“Look, Karen, I’m Running Like Jell-O”: Imagination as a Question, a Topic, a Tool for Literacy Research and Learning

In this paper I examine the role of imagination in literacy learning using data collected over a 5-year period in my primary classrooms. My conception of imagination as a missing component in literacy instruction was raised by a child’s question about the importance of the read-aloud experience as a daily literacy practice. That question, and my failure to answer it effectively for my student, prompted me to undertake a close study of imagination and its role in discourse acquisition. The study progressed from a general look at how imagination makes itself visible in the work of children to a conceptual structure that proposes an inside-out theory of literacy learning. This structure presents identity, discourse appropriation, and what I am calling the authoring process as essential elements that are unified through the imaginative actions of students as they come into contact with the texts, tools, and props of each discipline. I argue that to be successful and meaningful to all, literacy teaching must begin and end with a focus on imagination.