Whole language approaches to cultivating literacy across a lifetime : a quilted narrative inquiry

This research paper was completed and submitted at Nipissing University, and is made freely accessible through the University of Toronto’s TSpace repositoryThis Major Research Paper presents a narrative inquiry of my literacy journey to explore how whole language approaches to literacy learning and teaching can serve to enrich the experiences of learners their whole lives through. Data methods included revisiting personal artifacts, use of a double-entry journal and interviews with key individuals connected with my literacy learning experiences (parents, a friend, a teacher, a mentor). Moving across five life stages in my literacy journey (emergent literacy; childhood literacy; adolescent literacy; adult literacy; professional and pedagogical literacy), I examine the role of whole-language approaches(Cambourne’s 1988 model of learning as it applies to literacy learning; Smith’s (1982) psycholinguistic analysis of reading and learning to read) to literacy-learning. I make reference to existing research, while focusing on the nature of literacy as a “lifelong process” with reference to my own literacy story. In doing so, I move through a metaphorical working space made possible by implementing Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) four directions of narrative research (inward, outward, backward, forward) and implement their three-dimensional terms(personal and social; past, present and future; place) (p.73) for thinking about narrative inquiry.The inquiry revealed how key individuals contributed to my literacy journey by meeting the seven conditions for literacy-learning identified by Cambourne (1988) as essential for engagement in literacy-learning experiences. I learned that literacy-learning is about more than comprehending texts; it involves consolidating knowledge, responding to complexities that life presents, communicating and learning with others, representing understandings across modalities and developing skills that may transformatively impact our lives and the world