Browsing by Author "Campbell, Harrison"

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    Literacy in-the-round: Examining the roles of dramatic embodiment and relationality in secondary English Language Arts classrooms
    (2024-08-09) Campbell, Harrison; Burwell, Catherine; Aukerman, Maren Songmy; Lenters, Kimberly Ann; Spring, Erin; Honeyford, Michelle A.
    The impetus for my doctoral research came from my desire to explore the possible applications of drama-based pedagogies within the English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. To do this, I examined how drama-based work, inspired by posthumanist concepts, could be applied to create additional opportunities for embodiment and relationality within secondary ELA classrooms. Within this study, literacy was a central focus and was defined as practices related to multiple forms of meaning making that included embodiment and relationality. Case study methodology informed by posthumanist concepts drove the data collection and analysis. Data was collected in a Grade 12 ELA classroom through observations, conversations, classroom artifacts, and student performances, and analyzed through both coding and iterative cycles of writing. The data was then used to explore the roles of affect, embodiment, and relationality in secondary ELA classrooms and to see how drama-based work could encourage more multimodal explorations of text. This study found that drama-based work encouraged pedagogical reflection and inspired ways through which to approach literacy teaching. My research contributes a picture of how drama-based work in one secondary ELA classroom enhanced meaning making around texts by drawing on drama’s embodied and relational learning opportunities. It demonstrates how drama can be used to introduce new avenues to help students find “what is real by making believe” (Campbell, 2021).