(Re)Placing the Literacy Narrative: Composing in Google Maps

Abstract

This article relies on maps created by students in Google Maps as they explored their literacy sponsors, in an effort to question and explore the future of the traditional literacy narrative. By focusing on the “trade routes” of their literacy acquisition, the students produced digital maps that problematized the linear narrative of progress inherent in many literacy narratives. Excerpts from students’ maps illustrate the temporal and spatial relationships underlying literacy sponsorship.