Reconceptualizing literacy: Experimentation and play in audio literacy narratives

The literacy-as-success myth is prevalent in print-based literacy narratives but how students relate to this dominant myth in modes beyond print is still unknown. To learn more about how students characterize literacy in a non-print-based mode, I analyzed 170 audio literacy narratives (ALNs) from students who uploaded their essay to the Digital Archives of Literacy. Findings show that students ignore the literacy-as-success myth and instead offer a capacious view of literacy as an ongoing, fluid process of experimentation, communal connection, and play. Students promote literacy not as an end point but rather as a place to invent and reinvent oneself and to rethink previously held definitions of literacy. They also utilize creative and innovative composing approaches that not only expand the literacy narrative genre but also facilitate reimagination of their literate lives. Ultimately, audio literacy narratives provide a valuable means to disrupting the literacy myth and promoting a more expansive understanding of literacy development that breeds curiosity, creativity, and invention. As a result, it is an important assignment in writing classrooms.