some of the moment-to-moment nuances of young children’s multimodal processes, to appreciate the lived social, cultural, and material realities animated in their picture books, and to develop sensitivities to the possibilities of the material turn in post-humanist studies for literacy research. The analytic questions produced point to the saliency of diverse literature as aesthetic inspirations for multimodal texts, and of improvisations with varied art tools and media as openings for multimodal processes. This paper advances previous related scholarship through strategic sketches that invite readers to experience the complexity and the cultural significance of the multimodal processes and products that emerge when classroom expectations of a proficient writer include the ability to improvise and become with diverse materials and meanings, not just to command “standardized written English.”
- Journal
- Research in the Teaching of English
- Published
- 2017-02-01
- DOI
- 10.58680/rte201728977
- CompPile
- Search in CompPile ↗
- Open Access
- OA PDF Green
- Topics
- Export
- BibTeX RIS
Citation Context
Cited by in this index (1)
-
Smith (2018)Written Communication
References (0)
No references on file for this article.
Related Articles
-
Pedagogy Oct 2025modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
-
The Peer Review Sep 2025The Writing Center as a Rebel Space: Stories of Tutoring and Writing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ↗Ghada Seifeddine
-
Literacy in Composition Studies May 2025Dani English
-
Pedagogy Apr 2025modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism african american rhetorics cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing graduate education two-year college teacher development writing centers technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions digital rhetoric multimodality social media literacy studies race and writing gender and writing community literacy literary studies editorial matter
-
Pedagogy Oct 2024rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development revision argument collaborative writing assessment writing program administration multimodality multilingual writers literacy studies race and writing disability studies community literacy editorial matter