The formation of writer identity through writing response groups in the classroom

<p>Supporting the formation of children's identity as writers in the context of interaction within a writing response group was the focus of this study. The children in the study were in a composite Year Seven and Eight class. The children were randomly placed in groups of five or six members. Talk in the groups, students' writing journals, and the teacher/researcher's journal were analysed from a socio-cultural perspective to investigate how the group contributed to the formation of children's literate identity. The analysis revealed that responses served to acknowledge children's writing as interesting and worthy of attention. The acknowledgement created a social energy that contributed to growth in children's writing, enabling children access to the roles they desired in the classroom. The study highlighted the importance of children being able to form an identity as a writer to enable them to successfully engage in literacy activities.</p>

The formation of writer identity through writing response groups in the classroom

<p>Supporting the formation of children's identity as writers in the context of interaction within a writing response group was the focus of this study. The children in the study were in a composite Year Seven and Eight class. The children were randomly placed in groups of five or six members. Talk in the groups, students' writing journals, and the teacher/researcher's journal were analysed from a socio-cultural perspective to investigate how the group contributed to the formation of children's literate identity. The analysis revealed that responses served to acknowledge children's writing as interesting and worthy of attention. The acknowledgement created a social energy that contributed to growth in children's writing, enabling children access to the roles they desired in the classroom. The study highlighted the importance of children being able to form an identity as a writer to enable them to successfully engage in literacy activities.</p>

Narrative Inquiry as Relational Research Methodology and Andragogy: Adult Literacy, Identities and Identity Shifting

Using narrative inquiry as a relational methodology and as andragogy, the research puzzle was to deepen understanding of the experiences of women, living with limited literacies and as they engaged in tutoring. This work animates the temporal, curriculum and life making experiences of a tutee and tutor within the context of adult literacy with a focus on learning to write. As the study progressed and as trust developed, tension filled stories were experienced, shared and reimagined. Thinking through the lens of Dewey’s continuity of experience we demonstrate the links between literacies, curriculum making, and efforts to shift identities. Field texts provided textured and nuanced descriptions of narrative inquiry as andragogy, while supporting the tutee to expand her literate identity and the tutor to become more relational. This work invites readers to reimagine the ways in which educators practice alongside adults who are described as struggling readers and writers.

Holding Space for Literate Identity Co-Construction

Many students of color who are also identified as “struggling” readers are likely to have negative experiences in school. In this article, I discuss the findings of a case study examining how reader identities emerged in and through language for such students. The discourse data analyzed here concern an interactional pattern in which the focal students and their teacher collaborated in disrupting identities of deficiency, and instead constructed literate identities within whole-group discussions of text. These findings highlight moments of agency from students marginalized in schools and point toward ways that teachers and students can collaboratively create space for students’ literate voices to be heard.

Multiple Possibilities: The Multi-literate Lives of Three Children

This paper presents findings from an eleven-year ethnographic study which describes how three children used different sign systems to become literate, to define who they are and to construct their literate identity. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. Each child used multiple literacies to learn, understand and create meaning more fully; using their motivated interest in a preferred literacy to scaffold their learning of another literacy.In analysing this rich literacies use I have come to understand that literacies are complex in their conception and use and that all sign systems (e.g. art, dance, reading, writing, videogaming, etc.) operate using common semiotic principles. Sign systems as literacies are multimodal, meaning-focused and motivated; they involve specific social and cultural practices which differ depending on site and community. During every literate act the children in this study made extensive use of the semantic, sensory, syntactic and pragmatic cuing systems to make meaning, regardless of the literacies used.