Discusses how Wera, a recent immigrant from Poland, uses memoir as a tool to reflect on her life while shaping her identity between school and family. Presents three scenes to describe her work. Discusses how the three scenes focus on using life knowledge and experiences in building of self, writing as a tool for identity construction, and…

Argues against the idea that story is the primary way that children come to literacy. Presents a case study that shows that, given the chance to interact with information books, young children are not only capable of reading them but eager to do so. (MG)

Presents early data on revision which emerged from a two-year study of the writing processes of 16 primary school children. (DD)

Describes a "dialogic" (Bakhtin, 1981) writing workshop that is responsive to the social priorities of children and that reconsiders dilemmas within an alternative framework. Notes that the experiences and tests of two writers in third grade highlight the way identity and sense of self can be developed and explored in a writing community that…

Argues that social interaction with peers is a necessary part of children's internal structuring of spelling. Describes briefly two classroom experiments in which children responded to each other's invented spellings. (HTH)

Examines children's story-writing processes as they develop over a two-year period, from kindergarten through second grade. Observes that children reflect multiple worlds in their writing, including their ongoing social world, the imaginary world of their story, and the wider, experienced world of people, places, and events. (MM)

Discusses six ways in which writing workshop and specific practices like author's chair can actually make learning to write more difficult if they are implemented in inappropriate ways. Presents a case study. Advocates focusing more on what the child is trying to do and less on what the teacher is trying to teach. (SR)

Examines three children's early experiences of school literacy lessons to consider what makes a difference in their relative success and failure during the first months of school. Argues that how, whether, and to what extent children take up what teachers make available to them is inextricably connected with the repertoires of practices and…

Illustrates how classroom talk that includes students, families, and teachers can create spaces in which students from diverse cultural backgrounds negotiate purposeful literacy practices. Presents two versions of a story of a family visit, the first version reflects an educator's understanding of the visit at the time and the second reflects the…

Examines progressively more competent writing samples from a third grader's journal to illustrate the possibilities for using journals "across the curriculum." (HTH)

Provides a single lens view of the operation of the complex phenomenon of intertextuality (interpreting one text by means of a previously composed text) in one first grade classroom from one perspective. Finds that young children's writing is influenced in a complex way by texts that have been read to them. (RS)

Argues that learning to investigate students' language holds great promise as an avenue of assessment. Shows what the stories of three second-grade students reveal about their beliefs regarding both reading and language growth. Discusses how students define for themselves who readers are and what readers can do. (SR)

Focuses on interactive journals and literature study to illustrate four principles: connect students' background knowledge and personal experiences with literacy lessons; foster the use of students' primary language in literacy lessons; create opportunities for students to meaningfully and authentically apply their developing oral language and…

Explores four drafts of a child's story about the disappearance of television, showing how the later draft suggests the writer's interest in questions about the nature of reality, and how the student grew as writer. (HTH)

Discusses what a spontaneously formed group of three children thought and did as they composed a story together. The observations focus on the whole writing process. (HTH)