Dyson 2003 Welcome to the Jam.pdf - Oncourse

“Welcome to the Jam”
anne haas dyson
and sisters did so too, as in the following example. Although all the brothers
and sisters engaged in Coach Bombay play, Marcel and Wenona were the most
avid participants, and they are featured in the vignette.
Wenona and Marcel are sitting together during a morning work period.
They are doing their work in the official world, but they are also doing their
“work” in the unofficial world (i.e., planning their upcoming schedule):
Wenona: You know I’m thinking about going over to [a relative’s] house today but
we gotta play games. I forgot. We playing hockey. Today we playing
hockey.
Marcel: ’Cause we gotta play hockey. (agreeing)
Wenona: In Los Angeles — no —
Marcel: It’s in Los Angeles. (affirming)
Wenona: It’s in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
Marcel: I forgot. We gotta play Pittsburgh.
Wenona: In Pittsburgh.
Marcel: Pittsburgh is real weak.
“In Pittsburgh,” said Wenona, referencing a city location, not a city’s team.
The children sometimes played “Dallas (pause) in Dallas,” “Minnesota
(pause) in Minnesota,” enacting the stress-in-the-middle rhythm of sports people
who know what they are talking about.
Transforming Media Toys into Drawing Adventures
Sometimes media-based dramatic play centered around the flat expanse of a
blank piece of paper. Such play was more conducive to performances for oneself
and others than to collaboration. The most consistent visual performer
was Noah, who was a cartoon aficionado. Indeed, Noah could display his cartoon
knowledge by naming a long list of the “funny stuff” (i.e., the cartoons)
on TV, which, he told me, “you must watch.” Looney Tune characters were
among his favorites, as were superhero creatures like the cartoon Godzilla.
Given a pencil and marker, Noah tended to quickly involve himself in a visual
drama, always with sound effects and some kind of running narrative
about, say, the cartoon Godzilla rescuing a victim, dinosaurs running amok in
a park, or the Tune Squad (from Space Jam) playing in a basketball game. Like
other children who appropriated from animation, Noah could borrow particular
character images or plot scenes and enact certain common genres, like
superhero stories, and discourse features of those genres (e.g., heavy use of
exclamations: “AAAAH!” “Help!”). Most strikingly, he could pick up graphic
conventions, like directional indicators (e.g., arrows), symbols of power (e.g.,
swirls or jagged lines), or movement (e.g., repeated drawing of an object to
convey, for instance, a basketball moving up toward and through a hoop). Furthermore,
he infused his images with salient values and beliefs about, for ex-
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