Early Childhood Writing

For some reason my laptop won't connect to the internet. It happened all of a sudden and nothing seems to work. This is from my phone, and I will probably have to do some fenagalling in the PCL after class today in order to get this post up.

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Dyson, A. H. (1999). Coach Bombay’s kids learn to write: Children’s appropriation of media material for school literacy. Research in the Teaching of English, 33(May – check if it is 1 or 2), 367-402.

Author: Anne Haas Dyson – UC-Berkely at the time of publication, 1981 Ph D from University of Texas, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2006. ahdyson@illinois.edu  Research interests in sociocultural processes of schooling and literacy – focusing on the qualities of experiences of children in and out of school, language and identity in school.

Date: 1999

Research Questions: What mediums are being appropriated and how are children appropriating them to be seen in written texts? How are the written texts mediating participation with the school world? What’s happening with children, literacy, and media?

Context (need for study): The study of appropriation of storybook text and environmental print far overshadows the study of textual and conceptual knowledge of sports media embedding in textual practice.

Methods: Year-long ethnographic study. Urban 1^st grade, focus on a friend group. Documenting range of cultural texts. School has the widest cross-section of population in Bay area. 4-6 hours of observation and audiotape per week for 8 months, focusing on the relationship of  5-6 students during writing workshop and other writing tasks. Took heavy notes after each day of observation. Characterized references to media type. Studied writing products for media reference, content appropriated from media, method of appropriation (un/embedded). Examined the roles, dialogue, and social context of writing events. Noting tensions during recontextualization.

Findings: Bakhtin (1981) we all borrow text = Interpretivist. Although media texts are of low cultural value (think about my multimodal composition lit review), students are using them to recontextualize school.

            Kids know states by the teams  that are there or references to sports movies. Marcel wrote about himself as a participant in sports or used cartoon characters/pop culture references to bridge into official school talk.

            Use of talk to create new realities and identities in play and then wrote or talked about them in class. Movies provide context for relationships and authority (in coaches).

            The children created realities, mediated by knowledge of and references to outside school media, that they strived hard to keep rules and roles within the public, school space. Their play space is in verbal/media textual spaces – the city doesn’t offer the open space to play. The resulting texts show overlapping social worlds, drawing on equally complex layers.

            “To be effective, teachers must construct realities in which children have roles as competetent actors—but teachers also must learn to differentiate worlds, to see communicative agency, textual knowledge, and embedded concepts in sources other than the ‘usual’ ones” (p. 396).

Discussion (my connection):

            I am fascinated by and thrilled with the necessity of imagination in learning to write, about appropriating identities (Litowitz, 1993). The student has to see themselves as capable of being,/doing something. The teacher must then foster such a future-looking child, whose competence leads to new possibilities (p. 397).  This is part of an environment that I would love to tend to in the garden of my class, where curricula is permeable (Dyson, 1993) and I am busy – not acting as authority to fill empty minds, but practicing “loaning of consciousness” (Bruner, 1986, p. 175) in order to offer students the terminology and talk to make the unofficial official.

            This is a scary idea for many, I am sure – a giving of control to children, it may seem – but it seems to fit in with a ZPD, encouraging and pulling along, letting students appropriate as they see fit, adopting official talk now, later, or never.

            On another look at the participants, I would be interested in how the “brothers and sisters” interacted with students outside this small group of friends. I am interested in how sports media gets to be the focus. I realize that this paper has limited the examples, and I think my question is more about who gets to pick the dominant discourse. Perhaps Marcel is the leader, but how did he get that way? What about him makes others say, “I’m a cheerleader for his team” or “I’m going to draw a football player, too”? He has knowledge to share, but what made this the currency? It’s not like he’s playing the teacher-role as in Wohlwend (2007) – who has a piece about literacy learning through Disney Princess play (thinking about my life with a daughter, what kind of princessing will I value?).

           

Rowe, D. W. (2008). Social contracts for writing: Negotiating shared understandings about text in the preschool years. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(1), 66-95.

Author: Deborah Wells Rowe – Vanderbilt, Dept. of Teaching and Learning. PhD - Indiana (1986). deborah.w.rowe@vanderbilt.edu  Longitudinal ethnographic studies – focusing on how interactions with people in school community solidifies or directs what about and how children learn literacy. Working with David Dickinson in Early Reading First project.

Date: 2008 – beginning of President Obama’s first term. Reeling from NCLB, reassessing state mandates on literacy. Many thoughts on English Language Learners as well as integrating new literacies.

Research Questions: What are social contracts that adults impose on children as they learn at the Walker Preschool writing table? What are the social contracts that experienced writers use to define the parameters of individual and socially constructed writing? How do these contracts get negotiated during writing activities?

Context (need for study): There are studies with young school and preschool children, but there is a research gap around the writing practices of two-year-olds.

Methods: 9 month ethnographic study, 2 year-olds, 2 teachers; worked together to create literacy experiences related to book reading and writing. Design study – she had to implement a pattern to give to students, and there was no control group. Designed based on learning principles – see Table 1 on page 73. Rowe calls it a “naturalistic study” – 2 days a week for the school year, acted as a participant-observer. Fieldnotes and audiotape along with informal interviews and photocopies of children’s texts. Video taping of writing tables. Paretn-survey (open-ended) about home literacy experiences.

Findings: Rowe identifies different forms of writing for students who write their names: scribbles; lines, circles, and curves; cursive-like; and letter-like froms.

Chart format not kept in copy = see pages 78-79

Social contract Anomalous child behavior Expected child behavior Adult behavior 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Boundary contract The edges of pieces of paper create physical boundaries for texts Message contract Children’s marks can represent messages Distinctive-forms contract Writing and drawing use different forms of marks Text-as-object contract A goal of writing is the production of material texts Text-ownership contract Texts are material property individually owned by the authors Text-centrality contract Texts mediate social interaction in literacy events Draws across several pieces of paper Draws from paper onto table Ignores requests to “read” marks Refuses to assign message to marks (e.g., “I can’t.” or “I don’t know.”) Uses the same marks for writing and drawing Pays little or no attention to product after completion Abandons products on table after completion Cuts or tears product apart after completion Abandons products Shows no interest in labeling with name or taking product home Writes on another child’s products Allows other children to write on own product Writes on abandoned products Tries to use nontext objects to mediate interaction during writing events Confines marks to single sheet of paper Reads marks as message when asked Makes marks for name when asked Makes marks for dictated message Explains spontaneously what marks mean Uses different marks for writing and drawing within a task Uses different marks for writing and drawing consistently across tasks Wants to preserve or save product Wants to use product for social purpose Calls adults’attention to product Requests help saving product in personal space (e.g., “cubbie” or school bag) Asks to take product home Protests if others take own product Protests if others write on own product Uses text objects to mediate interaction during writing events Gives product to specified person Uses product to engage adult attention Suggests using one piece of paper Straightens materials and isolates target piece of paper Responds with the following statements and suggestions: “Read it to me!” “What does that say?” “Does it have a message?” “Does that [mark] say [x]?” Responds with the following questions: “Did you write or draw?” “What did you say?” “What did you make?” “What did you draw?” “What did you write?” Uses talk to draw children’s attention to products Praises children’s products Saves and labels children’s products with their names Labels product with children’s names Suggests children take products home Prevents children from writing on or taking another child’s product Suggests use of text object in interaction (e.g., give it to someone, read it aloud, or view it) Rejects use of nontext object to mediate interaction during writing event Figure–ground contract Marks are the central focus in written texts; paper is the background 8 Reader–text obligation contract Texts require literate action; texts should be read Rejects blank text objects: Uses blank piece of paper to mediate interaction during literacy event Receives a text and discards it without looking at it Receives a text and responds to sender orally without looking at text Makes marks on paper before using text object to mediate interaction during literacy event Views texts received from others Asks for help in reading a text Reads a text by commenting on the visual display Reads a text by looking at the visual display and assigning a linguistic message “Where’s the message?” “You need to write a message on it.” Directs children to look at the texts they received Directs children to read the text they received Reads aloud the texts that children received (continued)

Page(s): 78, 05-RRQ-43-1-Rowe by Lisa Kochel

NOOK Study (Johnathan Bonner, emailthebonners@yahoo.com). This material is protected by copyright.

            Social contract 9: Distinctive-meanings contract Writing and drawing use the same media but represent meaning in different ways

            Three of the contracts deal with negotiating the understanding that symbols and systems of writing have meaning and potential for multiple meanings. Adults negotiated participation of children as well as coming to terms with expected relationships between people and texts – what we do with them, how we treat them, etc. Adults would guide purposeful markings that went off the paper back within the boundaries of the paper. ½ the children tried at one point or another to turn in blank pieces of paper as their contributions to the literacy event.

Discussion (my connection): Quoting Barton and Hamilton (2000, p. 8) that literacy knowledge is located “in the relations between people, within groups and communities, rather than as a set of properties residing in individuals” is right up my alley in folklore – artistic communication within small groups. This is how I’ve come to see knowledge, not as something I have, but something we share. In a collection of people, there are those that have a more dominant role, perhaps deeper understanding of how things work (think leadership levels within the Masons). But I like that this frame takes a step away from individual writing behaviors and focuses on “the child in interaction with the people and materials that are part of everyday writing events” (p. 69). It seems to me that this looks at the least contrived place writing exists. I guess you do have to create the space and event before it becomes natural practice – to give cause or reason for, to value (putting paper and crayons out for kids as opposed to not.

            It is interesting to consider how I will guide and maintain (negotiate) my preconceived notions of what writing is with my child. In a similar way to her being fed, I find it so difficult to step out of the way and let her do it herself. I am pleased when she does, yet I feel like I hover – I am fearful of messes. Does this translate into writing? Does she just let me spoon her oatmeal in the morning because it is faster and/or she doesn’t want to deal with may hands in a ready-to-catch position? I want to be able to let her explore with writing without me manipulating and “correcting” her. There must be a balance…mustn’t there?

Wohlwend, K. E. (2007). Reading to play and playing to read: A mediated discourse analysis of early literacy apprenticeship. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 56, 377-393.

Author: Karen E. Wohlwend – Indiana University, Dept of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education. Ph D Iowa (2007), kwohlwen@indiana.edu; Similar article (More similar to Dyson, 1999) in 2009 “Damsels in discourse: Girls consuming and producing identity texts through Disney Princess play” https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/3463

Date: 2007 – Investigation into teacher motivations and ideologies (as readers/writers, on homework, language usage)

Research Questions: “How does ‘playing school,’ an ordinary childhood pastime, shape children’s reading abilities, classroom identities, and relative social positioning?” (p. 377)

Context (need for study): Drawing on Lave and Wenger (1991), looking at “literacy apprenticeships [which] are situated in embodied classroom communities of practice” (p. 378).

Methods: Dyson and Genishi (2005) case study methodology – asked people she new in 3 school districts about classes with specific “child-directed literacy-play periods”.  Conducted surveys and environment scales to find two pilot classrooms.24 weekly visits (2-3 hours) over one year: fieldnotes, audiotapes, and videotapes. Constant comparative analysis to establish a coding scheme, began recording the teacher-play that occurred during play. Mediated discourse analysis – identifying practices by meadiated actions and meaning-making processes. Used to QSR N6 – a qual data analysis software to locate instances of “reading/playing nexus”.

Ethnographic study with critical sociocultural perspective of literacy play in one kindergarten classroom (teacher has master’s in developmental reading and 17 years of classroom experience). Two children from family of immigrants, 4  Vygostkian thought of learning happening as participation increases. Influenced by activity model, uses discourse analysis.

Findings: “Young children regularly [combine] reading and play practices to make the meanings of texts more accessible and to take up empowered identity positions in child-ruled spaces” (p. 377). Playing at role of teacher supersedes the role of “helper of the day” – Emma get’s Peter out of her Helper chair by playing teacher – he must obey.

            There is “a reading/play nexus where 1) reading supported play goals—reading to play—as children read books and charts to make play scenarios more credible or to gain the cooperation of other players, and 2) playing supported reading development—playing to read—as pretending to be the teacher and teaching pretend students enabled children to share and explore reading strategies” (p. 378).

            Invented reading: holding the book but making meaning based on the things around them

            Approximated reading: creating/revising meaning of text in order to match pictures

            Conventional reading: internal

            When students act as teachers, they invent new strategies of decoding and teach them to other students. The player gets to set the scene, be the storymaker, set the rules. Students who are playing readers, still try hard to read the words on the page.

Discussion (my connection): In playing school, children aren’t merely bad at reading or “playing around” (see simply guessing or mimicking), bur are making “agentic transactions (Goodman, 1994) and strategic improvisations (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998)” (p. 379).

            Research draws on Dyson and Rowe as well as Bomer and Wertsch (who was one of Wetzel’s profs). Not only is this piece connected with thinking that occurs in the related readings, but also with those in my “line of study”. I have seen Figure 1 (379) before (adapted from Engeström’s, 1990, activity model)  – I believe in Dr. Wetzel’s Literacy and Culture course. I think that this is quite helpful for me as I think about multimodal composition, considering the frames of material use and access along with personal appropriation resulting in an artifact.

            Although the strictness of following roles of only having three little pigs seems exclusionary for one students, Lubna makes a wonderfully encouraging statement to Adam as he stares at the page: “When I don’t know a word, I just say something. I just make it up!” The stigma of non-readers seems to still be small. I doubt that students or teachers in secondary levels would allow the inaccuracy or ability to be encouraging to exist. It’s incredible, too, that children routinely accept the playing-teacher’s directives and obey without objection. Again, an older set of students may not be so kind.

            I can totally see myself as a child, using a book (in play or even in debate) to reinforce my position – “Look, it says here that….” If the teacher-player reads it in the book, then it must be true, routine, or supposed to happen.