Curriculum-as-Assemblage: Transgressive (Re)Imaginings in English and Literacies

Abstract

In the midst of multiple ongoing local and global crises, and persistently polarizing discourses about what should and should not be taught in classrooms and schools, we can draw inspiration and hope from thinking across boundaries to reimagine curriculum in English and literacies education. While curriculum has historically contributed to the gatekeeping and sorting of youth as well as perpetuating the status quo, it has also been transformative, expanding possibilities in how we think and express ourselves. In this essay, I examine how English language arts curricula have been and are currently defined, invoked, or imagined, highlighting how innovative research and practice across multiple sociopolitical and disciplinary boundaries can transform how curriculum is enacted and experienced. Drawing from assemblage theories, I present a curriculum-as-assemblage stance that renders visible the interrelatedness of such social, political, and socioeconomic discourses with the knowledges, identities, and literacies that are constructed and negotiated in the broader context of schooling. To illustrate what such a conceptualization can offer, I describe a practice approach to thinking about curriculum as it is enacted, experienced, and rhizomatically connected to the multiple identities and narratives of students and teachers. I argue that an interdisciplinary and transgressive stance toward English and literacies education can foster creative, inclusive, expansive, humanizing, justice-oriented, and joyful thinking forward about our field.