ABSTRACT
Thing-power, thing-play and the crafty wisdom of the studio inspired a three-day workshop for writers of this book. This chapter gives readers access to the emergent experimental research and pedagogical practice that inspires much of the writing that follows. A new materialist view of reality assigns agency to the more-than-human and places the human in and among these intra-acting parts of the world, as do some other-than-western ontologies. A grade 2 literacy lesson, led by Sara Stanley and based on Viviane Schwarz’s picture storybook, How to Find Gold, performs as the provocation for our in-depth enquiry-with-materials. Theresa and Joanna chart the goings-on and in-between of the collaborative and other-than-wordy experiments carried out. Participants played and thought with string and other materials in response to philosophical questions raised by the viewing and re-viewing of a DVD of the lesson, intraviews between storybook author and literacy teacher, and between teacher and postgraduate students.
