Sponsors of Pleasure: Wide Reading Re-imagined Through Social Curation

This article moves beyond book-based school ‘wide reading’ to propose constellations of multimodal media, including music videos, fashion parades, literary works, online games and material artefacts, along with associated pedagogies, as sponsors of pleasure. The article, based on empirical research with teachers in an Australian secondary school, proposes how the pleasure teachers experience in textual curation and research during curriculum planning might inform understandings of what reading might be for students. The author also considers the barriers to recognising diverse texts as having merit for study. Featuring Mattel’s Barbie, Kanye West and Andy Warhol, the article demonstrates how curation can inspire a vibrant reading fan culture and asks how teachers and students can negotiate or co-design ‘reading for pleasure’ curricula that make meaningful use of learner desires to collaboratively seek and creatively collate traces of meaning across media. Reading is an inevitable, spontaneous and enjoyable aspect of these practices.