Teachers as writers: learning together

This paper reports upon the insights gained through working with teachers as writers at their own level. As part of a two‐year research project into the development of children's voice and verve in writing, a group of fourteen teachers' reflective journeys as writers were documented. Two other groups of teachers and one group of student teachers also took part in writers' workshops across the same period. The data encompassed: questionnaires, observations and teacher commentaries on their own writing, as well as interviews. A number of issues emerged, including: the tension between public and private writing and the security of the writing environment; authenticity in modelling writing; the importance of re‐reading writing at the point of composition; the significance of choice and autonomy in writing and the potency of drama as an ideational and reflective tool. The consequences for classroom practice are also considered. It is argued that in order to enhance the teaching of writing, teachers and student teachers need real opportunities to write at their own level and reflect upon the process.     

Portrait of the student as a young writer: some student survey findings about attitudes to writing and self‐efficacy as writers

This New Zealand‐based article reports on an analysis of data gathered over two years from upper primary school students on their attitudes to writing and writing instruction and their beliefs about their self‐efficacy as developing writers. Responses from 449 students in five diverse schools are included. Through an online survey administered at the beginning and end of each of the two years, students responded to a range of mostly closed questions. Conclusions (including student comments) were made about students' likes, dislikes and preferences as developing writers. Levels of association between their attitudes and gender and between their attitudes and proficiency levels were explored. Conclusions were also made about how student attitudes affect teacher practice.     

Teachers as writers: learning together with others

In the context of renewed interest in teachers' identities as writers and the writers as artist‐educators, this paper reports upon the findings of “Teachers as Writers” (2015–2017). A collaborative partnership between two universities and a creative writing foundation, the study sought to determine the impact of writers' engagement with teachers on changing teachers' classroom practices in the teaching of writing and, as a consequence, in improving outcomes for students. The project afforded opportunities for writers and teachers to work together as learners in order to improve student outcomes. The study involved two complementary datasets: a qualitative dataset of observations, interviews, audio‐capture (of workshops, tutorials and co‐mentoring reflections) and audio‐diaries from 16 teachers; and a randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 32 primary and secondary classes. The findings reveal that the teachers' identities and assurance as writers shifted significantly. The Arvon experience also led to pedagogic shifts which the students reported impacted positively upon their motivation, confidence and sense of ownership and skills as writers. However, these salient dispositional shifts did not impact upon the young people's attainment. The professional writers gained new understandings which substantially altered their conceptions of writers' potential contribution in schools.     

Learning to teach writing through tutoring and journal writing

Structured reflection on practical teaching experiences may help pre‐service teachers to integrate their learning and analyze their actions to become more effective learners and teachers. This study reports on 12 pre‐service English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ individual tutoring of learners of English language writing. The data of the study are the writing journal entries that the pre‐service ESL teachers maintained during their tutoring experience. These journals had common elements: all were used by the pre‐service teachers to consider what funds of knowledge they bring to their teaching of ESL learners, to evaluate their roles as writers, learners and teachers and to reflect on the educational, social and cultural implications of teaching writing in English to speakers of other languages. This article describes ways in which both native and non‐native English speaking pre‐service teachers adapted their instruction to meet the particular needs of individual ESL writers and what they learned in the process. It provides insight regarding the value of using tutoring and reflection generally in teacher education and specifically in the preparation of teachers of ESL.     

Jordanian student teachers' perceptions of teaching writing in kindergartens during their field training experience

The purpose of the study was to examine student teachers' perceptions of teaching writing in kindergartens and to identify to what extent the cooperating teachers influence the student teachers' perceptions. To achieve the research aims, a 31‐item questionnaire was developed by the researchers and administered to 50 student teachers and their cooperating teachers. The questionnaire was administrated to both groups as a pre‐test and to student teachers as a post‐test. The results of the study revealed that student teachers were more likely to be emergent literacy‐oriented in their perceptions of teaching writing than they were to the reading readiness philosophy. Furthermore, the influence of the cooperating teachers was insignificant as the student teachers' perceptions of teaching writing developed earlier were more stable and difficult to alter later. In light of these findings the researchers addressed a number of suggestions and recommendations.     

Addressing the complexity of writing development: Toward an ecological model of assessment

This article offers one potential response to Yancey's (1999) call for a fourth wave of writing assessment able to capture writing development in all of its complexity. Based on an ecological perspective of literate development that situates students’ growth as writers across multiple engagements with writing, including those outside of school, the ecological model of writing assessment described in this article seeks to provide students, teachers, departments, and institutions with fuller, richer accounts of the breadth of students’ literate experiences and how those experiences impact their abilities to accomplish academic tasks throughout the undergraduate years and beyond. Using the University of Central Florida's recent efforts to develop and employ an ecological assessment model as one of many potential examples, this article argues that an ecological model of writing assessment enables institutions to make visible the multiple sites where writing takes place, strengthen the affordances for student learning and writing in these sites, and also respond effectively to the multiple stakeholders invested in understanding writing development, what it involves, and how it might best be supported.     

Students' use of writing strategies and their English writing achievements in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of students' use of writing strategies in light of their English writing achievements in Taiwan. This research used a cognitive approach to examine the process of writing. Forty student writers (including 20 low and 20 high achievers) in Taiwan participated in this study. Strategies used for writing by high and low achievers as revealed by a concurrent think-aloud protocol and immediate retrospective interviews with students were investigated, analysed, and compared. Results indicated that compared to low-achieving student writers, high-achieving student writers were more aware of and focused more on formulating their position statement in planning, generating text, and revising and editing their text, such as changing the meaning and fixing grammatical and spelling errors during their review. The findings are discussed in light of writing strategies and implications for writing pedagogy and teacher education.     

Strategic revisions in the writing of Year 7 students in the UK

This article discusses revisions to personal narrative writing made by Year 7 students (aged 11–12) in a UK secondary school. The concept of strategic revision was used as a basis for analysing drafts and revised texts in order to investigate strategies and techniques deployed by students in the process of revision and how these related to expectations student writers had of their readers.

These analyses suggest that, given a reasonably supportive instructional environment, some Year 7 students can revise their own written texts strategically, and that in doing so they may recruit, and perhaps acquire, a range of writing skills and associated procedural knowledge. They also suggest that in the process of revising their texts, some student writers may have altered their expectations of their readers' understanding, ability to interpret and willingness to empathise.

Implications for researching writing processes and for the writing curriculum are suggested, including the use of students' revisions to tap into the complex sets of procedural knowledge which seem to underlie aspects of writing and writing development.     

What goes on inside my head when I'm writing? A case study of 8–9‐year‐old boys

This article explores the idea that in order to improve the way we teach children to write, we need to improve our understanding of children as writers. Although developing their metacognitive skills can give us a clearer window into children's understanding, we must be wary of assuming that they ascribe the same meaning to their metacognitive metalanguage as we, their teachers, do. But we also need to beware of making assessments based just on the children's writing – children can use writing to hide from us what they do not know and cannot do. Through the presentation of three brief case studies of lower‐attaining Year 4 (8–9‐year‐old boys) the article considers the implications of assessing writing without acknowledging the role of the writer.     

Whose writing is it anyway? Issues of control in the teaching of writing

In the UK, teachers have moved from a process approach to the teaching of writing to a more didactic and objectives led programme. This has given rise to concerns about the suppression of creativity and enjoyment. Writing is a convention bound activity where spelling, punctuation and expectations about different text types imply a right and wrong way of writing. On the other hand, the best writers are able to use and subvert conventions in creative and individual ways. Teachers of young writers are faced with the difficulty of teaching the correct conventions at the same time as encouraging individual responses. This paper considers evidence from a small‐scale study that may shed some light on how teachers cope with these potentially opposing demands. Evidence points to teachers giving very clear guidance to pupils about what is expected of them and carefully scaffolding pupils' learning. However, scaffolding implies a stage where control is handed over to the learners and in this study there was little evidence of these teachers handing over the control. It is argued that for children to learn the conventions at the same time as developing confidence to use these conventions in individual and creative ways, this handover of control is essential.     

Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing

This article explores what teachers and students can learn about contemporary story‐telling from a study of fan fiction – that is, stories created by readers and viewers out of the canonical material of previously published fictions. Drawing on the example of Pirates of the Caribbean, it investigates ways in which fan fiction writers develop codes and conventions to govern themselves. For example, online litmus tests establish when a writer is self‐indulgently writing ‘Mary Sue’ characters into a story; the self‐styled Protectors of the Plot Continuum patrol the fictional limits of an imagined world to make sure that canonical information is not violated by fan fiction writers. This article makes use of such examples to investigate how quality control in fan fiction is codified, and to explore what teachers can learn from such enterprises about contemporary writing, reading and viewing. It compares these possibilities with issues of online literacy outlined by Henry Jenkins under three headings: the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge.     

The professional writing teacher as author's editor

Editing includes teaching authors how to write, but the traditional editor's task, like the teacher's, is complicated by the additional requirement of being a gatekeeper of an author's work. When teachers (like editors) see their primary task as judges or gatekeepers, they can become engaged in adversarial relationships that contradict their role as enablers/teachers. The author's editor, on the other hand, is an emerging model of the editor‐author relationship that focuses on helping authors meet the expectations of gatekeeping journal and book editors. Teachers can use the author's‐editor model in the professional writing classroom to minimize the current‐traditional emphasis on the product and emphasize the collaborative nature of the writing process.     

Shared understandings: structuring the writing experience through dialogue

When teachers view writing as a social process in which authors write for real audiences and authentic purposes, they change their instruction accordingly to meet the needs of writers with learning disabilities. As more experienced members of a larger community of writers, teachers play a primary role in apprenticing students into the inherently social functions of writing. Through teacher-student dialogues about the complexities of the writing process, students gradually develop and control their own writing "voice" as they use and transform the shared understandings of the group process. Text structure, writing strategies, and metacognitive knowledge of the writing process provide opportunities for teachers and students with learning disabilities to interact and create shared understandings about the composition process. This article reviews some recent attempts to use text structures and the writing process as frameworks to guide the composition dialogue.     

Does student self‐assessment empower or discipline students?

Student self‐assessment is a popular practice for enhancing student empowerment in the assessment process. However, in recent times various writers have questioned whether the practice of student self‐assessment automatically enhances student autonomy. Some writers have even warned that students' participation in the assessment process may discipline, rather than empower, students. How can student self‐assessment be practised in a way that empowers its students instead of disciplining or controlling them? It is argued that student empowerment can only be realized if the ways that power is exercised over students in self‐assessment practices are first understood. This paper examines the issues of power that underlie student self‐assessment practices and analyses how different notions of power enhance or undermine student empowerment. The notion of the teacher's unilateral power as the basis for student self‐assessment is critically examined against three contrasting notions of power in student self‐assessment: sovereign power, epistemological power and disciplinary power.     

Student‐teachers' perspectives on positive and negative social processes in school

In recent years, the Standards for Qualified Teacher Status in England have placed new emphasis on student‐teachers' ability to become integrated into the ‘corporate life of the school’ and to work with other professionals. Little research, however, has been carried out into how student‐teachers perceive the social processes and interactions that are central to such integration during their initial teacher education school placements. This study aims to shed light on these perceptions. The data, gathered from 23 student‐teachers through interviews and reflective writing, illustrate the extent to which the participants perceived such social processes as supporting or obstructing their development as teachers. Signals of inclusion, the degree of match or mismatch in students' and school colleagues' role expectations, and the social awareness of both school and student‐teacher emerged as crucial factors in this respect. The student‐teachers' accounts show their social interactions with school staff to be meaningful in developing their ‘teacher self’ and to be profoundly emotionally charged. The implications for mentor and student‐teacher role preparation are discussed in this article.     

Illuminating growth and struggles using mixed methods: Practice-based professional development and coaching for differentiating SRSD instruction in writing

In this mixed methods study, qualitative, quantitative, and single-case methods were combined to provide a comprehensive investigation of teacher and student outcomes following practice-based professional development (PBPD) for self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) in writing. Qualitative observations were used to determine outcomes among the three-fourth grade teachers involved, a nested quantitative model was used to analyze classwide student writing outcomes across 53 students in the three classes, and single case design was used to determine differential outcomes among randomly selected struggling and average writers in each class. PBPD was followed by coaching for differentiation based on student performance and fidelity as teachers taught their students strategies for writing timed imaginary stories (with self as main character), as required by the state writing test. Qualitative results indicated two teachers did not differentiate writing instruction without coaching; one teacher was unresponsive to coaching and did not differentiate instruction. Classwide analysis demonstrated significant growth in writing at the class level for students from baseline to posttesting. Single case design results indicated mixed outcomes among struggling and average writers and instances where instruction was not effective. Teachers indicated high social validity for PBPD and for SRSD; students indicated high social validity for SRSD. Results across the multiple methods illuminate growth and struggles often disguised in group data and are addressed to aid in understanding and enhancing PBPD as well as instruction in SRSD and other evidence-based practices. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

Learning to Write: Plowing and Hoeing,Labor and Essaying

In this paper Amanda Fulford addresses the issue of student writing in the university, and explores how the increasing dominance of outcome‐driven modes of learning and assessment is changing the understanding of what it is to write, what is expected of students in their writing, and how academic writing should best be supported. The starting point is the increasing use of what are termed “technologies” of writing — “handbooks” for students that address issues of academic writing — that systematize, and smooth the work of writing in, Fulford argues, an unhelpful way. This leads to a reconsideration of what it means to write in the university, and what it is to be a student who writes. Fulford explores etymologically the concept of “writing” and suggests that it might be seen metaphorically as physical labor. Writing as physical labor is explored further through the agricultural metaphors in Henry David Thoreau's Walden and through Stanley Cavell's reading of that text. In making a distinction between writing‐as‐plowing and writing‐as‐hoeing, Fulford argues that some technologies of writing deny voice rather than facilitate it, and she concludes by offering a number of suggestions for the teaching and learning of writing in the university that emphasize the value of being lost (in one's subject and one's work) and finding one's own way out. These “lessons” are illustrated with reference to Thoreau's text Walden and to American literature and film.     

Writing and writer identity: the poor relation and the search for voice in ‘personal literacy’

The teaching of writing has been a relatively neglected aspect of research in literacy. Cultural and socio‐economic reasons for this are suggested. In addition, teachers often readily acknowledge themselves as readers, but rarely as writers. Without a solid grasp of compositional processes, teachers are perhaps prone to adopt schemes that promote mechanistic writing approaches, which are reinforced by top‐down discourses of literacy. This ‘schooling literacy’ is often at odds with children's lives and their narratives of social being. After discussing theories of writing, tensions between ‘schooling literacy’ and ‘personal literacy’ are debated. It is suggested that the disjuncture of the two exposes gaps that provide teachers with spaces in which to construct a writing curriculum embedded in children's language and funds of knowledge. The elevation of this ‘personal literacy’ is viewed as an imperative to enhance children's identities as writers, as well as their engagement with writing.     

‘Baddies’ in the classroom: media education and narrative writing

When teachers allow students to write stories that include elements of popular media, we must ask what to do with these media elements once they have entered the classroom. This article relates findings from a classroom study focusing on children's media‐based story writing. The study looks at children as producers of new media texts and describes their activities as a form of ‘media education’. The data show that through their production of media‐based stories, the children are reflecting on their consumption of media. Furthermore, the children's media‐based stories make explicit some of their implicit knowledge of new media forms. Lastly, the children's stories provide ample opportunities for teachers to engage in important discussions about media within the framework of existing writing programmes.     

Student teachers as creative writers: does an understanding of creative pedagogies matter?

Teaching creative writing in primary schools requires an understanding of creative pedagogies that value autonomy and for educators to draw on their own experiences of the creative writing process to support the development of their pupils. This article draws on evidence from 58 undergraduate primary student teachers to further understand how their appreciation of creative pedagogies, combined with their experiences of creative writing, impacts on their approach to the teaching of writing in primary schools. Evidence from questionnaires and interviews reveals that factors such as freedom, choice and focusing on the personal aspects of writing are valued but often because they make writing fun for children, rather than because they develop children's creative behaviours and creative writing. Student teachers' own personal experiences of these factors affect whether they are likely to integrate them into their future practice in school. It is argued that if students experience creative writing that is underpinned by a creative pedagogy within their initial teacher education, they will be better equipped to teach creative writing and prepare children for being writers.