In this qualitative study, I explored the school writing experiences of four Black upper middle-class children in elementary school and their beliefs about school writing. Participants included three girls and one boy. All students were in fourth or fifth grade and attended three public schools in a metropolitan area in the Southeast region of the U.S. I drew on critical race theory to center the experiences of people of color within systems of privilege or oppression (Bell 1992, 1995; Crenshaw 1988, 1995; Delgado, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Solorzano, 1997, 1998) such as the education system. I also used sociocultural theories of learning (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986; Wertsch, 1991) to examine aspects of culture, class, and lived experiences. Within this framework, I situated the experiences of Black upper middle-class children in broad, systemic contexts, as well as personal, environmental, and cultural understandings. Ivanic’s (2004) discourses of writing also provided a framework to anchor the varied discourses on writing children commonly take up and embrace. My work aimed to listen to and honor the voices of the young Black girls and boys in the study, thus I used a narrative inquiry methodology (Clandinin, 2013). I used a narrative analysis approach (Riessman, 2008) to analyze the data and represent the findings in narrative constellations. Findings showed that all four students 1) placed importance on technical writing skills, 2) experienced highly structured writing assignments, 3) felt teachers avoided critical and sociopolitical issues in class and in writing opportunities, and 4) experienced a silencing and invisibility of their Black identities in school. The implications call attention to the hidden messaging Black upper middle-class children receive that writing about and discussing race is negative or offensive. Thus, educators may be more intentional about fostering professional development for teachers on bias and how to foster dialogue and writing about race in a safe way for all students. Secondly, there is a need for education policy makers and curriculum writers to produce innovative resources to aid teachers in bringing critical and sociopolitical topics into the classroom, as well as creating a school space that affirms ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity. INDEX WORDS: Black Upper Middle-Class, Elementary Students, Children, School Writing, Student Writing, Writing Instruction, Writing Attitudes, Student Voice, Narrative Inquiry, Sociocultural Theory, Critical Race Theory, Discourses of Writing, Intersectionality, Narrative Constellations A NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF BLACK UPPER MIDDLE-CLASS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES WITH SCHOOL WRITING

/pdf/a-narrative-inquiry-of-black-upper-middle-class-children-s-3tpetar6i1.pdf

A narrative inquiry of black upper middle-class children's experiences with school writing

Writing, grammar and the body: a cognitive stylistics framework for teaching upper primary narrative writing

Despite the importance of writing skills to school and life success, there is scant research into the enabling and constraining conditions that shape elementary students’ views about their writing practices. This paper examines students’ views about writing through the lens of reflexivity theory. Applying an explanatory sequential model of mixed-method design, it first describes the development of a self-report questionnaire to investigate the views of 570 elementary students about themselves as writers. Second, it draws on semi-structured interviews with 46 students across Years 3 to 6. The results show that the majority of students see themselves as autonomous and meta-reflexive writers. In addition, results indicate time, teacher pedagogy and the place to practice writing as contextual conditions experienced by learners and place an emphasis on the personal conditions such as students’ lack of confidence, persistence and ideas. We discuss implications for further practice in elementary schools.

“I get all my ideas from the tree”: investigating elementary students’ views as reflexive writers

Abstract It is important that teachers are conscious of and reflect upon their views of writing in order to support students to achieve writing outcomes. This study examined teacher views about which aspects of writing they considered most important in years one and two and explored how these views came to be formed. Four West Australian teachers participated in semi-structured interviews, during which they carried out a think-aloud process, voicing their thoughts as they examined, commented on, and evaluated young students’ writing samples. These data provided insights into their reasoning as they assessed children’s writing in years one and two. Findings revealed that participants focussed on the more surface-level, or secretarial aspects of writing, such as punctuation and ‘correct’ structure for the genre. The data indicated that teachers were particularly influenced by their knowledge of the contexts in which they worked, including knowledge they shared with colleagues, together with curriculum and systemic documents such as the Judging Standards materials supplied by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) or the NAPLAN marking guides. These results highlight how systemic assessments can shape teacher perceptions of writing more generally than the purpose for which they were originally intended. 

/pdf/writing-assessment-in-early-primary-classrooms-thoughts-from-1ezlwbez.pdf

Writing assessment in early primary classrooms: thoughts from four teachers

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44020-022-00007-1.pdf

The structure of a child's writing experience stems from the affect, embodiment, and materiality of their immediate engagement with activities in the classroom. When a child's movements and emotions are restricted, so too is their writing. This engagement shapes the experiential landscape of classroom writing, and the way that children perceive, value and feel about writing, affects their motivation which predicts their writing attainment. This paper reveals the structure of children's consciousness while expressing ideas through creative writing. It does so by presenting an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the writing experience in the classroom. In the study, eight Year 6 (11-12 years old) children from a school in Perth, Australia were interviewed, and qualitative data were analysed to interpret the essential components of the writing experience. The results produced three main themes (sub-themes noted in brackets): The Writing World (Watching, Ideas from Elsewhere, Flowing); The Self (Concealing and Revealing, Agency, Adequacy); and Schooled Writing (Standards, Satisfying Task Requirements, Rules of Good Writing). The themes indicate a binary experience of writing where the child's consciousness shifts between their imagination (The Writing World) and the task before them (Schooled Writing), and each affects the way the experience of the self appears to the writer. When comparing the experience with that of authors, one notices that the experience of words as authorial tools is missing. The results imply that the writing environment, and the individual's response to it, may restrict the engagement and the phenomenality of writing.

How children experience creative writing in the classroom

Classroom teachers would recognise the struggle of engaging all students in producing quality writing assignments. This might be the view from the outside, but the world experienced by the child during the act of writing may be comprised of potentially rich and signicant meaning that is waiting to be uncovered. This paper explores writing research from cognitive, affective, and social perspectives as the foundations for the major determinants on children’s writing experience and engagement. In light of modern trends in technology and pedagogy, we argue for a shift in perspective that views these determinants as crucial factors constituting and shaping the lived experience of the act of writing. Drawing upon various disciplines, we suggest a new phenomenological orientation that positions writing as an experience of the self, the expression of ideas, and the existential phenomena of the lifeworld, to investigate this rarely addressed field of writing research. We offer an emergent preliminary working framework useful for informing pedagogical approach, and we highlight future phenomenological research needed in this area.

A phenomenological perspective of children's writing

The abstract nature of grammar makes metalinguistic thinking a challenge for both teachers and students. However, it is suggested writing conferences in which students are encouraged to reflect on grammatical choices and their impact on meaning may be an effective means to develop metalinguistic awareness. This paper draws on cognitive linguistics and mentor texts to investigate what impact a concept-led, dialogic approach to grammar teaching has in the context of student-teacher discussions. By means of writing conferences between a teacher and three Year Five students, the paper explores how students made effective grammatical choices, as a result of metalinguistic dialogue with their teacher. Six concepts, scope, action chains, deixis, attentional windowing, fictive motion, and figure and ground, provided the explicit foci for imagining narrative scenes and appropriate grammatical choices. The findings suggest these concepts may have an enduring effect on students’ ability to make independent and creative choices in their writing. 

Brett Healey

Papers

How children experience creative writing in the classroom

A phenomenological perspective of children's writing

Explicit embodiment of narrative worlds: a case study of student-teacher concept-led grammar conferencing for writing