Listening Towards Joy: Journalistic Learning and the Civic Possibilities of Writing Pedagogy in Teacher Education

Abstract

Academic writing instruction often positions argumentation and persuasion as the primary modes of civic discourse, reinforcing adversarial forms of public discourse beyond the classroom. This article argues that writing pedagogy centred on joy can reimagine civic writing, orienting it toward relational learning, ethical representation, and writing as a way of being (Yagelski, 2009) rather than writing designed “to persuade, to argue, to win” (Neville, 2023, p. 94). Drawing on practitioner inquiry and a world-building civic education framework, this study examined how teacher candidates engaged in journalistic learning as a third space (Gutierrez et al., 1995; Moje et al., 2009) to bridge school and out-of-school literacies. Findings show that listening—requiring participants to suspend assumptions and attend carefully to others—reshaped beliefs and relational habits for teacher candidates. Joy emerged not despite this labour, but because of it, signaling deep engagement and pointing toward more ethical, relational civic futures.