Mapping territories and creating nomadic pathways with Multiple Literacies Theory.
Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 27(3): 287-307, 2011
This article foregrounds Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) positioned from a deleuzianguattarian p... more This article foregrounds Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) positioned from a deleuzianguattarian perspective. It is a literacy paradigm different from prevailing territories such as New Literacy Studies and Multiliteracies. MLT deterrritorializes familiar literacy theorizing and is a complementary theoretical experiment to those conducted by curriculum theorists working with poststructuralist perspectives and complexity theory. It accompanies a deleuzianguattarian philosophy as a nonphilosophy for thinking about problems that present themselves in the world. In this case, we deploy MLT to create nomadic pathways as we consider vignettes from a research study on a child acquiring multiple writing systems simultaneously. The vignettes illustrate what literacies produce and how they function through the lens of MLT. MLT proposes that from the effect of investment in reading, reading the world, and self, a reader is formed and transformed in a process of becoming Other.
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à partir de la théorie de littératies multiples (TLM), les perceptions concernant les systèmes d'écriture se froment et comment ces perceptions influent sur l'acte de lire, de lire le monde et de se lire dans les contextes scolaire et familial, et ce, afin de mieux comprendre les effets des littératies multiples dans un milieu bilingue ou multilingue et d'utiliser ces résultats pour susciter des occasions d'apprentissage différentes dans les contextes linguistiques minoritaires.
recording, a novel, a film. For instance, take pieces of metal that come together to form a free-standing sculpture. Metal, as in music, dance or film, is a free-flow matter (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). As it stands there, what does metal do? It takes on expressiveness. Similarly, multiple literacies that involve reading the world, word and self take on expressiveness. Words on paper, musical notes on a staff take on sense, expressiveness.
on how to improve the quality of curriculum and pedagogy to ensure equitable access to literacy, what has taken a twisted turn
is what becomes valued as literacy: that which is measured in provincial and international tests. Testing tends to focus on the
importance of what is considered to be school-based
literacy. The point of this presentation is to use Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) to demonstrate that there are different ways or understandings of reading, reading the world and self that merit consideration. Reading, reading the world and self is the bridge among access,equity and quality by releasing school-based literacy from its privileged position by not allowing it to govern all other literacies but to have its place among other literacies. We present vignettes drawn from a 2 year qualitative study of multilingual children’s literacies in French minority communities in Ontario, Canada. The study involved 5 multilingualgirls (ages 5-7 years old) who attended schools where French is the sole language of instruction. Seven of the girls’ teachers also participated, sharing their pedagogical perspectives regarding literacy/literacies as presented in the curriculum. In the end what should literacy do? From an MLT perspective, reading, reading the world and self creates potentials for transforming life at school, at work, at home and in the community thereby providing quality to life. An important aspect of literacies is to create change.
epistemologically. It will also highlight aspects of NLS and Multiliteracies in order to point out the differences with MLT. This article aims to put forward the major concepts that underlie this theory and present vignettes from a study examining
how perceptions of writing systems in multilingual children contribute to reading, reading the world and self as texts.
Keywords: Literacy. Reading. Writing.