Writing Our Futures? Creativity and Literacy Engagement Empowering Student Identity.

EasyChair Preprint 10237

Abstract

When a Diploma-level subject uses the power of stories to inspire action, it provokes questions around the meaning and purpose of literacy. EDC1008, Learning Through Literacy, consists of 11 4-hour sessions over 4 weeks. It supports Literacy learning for students in a pathway course into the Bachelor of Education at Victoria University. In this unit students reflect on, and consciously engage in, their personal literacy journeys. Assessment is used as learning, rather than being of learning. Students create an artwork with brief annotations, each one the story of a moment, a movement, a beat, in their literacy journeys. This leads into analysis and “reading” of images in picture books. Students then use visual literacy to make a picture book for a nominated audience. This enables students to experiment with critical and cultural literacies and focus on language construction and text formation.

Finally, students learn the structure and content of various genres, providing the social context for creative writing practice as a means of knowing how to speak, read, write, and create imaginary worlds. This innovative pedagogy invites students to take the narrative of their past literacy experiences with them into future literacy learning. Creative practice through stories of the self and literacy learning becomes a future narrative of possibility.

This presentation will explore several case studies of students’ writing to examine the sense of empowerment evident in converting their literacy journeys into stories of the self, written in stylistic and fictional genres.

Keyphrases: Diploma learning, action, creative practice, creative writing, emancipation, emancipation., experience-based learning, genre

@booklet{EasyChair:10237,
  author    = {Scott Welsh},
  title     = {Writing Our Futures? Creativity and Literacy Engagement Empowering Student Identity.},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10237},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}