Persistence(ing): Posthuman agency in a Writers’ Studio

This manuscript focuses on agency from a posthumanist stance. For so long, educators’ definitions of agency have focused solely on people. As we read more on posthuman ideas of agency, we were also reading Deleuze and Guattari’s work on philosophy and concepts. These two bodies of scholarship intra-acted with each other to create newness of ideas for us. In other words, readings on philosophy and concepts have helped us to better understand what posthumanist enacted agency is (or what it does). In order to think about enacted agency, we invited the concept of persistence(ing) to think-with-us-and-data-and-theories. Situated in a second grade Writers’ Studio, during a study on personal narratives, we found ourselves intrigued by a 20-minute clip of Katie-working-with-materials to create a 3-dimensional cabin as a way to bring her readers/users to the National Parks to which she travelled with her family. We invite the reader to consider: What is posthuman agency? Or more-than-human agency? How do you know when you see it happening? How do you go about researching this agency? Perhaps most importantly, why does it matter for literacy educators to think of agency as enacted between humans and nonhumans? We conclude by discussing several insights from analysis and why posthuman agency is productive for early literacy research and pedagogy.