Dyson 2003 Welcome to the Jam.pdf - Oncourse

“Welcome to the Jam”
anne haas dyson
FIGURE 2
duction officially, at least in part for ideological reasons. As Denise said, Rita
probably wasn’t “used” to this style of song. “Teen-age-er” songs were part of
the children’s unofficial play, even if their production involved officially valued
tools and materials.
The girls’ most complex composing event did not involve radio play, although
it clearly evidenced aspects of that unofficial and collaborative practice
as well as of the transformed official one of writing in turns. Inspired by
the Goosebumps television show, the girls confronted complex symbolic and social
challenges as they worked to articulate an unofficial “scary” voice on paper
during official writing time.
Working in their separate books, Denise and Vanessa divide their respective
pages into four sections and then begin composing in different sections. In
Denise’s words, they are “writing a [scary] story that goes together but in different
books.” In her book, Denise begins in the top section of her paper, writing
about one boy and two girls playing together. In hers, Vanessa skips the top
section and, in the second, writes:
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