This essay is a chapter in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, a peer-reviewed open textbook series for the writing classroom, and is published through Parlor Press. The full volume and individual chapter downloads are available for free from the following sites: • Writing Spaces: http://writingspaces.org/essays • Parlor Press: http://parlorpress.com/writingspaces • WAC Clearinghouse: http://wac.colostate.edu/books/ Print versions of the volume are available for purchase directly from Parlor Press and through other booksellers. To learn about participating in the Writing Spaces project, visit the Writing Spaces website at http://writingspaces.org/.
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Learning, Culture and Social Interaction
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Writer identity and the teaching and learning of writing
Writers are always in a state of becoming; in classrooms, teacher-writers and student-writers are always becoming writers and their social and academic identities are intertwined with their writer identities. In this chapter, I use a methodology of ‘glancing sideways’, to look at the writing trajectories of Stephanie and Kyle . They were nine years old, in the same class, and they engaged in a range of writing activities during the school year; including short pieces about ‘someone I admire’, a favourite winter activity, various journal entries, retelling, and group story writing. I attempted to interview Kyle and Stephanie directly about their sense of themselves as writers, as well as what they thought key others (i.e., parent, teacher, or friend) might think of them as writers but I gained little insight from this approach. As others have found when observing children in play (Kendrick, 2005), a ‘sideways glance’ (Schwartzman, 1976) at writing-in-motion was more effective, as I positioned myself alongside children while they wrote in the classroom and in the computer lab at school, in order to discern what was happening as they engaged in writing practices. This analysis examines what was happening and how writers are constructed through particular practices and relationships.
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