Background: Researchers interested in more playful literacy practices often abandon school-related contexts to instead follow young people to after-school settings, community spaces, social spaces, home environments, and online hangouts. However, play also makes itself visible, even (and sometimes especially) in more formalized learning spaces.…

The rain forest murals in the author's school began as a request from her principal to have students decorate the cafeteria with their own paintings. She decided to brainstorm ideas with her eighth-grade students. Taking into consideration the architectural space and the environmental concerns they wanted to convey, students chose the rain forest…