There is a need to better understand the agentic choices that students make to communicate meaning through their multimodal compositions. Utilizing a case study approach, this article examines the composing of two first-grade students and discusses how these students utilized multimodal composing techniques from structured writing units during an…

School administrators have the challenge of providing high-quality education in all subject areas. Along with this task, administrators must wade through countless programs, curriculums, while ensuring that student needs are met along with required state and local test scores. While the focus on reform has been in math and science, writing…

This is a qualitative case study (conducted in an urban, public school classroom in the United States) of the collaborative composing processes of two groups of first-grade students designated as English Language Learners (ELLs) as they wrote in a writing workshop context. I focused on a specific type of the students' hybrid composing practices:…

Describes the writing and drawing produced by a group of first-grade students during "writing workshop" time throughout the school year. Considers whether genres emerge in ways analogous to other aspects of writing development. Suggests that genre may indeed be emergent. (HB)

Compares the learning and writing experiences of a child during his kindergarten year (with frequent immersion in reading and writing activities in their writing workshop) to his first-grade year (with worksheets and decontextualized exercises). Critically examines such "serious" literacy learning that lacks a real audience and a real…

A study focused on the conventions that students in a first-grade class accepted and used in their writing during one school year. The convention of the pop-up book became prevalent during this period. Results are discussed in terms of LeFevre's theory of literacy research. (BB)

The purpose of this yearlong study was to understand the complexities of the writing process and to specifically attend to progressions in textual development with first-grade writers. The inquiry focused for a macroview on all the children during writing workshop and for a microview on six case studies that displayed the range of literacy…