Enacting Art-Based Pedagogies

In this collaborative self-study, we employ posthumanist concepts of assemblage and intra-activity to understand our arts-based practices and teacher identities as literacy educators. Drawing on data generated from three arts-based activities aimed to explore our teacher identities of becoming with preservice teachers in our language arts courses, we examine intra-actions as co-constructed art and reconceptualize practice as an assemblage. As critical friends, we gained insights into how practice is a process of becoming, rather than a set of methods to be applied. A posthumanist approach enabled us to focus on intra-actions made possible in our teaching spaces. Our self-study responds to calls to model research that critically examines practice and advances understandings of how arts-based research methods can be enhanced through self-study.