Facing Affects in an Elementary Level Critical English Literacy Class: Utilizing Affective Turns in a Critical Literacy Classroom

This study intends to unpack how students’ affects become strong pedagogical resources for critical analysis of target social issues and to open a discussion on possible ways students can encounter their affects productively as critical readers of English texts. Six fifth grade elementary school students met with two researchers for sixteen hours of American history English lessons. While learning about critical social issues in American history, a student’s ways of bringing his affects into the discussion of social justice issues was interesting. The data from a class interaction was analyzed to unpack how affects experienced by the student were enacted and can possibly be used to develop his critical literacy skills as a reader of American history. Particular attention has been drawn to the student’s affective responses as indicated across the data. The student’s affects maneuvered across his contradictory, incomprehensible social spaces, and those of Native Americans and showed strong potentials to lead productively to the student’s increased capacity to feel others’ affective status and to critical questioning of target social issues. This research discusses pedagogical implications of bringing affective domains into critical literacy education and considering affects as productive resources in critical literacy practices.