Learning Along Lines: Locative Literacies for Reading and Writing the City

Abstract

The “everyware” paradigm opens up new possibilities for learning on-the-move with technologies through urban spaces while also raising questions about emerging literacies required of users to understand and use the digital traces these technologies generate. This article develops locative literacies as a way of understanding place-based, digital modes of reading and writing different representational forms at the scale of the city. I explore a new analytic unit, learning along lines, as a tool for supporting the design and analysis of learning contexts where the leading mode of engagement for young learners was physical and digital mobility through the city. Learning along lines emerged from a design study in which youth produced counter-maps of their neighborhood to share with city stakeholders. Using a spatiotemporal framewo rk, I analyze youth learning locative literacies along lines they made of their neighborhood through a designed task, global positioning system (GPS) drawing. First, I focus on young people learning to scale their mobility to a neighborhood grid along lines they made through walking and gesture. Second, I focus on young people learning to negotiate inscriptions along lines they made by walking with maps and GPS devices through their neighborhood. Third, I focus on youth learning to re-member their embodied effort along lines they made discursively during moments of reflection. The analyses are intended to push the field’s understanding of mobility in conceptualizing and designing new forms of learning locative literacies. Learning along lines foregrounds humans not merely as consumers or generators of texts but as being part of that text, literacy agents of a text they populate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the incredible support and attention they gave to this article. They were integral in the development of these ideas. I would also like to thank the young people who participated in this work; without them this project would be meaningless. My sincerest gratitude to Daniel Furbish, Rogers Hall, Kevin Leander, Jasmine Ma, Nathan Phillips, Josh Radinsky, and Karen Wieckert.

FUNDING

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (DRL-0816406).

Notes

¹ I understand that invoking literacies as a way to describe social norms and modes of engagement takes a normative stance on teaching and learning. However, the work here follows the lead of Ito et al. (2010) and others who use literacy to describe “a set of standards that are under continuous development and negotiation through social activity” (p. 24).

² My appreciation to Anonymous Reviewer 1 for helping me clarify this contribution.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (DRL-0816406).