ABS308 - Playing with knowledge in college writing: guiding students to perform, create and take risks in contemporary Vygotskian sense

Lois Holzman and Fred Newman created powerful ideas based on their readings of Lev Vygotsky (Newman  Holzman, 2013).  Here is how three of them speak to me: What we do are performances we create and not the behaviors that nature subjects us to.  Our performances raise us “a head taller” (Vygotsky, 1978; Holzman, 2008) when we playfully create them anew instead of consuming well-known paradigms.  Knowing is the privileged power that takes power away from unprivileged.  These offers deeply inspired me and reflected in my teaching practices in the context of an American university.  Among other things, I re-conceptualized students’ writing.  Instead of consuming traditional genre of analytical essay, students compose scripts of conversations, address letters, write poetry – anything that inspires them and allows to create new meanings.  They work together, they appropriate the words of those who we read in the course, and they leave their work open to the participation of peers – i.e., they engage in “a head taller” performance.  This presentation will showcase the work of my students and the guidelines that scaffold routine collective creativity and taking risks.