SACRED ENCOUNTERS: BEYOND CARDBOARD WORDS

by

Kim Stewart

Bachelor of Education, University of , 1987

Master of Education, University of New Brunswick, 2001

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate Academic Unit of Education

Supervisor: Sherry Rose, PhD., Faculty of Education, UNB

Examining Board: Pam Whitty, PhD., Faculty of Education, UNB Helen Massfeller, PhD., Faculty of Education, UNB David Creelman, PhD., Humanities and Languages, UNBSJ

External Examiner: Stephanie Jones, PhD., College of Education, University of Georgia

This dissertation is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies

UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

September, 2020

©Kim Stewart, 2020

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is an autobiographical/narrative study of literacy encounters in home and school spaces. I search and re-search, visit and re-visit, examine and re- examine, specific narrative moments, collected artefacts, and personal journals through the posthumanist concepts of entanglements, materiality, muchness, and an infinity of touch. As the re-searcher, I consider the entanglements of my literate play within sacred literacy spaces as a child, educator, mother, curriculum developer, elementary school principal, literacy coordinator, and university instructor held in my heartmindbodytimespacematterings.

My aim is to tease out literate pedagogies of possibilities, working toward a reconceptualization of literacy teaching/learning that engages educators in an appreciative study of literacy learning, one that values children’s and educators’ literate resources, their agencies, histories, and passionate engagements with a broad range of texts. I seek to understand how a broadened definition of texts evokes and provokes, energizes and anchors learners of all ages within ethico-onto-epistemological entanglements. The implication of my research is that each literate encounter I rewrite, reveals what is being produced as beings, materials, technologies, time, and space, intra- actively produced and literate subjects. This re-search reveals how standardized practices risk silencing educators’ attention to the ethico-onto- epistemological entanglements essential to creating relationships, knowledges, worlds, and literacies. How might valuing the web of relations expand affirmative and creative possibilities for learners in classrooms?

ii

DEDICATION

Dedicate this dissertation to children and families whose literacies are not acknowledged in schools.

My grandfather, Colin Stewart (B.C.B.R.) made a life working with his hands as a carpenter, artist, gardener and writer. In his eighties, he said to me, “Some day, we should write a book.” That moment and his words never left my heartmindbody. Thirty years after he spoke those words, I dedicate this dissertation to him.

Figure 1. Papa, 1926 (Stewart photo, 2019)

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Entangled within the narratives of this re-search is the ‘touch’ of so many.

To the students, educators, and families who I have learned with and from, thank you for sharing your literate worlds with me.

To my committee: Dr. David Creelman thank for your question is about loss. This thought continues to linger within and beyond this dissertation.

Dr. Helen Massfeller thank you for your close and challenging me to use my voice in academia.

Dr. Stephanie Jones your detailed feedback and questions brought conceptual clarity to my re-search. Thank you hearing the complexities of working class literacies in my re- search.

Dr. Pam Whitty thank you for making theoretical connections and hearing the term ‘heartmindbody’ in my re-search.

Dr. Sherry Rose, my supervisor, thank you for staying with the messy entanglements of my re-search, for guided me intellectually and believing in my scholarly practitioner’s voice. You are the most courageous learner that I have ever met.

Dr. Ann Sherman thank you for your leadership. Your vision and commitment to graduate students cultivated an intellectual community of support for myself, and many others.

Candace Gallagher, Angela Tozer and Shari Smith-Ellis we have walked this path of graduate studies together. Our friendships and conversations have supported, challenged, and changed me forever.

To my parent: Mom and Dad, whether I was five or fifty, you gave me the freedom to follow my “lines of flight” but you knew exactly when to add a dab of support as needed. I am so grateful that you are my parents, saving my childhood artefacts.

To my family Jack, Sam and Brad Jack, thank you for teaching me that timespacemattering are entangled in every moment. Sam, thank you for sensing when I needed to hear, “Keep going Madre, you can do it!” Brad, your constant encouragement for me to take the road less traveled has guided me to this dissertation. This road has been easier to travel because of you.

iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...... ii DEDICATION ...... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv List of Figures ...... vii CHAPTER ONE: WHY THIS RESEARCH? ...... 1 Schooling Rituals ...... 1 Re-search Questions ...... 4 Introduction to the Re-search ...... 4 Artefacts and Educational Encounters ...... 6 Narratives ...... 8 Thinking with An Infinity of Touch ...... 10 Re-search Goals ...... 12 Mapping the Dissertation ...... 15 CHAPTER TWO: RELATIONAL ENTANGLEMENTS THAT SHAPE MY LITERATE BEING ...... 18 Home Literacies ...... 18 The Gift of a Cardboard Box of Novels...... 25 A Family of Storytellers ...... 27 “Someday We Will Write a Book Together.” ...... 28 Entanglements of a Different Kind: Limiting Children’s Literacies...... 30 Leveling Books and Children ...... 31 Measurement Comes Home...... 33 CHAPTER THREE: ENCOUNTERS WITH LITERATURE RESEARCH ...... 36 Professional-Scholarly Texts ...... 36 Children’s Literature ...... 39 Scholarly Texts ...... 40 Provincial Landscape of Literacies ...... 42 Autonomous Model of Literacy ...... 45 Social Cultural Model of Literacy ...... 51 Home Literacies ...... 53 Multimodal Literacies ...... 55 Social Justice ...... 58 CHAPTER FOUR: Methodologies: A Dance of Cross-Pollination ...... 62

v A Dance of Cross-Pollination ...... 62 Methodology of the Heart ...... 65 Autobiographical/Artefactual Narrative Inquiry ...... 65 Composing Data ...... 75 Thinking with Entanglements, Materiality, Touch, Muchness ...... 78 Materiality...... 80 Muchness ...... 82 Ethics ...... 83 Ethics Representation and Relational Responsibility ...... 83 CHAPTER FIVE: CHILDHOOD ENTANGLEMENTS: THE NURSE IN THE WINDOW ...... 87 Implications of Nurse in the Window for Literate Identities, Play, and Learning ...... 109 And The Infinity of Touch Continues ...... 114 CHAPTER SIX - ENTANGLEMENTS: THREADS AND VEINS MOTHERHOOD ...... 116 Entanglements: Scared and Sacred ...... 125 Imagine a Day ...... 128 Papa ...... 133 Entanglements of Being and Becoming a Writing Teaching...... 139 Entanglements of Leadership ...... 147 Composing with Students ...... 150 Composing Spaces of Mutual Entanglements ...... 157 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION FOR NOW… ...... 166 Limitations and Implications ...... 168 Recommendations ...... 170 REFERENCES ...... 175 CURRICULUM VITAE

vi

List of Figures

Figure 1. Papa, 1926 (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... iii Figure 2. Book cover (Stewart photo 2020) ...... 11 Figure 3. My father's garden on the Tophill (Stewart photo 2019) ...... 20 Figure 4. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 21 Figure 5. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 22 Figure 6. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 23 Figure 7. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 23 Figure 8. Inscription (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 23 Figure 9 Book cover (Stewart, photo, 2019) ...... 24 Figure 10. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 25 Figure 11. Papa's composing (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 28 Figure 12. Papa's signature (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 29 Figure 13. Papa's artwork (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 29 Figure 14. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 31 Figure 15. Jack reading Naruto (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 52 Figure 16. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 53 Figure 17. Original water colour (Stewart, 2010) ...... 62 Figure 18. Orbiting the Giant Hairball (MacKenzie, 1998, p. 26-27) ...... 66 Figure 19. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 67 Figure 20. Original Water colour (Stewart, 2019) ...... 67 Figure 21. Quilt block (Stewart, 2019) ...... 68 Figure 22. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 87 Figure 23.Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 89 Figure 24. Play artefact (Stewart photo, 1973) ...... 94 Figure 25. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 96 Figure 26 Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 98 Figure 27. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 98 Figure 28. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 99 Figure 29. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 101 Figure 30. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 101 Figure 31. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 101 Figure 32. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 103 Figure 33. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 104 Figure 34. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 104 Figure 35. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 105 Figure 36.Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 105 Figure 37. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 106 Figure 38. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 106 Figure 39. Play artefact (Stewart, 1973) ...... 107 Figure 40. Sam and Jack (Stewart photo, 2016) ...... 115 Figure 41. Play artefact (Stewart, 2010) ...... 115 Figure 42. Personal journal entry (Stewart, 2006) ...... 116 Figure 43.IWK journal (Stewart, 2006) ...... 120

vii Figure 44. IWK Journal (Stewart, 2006) ...... 122 Figure 45. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 123 Figure 46. Personal journal entry (Stewart, 2006) ...... 124 Figure 47. Personal journal entry (Stewart, 2006) ...... 126 Figure 48. Book Cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 129 Figure 49. Book cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 136 Figure 50. Papa's recycled journals (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 137 Figure 51. The Birth House, page 243 (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 140 Figure 53. Invitation (Stewart, 2006) ...... 140 Figure 54. My first writing journal (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 143 Figure 55. Red Apples - Demand Writing (Stewart, 1997) ...... 144 Figure 56. Principal's ledger (Stewart photo, 2019)...... 148 Figure 57. Dusty Beaches #1 (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 152 Figure 58. Dusty Beaches #2 (Stewart, photo, 2019) ...... 152 Figure 59. Magazine cover (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 154 Figure 60. Inside pages of ‘Horse Talk’ (Stewart photo, 2019)...... 154 Figure 61. Daily Gleaner photo (Maria Jose Burgos, 2018) ...... 155 Figure 62. Pages from Shawn's Book (Stewart photo, 2019) ...... 156

viii

“Knowledge comes to form in human relationships. The world we notice is the one that someone we cared about once pointed to” (Grumet, 1992, p. 6).

This research comes out of a deep respect and caring for the literate worlds of learners everywhere.

CHAPTER ONE: WHY THIS RESEARCH?

Schooling Rituals

As a literacy coordinator, I was in and out of schools weekly. During each visit; I observed children. I was seeking signs of their curiosities, relationships, and collaborations within the literacy block, but often these ways of being were silenced by normative enactments of literacy learning. Sitting on the carpet in a classroom beside a child in kindergarten I asked him, “What are you reading?”

He replied, “You are going to get in trouble.”

“Why?”

“Because, you are asking too many questions. Plus, we are not allowed to talk here, during read to self,” and he supportively passed me a book. “During read to self, you can’t talk.”

In another k