Mapping with children to understand the geographies of learning to write

This article considers the geographies of literacy learning by analysing maps that children drew about their experiences. The maps were created during a mapping-and-talking session with the researchers. Sociomaterial ways of thinking were used to foreground the relationships between people, texts, tools, technologies and spaces, in which literacy actions and practices occur. Four cases are outlined and analysed using the material, connected, and textual dimensions of literacy learning. Place-use and place-behaviour highlighted the material dimension; cognitive, social, and participatory activity focused on the connected dimension; and visual and linguistic activity addressed the textual dimension. Connections were found between the human, material, textual and spatial elements of children's maps, signalling that quality literacy learning is a networked experience. Children's maps indicated that literacy learning occurs outside the boundaries of the school environment, with rich home-based writing evident in children's homes with their families, and that literacy learning is still predominantly a print-based activity.