Spatial Literacies, Design Texts, and Emergent Pedagogies in Purposeful Literacy Curriculum

Abstract

There has recently been an emphasis within literacy studies on both the spatial dimensions of social practices (Leander & Sheehy, 2004) and the importance of incorporating design and multiple modes of meaning-making into contemporary understandings of literacy (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). Kress (2003), in particular, has outlined the potential implications of the cultural shift from the dominance of writing based on a logic of time and sequence in time to the dominance of the mode of the image based on a logic of space. However, the widespread redesign of curriculum and pedagogy by classroom teachers to allow students to capitalise on the various affordances of different modes of meaning-making—including the spatial—remains in an emergent stage. We report on a project in which university researchers' expertise in architecture, literacy, and communications enabled two teachers in one school to expand the forms of literacy that primary school children engaged in. Starting from the school community's concerns about an urban renewal project in their neighbourhood, we worked together to develop a curriculum of spatial literacies with real-world goals and outcomes.

Notes

¹The project was conducted in 2004 and 2005 by Barbara Comber, Helen Nixon, and Louise Ashmore from the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures; Stephen Loo, Louis Laybourne, School of Architecture and Design; and Jackie Cook, School of Information, Communication and New Media, University of South Australia; with teachers, Marg Wells, and Ruth Trimboli and young people from Ridley Grove Primary School, Woodville Gardens, South Australia.

²See the Myer Foundation Web site at http://www.myerfoundation.org.au. It describes its mission in the following way: “The Myer Foundation works to build a fair, just, creative and caring society by supporting initiatives that promote positive change in Australia, and in relation to its regional setting.” The views expressed in this article are those of the Barbara Comber and Helen Nixon and do not necessarily represent those of the Myer Foundation.