“We felt that electricity”: writing‐as‐becoming in a high school writing class

Abstract

Abstract Drawing from data generated in a high school creative writing class, this article presents experiences and moments from a classroom‐sited research project that were considered through the theoretical perspective of response‐able pedagogies. Using postqualitative methods, this analysis addresses two framing questions: How does turning attention towards the unfolding relations in a writing class illuminate some possibilities of response‐able pedagogies? What becomes possible when the teaching of writing emphasises ‘becoming’ (rather than products/achievement)? In response to the first question, turning attention towards the unfolding relations in the class context made new ways of conceptualising writing possible: writing as following energies; writing as making; and writing as producing/traversing boundaries. Considered together, these interwoven practices contributed to the response‐able pedagogy of writing‐as‐becoming. In response to question two, the response‐able pedagogy of writing‐as‐becoming shifted the teaching emphasis from controlled outcomes to the affective experience of connection. This study shows the potential in reconsidering our commitment to teaching writing as (only) a process and to (also) imagine it as a means by which students can experience the vitality and joy of being present with others.

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