Through a lens of affect: multiliteracies, English learners, and resistance. Issue 5 (2nd September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Burgess, Julianne
• Is Part Of: Discourse. Volume 41:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 799
• Page End: 811
• Publication Date: 2020-09-02
• Subjects: Multiliteracies -- English-as-an-Additional Language -- resistance -- affect theory -- silence -- language -- voice; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Australia -- Periodicals; 370.5
• DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2020.1769940
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0159-6306

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This autoethnographic study explores disruptive moments in a multiliteracies English-as-an-Additional Language (EAL) classroom with young adult students. Using a lens of affect theory, the study presents three strategic sketches (vignettes) to shine a light on unexpected intensities in the learning assemblage, initially assumed to be learner ambivalence, uneven investment and resistance, to multiliteracies pedagogy. Through autoethnographic inquiry, a writing of the self, this paper argues that affectively charged moments in literacy and language setting should be recognized as Deleuzian sense-events that are resistant to interpretation. The possibilities created by learning and teaching through sense-events and sensational pedagogies offer alternatives for doing multiliteracies and challenge the foundations of English language teaching, by proposing other ways of articulating meanings and experiences outside of language.