I was not completely surprised when the preschool teachers asked me to come to their classroom for a special conference with them. They had welcomed me into their classroom and had allowed me to conduct a weekly writing community activity as one of the offered centers in their classroom. I had been observing this group of children the previous year and this was my second year researching and learning from them. It was about 5 months into the school year and a parent complained to the classroom teachers about a drawing that her son had made while working with me which depicted a video game. The mother stressed to the teachers that she did not want them to permit her son to continue to draw any pictures that portrayed violence. The teachers explained to the mother that I was coming into the classroom to work with the children and they promised her that they would talk with me about her concerns. It was also relayed to me by the teachers that her son had come home talking about jail and that the preschool teachers had prohibited the children from playing “jail games” out on the playground because of this mother’s complaint. The teachers elaborated that during recess a group of boys were often playing “police and bad guys” and putting each other in a part of the playground structure they called “jail”. The teachers let on that they felt the mother was being a bit overprotective but as the mom of two young boys, I understood her concern. That said, how could I now go back into this classroom and change the rules about what was acceptable and not to write and draw about during our community writing time?

In truth, I had been struggling for some time with the subject of jail and how to address one child’s depiction of a particular classmate, Danny,Footnote 1 in jail. The preschool where I hosted this writing community had a philosophy that entailed the teachers calling all of the students in the class “friends” and when one particular child, Ray, used the writing community as a place to challenge that philosophy, it became problematic. I had spent half a school-year making books with the children around the subjects that mattered to them. Everyone who came to the table was allowed to create what was important to them and most often the themes centered around family, friends, animals, popular culture and the like. Ray, who introduced the concept of using this writing time to depict Danny in jail, was a student who was looking to become good friends with Bill; described by the preschool teachers as the “alpha boy” and his friendship was coveted by the other boys in class. Ray used these drawings of jail to engage Bill and I was at a loss for how to, or even if I should, stop this practice.

The impetus for working in this preschool classroom came about as I began to think about how inclusive classrooms can foster the literacy growth of all students while addressing the specific goals and objectives of a student with a disability’s individualized education program or IEP (McCloskey 2012). This writing community center was a participatory approach that emanated from informant-expressed needs (Spradley 1980) which were to build upon the strengths of the student with an IEP, which was his literacy knowledge, to create a space where he could and would engage with his classmates, which were goals for him. Ray was this student. The writing community I had structured was built around the creation of books although some children chose to experiment in a less permanent way and write on a whiteboard rather than make a book. Children came and went to this group as they did to any of the other centers in the classroom, such as the kitchen center or the block area. While the children were exposed to many types of print in this classroom, environmental and texts, this was the first center that revolved around the children’s writing development in the sense that they were able to create texts that were derived from their own interests. While working at the table with the young writers, I encouraged them to talk about what they were doing and I encouraged them to assist each other in the formation of ideas as well as with how to spell particular words. Through this writing community, I hoped to illustrate that literacy learning was a peer-assisted social event (Bicais and Correia 2008) where the community of writers could assist each other to produce texts that were meaningful to their lives.

Literacy as a Social Act

Preschool children take with them to school an orientation to learning that is rooted in play and discovery. They do not necessarily delineate between “play” and “work” in the way their elementary school peers might because much of their work is play. Many scholars have shown how productive this play time is to learning specific literacy strategies (Bernhard et al. 2008; Bodrova et al. 2003; Ray and Glover 2008; Rowe 2008). Social interaction around literacy events is a space where children learn about concepts of print and other literate behaviors. In Rowe’s study of how preschool children learned through interaction at a classroom writing center, she found that students formed new literacy knowledge in collaboration with their teachers, building new understandings about literacy. Rowe states, “Overall, social interactions played an important role in exposing children to new literacy experiences, highlighting new features of familiar literacy experiences, and motivating children to seek to understand the activities of their friends and teachers by constructing new hypotheses about literacy” (p. 339). In this article, I extend that argument by showing how this inclusive preschool writing community, while fostering literacy learning in the skills sense (i.e., children helping each other spell and learn letter/sound relationships) was also a space for critical literacy learning.

While preschool children are beginning to understand concepts about print and are beginning to translate their thoughts to paper, they are also grappling with and contesting notions of justice, fairness, and equity through their relationships with others and because of what they hear and see in the popular media. It is also developmentally appropriate that at this age, preschool children are beginning to understand and notice the gray areas between “right” and “wrong” as they develop awareness of other people’s perspective. This ability to be able to see from different vantage points often empowers teachers to share literature with children that promotes the development of this important perspective taking.

Learning, and for this study specifically literacy learning, is intertwined with the play that happens throughout the day in this preschool setting. The topics of that play are important subjects that the children bring with them to the bookmaking center and the books they make are the cultural artifacts that display to the world their identities and how they position themselves in terms of gender, race, and class (Bartlett 2005). The artifacts, the actual writing and drawings that children make and leave behind, are only traces of the learning that has occurred. For example, these artifacts display what children know about concepts of print (i.e., how a book works, how words are separated by spaces) but what these artifacts fail to do is give us insight into all the other learning that is occurring as children are negotiating the themes and ideas that they write and draw about. I contend that it is here, through these student-generated conversations where critical literacy skills can be fostered, not only by adults but also by the children themselves.

According to Rogoff (1990), “Cognitive development occurs in socioculturally organized activities in which children are active in learning and in managing their social partners, and their partners are active in structuring situations that provide children with access to observe and participate in culturally valued skills and perspectives” (p. 37). Rogoff maintains that both the individual and the social environment are integrally built on each other, particularly in the early years of life, and hence, development can be seen as an apprenticeship occurring between a “more knowledgeable other” and the apprentice (Vygotsky 1978). It is the social interactions that occur within a cultural context—in this instance, the institution of preschool and more specifically, the act of writing—that spur learning.

When teachers direct conversations about texts, they are proposing the topics and inviting children to share what they know. When children create the texts, they are initiating the topics and this is a critical component to critical literacy that makes it meaningful. As children learn to communally construct texts while conversing, in environments that are inclusive of all learners regardless of label or achievement level, they are privy to a wide range of experiences, understandings, and insights.

Critical Literacy

According to Comber (2000), critical literacy involves “people using language to exercise power, to enhance everyday life in schools and communities, and to question practices of privilege and injustice” (cited in Vasquez 2005, p. 83). As Vasquez (2005) shows, “everyday texts” such as magazines, food wrappers and the like are ripe for being interrogated so that one may “uncover the view of the world they represent” (p. 85). The use of these everyday texts allows children to experience the phenomenon of when the familiar becomes strange. What had been an innocuous wrapper on one’s piece of candy, through a teacher’s guidance, can become a text that represents certain marketing strategies targeted to certain audiences.

Many researchers have shown how utilizing certain texts in preschool and early childhood classrooms can foster critical literacy skills for young children. Quintero (2004) describes the use of children’s literature to support the critical inquiry of everyday topics to promote, “expression, interpretation, and/or transformation of our lives and the lives of those around us” (p. 57). Laman (2006) also believes that the use of “touchstone texts” can serve as a way to support critical literacy so that it involves, “the active engagement of learners as they explore issues in the world around them” (p. 203). For some, the inclusion of multicultural children’s literature, texts which are infused with characters of both different and similar racial and cultural backgrounds from those one is teaching, is one way that we can broaden the experiences of children to the different cultures, perceptions, and ways of life for others all around the world. Hence, this exploration of different cultures and perspectives allows children to view a topic, event, or idea in a different way than it might be portrayed in the media, in a child’s culture, or in other popular texts. In this approach to critical literacy, the teacher is in charge of designing the curriculum and decides what topics are important to investigate. What I propose here, is that using children’s conversations around literacy events allows a critical literacy stance that is informed by dialogue that is driven by students. As Dyson (1997) shows in her depiction of an inclusive writing community, one she describes as “building on the knowledge and experiences of all children” (p. 171), stories generate ideological tensions but they also remediate them. Further, inclusive classrooms can be designed to undo the hierarchical structure of tracked levels and groupings, allowing children to interact and learn from a multitude of children through verbal and nonverbal ways so that “there are many ways to be smart” (Sapon-Shevin 2007, p. 15). Some children who participated in the writing community chose not to talk at all while creating their texts while others spoke at length about their process. There was no one way to “be” in this writing community and the children learned to support and celebrate each other’s work.

Early childhood teachers have long known the importance of social interaction in their preschool classrooms. In fact, many texts that are used with pre-service early childhood educators devote a chapter to effective ways to structure their classroom to promote play and social interactions (e.g., Morrow 2007; Vukelich et al. 2002). The practice of writing in preschool classrooms has often been incorporated into other structured play time. For example, in the kitchen center, children might pretend to be waiters or waitresses taking other people’s orders. Recently, there has been a push to formalize and, in some cases, standardize preschool literacy instruction so that these practices fall in line with the standards and accountability rhetoric that is quickly engulfing literacy instruction in elementary schools. As Dyson (2008) states, “Young school children are growing up in a time when literacy practices and textual productions are in flux, and they bring to school a range of textual experience and symbolic tools. At the same time, instructional approaches are becoming more standardized, more fixed on narrow definitions of what children write and how their writing should be evaluated” (p. 306). Tullis (2011) describes the impact that this push is having on early childhood teachers by stating that this has, “tilted many preschool teachers toward traditional classroom activities such as lectures, flash cards and tests” (n.p.). However, children’s interests and the conversations they have around those interests, coupled with the literacy event of crafting depictions of these interests, are meaningful ways to assure literacy development and promote a critical stance toward learning. In this article, children’s conceptions of jail provided just this scenario. Some children used the literacy event of the writing group to display their interpretations of what jail meant to them but this space also provided another student to contest this single definition and expand understandings of why people might go to jail.

Jail as Genre

In this preschool classroom, jail was conceptualized as a place where “bad” people were kept and they were taken to jail by the “good” policemen (never women) who were sweeping up these criminals to keep us safe from harm. The children enacted storylines of jail in their play on the playground; these storylines often were informed by what they learned about jail through watching cartoons and playing video games. Today, as images on the news show the protests surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Keystone XL pipeline protests, and the many other large and small protests that are taking place around the world that are designed to draw attention to social, economic and environmental injustices, understandings about jail being for “bad” people are not so absolute. Those who promote a critical literacy stance might find this singular definition of jail ripe for exploration because it is representative of a cultural narrative that is often enacted in the play of preschool children in strictly dichotomous terms (Spector and Jones 2007).

Allowing space for children to discuss these experiences and practices is an instructional approach that fosters critical literacy. Inclusive classrooms, where all are welcome regardless of culturally defined notions of ability, are a crucial component of critical literacy in that they are places where differences can be celebrated and embraced. Inclusive classroom settings can be the enactment of social justice where all perspectives and participants are welcomed.

Methodology

This article is based on year two of a 3-year data set that followed a group of children attending preschool through their 2 years prior to kindergarten and their kindergarten year. During the years these data were collected, the children’s ages ranged from three to six years old. Throughout these 3 years, there was a group of children that remained constant while other students came and went. Approximately half of the students remained constant during the data collection years. The preschool these children attended is a private preschool that has been explicit in their mission to include students who receive special education services. During the 3 years of data collection, some students entered this school as preschool students with a disability while others received evaluations, with some being classified as entitled to receive special education services, while in attendance.

Year one of this study was strictly observational. I took detailed field notes from an observation booth twice a week outside the classroom for at least an hour at a time. My focus during this year was to observe how the students in this class apprenticed a particular student with a disability into the preschool community. I observed the success and struggles of how this student learned to navigate the requirements of this inclusive community. Based on these observations and input from this child’s special education team (his teachers, special education service providers, therapists and his parents), I suggested the bookmaking activity for year two and it was continued through year three. Other sources of data for this project included parent conferences, special education meetings, and other school meetings I audiotaped and transcribed.

I introduced the concept of bookmaking to the children and held weekly community writing groups where children had the chance to create books based on subjects of their own choosing. My stance throughout years two and three slid along the continuum of teacher-researcher (Loughran et al. 2002). I engaged in this research as a participant in discussions about classroom activities, sharing my observations during parent/teacher conferences and team meetings, and orchestrating the bookmaking center. I audiotaped each community writing group and through the transcription process, I was able to step back from the data I was collecting to notice patterns and themes. I also reflected on these sessions in my researcher’s journal, which became a source of data.

The community writing center had a very loose but reliable structure. Upon my entry to the class, after greeting the teachers and children, I would set up my materials at a small table in the back of the room. The bookmaking activity was another center from which students could choose to participate. The students were free to come and go as they pleased although the classroom teachers would sometimes encourage children to come to the bookmaking table. The children could accept these invitations or decline them.

I had whiteboards that the students could draw/write on and books of different sizes and colors from which students could choose. I photocopied the books the students produced and they took the originals home. The students were encouraged to talk to each other as they worked.

Data Analysis

I categorized the transcripts from the bookmaking sessions in multiple ways, cross-referencing the multiple purposes of this research project. I focused on one student with a disability and used his individualized education program goals (IEP) to show how writing communities can address literacy goals in meaningful ways in contrast to percentages and trials that are usually detailed on IEPs (McCloskey 2012). I also developed subcategories that were based and cross-referenced on the content of the books that the children wrote. For example, a larger category was entitled, commenting on others' texts and subcategories of this larger category were asking questions and complimenting. I cross-referenced the data when more than one category was addressed. For instance, if the data addressed the students IEP literacy goals and involved him asking questions about another student’s text, the data were cross-referenced to note this. What follows is an analysis of the larger category talk about jail which included the subcategories of engaging classmates, teaching each other, and sharing literacy strategies.

Conversations About Jail

On March 8, 2008, I entered the classroom with my box of blank books, markers, whiteboards, and various other materials the children could use to make books. I greeted the teachers and, as with every time before, made my way to the back table to get set up. As I was taking materials out of the box, children greeted me and sat down; ready to create. Within moments, the children at the table are drawing pictures of Batman and Robin, cows, a pig, and asking for help with how to spell words. Bill, Ray, Eva, Mila, and Alia all sat around the table chatting and working. Approximately 10 minutes after we began our work together, Ray asked Eva to look at his picture. He said, “Hey Eva. Look at the pig. That pig is eating that person. I’m making the person in jail. The person in jailFootnote 2” to which Eva replied:

Eva::

Look! He put the people in jail and he’ll [the pig] eat him up

Ray::

[to Bill] Is that a good one Bill?

Bill::

Yeah!

Ray::

[to Erin] Ok, let’s do the pig eat people and put them in jail. We can write that

Erin::

Sure!

With Ray and Bill working together, they produced the letters for many sounds in their sentence about the pig and the person in jail (see Fig. 1). Bill then went and looked at Alia’s work on the whiteboard and stated, “Oh man, look at Alia’s!” Ray, noticing that Bill’s attention turned to Alia implores him to come back and talk with him about his text by saying, “Hey Bill, hey Bill, come here. Look at what it says. It says, ‘The pig eat the people and then put them right in jail.’ That [pointing at the picture] people in jail. To which Bill replied, “Let’s write Batman and Robin. I know the first letter in Batman.” With that, Ray turned the page and with Bill they began writing the words Batman and Robin to which Ray later added the picture.

Fig. 1
figure 1

 First depiction of jail

Full size image

This is the first instance in which depictions of and conversations about jail are pursued. The content is whimsical and it serves Ray as a vehicle in which he can pull Bill into conversations about his text. Alia, a student who does not participate orally and has been reticent to put any of her work on paper is noticed by Bill and her work is celebrated. After about 4 minutes, Bill moved on to draw a different picture and Ray used the last page in his book to draw a picture of a person in jail. As he explains in the following portion of transcript, he had depicted a fellow classmate, Danny. Ray calls across the table to Bill and says:

Ray::

Bill, Bill, do you know who that is? It’s Danny in jail!

Erin::

Who is it?

Ray::

It’s Danny!

Erin::

Oh, we wouldn’t find Danny in jail

Ray::

((using a sing-song voice)) Danny in jail!

Erin::

Oh, I don’t know if we should say that. That’s not nice to

Bill::

Well, we chase him in the gym

Erin::

Are you just playing?

Bill::

Yes, besides he’s bad

Ray::

Oh, we could write ‘Danny in jail’!

Erin::

I don’t want to make Danny sad. Would that make him sad?

Ray::

Yeah, but I can just pretend [it is] Danny

Erin::

Yeah, that would be ok. Or sometimes that’s how you play a game-((conversation about what color hair Danny will have))

Ray::

Ok, let’s write, ‘Danny in jail and he can’t reach the key’

As the children experiment with letters and pictures, they also experiment with content. My uneasiness around the subject of jail becomes apparent when it is used in direct relationship to another child in the class. Completely unprepared for this conversation, I struggle with letting Ray have ownership over this topic. Interestingly, Ray tries to alleviate some of my concern by stating that he could write about it (a practice he knows I support). Finally, Ray finds a way to persuade me that this topic is appropriate for this activity because he will just pretend it is Danny. Ray completed his drawing but when Bill decided he was done at the writing table, Ray decided he was too and he left the table without adding any words or letters to his picture (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Danny in jail 

Full size image

The next session was on March 28, 2008, after the students’ winter break and like always, multiple children visit the writing center and come and go at different times. Both Ray and Bill were present at the writing table and Danny was present too along with Mila, while Alia, Amanda, Alex, Cathy and Bridget came and went. The session starts and the children start drawing their pictures and describing what they are doing. They state, “I’m making a pool house,” “I made a carriage for Cinderella,” “I’ve got a cartoon,” and “I’m drawing a bunny.” The children continue to work when Ray draws a figure with a big frown. I asked him, “Who looks so sad?” to which he replies, “Ahh, you know who that is? It’s Danny.” Danny, now pulled into the conversation states, “I’m not sad, I’m happy” to which a chorus of children add that they are happy too. A few turns later in the conversation, Danny says, “You know who is sad, Ray is sad” to which Ray replies, “No” and the subject is dropped. Approximately 10 minutes later, Danny leaves the group and Bill asks Ray about his previous pictures of Danny in jail. They banter back and forth about the drawings and at the end of the session Ray states:

Ray::

You know what? I’m making another Danny in jail. I’m making another Danny in jail ((laughter from the children))

Cathy::

Who’s that in jail?

Ray::

Danny and I smell his hair and hair smells awful

Erin::

We’re pretending now, right? We really like Danny. He’s a good friend

Ray::

Nooo

Bill asks for how to spell the word ‘battle’ and the subject is dropped. Ray hands his book to me, says I should make a copy, and heads over to the block area.

The encouragement I gave the children to create texts that are meaningful to them in explaining how this writing community works has come home to roost. Ray exerts his power as an author and depicts Danny in a way that is meant to ridicule him. Ray has had a difficult time breaking into play in his classroom (see McCloskey 2012) and his depiction of Danny in jail serves him well in that it allows him to engage his classmates in play and has caught the attention of Bill. Having been unsuccessful in the past with engaging Bill, Ray is not quick to let this strategy go.

I would not see the children again until April 9, 2008 but between the last session and the one that follows, the teachers asked me to come to the class to talk about the concerns of the parent as described at the beginning of this article. While I was previously uncomfortable with Danny being the subject of the jail drawings, I was now thinking about how I would need to shut this topic down in a way that didn’t dissuade the boys from participating in the writing community while supporting the philosophy of the school which stressed that all the students in this classroom were friends. I enlisted the help of Ray’s mother and asked her to talk with Ray about his pictures of Danny in jail which she did. As she told me later, she asked him to stop and suggested other topics he might write about.

The table fills up with children and we begin working on our books. In no time, Ray tells the group that he is going to draw Danny in jail to the amusement of the children around the table. I want to keep Ray at the table and so I convince Ray to draw me in jail instead and Cathy states that I am probably in jail for breaking the speed limit. Bill follows this comment by stating:

Bill::

Have you ever break the speed limit?

Erin::

I try not to. I try to go just the speed limit

Mila::

[my mom has been two times in jail

Bill::

[to Erin] Why?

Erin::

Because I want to be safe

Mila::

Well guess what? My mom has gone to jail for um, for two times

Erin::

Oh really?

Bill::

[to Erin who is writing her name on the write board] What is that?

Erin::

I’m writing my name here in case Ray wanted to add it to his picture of me in jail

Bill commands the attention of the students at the table and begins to talk about a popular cartoon he enjoys asking his classmates if they have ever heard of it. Later, drawings of jail take center stage as Amanda, Bill, and Ray continue to draw people in jail. I ask the children multiple times to not include their classmates in their drawings. Ray whispers to Bill that his person is Danny. The boys laugh and Bill and Ray start yelling “Danny in jail.” I reprimand the boys by telling them, “Ok, guys, this is my last warning. You need to stop. You need to stop yelling and you need to stop saying that Danny is in jail.” Not 1 minute later, Danny joins us at the table. The children are writing and drawing and talking about what they want to be when they grow up when Bill states:

Bill::

I am going to be a policeman…And I am going to put people in jail, just like the game [that they played on the playground]

Mila::

That’s not funny because my mom went in jail and that reminds me of-

Bill::

Why did she go to jail?

Mila::

She did go in jail once because she was fighting for justice and they had to break up the row and the police put her in jail

Bill::

What?

Mila::

They put my mom in jail

Bill::

Why?

Mila::

Because she broke the row and she was fighting for justice

Bridget::

They can put them in jail?

Erin::

Sometimes. People can be in jail for all different kinds of reasons. Sometimes it is fighting for justice, right?

Mila::

Uh huh, right, but not forever

Erin::

No, I bet your mom wasn’t in jail for long

Mila::

Now she’s out

Danny::

Your momma was in jail? Mila, who took care of you?

Mila::

I wasn’t born yet so, I wasn’t born so no one took care of me. I was in my mom’s tummy. Some people think that the baby is in some people’s tummy but it’s really in their uterus

Erin::

Ahhh

Mila, who had participated in every writing community and had been witness to the previous conversations about jail, joins the conversation this time. Perhaps she does this because of my demand that the children stop depicting their classmates in jail or perhaps it was some other reason that encouraged Mila to share her mom’s experience. While Mila tried earlier in the conversation to present the information about her mom that conversation is not taken up. It’s later that Mila insists she be heard and shares a different perspective on jail; one in which it is a consequence of fighting for justice. Mila does something here that I neglected to do. Mila brings the critical lens to the discussion of jail and forces everyone around the table to shift their understanding of what it can mean to be placed in jail. And while she’s at it, she also clears up the misconception that babies gestate in their mother’s tummies.

We all learned a lesson that day from Mila but Mila also learned something. Her membership in this community was reinforced when the children showed their respect and interest in the experiences of her mom. When Danny asked the question, “Mila, who took care of you?” he showed a genuine concern for her well-being. The conversation then continued about how standing up for issues of social justice might result in being taken to jail, issues of race and gender that have lead people to stand up for social justice, and a brief discussion about how even nonviolent protests might lead to people being incarcerated. This conversation was mostly led by me and Mila and we both shared what we knew with the group. In less than 2 minutes, the conversation ended and the children went back to drawing and writing the things that were of interest to them.

What does it mean to teach for critical literacy in a preschool setting? I posit here that teaching for critical literacy can mean grouping children in ways that allows all children, regardless of label or literacy achievement, to teach each other through authentic conversations. Structuring classroom environments to be inclusive is one way that allows students to bring their strengths to an activity while supporting new learning for the others in their community. The teacher can facilitate these learning communities by supporting, acknowledging, and extending the learning but when the teacher is unable to find ways to bring the critical lens to the discussion, students learn to step up, as Mila did.

It would have been an easy task to assess each student’s writing ability and assign them to groups where they were working with students on their “level”. Had that been the case, Bill, Danny, Ray, and Mila would not have been in the same group. If this were not an inclusive classroom, many of the children sitting around the table would have been in special education placements.

The adults, myself included, strove to shut down the conversations about jail rather than reframe them. Young children “internalize messages about power and privilege with regard to gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and language, which they perpetuate through their play and talk” (Hyland 2010, p. 82). My inadequacies in managing these conversations about jail were big learning moments for me that informed my own pedagogy. As a participant of the writing community, I did not have the experience that Mila had and therefore, had not thought of jail as anything other than what Ray and Bill did; a place where “bad” people are sent. The space to share experiences in this writing community during student directed text-making, were spaces for the children to teach each other not only letters and letter sounds, but perspective taking and critical literacy skills. I would like to state that Ray stopped trying to win the favor of Bill after Mila helped us reconceptualize jail, but that is not the case. Ray continued to try to use depictions of Danny in jail to gain favor with Bill. Bill, however, did not take up these conversations and Ray’s future depictions of people in jail were reframed by the members of the writing community as perhaps people who were standing up for issues of social justice.

Comber (2000) calls for designing a “permeable curriculum” (p. 47) where children are allowed to shape the curriculum by contributing the topics that are important for them. This approach has the potential for them to engage each other in critical literacy learning. As stakeholders look for formalize and standardize curricula for students at the preschool level and beyond, we stand the risk of losing these big moments of learning that are powerful and meaningful to children and teachers. Preschool children are naturally inquisitive about how things work in the world and when we allow children—all children—to be included in these conversations, they can only become richer.

Transcription Conventions

Italics :

word is given emphasis by speaker

[]:

analysis comments

-:

word is cut off

?:

rising intonation

!:

animated tone

(()):

details on conversation

[:

overlapping utterance