“We felt that electricity”: writing-as-becoming in a high school writing class

Abstract

Drawing from data generated in a high school creative writing class, this article presents experiences and moments from a classroom-sited research project that were considered through the theoretical perspective of response-able pedagogies. Using postqualitative methods, this analysis addresses two framing questions: How does turning attention towards the unfolding relations in a writing class illuminate some possibilities of response-able pedagogies? What becomes possible when the teaching of writing emphasises ‘becoming’ (rather than products/achievement)? In response to the first question, turning attention towards the unfolding relations in the class context made new ways of conceptualising writing possible: writing as following energies; writing as making; and writing as producing/traversing boundaries. Considered together, these interwoven practices contributed to the response-able pedagogy of writing-as-becoming. In response to question two, the response-able pedagogy of writing-as-becoming shifted the teaching emphasis from controlled outcomes to the affective experience of connection. This study shows the potential in reconsidering our commitment to teaching writing as (only) a process and to (also) imagine it as a means by which students can experience the vitality and joy of being present with others.