Words Made Flesh: Fusing Imagery and Language in a Polymorphic Literacy

Abstract

ama, show me how to make a star. Two days after Christmas, my five-yearold sits at the kitchen table gilded by late afternoon light, laboriously writing out invitations to a birthday party six months in the future. Why, my four-year-old mumbles around her thumb. Without turning her attention from her carefully drawn letters and her invented spelling, Anna explains: To show my birthday is important. Leaning over her, I wrap my hand around hers, guiding the pencil through a stately pavane of oblique lines. I whisper softly as we draw: Up down up over That's it. Here. Connect the lines at the tip. Delighted with the stars materializing in front of her, she murmurs: Up down up over down. As I slowly loosen my grip, Anna's pencil continues to craft wobbly stars around the edges of her invitation. Anna, begs her sibling shadow, teach me. Intent on her project, Anna shakes her head. No, Baby, I can't. I don't know how. Only my hand knows.