Notes on Leander and Rowe 2006 Rhizomatic

Mapping Literacy Spaces in Motion: A Rhizomatic Analysis of a Classroom Literacy Performance
Kevin M. Leander and Deborah Wells Rowe
Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec. 2006), pp. 428-460
International Reading Association
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4151813 on 9/14/08.

This paper outlines an alternative way to describe and evaluate literacy performances in the classroom - rhizomatic analysis.

1. Research Questions
In this article, Leander and Rowe are exploring alternative ways of conceptualizing literacy practice. Looking at literacy in a representative way emphasizes stability and continuity. They posit that literacy is much more interactive, fluid, and creative than can be captured in a traditional representation. To this end, they draw upon Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) conception of rhizomatic analysis and use it to analyze a single literacy performance.

2. Subjects, Setting, Context
The researchers analyzed video recordings from a large collection of recordings of classroom performances. They sought methods of representing what they found.


Other Comments
A performance can be mapped and would resemble a map of a large root system. There are larger roots which seem to signify some orderly organization and some segmentation. Then there are many other roots that shoot off in seemingly random directions, criss-crossing and providing multiple points of departure. If this is applied to a classroom literacy performance, lines of segmentarity are those that seem to carry the idea of structure (like the introduction, following an outline, anything that is conventional and predictable) and lines of flight are the many criss-crossing other roots.
Rhizomatic analysis is primarily concerned with the movement of ideas and the interaction of concepts and bodies, not in defining and organizing meaning.

Rhizomes in this context are an analogy to rhizomes in nature. Rhizomatic relations are seen in roots, particularly things like crabgrass that grow in every direction at once. They are contrasted with arborescent, or tree-like, relations that are hierarchical.

Key Concepts
multiplicity
connection
heterogeneity
asignifying ruptures
lines of flight
lines of segmentarity
assemblage
deterritorialization