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Eruptive Reading: A Wonder | Full Dialogic Encounter with Virginia Woolf for Changing the Future of Teaching and Learning
Book chapter   Peer reviewed

Eruptive Reading: A Wonder | Full Dialogic Encounter with Virginia Woolf for Changing the Future of Teaching and Learning

Mellie Green
Eruptive Research: Changing Landscapes on Research in Teaching and Learning, pp.51-79
Critical issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching, Volume 26, Brill
08/12/2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004743083_004

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Abstract

This chapter invites readers into an imagined conversation with Virginia Woolf, exploring the tensions between children’s aesthetic development and the standardised curriculum that dominates contemporary education. The dialogue centres on challenging the neoliberal view of reading, using Virginia Woolf’s passionate approach to literature as a key point of reference. It serves as a cornerstone for discussing how reading literature can fulfil and nurture aesthetic sensibilities, inspire imagination, and confront restrictive educational frameworks that overemphasise test-driven instruction and scripted phonics accountability measures. Woolf’s views on reading challenge the present limitations of a narrowed view of reading, advocating for children to have deep and meaningful encounters with literature that profoundly shape their identities. The chapter advances the concept of playscripts as a method of eruptive research. Traditionally created as performance blueprints intended for in theatre, playscripts are reimagined here as dynamic, interactive research outputs that allow researchers and their readers to embody and enact their findings. This approach invites deeper engagement and participation, disrupting conventional academic norms and creating a space for aesthetic and imaginative exploration. By doing so, it encourages reflexivity and critical reflection on contemporary educational practices. It invites an evocative response and a sensate call to action that, arising from a biomediated impulsion, which holds powerful potential impact.

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