Advertisement

The Embedded and Embodied Literacies of a Young Reader

  • Margaret Mackey
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

This article argues that if we paid attention to the local situation of a reader the way we attend to the life story of an author, we might gain a very different understanding of children’s literacy. It explores the literate approaches of a single child exploring a single theme—the settler culture as represented in a variety of materials accessible to her in the 1950s—across the discourses of television cowboy shows, school and recreational texts featuring settlers and indigenous people, and a British children’s novel about claiming the land. The article suggests that this kind of miscellaneous intertextuality is a larger feature of early reading than we sometimes assume.

Keywords

Early literacy Readers Play Space Intertextuality 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Annie Oakley. (2004). 10 Episodes. DVD. La Crosse, WI: Platinum Disc Corporation.Google Scholar
  2. Brandt, Deborah. (1995). Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century. College English, 57(6), 649–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Briffett, Frances. (1954). The Story of Newfoundland and Labrador. Ed. P.R. Blakeley and M.C. Vernon. Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons.Google Scholar
  4. Brink, Carol Ryrie. (1990/1935). Caddie Woodlawn. Illus. T.S. Hyman. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.Google Scholar
  5. Frye, Northrop. (1995). The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: Anansi. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from http://northropfrye-thebushgarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/conclusion-to-literary-history-of.html.
  6. Hays, Wilma Pitchford. (1958). Paying for the Indian Corn. Illus. M. Lee. Jack and Jill, 21(1), 9–14.Google Scholar
  7. Hodges, Gabrielle Cliff, Nikolajeva, Maria and Taylor, Liz. (2010). Three Walks Through Fictional Fens: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Gaffer Samson’s Luck. Children’s Literature in Education, 41(3), 189–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  9. Lone Ranger, The. (2003). 6 Episodes. DVD. La Crosse, WI: Platinum Disc Corporation.Google Scholar
  10. Mackey, Margaret. (2007). Mapping Recreational Literacies: Contemporary Adults at Play. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
  11. Mackey, Margaret. (2010). Reading from the Feet Up: The Local Work of Literacy. Children’s Literature in Education, 41(4), 323–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Marsh, Jackie and Willett, Rebekah, with Bishop, Julia, Burn, Andrew and Richards, Chris. (2010). Mega Mash-ups and Remixes in the Cultural Borderlands: Emergent Findings from the Ethnographic Studies of Playground Games and Rhymes in Two Primary Schools. Paper presented at Children’s Games and Rhymes in the New Media Age: Interim Conference. London: London Knowledge Lab. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from http://projects.beyondtext.ac.uk/playgroundgames/uploads/marsh_willett_playground_interim.pdf.
  13. Massey, Doreen. (2005). For Space. Los Angeles: Sage.Google Scholar
  14. McGillis, Rod. (2009). He was Some Kind of a Man: Masculinities in the B Western. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
  15. Meek, Margaret. (1988). How Texts Teach What Readers Learn. Stroud: Thimble Press.Google Scholar
  16. O’Brien, Geoffrey. (2004). Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life. New York: Counterpoint.Google Scholar
  17. Pennycook, Alastair. (2010). Language as a Local Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  18. Reid, Mark. (2009). Reframing Literacy: A Film Pitch for the 21st Century. English Drama Media, 14, 19–23.Google Scholar
  19. Roy Rogers Show, The. (2004). Vol. One: 4 Episodes. DVD. Itasca, IL: Critics’ Choice Video.Google Scholar
  20. Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzie Wong. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Spufford, Francis. (2002). The Child That Books Built: A Memoir of Childhood and Reading. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
  22. Stoddard, Alexander J., Bailey, Matilda and Lewis, William Dodge. (n.d.). English Grade 3. 2nd ed. Toronto: W.J. Gage.Google Scholar
  23. Sutherland, John. (2008). Magic Moments: Life-Changing Encounters with Books, Film, Music…. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
  24. Tremblay, Michel. (1998). Bambi and Me. Trans. Sheila Fischman. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1990.Google Scholar
  25. Tremblay, Michel. (2002). Twelve Opening Acts. Trans. Sheila Fischman. Vancouver: Talonbooks.Google Scholar
  26. Tremblay, Michel. (2003). Birth of a Bookworm. Trans. Sheila Fischman. Vancouver: Talonbooks.Google Scholar
  27. Walsh, John. (2003). Are You Talking to Me? A Life Through the Movies. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
  28. Wilson, Theodora Wilson. (n.d.). The Islanders. London: Blackie & Son.Google Scholar
  29. Wolf, Shelby Anne and Heath, Shirley Brice. (1992). The Braid of Literature: Children’s Worlds of Reading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of Library and Information StudiesUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonCanada

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options