ABSTRACT

Contemporary literacy education frequently treats children as empty vessels, seeking to fill them up with the right knowledge and strategies. In this chapter, the authors describe three teaching dilemmas: for each, they highlight how a transformation that takes multiplicity and/or interrelatedness seriously can deepen literacy teaching to better meet children where they are. Teachers can create opportunities for students to share and hear personal stories. Everyday sensemaking can flourish when children have the opportunity to talk about physical objects—artifacts—that matter to them. Everyday sensemaking of the objects also shows a listening to and a reading of each other. During Text/Artifact/Hypothesis/Question (TAHQ) time, students are encouraged to explore their own and each other’s ideas without the conversation being steered toward a predetermined learning outcome related to the content of the talk. TAHQ time is pan-disciplinary, and integrating it could happen in a variety of ways. It might arise organically, in response to moments when the teacher senses such talk could enrich children’s collaborative sensemaking.