Dyson 2003 Welcome to the Jam.pdf - Oncourse

“Welcome to the Jam”
anne haas dyson
FIGURE 1
In the official world, the children’s teacher Rita worked to establish what
she called a “classroom family,” one with its own sense of interconnections, responsibilities,
and practices. That family was potentially on much more fragile
ground than the fake one; classroom practices and symbols traditionally are
informed by curricular and instructional expectations removed from the particularities
of children’s relationships, pleasures, powers, and concerns (including
about being, or identity, itself). And yet, as I illustrate in the next section,
the brothers and sisters did not abandon one another, or their toys, as
they entered into school literacy.
Adapting Popular Toys to Meet Literacy Demands: The Interplay of
Unofficial and Official Space
Rita has just voiced words of praise and gratitude for the class’s hard work
when her student Vanessa speaks up:
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