Writing in a crowded place: Peers collaborating
in a third-grade writer's workshop
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Israel, Archer Johnston
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WRITING IN A CROWDED PLACE: PEERS COLLABORATING
IN A THIRD GRADE WRITER'S WORKSHOP
By
Archer Johnston Israel
Copyright:(^Archer Johnston Israel 1999
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE, READING AND CULTURE
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
1999
UMI Number 9960285
Copyright 1999 by
Israel, Archer Johnston
All rights reserved.
UMI'
UMI Microform9960285
Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edKion is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17. United States Code.
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2
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ®
GRADUATE COLLEGE
As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have
read the dissertation prepared by
entitled
Writing in a Crowded Place:
Archer Israel
Peer Collphorati on in WT^•^gT^'g
Workshop
and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation
requirement for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Luxs Moil
Date
Dat
Date
Richard Ruiz
Date
Date
Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon
the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the
Graduate College.
I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my
direction and recommend thac it be accepted as fulfilling Che dissercacion
requiremenc.
I.
Dissercacion Direcj^or
Luis Moll
Inlf'i
Dace
3
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This disseitation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an
advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library
to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the Library.
Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without fecial permission,
provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for
extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be
granted by copyright holder.
SIGNED:
4
ACKNOWLEIXXMENTS
I came to the University of Arizona in search of great teachers, and I was not
disappointed. Ihave learned so much fiomthe professors I have been fortunate to woric
with. Dr. Carol Evans, I thank you for your friradsh^ and siqiport when I was struggling
to understand what I ccmceivably might have to add to the enormous body of work in
literacy research. You were first
mentor, and like one's first true love,1 will never
forget you. Dr. Dana Fox, I thank you for being
safe haven, for helping me re-vision
my writing until I found my own voice, for hewing me cross that bridge from writing to
display, to writing to discover. Thank you for your own process as a reflective
practitioner, on wiiich Ihave modeled
own process. Dra. Arminda Fuentevilla, I
thank you for sharing your tremendous passion and energy with me, for getting me
started and seeing me througlLn^ preliminary examinatiaas. DrXuis Moll, I thank you
for your mentoiing, but mostly I thank you for your own sdiolarsh^, for making
accessible the worics of Vygotsky and opening for
me a world of thought and research
in sociocultural theory in education. Dr. Richard Ruiz, Ithank you for hewing me
understand the politics ofbilingual education, and the complex issues of race, language
and ontological status that frame minority children.
If I have learned anything through this study, it has been truly to understand the
collaborative nature of print. The words that appear in the final draft of this manuscript I
only came to know as I shared my thoughts, drafts and intentions for this dissertation
with others. My dissertati<m has been a coUaborative efifort from beginning to end, and
what a community it has taken to raise this child! The community of people I have been
hicky to know has included many of
fellow students at the University of Arizona. So
many of you ini^ired me ^en I didn't know i^ut I wanted to say, or how to say it.
Sheila Rando^h Bacon, who kept me laughing, Steven Bialostok, >^0 read so
conscientiously, Josefina Castillo, ^o took me out to hmch the day I had decided to quit,
Jeanne Favela, ^o tracked down that last elusive citation, and Christine Ward and Duin
Payne, w^o he^ed me understand so much about voice, and whose feces are always in
the audience I write for.
From the bottom of my heart I am endlessly gratefiil to my beloved Tucson
sisters, Debra Summers and E)enice Angerhofer, and my 'niece' and 'nephew' Vincent
and Vanessa, whose ftith never feded that I would indwd one day be their Dr.sister.
Ruth Kartchner, mi hermana del alma Miho has been there with me shoulder to
shoulder through thick and thin, and whose friendshq) enriches me daily.
Unally, I thank Dr. Thomas New^irk, who supported me through the final stages
of writing my dissertation. Your interest in my study and insightfiil commentary buoyed
my ^irits and kq>t me opoi to inquiry. Without your guidance I truly believe tliis
dissertation would not have been completed.
5
DEDICATION
I dedicate this dissertation to my students, to 'Rico', 'Tenaya', and 'Marco' who taught
me so much about being a member of a caring, learning community. I rest my hopes for
them and their possible lives on the notion of the indefatigability of critical
consciousness.
I dedicate this also to my family, my own caring community which I so often take
for granted, on which I so rely, and which is un^eakably precious to me. Without you,
Harold, Aurora, Caleb, and Bana, there would be no story to tell.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
6
LIST OF TABLES
13
ABSTRACT
14
PROLCXBUE
Autobkxiiaohicai Background.
15
17
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Ratkmaie for the Study.
Intentions of ttie Riwnnich Study.
Context of the Rofeoroh Study
Consideialionsfitam an Earfier Case Study
Defining Criticai Uteiacy
Situating Myself as the Researcher.
The Conflicts of Role as a Teacher Researcher
OvefvieMT of the FoioiMing Chapters
21
21
21
22
23
25
26
30
32
CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH REVIEW.
A VvaotslapnThaniyofLeaminQ
Vygotsky in Critical Opposition to Piaget
Vygotsk/s Zone of Proximal Devetopment: Socially
Mediated Learning
Dynamic Assessment in the ZPD:
Explanation versus Description
35
35
36
Research in a Wootskian Fmmewioik
Reorienting the Research: A Move Away From Universals
The Irrteraction of the Affect and Cognitive Devetopment
A SociocuituTal Perspective of Learning: Cultural
Contexts. Social Interactnns. and the Notton of ChiMren
Conflicting Paradigms: Unexpected Orthodoj^ in ChikJ
Centered Study(Applying Piaget in A Vygotskian Framework)
The Zone of Proximal Devetopment as a Research Construct
Discourse as an Element of SoctocuiuralContods in Learning
RedefininQ Uteracv: Whose Voice. Words. Powier?
From Monolthic Literacy to MuUple Uteracies:
Creating Room for Voices
The Probtenri of Auttientkatv
Rnnnntino Whole Lanauane in a CriHRHi Pedaooov
The Central Concepts of a Critical Pedagogy
How Does Whole Language Fit WNh a CrMical Pedagogy?
37
38
39
39
40
42
42
44
46
49
49
51
54
54
55
TABLE OF CO^fTE^^'&Co^ti^ued
7
Personal Histories as Social Histoiy.
The Inteisection oT Whole Language and Critical Pedagogy;
Critical Literacy.
Considerations of Race.
Multiculturai Education: A Fonim for Al Voices?
ideotooical Differences in Approaches to MuBcuMural Cuniculum
Pfobtomatizing f^ace
58
60
62
62
63
65
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA rm i Prnnw
Situating the Classrooni: Weicome to Room 209.
Research Questions
Research Support for the Research Design
Date Collection
Challenges: Adjusting Hie Plan* to Realily
Data Collection Strategies: Selection of Case Study Subjects
Rekfnotes
Taped Reflections and Anecdotal Record
Student Writing Samples
informal Interviews
Formal Interviews
Videotape
Table of D^ Collected
66
66
69
70
71
71
72
72
73
73
74
74
74
75
rtota Analytic
75
F>racesses of Analysis
Unit of Analysis
Selection of Case Study Sutiiects
Table Two: Peer CoNaboialions
Unanticipated Circumstarices
76
77
77
78
78
CHAPTER FOUR: FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CASES
Introduction
Areas of Discussion
Enterino the Uteracv Club ttwouoh the WriBna Door.
From a Writing Worlcshop to a Writer's WorfcstK)p
Writing as Empowomwint
Students as Craators Rather than Consumers
From the Teaching of Writing to ttie Teaching of Writers
Revolutionizing the Context: Liberatorv Uteracv
Collaboration
•Writing in Social r«ne'
Collaborating to Produce Texts: From Talk to Text
Collaborating to Produce Texts: From Text to Text
80
80
80
81
84
87
87
89
90
94
94
95
96
TABLE OF CONTENTSConlinued
8
Shared Zones of Proximal Dewetopment
Content ZPiys
StudentCreated Versus TeacherCreated ZPCys
Summanr
97
99
99
100
CHAPTER FIVE: PRESEWTATIOW OF THE DATA.
Introduction to the Cases.
102
102
CtBe Study One
Introducing Rioo
Rico
103
103
104
\
Section One
Overviewof Section One
Lackof Student Purpose as a Bfrier to WirltinQ
Reluctant Writer
The Downside of Teacher Directed WHting Activities
Writing to "Get it Done'
106
106
107
107
107
Section Two
Overview of Section Two
Peer Interactions as a Catalyst in Deveiopina WirltinQ:
The Good with the Bad
Developing Motivation: Writing for an Audience
Talk Alone Does Not Create a Text: Fnistrations with Peers
Conflict among Colatmralors: But I Dont Want Your Help!
The Need to Take Your Time
Performing Under Peer Pressure
Withdrawing From ttw Community of Writers: Regaining Autonomy
Talk and Text: Conversatkxis FadlRating Writing
108
108
108
109
110
Ill
112
113
115
116
Section Three
Overview of Section Three
PevetooiriQ Intentfcms and Purposes for Print
Writirni to Respond
Revising ReaMy: Creating Possl>le Wortds in Print
Connecting Taic and Text: Experiments with Playwiting
Teadter Interfaranoe the Writing Process: Paradigm Warp
Derailing Student Intentkms for Print
117
117
118
118
119
120
121
122
Sectfan Four.
Overview of Section Four.
123
123
TABLE OF CONTENTSConlinued
PulKng it All Togettier Reclaiming the Process Of Being a VVirter.
CoHaboiating and Coauthoring
Creating AMances through Colabotalive Texts and Vice Versa
The Collal)orative Eftact of Community: Writing Among Friends
Reflections on Rico
Concerns for His Future Schooing
9
123
123
124
125
126
127
Case Study Two
introducing Tenaya....
Tenaya
128
128
129
Section One
Overview of Section One
Barriers to Acquiring Literacy
Tan Bats, Fans arMJ Vans: Writing fbr Success in a Remedial Program
Interruptions and Disrupted Process
131
131
131
131
132
Section T¥wd
Overview of Section Two.
Leam^ to Write
Experimenting with Systems fbr Transcrtiing
Expanding WMing Strategies
133
133
133
133
134
Section Three: Witinq wwth Others
Overview of Section Three
Party r;^iat)orative Experiences.
Appropriating Peer Strategies and Purposes
BuHdiTMi Relationships Through Print aiKi Interactions with Print
You or the Bset I love you
135
135
135
135
136
136
Section Four Peer Influences on Text
Overview of Section Four.
Connectino Tafc and T«d
Peer Interactions Supporting Writing Development
Viewing Classmates as Resouroes: "How do you spel rsMiil?"
ReconsiderinQ Intentions: Revisino for an AudiarK»
138
138
138
139
142
143
Section Five: ReconrwctinQ with Text through 5>oriiil Interaction
Overviewof Section Five
Losing Her Place.
Trying to Connect wMh fHiefS and Texts.
Tnnno Differant Strategies for Peer Approval
145
145
145
145
147
TABLE OF CONTEhrrSCominued
10
MoreCats, Maybe You Like the 49ers. and What About Christmas?..
Through Text to Social Interaction to InteractinQ with Text.
147
149
Section Six: F*afsonal Nanatiwe
Oveiviewof Section Six.
THEN MHP Ai I no SIR: The Downskle of Creatiwe SoellinQ for)
What did I Write?
Aporooriatinfl Mamiives: RecoovinQ Text.
Sharww Life's Experiences and UttfsPossfcaHes
151
151
151
152
153
Section Sewen: ClaiminQ Liteiacy
Oveiviewof Sactkin Sewen
ConftictinQ Uteiacv DetinMons
Recreating the Joumev to Pergonal Purpose
Reflectpns on Tenava.
155
155
155
156
157
Case Studv Three
introducing Marco
Marco
159
159
160
Sectkxi One
Overview of Sectfan One
Beginning Writer's Wortcshoo
Trying on Writino Strategies for Size
CoHaboratkig with a Novice Partner.
From Shared Interests to Writing Partnerships: 49ers Fans Unite
OutskJe Interference on Writino Process
163
163
163
164
165
167
168
Sectkxi Two
Ovennew of Sectfan Two
CoHatioratino through Shared Activitv: Writino SkleBv Skte
Aoorooriatina Peer Process
TheTrout)leof Co^authofshk): Issues of Ownership
Common Interests as »ftar CnHwhoratkin.
Peer Infkjences on Topic Selectkm and Content
169
169
170
171
172
172
174
Sectkxi Throe
Overview of Sectfan Three
Connectmg Home and School: Parent and Teacher a*
Connecting Home to SclKX)l through Writing
175
175
176
178
Sectkxi Four.
180
TABLE OF CONTENTSConta'aued
Oveiview Of Section Four.
Group CcHntnmltTTrf MuMiole Writers Sinole Texts.
Writinfl Alone IbrCroaliwo Control.
Puttino it AH Together Conv^»**«^,
Connposition
Revisiting OU Themes
Rnal Days: A Return to Peraonal Nanative.
Reflections on Moico
11
180
180
183
184
187
188
189
CHAPTER SIX DISCUSSION
Cfeatina a »ihiMiniY Balance of Frpodom and Authority.
Supportina Student Voices
A Discourse of CoHrtwralion
Peer ColiatmnitfTTn
Writing Coiaborations for Tfanscril>ing
Writing Colabonitions for Story
Problems in Peer CoMnhnmlinn
Social Relationships
Problems of AutlKxship and Creative Control
Diversitv of rniiirfinmtions
Zones of Pioximal Dewelooment.
Student Created Zones of Proximal Development
SituationaNy Contttdualized zones
Directive Yet NonDemanding Peer Interactions
Peer Criticism of Text: Honest Response
Flexible Roles of Novice and Expert
No Economy of Words
Affective Connections: Reoontmthiaizino of Piint into Experience
ZPD's in Summery
Writer's No Ecorramy of Words
Uteiacv
Institution
Purpmino Crttica«iy«
Considerations of Race
White teacher, chidren of color The politics of race in the
classroom
Interactions of Race and PoMer.
Revohitionizino the Context: Writers Woitohoo as Uberatorv
Practice
192
192
194
197
198
200
201
202
202
203
207
207
208
209
210
211
212
214
214
215
224
CHAPTER SEVEN: l^/FLICATIONS
Aspects of Emancipatoiv Piaciice
Purpose
228
229
231
216
216
219
219
221
TABLE OF CONTENTSConlinued
Voice
Convefsation
Collaboralion
Sharing t«(ts
Incrementai Progress
12
231
232
232
233
233
In Summaiv
Talcing Action
234
235
Future Directions
236
EPILCX3UE
239
POSTSCRIPT
243
REFERENCES
244
13
LIST OF TABLES
1. Table One: CoUatxxaling Pairs
2. Table Two: Types and Quantity of Data
75
78
ABSTRACT
This dissertation presents three case studies of collaborative interaction in a thirdgrade dual-language classroom during writing instruction over the course of a school
year. The study addresses the notion of developing student voice, and how instruction can
be seated so that students' narratives will assume central stage in the classroom, creating
the opportunity for dialog between students^ texts and the texts of the schooL This study
is situated between a progressive perspective that emphasizes growth through self
reflection, organically driven texts, and above all individual meaning, and a postprogressive perspective that challenges educators to provide explicit instruction in the
privileged discourses of the dominant ideology. A significant featwe of the study is the
evolution of the Writing Workshop into a Writer's Workshop, as the focus of actnnty
became the students and their intentions for their texts. The Writer's Workshop was
characterized by active and varied peer collaborations as students interacted in a
community of writers. The study describes the varied expressions of critical literacy as
the case study children interacted with peers to create texts that were shared daily.
Critical literacy is defined as the ability to use print as a tool for developing critical
consciousness. This was demonstrated in the increasingly sophisticated intentions
students established for their texts, as they wrote to shock, entertain, influence and
reflect. The study underscores the damage to children whose language and literacy
development is assessed to be deficient, particularly in the case of bilingual or bidialectic
children, and how remedial instruction disrupts not only the child's own incremental
progress, but their membership in a supportive learning community.
15
PROLOGUE
As mucii as anything else, this document chronicles my journey thus far as a
teacher, particularly of writing, of minority langiuge and culture children. It has been a
long trip, and I have been forced to examine every 'truth I held to be self-evident' along
the way. I submit this long prologue because I believe it is important, although perhaps
risky, to share why I care so passionately about the students I have been fortunate to
know, to reveal the other voices and many faces beneath the surface of this paper. I am
not engaged in an academic exercise, but rather, in a passionate search for the REAL.
As a child of divorced of and remarried parents, I struggled to find my place at
home. My stepfather engaged me in an aU out war for my mother's loyakies, and he won.
In loss, I defined myself by defiance. Although n^ parents certainly did not fit the
expected profiles for neglectful or abusive parents, I did indeed grow up needy. One
memory stands out in my mind as the beacon that lit up for me possibilities outside my
own experience. I spent eight weeks at camp during the summer of my eighth year, the
year my mother remarried. Week after week children came and children left, reunited with
their families afier a brief interlude, yet I stayed on and on and on. Then one day my
fiiend Alexandra in\^ed me to join her and her family for a day at the beach. And all day
long her father carried me around, never put me down, never held me 'Svrong," my heart
beating with aaxiety and fear. He carried me out into the ocean and showed me how to
roll my head and breathe in time with the waves, showed me how to protect my pale skin
with Sea and Ski. Never once did Alex react with jealousy or ownership. This family
seemed to operate on the notion of abundance: the notion of an "increasing sum" himian
16
economy of caring.
I never forgot that experience, nor the central importance of having been shown,
even just once, the miraculous possibilities for a model of living outside my own existence.
Consciousness of the life-changing impact of that day has driven my interactions with my
students all my life. Mr. I don't remember -your-name, thank you. I carry your legacy
with me.
As a member of the dominant socioeconomic group, my emancipation is a credit to
the notion of meritocracy. I worked hard; I was lucky to grasp the outstretched hands
that helped me find my way. But meritocracy is indeed a false notion; over the years^
equally Herculean efforts by my students of color have not led them to self-actualization.
My deepest commitment to my students rises fi'om n^ own intimate knowledge of what it
felt like to me to live fettered and afraid, tempered by the knowledge that the road to their
transformation is far steeper. May mine be one of many hearts to guide them. May they
keep their eyes on the prize.
17
Autobiographical Background
I am a white woman of mixed European heritage: my mother's mother came from
Belfast, Ireland in early 1900's. She might even have seen my father's mother at Ellis
Island wlien ^e arrived at about the same time from Odessa, Ukraine.
I come from a family of writers; that is, people who value and enjoy print.
Our &mily correspondence, though ^otty, is characterized by humor and a sense of
domination over the medium of print. Haphazard typographical errors become a
springboard for puns and messages within the message. Our shared oral language history.
fiiU of the serendipitous influences of Samuel Beckett and Monty Python, provide us with
a common backdrop of verbal gymnastics that sneak mto our letters and e-maiL
My development as a teacher, in particular, as a teacher of writing, has been a long
evolution. For many years I have worked with minority language/culture students in a
broad variety of contexts. As a sLxteen-year-old in the early seventies I was recruited by a
local vocational program to work as an ESL tutor. Newburg, New York, was suddenly
home to scores of Honduran refugees, all needing survival English. It is an mteresting
concept, survival English. Periiaps my students found the label less insulting than I do
now. After years of living in mortal danger, guarantees of survival may have appeared
magnanimous indeed. Later, as a college undergraduate, I tutored a new wave of
refugees from Vietnam. Still later I worked as a teacher and program coordmator
providing language services to yet another group of refiigees, this time from Cambodia.
My Khmer students never got away from me. Over the years, I taught them in a K-3
multilevel, got them again in Middle School, tutored them in Junior High, and spent the
18
morning with them in our ESL classes at the High SchooL We wrote daily in a Writing
Workshop, had sheltered English study groups for content area subjects, shared our
curriculum m cross-cultural communication with the students in the alternative education
class, and made food and entertainment for festivals commemorating the Cambodian New
Year to which we invited the school community.
I believed in the value of what 1 was
doing, and I did indeed help ^cilitate the development of my students^ ability to navigate
in English through school I was sure, and assured them, that the route to equal access lay
in their becoming linguistically and culturally fluent. The year the high school boys tiuned
sixteen was the year 1 realized the lie I had inadvertently told them all those years. As they
went out into the larger community to look for after-school jobs, they were turned away,
over and over again, while their white classmates were offered employment at the grocery
stores, donut shops, and the local gas station. We sat, in the tmy windowless room we
called our study, silenced. We would never be the same.
Refugee Education
Asian in a white man's world...
[n this land of white anonymity, condemned to wear your inner secrets on your face.
Never to hedge your true identity, nor play out fantasies of other seK'es.
For m the mirror of this world a brown sldnned face and almond eyes
Reflect a limited horizon.
Cultural hierarchy, (much denied) mosaic crushed to dust.
Against the backdrop of your white-skinned peers.
You are disempowered.
Awareness of this weakened state hhs hard at age sixteen.
Slaughter in the killing fields had been a quicker death than starving in the land of plenty.
The body dies more willingly than the soul.
19
I would no longer be able to participate in the process of mystification that
attempted to obscure the automatic social privilege accorded me because of the color of
my skin, and the language I ^eak, privflege that had seciu-ely insulated me from the
realities of structural inequality that shaped my students' lives. My eyes were now forced
open to the real attitudes of the school community toward my students. Physiognomically
marked and an ethnic group of color, they were easily identified as the other and targeted
as suspect. When magnets were missing from a sewing class, no matter that some three
hundred additional students had access to that room, my students were implicated.
It
quickly appeared there was no limit to the possible unsubstantiated misbehaviors
attributed to my students: drug selling, gang involvement, and a predisposition to violence.
In strictest confidence I was warned that the new assistant principal had been overheard
muttering, 'Cambodians, I wish I had an Uzi'.
I left them, Yorth, Navy, Map, Chamroeun, ToL Houth, Heap, Pheap, Naren.
Rasmey, Toeurm, Phoeim, Sophin, Soeut, Soreasey, Sorassa, Virak... I left my beloved
students behind to pursue a graduate degree in literacy and culture studies, wanting both
to increase my own knowledge, and to find the means to share what I knew with my
teaching colleagues. The first year of studies found me in graduate classes that were
frequently convened with undergraduates. In a class investigating the concept of
educatmg for cultural pluralism I experienced another critical incident. The class began to
delve into issues of the power dififerential of prKoIeged and non-prKoleged groups, the
politics of language distribution, and I was often in discussion with younger minority
language/culture students who were coming to conscious awareness for the first time with
20
the enormity of their marginalization and victimization by a political and social system that
inherently values and privileges one group. White, over all other groups.
As I observed
their rage and grie^ I suddenly realized the tremendous degree to which I have been
advantaged. I had to releam myself in terms of a person of privilege, very much to the
disadvantage of the minority language and culture people with whom I had worked
extensively, and had come to admire greatly. This was later defined for me, through
readings in critical pedagogy, m Marxist terms (Gadotti 1996).
This left me, as a member of the dominating group, in an estranged position. Was
it possible for me, a member of the culture of power, to participate in minority education?
For, no matter how much self-pride I tried to foster in my students, no matter how
mtensively 1 integrated their languages, literatures, ways of seeing, purposes for knowing
into our classroom, the very fact of my white face as the teacher in the classroom
illustrated and created the structural inequality that controls who they might be.
William Pinar (1989 p. 175) suggests the need for a
psychoanalytically informed interdisciplinary study and reexperience of the past so that white guflt can be claimed and
perhaps forgiven, so that (people of color) can rediscover, to an
extent that perhaps they have not yet, their strengths, courage, and
competence.
This is key, 1 believe, to the possibility of a place for me as a member of a
multiethnic learning community.
21
CHAPTER ONE; INTRODUCTION
In the following chapter I address the rationale for this study, identify the elements
of the theoretical framework supporting the research, and introduce the notions of voice,
discourse, race and power that are problematized throughout the study. I present my own
intentions for the research, and influences on this study from my previous case study
research. I then define critical literacy and critical consciousness as key concepts guiding
this research, and situate myself as the researcher, addressing the problems inherent in my
role as teacher-researcher. Finally, I provide a brief overview of the remaining chapters of
the study.
Rationale For the Study
Freire:
Dialog is a moment where humans meet to reflect on their reality as they
make and remake it... Knowing is a social event, with nevertheless an
individual dialog.
Shor:
What the teacher knows, the teacher then releams through studying with
students.
(Freire & Shor, 1987 p. 98-101)
Intentions of the Research Study
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various forms of peer
collaboration on the development of literacy manifested by students while writing during
Writer's Workshop. The theoretical framework for this study is founded upon Vygotsk>'*s
(1978) concepts of the zone of proximal development, and the foundational concept of
socially mediated cognition as they have been extended to include the notion of expert
peer by such researchers as Daiute and Daltonj|^^993). I draw as well as Dyson's research
(1989, 1993a 1993b, 1994, 1995) that illuminates the notion that children create text
22
worlds through social interaction, and sodal worlds through interaction with text, and
other studies addressing sociocuhural a^ects of classrooms (Edelsl^, 1986; Newkirk,
1992; Peterson, 1992: Bean, 1997; Schuhz, 1997). I also investigate the notion of voice
and discourse (Gee, 1994, 1996; Ruiz, 1997) as they affect student choice in Writer's
Workshop and their options in the school environment. These are considered in light of
the development of critical literacy and the concept of critical conscioumess, which are
both further discussed in a following section of Chapter One entitled, 'Developing Critical
Literacy'. A tangential but significant topic also arose fi'om my concerns as a White
teacher of children of color, and the viability and appropriateness of my participation in the
education of race minority children (Girou-x, 1992, 1997a, 1997b; Harris, 1994; Shannon.
1994; Hooks, 1995).
Context of the Research Study
Over the last several years I have had the opportunity to work as a third grade
bilingual teacher in a small elementary school on the south side of the city. Pursuing
graduate studies and teaching at the same time has provoked me to examine my teacher
beliefs and process, primarily as a teacher of writing and reading of minority language and
cuhure children. This exploration has lead me to several possible insights about how one
might most eflfectively structure literacy' instruction with the goal of supportmg the
development of critical literacy. Two previous research case studies that I carried out
over the last three years have helped to create a foundation fi-om vN^iich 1 now planned to
examine children's processes as developing writers in greater detafl.
From the first study carried out during the spring of 1995,1 gamed insights into
23
children's ovvn purposes and mtentions for writing. This resuhed in my restructuring our
Writing Workshop mto a Writer's Workshop in order to provided extensive self-directed
writing time, as well as autonomy over the product selection by the students.
The second study, carried out from early fall of 1995 until late spring of 1996,
fiirther informed me of the powerful effects of peer coDaboration during writing. This
study also encouraged me to more closely examine my students' literacy development.
Considerations from an Earlier Case Study
In my bilingual third grade classroom, during the school year 1995-1996, 1 had the
opportunity to leam from a student, newly arrived from Mexico, who shared with us his
own idiosyncratic notions of literacy. Manuel knew himself to be a fine writer, because he
had great stories to telL This self-perception was not dimmed by his own awareness of his
lack of literacy skills, which he defined as transcribing. Indeed, Manuel knew barely
thirteen letters of the alphabet. He became my focus in a case study examining the impact
of peer collaboration in Writer's Workshop. I drew a theoretical base from work by
Vygotsky (1978) on mediation in the the ZPD and Bozuvich (1967) on the interaction of
the personality of schoolchildren and formal schooling, Daiute & Dalton's (1993) research
on peer collaboration e.xamining the notion of'expert' and 'novice', and Davydov's
iUumination of the foundational philosophy of the Russian school s>'stem grounded by
Vygotskian principles (Davydov, 1995):
...the following general ideas of Vygotsl^ are basic...the first idea is
that education, which mchides both human teaching/learning and
upbringing, is intended first of all to develop their personalities.
Tlie second idea is that the hiunan personality is linked to its
creative potentials, therefore the development of the personality in
the education system demands first of all the creation of conditions
24
for discovering and making manifest the creative potentials of
students. The third idea is that teaching/learning and upbringing
assume personal activity by students as th^ master a variety of
inner values; the student becomes a true subject in the process of
teaching and upbringing. The fourth idea is that the teacher and
upbringer direct and guide the individual activity of the students,
but they do not force or dictate their own will to them. Authentic
teaching/learning and upbringmg come through coOaborarion by
adults with children and adolescents. The fifth idea is that the most
valuable methods for students' teaching/Ieaming and upbringing
corre^ond to their developmental and individual particularities, and
therefore these methods cannot be unifonn. (p. 13)
The interactive process of working with his peers in Writer's Workshop proved to
be a transformative process, not only for Manuel, but for his collaborators as well. Key
characteristics of these interactions point directly to the third and fifth ideas of Vygotsky
as explained by Davydov. The third idea addresses the concept of student as subject of his
own learning through" personal activity ...as they master a variety of inner values" (V. V.
Davydov, 1995, p. 13) and delineates the relationship between personal purpose and
practice. Manny participated in the social process of sharing his life and experiences with
his peers through the medium of print. As he gained personal awareness of the power of
print, this awareness became the personal driver for his contmued participation: he shared
not only in the activity, but also in the classroom valuing of writing.
Students' frequent
comments regarding the value of print include: it lasts, you can falsify it, you can come
back and change it later, you can make things turn out the way you want, you can make
up anything, people will read it.
The fifth point put forth by Davydov (1995) addresses the concept that the
mdividual nature of coming to know "correspond(s) to their developmental and individual
25
particularities, and therefore these methods cannot be uniform." (p.13)
Manny had several characteristics that contributed to the effectiveness of peer
coQaboration. He had good self concept and he perceived of himself as a good writer,
because he had good stories to teU. The method of transcribing, that he had to work on.
Additionally, he actively sought out the kinds of supportive mteractions with teacher and
peers that &cilitated his learning because he had a personal purpose for writing.
These ideas, drawn from Vygotsky, of collaboration among children and adults in
personally active and meaningfiil contexts in an environment geared toward the expression
of creati\'e potentials, have guided my role as a teacher/ collaborator ever since.
Deflning Critical Literacy
The issue of critical literacy is one I have wrestled with over the last ten years,
both as a teacher of young children, and as a mother. My definition of critical literacy has
become refined over the last several years of study. Initially I framed critical literacy in a
pragmatic fashion drawing from my earlier understanding of Freire (1973) as the use of
print in (pragmatically) transformative ways. In this definition, the farmer who writes
down the names of the crops that fail transforms his e.\istence by planting successful crops
the following year. Later, through my studies of children writing, I came to understand
critical literacy as an almost exclusively personal process, by which my students through
their mteractions with print were able to reflect on their own lives and those of the writing
community, consider possible lives and outcomes, and create change. As I have continued
to investigate the notion of critical consciousness, I have come to understand critical
literacy as quite paradoxically simultaneously spiritual and pragmatic in nature. Critical
26
literacy requires critical conscioitsness —a way of coming to know, a breakthrough
experience Freire likened to religious conversion, an awareness and desire to think and act
critically. However, the signs of critical literacy are as diverse and idiosyncratic as the
contexts in which it arises. The students in this study demonstrated critical literacy m
myriad ways in which they used print. They wrote to impress and di^lay privileged
information, to reflect on and share out-of-school experiences, and to partic^ate in each
other's lived. They wrote to entertain, to apologize, and to brag. Their developing critical
literacy was also revealed in the processes they used to participate as members of the
writing community. In order to participate in the social process of sharing texts, students
employed equally imaginative methods for creating texts, copying each other's personal
narratives, creating lists of words gleaned from classroom print, occasionally plagiarizing
paragraphs from published children's books.
Situating Myself as the Researcher
My daughter spent a glorious kindergarten year with a dynamic and supremely
caring teacher for whom I will always be gratefiiL For Aurora, that kindergarten year
was spent in enthusiastic sharings of who she was, and what her interests and dreams
were. An intensely' verbal child, she was given opportunities to share her descriptions and
commentary on her experiences, and to participate as a listener in the lives of her
classmates and teacher. Ms. Stephany once shared with me, Svell, we never got to Math
(or some subject area) today, because Aurora regaled us with her retelling of the
Nutcracker Suite and it was just too wonderfid to stop."
First grade came and again Aurora rode off on the yellow bus, filled with
27
anticipation and excitement about the mysteries of reading and writing that awaited her.
She was ready to join the literacy club (Smith, 1985). This time, entrance was not to
prove easy. One day in early October she arrived home quiet and remote. Dumping her
backpack by the door, she ignored my questions about her day. Jammed into her
backpack were two pieces of writing. One said, "I have a cat." The word "have'had been
WTitten and rewritten many times and the multiple erasures had worn a hole in the paper.
This sentence was ringed in bright green ink and festooned with a smiley face. The second
paper had two sentences, 'i Ic u' and "I hv a rt it dz akrobtx". Both of these sentences
were also ringed with bright green ink but festooned with double questionmarks.
"Ro", I said, "did you do two pieces of writing today?"
"No", she said, "the cat one's John's."
"Did everybody write about their pets today?"
"No", she said, her voice thick with scorn, "John doesn't even have a cat."
"Where did he get the idea from, do you think?"
"From the words on the wall."
"What shall we do with your writing?"
"Throw it away."
It's not so much the words on the wall that bothered me then, and still does now,
but rather the privilege accorded those teacher-selected words that rendered Aurora's and
the other children's 'stories to tell' valueless in the classroom context. It is unbearable that
her teacher wasn't intrigued to learn about Aurora's beloved rat Minieux who did
acrobatics by crossing hand over hand from one side of the wire cage to other. It is still
28
more unbearable to have ignored 'I like you." Aurora was indeed sQenced. Her year-end
First Grade report card described her as incoherent.
As a teacher of minority language/culture children, I worry about my students'
entrance into the literacy club. Over the last decade or so I have spent a lot of time trying
to figure out wiiat I needed to do to foster the literacy development of my students. They
came to school fiill of knowledge that meshed poorfy^ with the mamstream educational
goals and instruction. Their literacy experiences and expectations rarely paralleled the
experiences of their majority culture peers; the traditions of story telling and uses of print
in their communities were often in conflict with the 'privileged forms of discourse' (Gee,
1996) honored in the school Early reading instruction, however gamely attempting to
provide a balance of'word attack strategies'; semantic, phonetic, and syntactic somehow
only ser\ ed to emphasize the discrepancy between what they knew, and what they
apparently needed to know. In terms of phonics, lists of word families presented my LEP
students with a daunting memory task as lop, mop, hop, cop were for them essentially
meaningless segments, rather than clues to a system of writing/reading. Syntax pro\'ided
as little entree into the world of meaning. The irregular grammatical structures of English
could not be counted on to flesh out the meaning of 'predictable' reader series. Consider
the following two pieces of text I fabricate here to illustrate the kinds patterned language
typical of these books written expressly to developing predictive strategies of emergent
readers:
Last week we ran and played and swam, the monkey said to
Sam. This week well
and
and
, the
29
monkey said to him.
Semantic information within the text similarly left my students in the dark. A cloze text,
such as:
the tiny mouse said, please...
give me a nice big piece of
(cheese)
simflarly does little to enhance the creation of meaning i^ as in the cultural context of my
Cambodian students, a mouse eats rice.
Reading-based methods of facilitating literacy development, however holistically
seated, were still somehow too connected to the information-transmission philosophy of
teaching. The ability to 'get' the meaning in books was not a personally transformative
process for my students. Their lives, their experiences were not to be found, even in our
extensive multicultural classroom library. Almost frantically they searched the
illustrations for any people of color, looking for specific details in the text that might
proclaim out loud wiio they were, and make their lives visible. They were the silent
culture (Freire & Macedo, 1987).
I came away from readmg as the foundation of literacy instruction and began to
focus on a writing-reading connection. The notion that every one has a story to tell
became the platform for a writing workshop based on the work of Graves (1983), Calkins
(1986) and others. Over the last few years the writing process in the classroom has
undergone several transformations. As students participated fuUy in writing and sharing
their lives, the very knowledge and experiences that had meshed so poorly with the
mainstream educational goals and instruction became itself our curriculum. We became
30
members of a Writer's Workshop, because we were the subjects of our learning. Patterns
of culturally privileged discourse shared the stage with other culturally influenced ways of
making meaning. My students' voice was finally heard. And with the sounds of their own
voices m our ears, perhaps the fiuit of emancipatory education will set.
Today, as I watch and share in Writer's Workshop with my students I am again
provoked to examine nw notions regarding literacy acquisition. I have been concerned
with the development of students' voice in the classroom, using Writer's Workshop as our
leaping-ofif place. In focussing on the student interacdons with the end product. I have
failed to notice the sociocultural process of composing: of being and becoming a writer.
The Conflicts of Role as a Teacher Researcher
As this study progressed, I became mcreasingly aware of the effect my role as the
classroom teacher had on my research. This effect was at least twofold. On one hand, the
authenticity of my place in the room was not ia question. It was my job to be there, in the
eyes of my students, and therefore my interest in their waiting became part of our normal
classroom process, rather than a disruption to the normal activity. The relationships that
my students entered into with me were in part facilitated by their e.\pectations over the
years of schooling for interaction with a classroom teacher. Unlike a participant-obser\ er.
1 did not have to create a special relationship with them, nor they with me, in order to
pursue my investigation. In fact, the very closeness of the fiiendships 1 enjoyed with my
students created opportunities for them to share the personal layers of experience that
prompted their texts.
I was also hivolved in the lives of my students beyond the constraints of the tvpical
31
school experience in a way that certainly impacted on
relationship with them and their
families. We were able to bring my sister, Susannah Israel, to Tucson wiiere she created
a huge mural with the third-graders on the west-facing wall of the school and after her
month-long stay, my colleagues and I spent many late afternoons finishing up the painting.
We were shameless in soliciting the help of anybody who happened by the playground—
outfitting passersby with pamtbru^es and garbage-bag smocks, mcluding strolling
parents, uncles who came to play basketball, and stray children who'd come for the swings
and the teeter-totter. In this distinctly non-teacher role, I was able to meet parents and the
children in a non-hierarchical context. In paint-splattered clothes outside the classroom
walls 1 could step outside the constraints of my professional role and become 'just another
person'. I also fi-equently spent Saturday mornings doing classroom preparation at the
school and the \isibility of my car in the empty parking lot would quickly draw a number
of my students fi-om the area neighborhoods. They would often join me m organizmg
books, sorting papers, and just as fi'equently ask to use poster paints and butcher paper to
make paper murals on the sidewalk. When my own children joined us on occasional
Satiu-days my students managed to negotiate the boundaries of parent-teacher-child
relationships, the hierarchies of who-belonged-to-whom, and raced oflf to play soccer in
the field behind the school In short, we came to know each other very well
I very
much doubt that the level of sharing I experienced \\ith my students could be reproduced
if I had been a participant-observer. The success of the \isiting researcher depends upon
the willingness and ability of children to suspend their awareness of the norm, to enter into
willing disbelief and to behave 'as if the constructed relationship is commonplace.
32
On the other hand, I was very conscious of being first and foremost the teacher.
There were many instances in which my role as teacher precluded my role as researcher.
These were 'teachable moments' that required I drop my note-taking pen and join the
class in examining writing topic or purpose, where I was called in to mediate a conflict of
authorship, or to play the role of expert as I dispensed spelling, punctuation hints, and
received writing. There were also occasional conversations with students in which the
topic of the mteraction around writmg was bom of our relationship. I was not able to
betray that primary relationship and take notes. In some instances I later reconstructed the
interaction as best I could. In other instances 1 had to let what I fek to be significant data
go uncollected. In spite of the drawbacks of the dual teacher-researcher role, I believe
wholeheartedly in the importance of studies conducted by classroom teachers. In a
conte.xt so bounded by those relationships, based on the history of educational e.xperience
and expectation, shared teacher and student msights contribute powerfuUy to the body of
literature seeking to address the notions of collaboration and affect that fi'ame classroom
practice. 1 have learned much fi-om the studies by Edelsky (1986), Dj'son (1989, 1993a.
1993b, 1994, 1995, 1997a, 1997b), Newldrk (1992), Schultz (1997), and others who play
active roles as participant observers. However, as a practitioner. I have been deeply
affected by the power of teacher-research studies such as those by Lewis (1993) and Bean
(1997), power that is constructed in part by the intimacy of the shared teacher-student
relationship in the historically situated and bounded context of the classroom.
Overview of the Following Chapters
The preceding prologue and Chapter One have provided the background to the
33
study, sharing the personal and professional history that contributes to my philosophical
orientation as a researcher, discussing the challenges of the dual teacher-researcher role,
and defining key terms of the study. Chapter Two will present a review of the research
that provided the original platform for this investigation: contrasting theories of learning
from both a Vygotskian and a Piagetian perspective, and considering the research arising
from these paradigms. Issues of authenticity, race, critical theory, and pedagogy will be
examined in the literature, and will be addressed as significant strands of inquiry
throughout the study. Chapter Three will provide descriptions of the research
en\ironment, methods of data collection and analysis, tables of the distribution of data
across cases, as weU as a discussion of the problems 1 faced in adjusting my intentions for
the study to reality. Chapter Four will provide an empirical and theoretical framework for
considering the case studies. In this chapter I will discuss the evolution of Writer's
Workshop from a writing workshop, address the notion of writing as a tool for
empowerment, and consider a pedagogical reorientation from the teaching of writing to
the teaching of writers. Finally, I will address peer collaborations as a significant feature of
Uberatory literacy experiences, examining in particular the effectiveness of the studentfacilitated zones of proximal de\'elopment:-|Chapters Five, SLx and Seven will present the
data in the form of three specific case studies centered around the three target children.
These narratives follow their literacy development over the course of a year in my
classroom and chronicle their remarkable achievements as critical thinkers and writers. In
Chapter Eight I will present a discussion of the study, focusing on the notion of Writer's
Workshop as a liberatory practice, and develop the notion of a pedagogy of collaboration
34
practice, and develop the notion of a pedagogy of collaboration as a significant factor in
the literacy development of the case study children. I will contrast this pedagogy to the
pedagogy of institutionalized individualism (Stanton-Salazar, 1997) that characterizes
mainstream schooling. In Giapter Nme I address a pedagogy of coOaboration as the
manifestation of a philosophical orientation requiring critical consciousness on the part of
the teacher, and a commitment to demystifying standard school practices. I identify and
discuss the elements of community, voice, purpose, conversation, collaboration, and
shared texts that characterized our Writer's Workshop, and fi'amed it as an arena of
liberatory practice. Chapter Ten is an epilogue written after I met with the case study
subjects almost a fiill year after the study was completed. It describes the devastating
effects on the development of the case study children as they entered classrooms more
concerned in remediating their weaknesses than in supporting their strengths.
35
CHAPTER TWOt RESEARCH REVIEW
Chapter Two presents a review of the research, beghining with the examination of
a Vygotskian theory of learning in critical opposition to the perspectives of Piaget. The
Vygotskian concepts of the zone of proximal development, and the significance of
dynamic assessment are then examined, as well as the resultant implications for
mstruction. The foOowmg section will present a review of the research in literacy
education based on a Vygotskian fi'amework, addressing the role of the affect as
investigated by Bozuvich and Luria. This review will focus on research investigations of
children in socioculturally situated studies. The invalidity that results from repositionmg
research origmally operating from a Vygotskian framework into a Piagetian framework
will be examined. Several studies that investigating the ZPD as a construct for organizing
instruction will be reviewed, and, finally, discourse as an element of sociocultural contexts
in learning will be discussed. This following section will discuss the central concepts of
critical pedagogy, and will address the limitations of a culturally, socio-politically
unsituated whole language philosophy as a tool for fostering critical learning. The notion
of collected personal histories as a social history, and the role of collected personal
histories in the classroom will also be examined as tools for demystifying literacy
instructional practices. Finally, a framework situating whole language within a critical
pedagogy will be proposed as a significant reorientation of literacy education.
A Vygotskian Theory of Learning
The Vygotskian theory of learning is presented here, in critical opposition to the
perspectives of Piaget. The Vygotskian concepts of the zone of proximal development.
36
and the significance of dynamic assessment are then examined, as well as the resuhant
implications for instruction.
Vygotsky in Critical Opposition to Piaget
Vygotsky is critical of the distorting efifects on theory buflding that stem firom
Piaget's culturally, politically, historically unsituated studies. Vygotsky (1986) posits that
the very absence of an overt philosophical position is in itself a philosophy:
Piaget tries to avoid generalizmg, careful not to go into the related
realms of logic, cognition and of philosophy; empiricism appears to
be the only safe ground. Piaget tried to hide behind the waU of
facts...but the facts are always examined in the light of some theory,
and therefore cannot be disentangled fi'om philosophy, (p.15)
Vygotsky articulates further the limiting impact of the assumed neutrality of "scientific'
inquiry that characterizes traditional psychology (and, I would add, educational research),
and the resultant inflexibility in the formulation of theory. He is scomfiil of what he
characterizes as Piaget's arbitrary separation of philosophy and p^chology, and deeply
critical of Piaget's insistence on the scientific nature of his studies. Vygotsky rejects the
Piaget's claim to the role of objective researcher and questions the notion that such a
position is either possible or desirable. Vygotsky, in part definmg his theory of learning in
opposition to Piaget's theories of learning, begins by locating his investigations within a
cultural, sociopolitical, historical context. Vygotsky argued that the normative stages
Piaget claimed universal were ungeneralizable outside of the original cultural context.
Vygotsky strongly resisted the notion that generalizability was a desirable outcome of
research (1986):
37
The developmental unifonnities established by Piaget apply to the given milieu,
under the conditions of Piaget's study. They are not laws of nature, but are
historically and socially determined, (p. 55)
Vygotsky^s Zone of Proximal Development: SociaUy Mediated Learning
The philosophical perspective, therefore, of embeddedness of thought, in the
'fullness of life, personal needs, interests, inclinations, and impulses of the thinker' can be
seen as the impetus for the examination of the developing cognitive process m coate.vt.
Arismg from this perspective, \^ich can be seen in direct opposition to the notion of
egocentricity, led Vygotsky to the concept of the ZPD, a hypothetical zone of
development located between the tasks a child can successfully complete on own, and the
tasks he is capable of achieving in interaction with an expert. This concept is at odds with
the notion of universal stages of development and to the Piagetian perspective of the child
as 'impervious to experience', for in this model a child's achievements depend largely on
the nature of his mediated experiences, rather than on a developmental timeline. Berk &
Winsler (1995) elaborate on the interaction of the two lines of development descnTjed by
Vygotsky:
The natural line, refers to biological growth and maturation of
physical and mental structures. The cultural line refers to learning
to use cultural tools and to human consciousness, which emerges
from enga^g in cultural activity, (p. 5)
In this paradigm, the cultural contexts of the child are highly significant, as they both
determine and define the nature of experiences a child may have, as well as the cultural
significance placed on these experiences. Vygotsky (1978) viewed the child as a
consummately socially determined being:
38
The interaalization of the sodally rooted and historically developed
activities is the distinguishmg feature of human p^chology, the
basis of the qualitative leap from animal to human psychology, (p.
57)
Thus, the child is viewed as a sociocentric rather than egocentric being (Newkirk, 1989;
D>'Son, 1993). As Newkirk further points out. a Vygotskian perspective allows us to take
a resource model approach to the cultural diversity of schoolchildren (Newkirk. 1989)
Vygotsky's concept of language as a cultural tool has been so
influential because it avoids the anomalies of the dominant universal
models of development. For one things it accounts for cultural
differences in cognition. Different cultures offer up different toolsdifferent ways of conversmg, different ways of reading, different
'ways with words'— which members of these cultures then
internalize. If we view all humans as progressing through universal,
invariable stages, a divergence from this norm is classified easily as
deficit (p. 137).
Dynamic Assessment in the ZPD: Explanation versus Description
Vygotsky perceived the legitimate assessment of cognitive abilities in children to
face two separate and problematic obstacles. Firstly, Vygotsky (1978, 1986) was
concemed with the possibility of missing the significant etiology of learning behaviors, if
the research focus was on the outward expression of fossilized behaviors. He pointed out
that phenotypically identical processes could have markedly different genetic causes. He
termed fossilized behaviors those psychological processes that have become internalized
through repetition and are now automatic, thus the development of the process is now
obscured by the current form of the behavior. Vygotsl^' returned to his fundamental
philosophy of the historiological roots of learning in order to address this problem and
de\ised what he termed the 'genetic method'. In order to examine the learning in motion.
39
Vygotsky designed experimental situations in which the child's process would be evoked
by the interaction of a task slightly above the child's current problem solving capabilities,
and the introduction of a mediatmg stimulus as a cultural tool. Vygotsky's (1978)
"functional method of double stimulation" (p. 74) provided a window in to the child's
cognitive process. Thus, the methodology of dynamic assessment became a foundation
for Vygotsky's approach to the study of cognition.
Let us now consider an alternative paradigm characterized by the elements foregrounded by a Vygotsky's socioculturai theory of learning: "the children", socially
situated studies, chOdren as sociocentric actors, and the context specificity of the learning
environment.
Research in a Vveotskian Framework
This section will present a review of the research from a Vygotskian framework,
touching on the role of the affect as investigated by Bozuvich and Luria. Research will be
considered from the perspective of investigations of chUdren in socioculturaDy situated
studies. The invalidity that results from repositioning research originally operating from a
Vygotskian framework into a Piagetian framework will be examined. Several studies that
investigate the ZPD as a construct for organizing instruction will be reviewed, and, finally,
discourse as an element of socioculturai contexts in leammg will be discussed.
Reorienting the Research: A Move Away From Universals
Consider, m light of Vygotsky's arguments against the notion of unKersal stages
of development, Sulzby's (1986) position that the variation in forms observed in children's
writing preclude the possibility of a developmental sequence, and her subsequent rejection
40
of the comparative model employed to describe and understand child process (Sulzby,
1986):
I argue that children's theories are not organized like adult
conventional knowledge, thus the interactive theories have the
wrong details for a picture of young children, even though the
idea of parallel levels of processing appears to be sound, (p.53)
A subtle shift is suggested in her call for the reconsideration of the orientation of
the model for mvestigation, from a position of abstracting the child's performance as it
correlates to adult performance, to a descriptive model situated in the contexts and
purposes of the child. The distinction in orientation is subtle, yet the implications of such
a paradigm shift are profound and far-reaching. Sulzby's (1986) position is that the
variation m forms observed in children's writing precludes the possibility of a
developmental sequence. Rather, the paradigm whereby children's print processes are
compared to adult processes creates a bias toward identifying a ta.xonomic progression.
This can be seen as a rejection of the Piagetian notion of universal stages of development
and the notion of equilibrium/disequilibrium, which is seen to arise from a cognitive
framework within the child, and dependent upon mtemal characteristics (Piaget, 1954).
The Interaction of the AfTect and Cognitive Development
The significance of the relationship of the afifect to cognitKe development addressed
by Vygotsky, became the focus of work for his student, L.I. Bozuvich (1967), who
mvestigated the interaction of a child's personality, and the demands of schooling. By
centering her studies of the child on his interactions with family as a source of status
building, she was drawing on Vygotsky's perspectK'e of the inherently social nature of
41
children, fiirther elaborated by Luria (1969):
Vygotsky expressed the idea which he often repeated that the child
is from the very beginning a social being, association with his family
is from the very begnming a basic form of the child's basic vital
activity, (p. 127)
Bozuvich fiuther extended the investigation of the impact of
interactions within the family on the child^'s personality, to include school
contexts, in order to identify factors influencing the academic success of young
children in formal schooling. She discovered that the over-riding influential
relationship impacting children's interactions with each other and the school
environment was that of the student and the teacher. In identifying the factors
influencmg academic success, Bozuvich looked to the personality
characteristics of the child, which she described as significantly mediating the
influence of the environment (Bozuxich, 1967):
Thus it is not enough to look at the objecti\'e content of the environment. The
main task is to find the crucial link which defines the influence exerted on the child
by his environment, (p. 212)
Bozuvich also noted that N^iile social needs proxide the greatest motivation for attention
to tasks, the child is often not conscious of the source of personal motivation.
Citing Vygotsky's notion of'internalized rules' —that a game rule is an mtemalized rule,
and as such, not a rule the chfld is forced to obey— Bozuvich recommended that children's
activities be structured in such a way that they coincide with the children's own goal. This
grounding of instruction in both the notion of the significance children's own purposes,
and awareness of the driving motivation of social relationships in cognitive endeavors is in
42
accordance with contemporary studies in sociocultural aspects of learning.
A Sociocultural Perspective of Learning: Cultural Contexts, Social Interactions,
And the Notion of Children
Clotilde Pontecorvo (1993) points out the significance of the specific people
involved in communicative interactions, and the impact of social relations on the type of
cognitive activity in wUch the protagonists are engaged. The cultural context consists not
only of immediate characteristics of the environment, but also of the intentions and
interactions of those within the context. Investigations of the "child", therefore, cannot be
meaning&ily decontextualized fi'om their setting.
Anne Haas Dyson (1994) illuxninates the possibilities for a pedagogy that
foregrounds real children in real contexts. She pomts to the problematic pattern of
basing our understandings on the "constructed chOd" (E)yson, 1994):
...the myth of the child [writer] who lives without a gender, race,
class, or any other significant coUective relationship, other perhaps
than age. (p. 2)
Dyson believes that the investigative focus on 'the child' is an attempt to create research
uncontaminated by sociocultural eflfects. She posits that the inattention to the cultural
contexts and children's purposes prevents researchers fi^om recognizing the cognitive
impact of children's social lives.
Conflicting Paradigms and Unexpected Orthodoxy in Child-Centered Study:
Applying Piaget in A Vygotskian Framework
Donald Graves (1983) sought to bring child-centered perspecti\'es of whole
language into the writing curriculum. From his years ^ent observing what children did
43
while writing in a white, middle-class New England elementary school, Graves created the
'writing workshop'. This workshop was based on the elements of process writing
prewriting, writing, revision, editing, sharing, and presenting written texts to an audience—
that are routinely ascribed to expert writers. Writing conferences with the teacher were of
central in^ortance to the molding of child performance in writing workshop, and were
intended to scaffold the instructional conversations of teacher-student on the familiar
patterns of parent-child conversations. Based on Graves' earlier study, Lucy Calkins
(1986) developed further instructional recommendations for improving student writing
based on her subsequent studies of elementary school children of varied cultural and
socioeconomic backgrounds.
The assumed parallels of the writing conference to parent-
child interactions were not reevaluated in light of the new sociocultural conte.vts, and
remained a central feature of Calkins' new studies with students of diverse cultural
backgrounds. However, the instructional dialogs which were at the heart of Writing
Workshop reflect a characteristic linguistic pattern of mainstream white culture, and the
form of sociaUy privileged^discourse valued and promoted by schools (Gee, 1995; Heath,
1983; Michaels, l981)C^^ithin the specific context of the classrooms Graves observed,
the conferences might have served to facilitate student learning. However, for children of
other linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the inexplicit protocols for information sharing
and display sinq)ly mark yet another discontinuity between school expectation, and other
ways of knowmg.
Because the mainstream cultiu'al context in which the Writing
Workshop was seated were perceived as neutral, the ways Graves saw children write, in
the hands of subsequent researchers, unfortunately became a prescription for the ways
44
chfldren should write (Dyson, 1993). Writing Workshop, decontextualized from its
origmal setting, 'has become an inflexible orthodoTQ^, handed down from on high, written
on tablets of stone (Fox, 1993).
The Zone of Proximal Development as a Research Construct
In her carefiilly situated studies, Dyson (1993) investigated the collaborative nature
of children's own writing process. She saw the child writers as meaning negotiators and
social actors. She observed them to create text worlds through social interaction, and to
create social worlds through their interactions with text. As children collaborated to
produce writing to share what Dyson termed 'performance pieces', they participated in
collaborative zones of proximal development. The ZPD was further facilitated by their
teacher, who, rather than directing the children's process, participated with them to make
explicit the types of sharing they were by personal choice, engaged in. This teacher role is
similar to that observed m a study by Moll (1994) of out-standing Latino teachers whose
practice incorporated whole class engagement. Moll observed teachers to create
collective zones of proximal development for the students by providing them uith
opportunities to discuss the subject under study.
In an earlier study investigating instructional methodologies to address a homeschool cultiu'e connection for minority' language and culture children, Moll and Greenberg
(1990) implemented Vygotsky's concept of the ZPD. While Vygotsky clearly indicated a
hierarchy of cognitive functioning in the distinction he made between the two forms of
scientific versus spontaneous concepts, he also en^hasized the role of spontaneous
thought in the mediation of the acquisition of schooled concepts. Thus, in the study of
45
incorporating the home culture into literacy mstruction, MoQ and Greenberg (1990)
fbcussed on their concept o^finuls of knowledge, "an operations manual of essential
information and strategies households need to maintain their well being" (p. 323), which
represented culturally embedded and relevant spontaneous concepts. They made several
observations regarding the transfer of these fimds of knowledge within families. The
zones of proximal development were the result of activity between children and adults;
they were initiated by the children's mterest, and were not necessarily seen as producti\'e
interactions by the aduhs. Indeed, one parent in offliandedly dismissing her child's
imitative but messy experiments with motor repair, 'lie just likes to make a pig of himself *
(Moll and Greenberg, 1990 p.324). In this study, two separate approaches were designed
to bring the community fimds of knowledge into the classroom. In the first, resources and
tools were provided for the case-study child to develop and display her increasing
competence as she moved through a zone of proximal development toward the acquisition
of schooled concepts. In the second study, teachers formed relationships with parents that
allowed them to investigate and bring into the school the local funds of knowledge, and to
invite parents to participate as experts in the area of study.
Gallimore and Tharpe (1990) also conducted related studies, in which the local
funds of knowledge were integrated into school curriculum. Whereas in the Moll and
Greenberg (1990) studies, the culturally influenced concepts were content based, in the
Gallimore and Tharp study, the discourse styles of the local community, (process-based
concepts) were appropriated and became the basis for instructional dialogues intended to
scaffold children's development of higher order thinking. The concept of cognitive
46
structuring, that is, the organization of similar content or contexts to provide a layering of
experiences, was developed to promote student discussions that would act as a zone of
proximal development for alL That is, that expectation was that the discontinuity of
home-school discourse could be minimized through the acquisition of school discourse by
those students less familiar with the discourse, in conversation with those classmates who
had already acquired it.
Discourse as an Element of Sociocultural Contexts in Learning
The notion of dialog is central to a sociocultural perspective of leaming. Schultz
(1997) bases her understanding of collaboration on the dialogic notion of language taken
from Bakhtin (1981, 1986). She writes (Schultz, 1997):
Bakhtin's msistence that texts are embedded in social dialogue and
his description of their muhivocal qualities (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986) is
critical to an understanding of writing as a collaborative activity.
(p. 256)
Thralls (1992) also applies the concept of collaborative process in communication, to
writing. She advances the definition of collaboration to include both direct verbal
interactions, as well as the notion of cultiu'al coOaborarion, 'to recognize the social sphere
of voices that inform and limit expression." (p. 77)
The recognition of this social ^here of voices calls us to examine the influences
outside the classroom that have an impact on the interactions within. Gee (1996) and
Michaels (1981) examined the effects of cultural discontinuity between the discourse
practices of a young student and the expectations for literate behavior of her teacher. The
child was effectively prevented from partic^ating in any meaningfiil verbal exchange while
47
the teacher was present. Indeed, the story-tellings that illustrate the contrast bet\\een the
child's form and intentions for sharing time with the teacher expectations were transcribed
only because the teacher was called out of the room and the child was therefore allowed
without interruption to complete her story,
hi response to the collision between the
valued forms of discourse experienced by the child of Michaels' study, and for many
speakers of non mainstream dialects, both Heath and Street (cfted m Gee, 1995) call for
schools to provide literacy instruction aimed at socializing non-mainstream children into
the discourse practices that advantage mainstream children for literacy mstruction. They
present as primary the need for an instructional focus that serves to mculcate children into
the social practices and discourses of power (R_L. Collins, 1993; Ogbu, 1994).
Not only do schools require the use of mainstream discourse that is often at odds
with the 'ways with words' of other culture group, the discourse patterns of schools
additionally require children to internalize the artificial and idiosyncratic features of
teacher-student interactions. These include the recitation script, the three-part question,
and the required verbal response to known answer questions (Gallimore and Tharp, 1988;
Mehan, 1991). These tacit features belong to the artificial patterns of interaction that
characterize the culture of the classroom in mainstream schools, and ostensibly present
obstacles to the academic success of all students. Mehan (1991) fiuther observed the
mismatch of home-school discourse features of low-income and linguistic mmority youth,
and noted that when these discrepancies are not made e.^licit, even child-centered
instructional models fail to place the minority culture and language child in the center.
Ogbu (1994) differentiates between minority' groups according to their voluntary'
48
versus involuntaty status as minorities and posits for each, different obstacles to academic
access. Involuntary minorities, A&ican American, Native American and Hispanic are
among the most academicaUy disadvantaged groups as a result of their minority status.
For voluntary minorities for whom fidl assimilation is a possibility, cultural linguistic
differences are an obstacle to be overcome. For involimtary minorities, the collectK'e
identity may weQ be formed in opposition to mainstream culture.
Oppositional identity internalized by minoriries makes them
consciously and unconsciously interpret learning Standard English
and school related a^ects of mainstream culture as learning to act
like their oppressors, their enemies, white Americans, and therefore
as threatening to their collective identity, and therefore resist this
learning...to be successful is to be white.
(Ogbu, 1994 p. 377)
Thus, if involuntary minoriries are to gain access to socially privileged discourse, Ogbu
cites the need for mstruction aimed at demystifying which learning actually leads to school
success, and which learning has as its goal the acculturation to mainstream ideals.
Werstch (1990) challenges the practice in formal instruction of requiring children
to employ a discourse he characterizes as 'the decontevtualized voice of rationality',
which reflects the dominant ideology, which in turn requires a separation of intellect and
affect as well as a separation of communicative context and semantic content. Werstch
(1990) elaborates:
...research suggests that a great deal of the activity of formal
instruction focuses on encouraging children to master discourse
groimded in decontextualized forms of representation... even when
other forms of representing the object and operations at issue would
do equally well, or better. One of the messages of formal schooling
is that, whenever possible, one should prK'flege decontextualized
rational modes of discourse over others, (p. 121)
49
Dyson proposes a more radical alternative to the solutions suggested by Heath (1983) and
others, that call for the acculturation of minority language and culture children into the
discourses of the dominant ideology. Dyson (1993) eloquently calls for schools to enter
mto cultural negotiations with children. Dyson notes, (1993) that "Sve need to do more
than scaSbld children's entry into the valued ways of society.^( p 216)
Redefining Literacy; Whose Voice. Words. Power?
In this section I will discuss a deGnition of "literacies" that places the mainstream
definition based on dominant practices into a perspective that embraces multiple Svays
with words' (Heath, 1983). I will then address the notion of authenticity as it pertains to
both the issues of student voices, as well as instructional practice.
From Monolithic Literacy to Multiple Literacies: Creating Room for V^oices
What is literacy? Jenny Cook-Gumperz (1986) noted that literacy has been
redefined in the dominant paradigm as schooled literacy, that is, a series of
decontextualized skills, based on instruction organized according to measurable
objectives. Within the paradigm created by such a definition, there is little room to
consider cultural perspectives. How can we reconcile the multiple 'ways with words' into
a definition of literacy that aligns with a Vygotskian perspectK^e of language as a cultural
tool? Flower (1994) suggests a construct for the mclusion of multiple literate
perspectives with her term 'limited literacies'. These would include the entire spectrum of
literacy activities across class and culture. From a pragmatic stance, one can hardly
discount the importance of access to culturally privileged forms of discourse. Flower
50
(1994) problematizes the privfleged literacy forms, (which are but a small piece in the
larger puzzle of literate practices). She explains (Flower, 1994):
[These forms] aspire to the status of a generic term... And even more problematic,
limited literacies, like the pedagogy of correctness, solidify their position by posing
as a necessary foundation, the basic skills, which must be in place before other
literacies can develop...The ritual public discourse of literacy has failed to put these
limited literacies in perspective, (p. 14)
If we are to promote the use and access to multiple literacies, we must find a way
to both limit the imperialism of the discourses of power, and simultaneously, make its
forms explicit and accessible. Gee (1993) presents two conceptual principles that govern
ethical human discourse, (parentheses in original):
1.That something would harm someone else (deprive them of what they
or the society they are in view as goods) is always a good reason
(although perhaps not a sufficient one) not to do it. (p. 292)
2. One always has the (ethical) obligation to (try to) explicate (render
overt and primary) any theory that is (largely tacit and either removed
or deferred when there is reason to believe that the theory advantages
oneself or one's group over other people or other groups, (p. 293)
On personal level therefore, we must become cognizant of our own literacies,
and how they are related to the social structures and interactions in which they
are situated (Collins, 1995). And secondly, we must become attuned to the
multiple 'ways with words' and the social practices of others unlike ourseK^es
and seek to understand what they signify. As Gee (1995) eloquently states,
"What matters is not the decontextualized ability to read or write, but the
social practices into \^ch people are apprenticed as part of a social group."
(p. 57)
51
The Problem of Authenticity
The whole language approach is based on the notion of personal engagement with
literacy in meaningful ways. Thus teachers struggled to provide intrinsically motivating
modes of instruction m real contexts. Students write letters and invitations, make personal
responses to literature, create their own texts in writing workshop, and invite their families
to Author's Teas. The model of holistic immersion provides the foundation for studies m
mquiry based ciuriculum aimed at extending child centered instruction across the
curriculum, as children investigate matters of interest in an academic environment.
(Harste, Shorte & Burke, 1992) Yet, framed as it is by the dominant ideology which
values certain types of literacy products and processes over other, and privfleges some
voices over others, the issue of authenticity is problematic. Authenticity is a socially
contested term (Gee, 1991). Dyson (1994) cautions against the role of teacher as the
provider of authentic purpose, unconsciously driven by mamstream notions of what
constitutes valuable learning. In addressing the 'child' of instruction, Dyson (1994) notes,
'\ve frame individual chQdren, not with the relations that matter to them, but the relations
that matter to us." (p.7)
Carol Edlesky (1993) identified that students overwhelmingly wTote on implausible
teacher-given topics such as letters imaginary characters, and of mukiple classroom
invitations all written to a single person. She termed these 'artificial simulations', and
according to her statistics, four himdred out of five hundred pieces of writmg fell into this
category of writing. Mem Fox also (1996) decries the plethora of inauthentic writing that
occupies the majority of literacy experiences. She calculated that her class load of one
52
hundred and fifty students, who had attended twelve years of school, for approximateiy
forty-two weeks a year, five days a week had created seven hundred and sixty-five
thousand pieces of writing, 'and none of it memorable'. She asserts that iet's pretend
isn't real', isn't based on a true interaction with real people, and with real consequences.
Authenticity is bom in the '4 R's': 'relationships', 'reality in writing', 'rejoicing in
choices', 'return of the aflEective'.
Fox contrasts her students' apathy toward the inauthenticity that characterized the
majority of their literacy experiences in school with their level of investment when
involved m an authentic writing project, with authentic audience and thus purpose. She
described student engagement (Fox, 1993):
Dreading the imminent and real audience galvanized them into quite
a different sort of action: they ached with caring about the response,
and rehearsed for hours outside class time. My students' enjoyment
of language was extraordinary. I was moved by how happy they
were, moved by how hard they worked, and stunned by how much
they developed. I realized with grief that purposeless activities and
language arts are probably the burial grounds of language
development, and that coffins can be found in most classrooms,
including mine. (p. 5)
It is important to note that the character of assigned versus unassigned writing is
not necessarily a solution to the issue of authenticity. Rather, it's the level of personal
engagement and sense of purpose that brings authenticity to the task. Newldrk (1989)
asserts that the problem with assignments stems not fi-om puiposelessness of the particular
task, or from the notion of imposition on the writer, but from the inauthentic nature of the
task. Basalized literature activities in reading and writing are inauthentic, not just because
of they are teacher-imposed activities, but because basals do not represent authentic texts.
53
Edelsky (1993) cites Newkirk as he elaborates on the characteristics of authentic text:
...for creating an authentic text, two things are needed, reading and
writing, and print with all systenos mtact. Authentic reading and
writing requires not only a person who uses all cueing systems, but
print that ofiers these systems working interdependently. audience,
conditions for view, genre, and intention, (p. 170-173)
Dyson (1989), in her commitment to view chfldren as social actors, focuses sharply on the
importance of audience in fostering authentic literacy development. In her studies of
young school children, she observed that 'the audience' served a variety of fimctions.
CMdren created social relationdiips through the creation of their texts, and created their
texts through social relationships. In one capacity, the audience served as primary
motivator toward the creation of a product as children wrote performance pieces. The
children were motivated by the audience, not only as passive consumer of their print, but
by the possibility of engendering a reaction in their listeners. The desire to participate in
these public literacy events also created an environment where the audience inherent in the
child's social networks, fostered the writing process itself. Children collaborated with
peers in the very encoding of their texts, thus expanding their repertoire of writing
strategies. And, finally, the notion of audience played a significant role in extending the
ways m which children perceived of themselves, as they adapted the themes as well as
strategies of their peers into their own writing.
Authenticity enters the whole language program when the very discourses of the
children take the floor. When young children's own writing becomes the primary focus of
a literacy program, it brings with it the cultiu-ally influenced beliefs, values, goals,
intentions, and dreams. Thus the opportunity is presented to enter into a dialog of
54
possible social worlds with childreii that begins with them, valuing them and their
productions.
Reseating Whole Language in a Critical Pedagogy
This section discusses the central concepts of critical pedagogy, and addresses the
limitations of a cultural^, socio-politicaUy unsituated whole language philosophy as a tool
for fostering critical learning. The notion of collected personal histories as a social
history, and the role of coUected personal histories is examined as a tool in the process of
demystification. Finally, a framework is suggested that situates whole language within a
critical pedagogy.
The Central Concepts of a Critical Pedagogy
Critical pedagogy has as its goal, the transformation of the human condition. By
rejecting as 'naturaF the status quo, a critical pedagogy seeks to unravel the sociopolitical
layers of cause and effect, and to render visible the ideology that creates the appearance of
the immutability of social practice. Critical pedagogy attempts to connect educational
practice with social action, creating a pedagogy of praxis, to chaUenge the hegemony of
dominant ideology and the invisibility of its efi^ects. Gadotti states it this way (1996):
The concept of a dialectic is central to the goals of a critical pedagogy, to reveal
the interaction between the status quo, and imagmed alternatives, between theory'
and practice, and to open up for consideration the image of what is, and what
could be. (p.7)
Marx was himself critical of schools that existed in name only, rows and rows of
children seated at desks, doing nothing, their physical presence merely signaling their
statistical attendance. In contemporary stratified society, our schools are not substantially
55
improving the condition of the population they purport to serve.
In order to benefit from
federal fimding to support public educational programs, schools must demonstrate the laclc
of aciiievement of a significant segment of the school population. Overwhelmingly,
minority language and culture children fall into this category, and the failure of the schools
to educate them is conveniently ascribed to deficiencies located within the child. In this
paradigm, attributes such as bilmgualism, other types of cultural capital, and experiences
beyond those anticipated by the school, are characterized as deficiencies. Furthermore, the
minority language and culture children who fail to achieve on a par with their privfleged
white classmates and enter the workforce fiirther provide, through their labor, the time for
the children of the dominant group to study.
.A. critical pedagogy hopes to counteract the effects of the dominant paradigm by
making visible the structural inequality inherent m capitalistic society, thus clearly locating
the failure to succeed of non-mainstream children, outside the individual In the quieting
of the dominant voices, comes the opportimity to create possible worlds fi-om the
collective experiences of the dominated voices. Giroux (1994, p.) points to the
importance of each voice speaking its truth for itself.
More (is required) than recovering or rewriting the repressed histories
of the other... (what is required is the) rendering visible how western
knowledge is encased in historical and institutional structures that both
privQege and exclude particular readings, particular voices, certain
aesthetics, forms of authority, representations and modes of sociality.
Thus, it is imperative that all be involved in naming the worlds. Emancipation does not
arise fi-om the few naming the world for the many. (Freire & Macedo, 1987)
How Does Whole Language Fit With a Critical Pedagogy?
56
The whole language philosophy attempts to provide holistic, empowering, and
personally meaningfiil mstniction. Yet, framed by hegemonic practice, whole language
fails to be emancipatory in practice, for those whose cultural ways of knowing, whose
ways with words, differ from the mainstream expectation. The whole language philosophy
is framed by language that is whole only for some, whose goals of meaningful discourse
provide meaning onty for some, and whose commitment to experiential learning builds on
personal experience, only for some. Critical pedagogy demands that the teacher and
learner become acutely aware of the dynamics of schooling. For the member of the
dominating class privilege must be unlearned so that it becomes possible to listen to
others. For the member of the dominated class it is necessary to learn how to speak so as
to be heard (Girou.\, 1981).
A whole language philosophy, reoriented toward unveiling the structural elements
that restrict non-mainstream expression, prepared to share the floor with other Svays with
words', committed to re-visioning the narrow dominant cultural definitions of literacy, can
be a powerful force in emancipatory education.
In terms of practice, a teacher who wishes to participate in an emancipatory
curriculum must be committed to relinquishing the role of sharer of privileged knowledge.
Not quite a facilitator, which carries the inherent notion of the holder of knowledge to be
transmitted, but rather an advisor, the teacher must be also be committed to participating
in a mutually educating dialog with her students. Thomas (1994) describes the necessary
orientation of such a teacher:
Such a teacher needs to be informed about the social ground from
which students write, a knowledge that needs to come from
57
(cultural) texts, but also through listenmg and seeing their own
students... Explorations abound, mostly influenced by Freire's
dialogic theories of learning which demand of teachers that they
constantly interpret and unveil their realities, (p. 113)
By accepting the role of a non-privileged member of the learning community, the
teacher is no longer a participant in an mherently disadvantaging, politically driven,
educational ^stem. Gadotti (1996) describes the changed role of the teacher in a critical
pedagogy:
Teachers must move from being vehicles of cultural transmission
which implies a relationship of superiority to the student, to a role in
which consciousness of their role in society and in the classroom
allows them to choose not to participate as an %strument of the
elites', (p. 117)
The role of the teacher in this revision of a whole language pedagogy
requires a commitment on a deeply personal level, to examine one's personal
ideology, to 'interpret and unveil ones own reality'.
Clearly, a critical
pedagogist needs to exorcise any belief in the superiority of one's own culture
group but even more importantly, one needs to deliberately interact with others
on an institutional level in order to counteract hegemony. Catherine Davis
(1994, citing [>iarmid. Grant and McLoughlin) warns that hegemony cannot
effectively be impacted by individual mteractions. She advocates instead for
measures employed on the level of institutions.
Gadotti (1996) advocates for the establishment of a multicultural curriculum that
creates an intertext between what he calls 'first culture'(a concept that corresponds to
Vygotsky's 'lived culture'), which includes 'mass culture, and 'elaborated and difficult
58
cultural forms', (wWch corre^ond to Vygotsky's scientific concepts). This multicultural
ciuricuhun is characterized by the following tenets outlined by Gadotti (1996), and
paraphrased as follows: Such a multicultural curriculum recognizes that cultural diversity
is the wealth of humanity, that basic education is the floor, not the ceiling, and that it is
directed to all who have not had the advantage of teaching at the right age. It presupposes
a link between formal and informal education, makes new links with the community, and
foregrounds the municipality as the fondamental actor in the forming of new connections.
Echoing Freire, Gadotti (1996) underscores the significance of hope in the
endeavor to reshape cultural realities for the greater actualization of all people, through
the joint interactions of the individual and the faistitution. He calls for a pedagogy that
begins in the life story of the individual
Personal Histories as Social History
Stories are our way of conceiving, or creating: they are the way the
imagination works... The plots of life are the plots of literature...
Our stories are the vantage points from which we perceive the
world and the people in it.
(Smith 1990 p 64-65)
The individual ego is a social construction... to work on a life
history is to work on a social history. (Edgerton 1991 p 85, citing
Russell Jacoby)
Frank Smith (1990) suggests that our stories are really the recounting of the events
of our lives. Embedded, as we are, in a social context, and driven by the ideologies of our
society, these stories serve to illustrate our position in place and time. Within the
framework of our words, we are culturaOy, politically, and socially situated.
Thus, the autobiographies of our students also serve as eyes into their world, and
59
can become a platform for significant exploration of social constructions as they shape all
of our lives, and thus our stories. Place becomes symbolic of the context of cultural
interactions. A Vygotskian research perspective reveals that research investigations must
be situated in the specific geography, space, and time, in order to reveal the significance of
the observed interactions to the participants; so too must stories, in order to reveal their
true meaning for both the writer and the reader.
Taubman (1993) elaborates on the mteraction of three registers m multiethnic and
anti-bias education. The 'fictional register' provides an uncritical snapshot that ignores
the impact of identity on meaning. The 'communal register' represents the identity that
exists in, and is given meaning by, the group. The autobiographical identity' is a private
and evolving aspect of self He elaborates on the interaction of these registers Taubman,
1993):
The mteraction of these registers provides the fi'amework for
autobiographical e.\ploration. The registers must always be kept in
dialectic tension so that identity can be investigated and used as a
means for exploring and illuminating our experience, (p. 303)
Kincheloe and Pinar elaborate fiirther on the idea of the interaction of sameness and
otheraess, on the intertwined nature of our constructions of others and of ourseK es.
Foregrounding self-knowledge as a necessary element of emancipation, they present the
autobiography as a both a means and a mediation of critical reflection. The power of
critical reflections on life experience to promote personal transformation, with implications
for phylogenetic transformations as well, is presented by Pinar (1991):
Our life histories are not liabilities to be exorcised, but are the very
precondition for knowing... The situation ^eaks through the self and
60
the self through the situation...Autobiographical method can be used to
cultivate such attention; to situation as element of sel^ the self as
situation, and the transformation and reconstitution of both.(p. 97)
The Intersection of Whole Language and Critical Pedagogy:
Critical Literacy
Vygotsky believed that the acquisition of cultural meanings by the individual was a
creatK'ely transformative process, rather than a model for cultural determinism. Thus the
individual's transformation through the acquisition of cultural knowledge and tools
resulted in profound ontogenetic as well as phylogenetic benefits, as the creations of the
individual served as well to extend the repertoires of the cultural community. Vygotsky
also emphasized the necessity of the child to perceive a personal need in writing.
Vera
John Steiner (1978), in the afterword to Mind In Society. (Vygotsky, 1978).describes
efifective learning environments as the interaction between the mherent and mutable
characteristic of the child with the objective enxdronment. Thus literacy instruction can
never be uniform, but must mstead be as idiosyncratic as the members of the learning
community. Literacy instruction aimed at developing the critical literacy of children is
based on the assumptions of increased cultural capital for significant change. Through
meaningful creation and discussion of texts, children are facilitated in a zone of proximal
development. Wells describes the interaction of talk and text (Wells, 1994):
...the new synoptic mode of construing experience is related to the
more familiar dynamic mode, through talk that moves back and forth
between the two modes, building bridges between them. ( p.8)
How do teachers participate in fostering critical literacy? Mem Fox (1993)
61
suggests that a key to critical literacy lies in fore-grounding the relationships among
teacher and students. Somewhat &cetiously she posits for fimher inquiry the role of love
m the mastery of reading. Shared critical reflection has the potential to create waves of
profound social change. Sharon Hamiltoa (1995) sharing her autobiography in Mv
Name's Not Susie takes a risk unusual in academic arenas. She tells the details of her
personal emancipation through literacy, through the retellmg of her personal history. In
this way she reveals herself to be true to the goals of a critical pedagogy, through her
courageous recounting of her painfid and alienating childhood, situated in the particular
contexts of her life. Through her honest and deeply personal account, she reaches out to
those whose condition she knows so weU, and by her very example, exhorts them, too, to
rise above the seemingly insurmountable material circumstances of their lives. Her
document thus becomes more than a personal account, and takes meaning as a chapter in
the social history of collective humankind.
After reading her book, a student responds to the text (Hamilton 1995).
I met in this book a person that I already knew. Dr. Hamilton,
nice enough, but worldly, scholarly, inq)ressive even among 'them'.
To view this rejected figure as a problematic little girl m an
orphanage, dirty unpromising, unwanted was, to say the least, an
eye opening experience. I was at first shocked, then intrigued, and
finally and lastingly, inspired. I don't know if the wall I created
between 'them' and 'us' will e\'er fall down, but it has certainly
been weakened here.
I don't know if I'll ever get to where you are, but knowing you
were once where I am makes it seem possible. Maybe I won't get
as far as you are, but I know that the wall is scalable. I feel hope,
for myself and for my children.
You mention in your book that your students are fi'ee to call
you Sharon but that many choose to call you Dr. Hamilton. In the
past I chose to call you Dr. Hamflton out of reject for our
differences. It is with a sense of pride in our similarities that I will
62
continue to address you as Dr. Hamilton.
You ask, "So what? Who cares?"
I do. (p.150-151)
Perhaps through the shared expression of life histories, literacy education can be
reoriented into an increasing sum of hiunan possibilities.
Considerations of Race
In this last section I will discuss various theoretical frameworks for multicultwal
education that derive from distinct ideological positions, and their effect on race as a
factor m the education of race/ethnic minority children. These include minimising the
significance of race in a muhicultural curriculum emphasizing acceptance and
acknowledgement, considerations of race and voice, the dialectics of prestige and power
as they are connected to race in education, and the demystification of race as central to the
notion of shifting location in an ideology of whiteness.
Multicultural Education: A Forum for Ail Voices?
Historically the goal of multicultural curricula has been to include the perspectiv es
and literatures other than the white-middle class experience that characterizes mainstream
education. This notion of inclusion has guided the curriculum frameworks of researchers
in multicultural education such as Banks (1993) and Ciumnins (1986), who have sought to
create equit>' through the addition of minority race/ethnic group voices to the mainstream
curriculum. Caveats regarding the selection of children's muhicultural literature reflect
the concern with maintaining the authenticity of minority voice, mdicating consciousness
of the tendency of majority voice to overwhelm and appropriate the stories of historically
underrepresented people. Along these lines. Day (1994) advises:
63
Books on mmority themes -often hastily conceived—suddenly began
appearing inn the mid-and late I960's. Most of these books were written by white
authors, edited by white editors and published by white publishers. They often
reflected a wiiite middle-class, mainstream point of view. Not until the early
1970's did the children's book world begm to even remotely reflect the realities of
a pluralistic society, (p.8)
Although Day alludes to the sflencing effect of the power differential on minority race/
ethnic group voices, she fails to address the notion of race as more than aspect of ethnic
identity. The failure to acknowledge the politics of race relations continues to create an
ideological divide among researchers m multicultural education.
Ideological Differences in Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum
The ideological divide is manifest in the argument between Shannon (1994) and
Harris (1994) m their positions on multicultural literature. Shannon clearly believes he is
adopting a pragmatic approach in his perspective on addressing multiculturaUsm and
literature. Shannon (1994) is sensitive to the fears of the population he teaches:
Those earnest, hopefid (mostly) white women wonder how their lives, their
teachmg, and the literatiu'e they use will relate to their students' lives and concerns
about multiculturaUsm... Although some understand multiculturaUsm as a threat,
the majority, whfle peiiiaps sympathetic, consider it to be beside the point—
afSxed, but not central to their development as teachers, or even, as citizens, (p. I)
However, although Shannon clearly announces awareness of his privileged status
as a white male, 'T am the canon"(p.l.) he fails to demonstrate critical consciousness of
the degree to which the advantages of his whiteness have proportionately disadvantaged
non-white groups. He decries the identification of (white) children's literature as the
norm, and multicultural children's literature as 'exotic", clearly arguing against the
dichotomi^g of his' and 'them', yet his unpassioned caU for equitable treatment does not
64
acknowledge the political realities of race relations. His emphatic criticism of Harris'
choice to publish only the works of minority race/ethnic group authors in her anthology of
multicultural children's literature underscores his inability or unwillingness to
contextualize multicultural curriculum m the socio-political realities of race relations in the
US. He cannot understand how w4iite voice can be excluded from a multicultural
anthology. Rather than re^ond to the voices presented, he balks at the omission of
dominant-culture literature. His resistance to the absence of white voices resonates with
the fear expressed by opponents of Affirmative Action that any attempt to create equity
for the historically disadvantaged necessarily limits opportunities for those historically
advantaged.
Unfortunately, Harris' (1994) rebuttal of Shannon's critique does little to further
the notion of critical consciousness of race and its relation to muhicultural curricula.
Whereas Shannon can be criticized for ignoring race in his critiques of cultural hegemony,
Harris makes race (decontextualized from the sociociUtural arena) the defining feature of
her argument. The use of her autobiography to illustrate the power differential of
black/white race relations glibly ignores the equalizing efifect of her socio-economic status.
Harris (1994) assertion that students "had never encountered anyone like me" or '\vere
not only openly hostile to multiculturalism; they were openly hostile to me" (p 10) creates
a falsely exotic persona based solely on the notion of her race. Similarly her claims of
inferiority status as a black woman fail to address her status as a university professor, and
conflict with her observations that "^Many [students] did not relish the thought that I had
power over them." (p.10)
65
Problematizing Race
The arguments presented by Shannon and Harris thus represent two perspectives
of race as a feature of multicultural education. But, for this discussion to free itself from
the static dichotomy of point and counterpoint, it must move beyond the microcosm of
singular personal histories, beyond my story versus your story. The dialog must be
simultaneously public and private, mterpersonal and intrapersonal, personal history
resituated in social history. Race must be problematized as a significant factor m education
by both \v1iites as well as people of color, in a dialectic that both recognizes and seeks to
remedy the patterns of institutionalized racism In her reflective text on her evperiences
as the white mother of Black sons, as a white professor of Black literature studies, Lazarre
(1996) speaks to the role of wUte people seeking to join in the dialog.
The whiteness of whiteness is the blindness of williul ouiocence. It is being
oblivious, out of ignorance or callousness or bigotry or fear, to the history and
legacy of American slavery; to the generations of racial oppression continuing: to
the repeated indignities experienced by Black Americans every single day; to the
Afiican cultural heritage which influences every American, long here and newly
arrived; to the highly racialized society that this country remains, (p 50 )
66
CHAPTER THREE; RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION
Situating the Classroom; Welcome to Room 209
During the year of the study I was assigned to a monolingual English classroom
for the first time in several years (although the classroom complexion wHl rapidly change
over the next few weeks to become a dual language environment). In order to work parttime and remain at the same elementary school, I accepted a monolingual job-share; I
taught Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, my teaching partner, Mondays and Tuesdays.
Palo Verde School was located on the southern side of the city, the 'other side of the
tracks', figuratively speaking. Indeed, Southside City, as the region is now called, was
annexed firom the city proper several years ago, and the property ta.x base of the aflQuent
north side no longer supports public education here.
Until five years ago Palo Verde was
the district's Special Adaptive Instructional Magnet for elementary age special needs
students. When overcrowding of the neighborhood elementary schools dictated the need
to include regular education classes here, the area boundaries were quickly redrawn to the
advantage of the previously existent schools: Palo Verde's students were statistically the
most impoverished of the district. The school now housed two classrooms of each grade,
K-5, and had been classified as a Chapter One school; approximately 95% of students
were considered to be at risk. During the year of my investigation the student population
was three percent Afiican-American, eight percent Anglo, three percent Native
American/Pacific Islander, and eight-six percent Mexican American.
Palo Verde School drew its population of students fi-om the neighborhoods
67
directly to the west and south of the school Most of the &iniUes lived in old, singlewide
mobile homes haphazardly clustered into dusty trailer parks. A few families had moved
into new rent-controlled apattment complexes. It was an area characterized by poverty
and violence and unrest. Gang activities left their mark in graffiti and drive-by shootings.
Durmg home visits children showed me the bullet holes in the trailers ne.\t door. When
the bullets came through their own wmdows, the lucky ones moved, sometimes back
across the border to Mexico, more often to neighborhoods to the east and north. Thus,
Palo Verde School was notorious for the transitional nature of its student body. Names
crossed out or squeezed between the lines of the class rosters recorded the coming and
going of students mto our classroom. Five months mto the school year only twelve of our
original twenty in our class were still enrolled. Four students who had attended the
previous year never attended the current year. Five more students moved to other
neighborhoods before the end of the second quarter. One student joined us from another
city. And, in an unprecedented building move, five students joined us from the bilingual
classroom next door. We stood at eighteen.
On that first day of school, I surveyed this year's classroom with something akin
to dismay. I sensed no quickly fisrmed community here. The students were perched on
the edge of their seats, poised for fight or flight. They quickly marked oflT their territory
with sticky name labels. One student's anxiety stood out in particuIar—Tenaya. Tenaya's
sense of membersh^ in the classroom was tenuous. Hers was one of few black families to
move into the almost exclusive^ Mexican heritage neighborhood that comprised our
school population. Her dark honey con^lexion was no different from her classmates, but
68
she was not one of them. In desperation after Tenaya's third complamt that Rico had
called her "chocolate" I foolishly held his arm next to hers.
"What's different here, Rico? You're exactly the same color? " (I had earlier given
him my speech, "name-calling that refers to a person's color is a particular kind of hatred
called racism, and it's not allowed here.") Rico twisted around to look at my face.
" But Mrs. Israel, I'm Mexican and she's black."
Eight years old and they know about racism —that it has only marginally to do
with color, but rather with culture, and power. Tenaya's culture was not Rico's. Her
culture was not shared by any other person in our class. She was alone, and she refused to
be powerless.
I wondered how to go about engaging with this group of children in the process of
making visible the politico-socio-cultural influences and structural inequality (Ogbu 1983,
1994) that determine where they live, where they come to school? I am not suggesting
that these children, at the age of eight, would come to terms with issues of racism and
poverty and discrimination. But I believe that if they don't developing a conscious
awareness of cultural-minority status, the transparent filter of mainstream expectation,
normed by the culture of power, will control who they might be. Empowerment comes
from within.
I believe that the possibility of empowerment comes from the development of
voice. By this I mean the knowledge that what one says wOl be heard and considered.
Over the past few years, the vehicle for fostering this development of voice of nty minority'
language/cidture students has been Writer's Workshop. Writer's workshop, not writing
69
workshop, because who we are as people, the creator of the print, is the most important
factor. To this end, my students and 1 have written, other years, everyday, for extended
periods of time. Our writings were shared informally at the end of each writing session,
privately with each other, and formally m Author's Teas with invited guests, parents and
teachers. (Calkins, 1986, Graves 1983)
Research Questions
Initial evaluation of my students' reading and writing revealed that their literacy
skills were remarkably undeveloped, in contrast to the level of literacy achieved by my
students of the previous year. That classroom had been characterized by an active and
ongoing bilingual Writer's Workshop in which students wrote on self-selected themes,
participated in daily sharing of writing, and participated in various collaborative writing
activities. This year, I was anxious to discover what effect a similar writing experience,
(particularly peer collaborations) would have on these students. My original questions
were:
1.
How do children perceive of writing and themselves as writers?
2.
How do children perceive the peer influences on their writing?
3.
What do I, as teacher and participant in the classroom observe to be the impact
of peer collaborations in the classroom?
4.
How might literacy instruction, then, be organized to best take advantage of
and to incorporate, peer interactions into literacy instruction?
It is my goal to help my students find the tools with which to shape their own liv es.
I hope that this research project will further my understanding of the sociocultural nature
70
and influences on the acqui^on and development of critical literacy, and the ability to use
print to transform one's life (Freire 1987, Giroux, 1981,1994).
Research Support for the Research Design
In formulating a data collection plan, and in anticipating the writing of my
research, I borrowed from other research studies in the areas of elementary education and
Gteracy development. The most significant studies have been, for me, those that combine
ethnographic/descriptive data that provide a 'slice of life' picture of classroom experience.
Studies in literacy and collaboration that influenced me specifically toward case study
analysis include those by Nunn, (1984), Edelsky, (1986) Daiute, (1992), Dyson, (1989,
1993, 1994). However, certainly other descriptive studies of classroom communities and
their interactions, specifically Newkirk (1994) and Peterson (1995) have been a powerfiil
influence, as well as Heath's (1983) seminal research in Wavs With Words. The inclusion
of details about the students, of their school and community environment, allows me, as
reader, to decide if the in^lications of the research are applicable to my instructional
context, and me. Case study design thus appeared most appropriate to my goals of
highlighting the process of the three target students, as they interacted as members of a
writing community. I included data from other students as it served to further illustrate
the processes and interactions of the case study subjects.
The data for this study was collected over the 1996-1997 school year, however my
experiences over four years as a bilingual third grade teacher m the same elementary
school provided me with opportunities to form relationdiips with parents which in turn
informed me as to conmiunity expectations and goals for their children. These
71
relationships clearly influenced the way I perceived
students' work, and encouraged
me to see beyond my own school-based goals to those of the community in which I
taught. Therefore, the data ^oke to me &om within a framework of several years of
experience and previous teacher/action research using case study design in my third grade
classroom
Data CoUecdon
Challenges: Adjusting "The Plan** to Reality
It was my original intention to select three pairs of case study subjects for detailed
observation and analysis. However, several characteristics of the elementary school site,
of the students themselves, and of the nature of collaboration itself made this approach
impossible. Firstly, the typically transitional nature of attendance of students at this school
made long-term data collection on any one student improbable. In fact, several of the
students I had selected for observation moved to different schools within the first nineweek gradmg period. Secondly, social relationships among the students, most noticeably
girls, often shaped their participation m collaborative endeavors: students frequently did
not collaborate because 'they were fighting' although they resumed joint projects once the
conflicts were resolved. Interestingly, the boys appeared to take a more pragmatic
approach to writing collaborations: e\'en feuding pairs would \vrite together if the writing
project itself was successful, regardless of personal conflicts outside Writer's Workshop.
Thirdly, the configuration of collaborating groups changed frequently. As students
changed topics, genres, and themes, the partners they chose to work with also changed.
Therefore, I learned to focus on collaborations as they occurred, and although the same
72
students were most actively involved in collaborations, this meant that the case studies
were actually snapshots of the joint writing activities of the three targeted
students with a number of difi^ent partners, rather than a long term view of specific pairs.
Data Collection Strategies: Selection of Case Study Subjects
Data collection took place during Writer's Workshop on Wednesdays, Thursdays,
and Fridays fi^om August 29, 1996 through May 15, 1997. Writer's Workshop typically
ran for and hour each Wednesday and Thursday, and for an hour and a half each Friday. I
collected three types of data: interview, document collection, and observation, in order to
employ the method of triangulation, 'the rationale for this strategy is that the flaws of one
method are often the strengths of another, and by combining methods, observers can
achieve the best of each, while overcoming their unique deficiencies' (Merriam, 1988).
I collected seven different forms of data of the three types listed above, which 1
will describe here in order of their significance as effective methods for providing
significant data: field notes, transcriptions of audiotapes of my recollections and reflections
of the day's writing interactions, student dociunents, informal interviews with mdKadual
students, and collaborating groups/pairs, formal interviews, surveys, and videotapes.
Fieldnotes
Initially, I continuously scripted student interactions during Writer's Workshop,
but as time passed, I became more selective in my written observations, and wrote field
notes more specifically to capture student interactions that would reveal collaborative
activities and intentions. I wrote fieldnotes of student interactions and responses in two
specific areas: during the conq)osing process, and again during daily sharing of their
73
written texts. These fieldnotes provided the greatest insight into both the student
collaborative processes during composition and selection of their themes, as well as
revealing their intentions for the written text.
Taped Reflections and Anecdotal Record
However, because I was the teacher in this classroom, I was occasionally forced to
make a decision about wiiether to contnroe recordmg an interaction, or to accept student
invitations to become involved in the interaction. In these instances I ahnost always chose
to become a participant. In these instances I later created field notes in two distinct ways.
I reconstructed the interaction according to my recollection at the end of the day in
written form. I also recorded my recollections on tape and transcribed those later. The
latter system provided the opportunity for me to create a more reflective researcher log,
rather than a simple description of the remembered interactions.
Student Writing Samples
After fieldnotes, the next most important data came fi'om the daily writing samples,
(students' written texts) that I collected at the end of each sharing session. This data
became particularly in^ortant for several reasons; this was the most consistent type of
data I collected because students took responsibility for its collection. Thev dated and
placed their texts m a folder m the writmg center with astonishing reliability. Additionally,
these documents allowed me to keep a chronological record of student development over
time. In order to keep abreast of the sheer quantity of data, I made a weekly review of the
written products that were collected at the end of each daily writing session.
74
Informal Interviews
Also usefiil were the infoimal interviews, or rather, informal questioning I was able
to incorporate during the writing of my daily fieldnotes. This form of questioning allowed
me to ask direct questions m informal contexts. Students were quite accustomed to my
writing fieldnotes during Writer^s Workshop. When I observed them doing something
particularly interesting, or novel, I could easily conduct an 'informal interview' as part of
my fieldnotes. The &ct of my continued scribbling (and the fact that I, while nodding in
encouragement and understanding, continued to look at my notebook, rather than at the
child), seemed to reheve the pressure students felt in formal interviews, and their
responses to my casually posed questions were longer, more complicated, and more
reflecti\'e.
Forma! Interviews
I conducted fifteen audiotaped formal interviews with several collaborating groups.
These interviews proved less revealing than the informal questioning [ was able to
incorporate during the writing of my daily fieldnotes.
Videotape
I also collected one videotape of collaborative interactions during Writer's
Workshop. I attempted through videotape to capture more fiilly student mteractions, but
the tape did not prove more revealing than fieldnotes. The process of videotaping did not
tum out to be a viable means for ongoing data collection for two specific reasons. The
first drawback —disruption of student process due to the unusual appearance of the
75
camera in the classroom— might have faded had the camera been used more frequently.
Eventually the novelty would probably have worn ofif and the children would have
returned to writing as usual However, the awkwardness of the video camera was doubly
compounded by the fact that I was taping, rather than writing or otherwise participating
normally with my students.
In a nutshell, the data coUecting strategies that allowed me to interact m a
'normal' fashion with my students provided the most significant data.
Table of Data Collected
As described in the previous section, I collected six major types of data: fieldnotes of
student writing process, field notes of the daily author's share, informal interviews formal
interview, student dociunents, (Le. daily writing san^les), and transcriptions of my
audiotaped reflections of the events of the day. This represented a large set of data:
almost five hundred pieces of data in all The total number and breakdown of the six
major types of data I collected are presented in Table One.
Table One: Types and Quantity of Data
Student
Rico
Tenaya
Marco
TOTAL
Field NotesWriting
35
41
38
114
Reld NotesSharing
43
51
27
121
Documents
47
62
41
150
Informal
Interview
21
29
32
82
Interview
5
5
5
15
Daily
Reflection
7
4
7
18
Data Analysis
Because the very native of teacher research is to provide information that can be
used to create the best possible learning environment, I was actK'ely mvolved in some level
of analysis during the course of data coUection. Initially, I ordered the data chronologically
76
by student in order to evahiate growth in literacy development. I then examined the
written products created by collaborating children over time; to evaluate the impact of
possible shared knowledge and strategies. As the quantity of data grew, I began to
organize it in several ways: by individual student, by collaborating groups/pairs, and whole
class samples over time. However, these analyses did not overlap sufficiently to get a
sense of the very vibrant processes I was observmg. That is, I could not reconstruct the
level of complexity I was observing though this re-examining of the data. When I began
to analyze the daily fieldnotes of student process during writing time, the texts actually
shared on that day, and my fieldnotes of student response to the text during sharing time,
this strategy provided the greatest insight into the impact of both peer collaboration and
peer response to the text on the subsequent writing events.
Processes of Analysis
Because I was steeped dafly in the data, I became concerned that I would
inadvertently 'push the river', that is, impose my own categories on the data, rather than
allowing the categories to arise. Therefore I read and handled the data m many different
ways. I transcribed my fieldnotes and anecdotal records on a regular basis. I read every
piece of data many times. I ^read all the docimients out on the floor, the bed, and the
computer desk-night table. I physically organized the data by date, by type of by peer
configuration, by literacy innovation. I cross-referenced the major types of data by child,
date, by peer interaction, by type of collaboration, by development of literacy skill.
Eventually the stacks of documents became unwieldy and I crated them in boxes of
hanging files. As the possible categories expanded, I hung chart paper on the wall and
77
rearranged the data m various configurations by using post-it notes. Gradually I was able
to discern general patterns of collaborative process, use of environmental print, copying of
peer text, for exanq)le, and began to organize the data into those developing categories.
While I continued to collect every piece of data I could, by the later months of the study I
began to reach a saturation point of mformation fi^om the data, where new categories were
no longer suggested. At this point I began to presort the data into the established
categories for analysis.
Unit of Analysis
For the purposes of this study I considered as the unit of analysis the literacy
events for which I had collected multiple forms of data: observational data of both
composing process and product performance, the actual student documents, and some
form of interview data: either a formal audiotaped interview, or an informal 'mter\iew%
(that is, my fieldnotes of student responses to my specific questions regarding their
process) during the time of writing.
Selection of Case Study Subiects
I selected my case study subjects on the basis of several criteria, at risk
academically, achieving substantially below grade level in literacy, and members of
minority language/culture groups. The three children I selected all read and wrote ver\'
substantially below third-grade level. Both Tenaya and Rico were assessed at a preE^rimer level, Marco at approximately mid first grade. All three had been considered at
some point as candidates for Special services, and Tenaya had been coded as learning
disabled and was currently receiving pullout instruction by the LD Specialist. Marco and
78
Rico were both non-Spanish speaking boys of Mexican heritage, and Tenaya was Black.
Of all the children in the classroom, my colleagues also considered these three as most atrisk for failwe. Additionally, a brief review of their writing partners during the first
weeks of school indicated that they were good candidates for this particular study of
collaboration. Table Two presents the peers with whom the case study children
collaborated during the first weeks of school.
Table Two: Peer Collaborations
Case Study Subject
Collaborating Peers
Marco
Tenaya
Rico
Chico
Raquel
Chico
MJ
Khrystle
MJ
Sergio
June
Ralph
Mario
Esther
Mario
By the end of the year I had data on each child to support thirty 'units of analysis'
as described above, i.e., literacy events for which 1 had triangulated data: student
documents, fieldnotes, and informal interview, as well as fieldnotes of the sharing of the
written piece with the class audience. In addition I also had at least an additional twenty
written products of each child noted above.
Unanticipated Circumstances
In retrospect, a drawback of the study was that, although we became a duallanguage classroom due to admim'strative restructuring to accommodate class size, all but
five students had received all previous instruction in English. Thus, ahhough both English
and Spanish were used orally, and in spite of my encouragement and modeling, very few
children wrote in Spanish at all. Interestingly, those that did use both languages
79
demonstrated comparatively well developed literacy and did not meet niy research
criterion of'at risk'. None of the case study children chose to write in Spanish, and both
Marco and Rico were early victims of language shift. However, the oral use of Spanish
clearly mediated the development of writing in English, and both languages were actively
used in conversation about and around writing.
80
CHAPTER FOUR; FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CASES
Introduction
It is my hope that this study will serve to contribute to the body of research on
critical/radical/enipowering pedagogies. I am concerned with the notion of developing
student voice, and how instruction can be seated so that n^r students' narratives, ways
with words and their very lives will assume central stage in the classroom, creating the
opportunity for dialog between my students' texts and the texts of the school Thus, my
study is situated somewhere between a progressive stance that emphasizes growth through
self reflection, organically driven texts, and above all individual voice (Freire and Macedo
1987; Freire 1994), and a post-progressive stance that challenges me to provide explicit
instruction in the privileged discourses of the dominant ideology (Delpit 1988, Gee 1995,
1996). My empirical teaching and research experiences have personified the cautionary
message that instruction in these privfleged discourses may derail a child's implicit
knowledge of voice, effectively silencing her (CNeil 1977, Edelsky 1986,1996, Fox
1993, Hoyles 1977). I believe 1have found in Writer's Workshop a way to balance
acquisition of self-driven literacy with the literacy forms of the dominant ideology in a way
that allows for a permeable mteraction of voice and authority.
.4reas of Discussion
In the following section 1 will briefly address my research against the backdrop of
other researchers in several critical areas. I will differentiate between writing workshop
versus a Writer's Workshop, the role of writing as a tool for empowerment, the emphasis
on student as creator rather than consumer through the shift from the teaching of writing
to the teaching of writers. I will address how redefining the context of Writer's Workshop
creates the possibility of liberatory literacy experiences, and how student processes of
collaboration thus supported create uniquely effective zones of proximal development.
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Finally, I will address differences in teacher-created versus student -created zones of
proximal development, how the patterns of student-created zones provide for increased
learning, and Avfaat we as teachers can leam from them. These topics are meant to provide
a framework for considering the case studies, and will be further addressed in the
Discussion of the Cases.
Entering the Literacy Oub through the Writing Poor
Fostering critical literacy has become the most important goal I have for my
bilingual third graders. By critical literacy, I mean the ability to use print for intrinsic
personal purposes, to use literacy as a tool for extending critical thought and action, and
to have a sense of increased personal efiBcacy through the ability to use print in a variet>' of
cultural contexts. In my struggle to discover how to do this enormous work, I have
experienced two distinct and significant shifts in literacy instruction of my third grade
students.
In the first shift, I have come away from a reading-vsTiting emphasis to a writingreading emphasis. Rather than applying what we leam from reading the work of published
authors to our understanding of writing, my students and I focus on the reverse. In this 1
differ from the perspective that we leam to write through our experiences of reading
proposed by Frank Smith (1982, 1985, 1990). Smith claims that the actual time we spend
writing is far too limited for us to gamer all we know about writing from the e.xperience of
writing itself. I agree that the time typically spent writing in schools is far too little for
anyone to become a writer, and periiaps the proof is that, indeed, very few of us actuaUy
become good writers. It seems possible that for those children whose lived experiences are
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reflected in the literature they read, reading does provide a scafifold to the notion of
authorship. However, for
minority language/culture group students, children's
literature that does not ^eak to their lived experiences only serves to mark the di£ference
between their lives and the lives depicted in books, and they may conclude that literacy is
not for them. The very paucity of published works by minority authors bears witness to
the faflure of schools to foster the literacy development of non-mainstream students.
Frank Smith (1990) contends that stories are second nature to human reconstructions of
the world:
Stories are our way of perceiving, of conceiving, or creating ...Our stories are the
vantagepoints from which we perceive the world and the people in it. (p 64-65)
I£i as Frank Smith asserts, stories are the very essence of human creativity, why
then are our bookshelves so empty of books speaking of and to minority
experience? The very absence of these texts demonstrates that we are failing
miserably to open the door to the literacy club for minority voices. My answer
to addressing these silenced voices begins in a reorientation to a writingreading emphasis. This shift is significant for a variety of reasons. First, my
students frequently have a fractured literacy background in which some of their
literacy instruction has occurred in English, and some in Spanish. They often
have little mtemalized sense of letter-sound relationships, a scenario that
typically results in referrals for remedial reading instruction. However, it is my
observation that writing provides the most effective way for my students to
acquire the skills for using print language. The knowledge they acquire about
letter-sound relationdiips grows as they are engaged in the creation of texts
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that arise from their own organic contexts. By organic contexts, I mean the
lived experiences that frame my students' interests, their social interactions, the
mteractions with talk and text that support the development of personal
purposes for print. In this way, writing is from the veiy first an exercise in
creating meaning. When children are engaged in writing their own texts, often
in collaboration wfth their peers, they rapidfy develop su£Scieat skill to create
readable texts. Ken Goodman (1986) observed that when children wrote, they
were constantly reading and rereading their texts in progress, and the
knowledge they gained about print language transferred dramatically into the
teadmg of their own and others' texts. Clearly, writmg has a powerful
influence on the development of emergent reading.
Second, my students come from marginalized populations whose voices are
infrequently heard outside their own neighborhoods, and whose experiences are rarely
found between the covers of'good children's literature'. Through the sharing of their
own texts their voices and the voice of their community enters into the school. The sharing
of the children's stories at a quarterly Author's Tea provides an opportunity for their
parents to participate in the celebration of these cultiual texts. Over the years, parents
have occasionally chosen to contribute to the anthologies, and their written texts also
contribute to the legitimizing of minority voice within the school
Third, as third graders, my students may still believe in the myth of meritocracy,
the notion that equal opportunity exists for all, and that what they can accomplish will
depend on their individual efforts. Yet, I fear that if my students do not develop a
84
conscious awareness of the structural inequality and institutionalized racism that
disempowers people of color, the poor, the marginalized, these un^oken barriers will
control their "possible lives" (Rose 199S) and determine not who they are and might be,
but who they get to be. How can I enter into this arena with them? As a white, middle
class woman, discussing these issues with my students of color may only serve to further
the racist text, regardless of
intentions toward its demystification. How can I help
them gam armor against oppression without presenting my own teacher imposed agenda?
How can I address issues with such devastating social implications in a manner
appropriate to eight-year old children? I have found the answer to these questions in my
students' collective narratives. As my students write for increasingly self-directed
purposes their texts begin to reflect more deeply the social fabric of lives. By binding
these collected stories into an anthology we create a deeply situationally contextualized
social history of collected narratives. When these anthologies are reproduced to create a
classroom set of volumes, we have an organic text that can be read and reread critically.
The complex intertext that emerges through our discussions of their own stories provides
my students and me with ample opportunities to connect to deeper social issues. The
critical analysis they bring to their own stories provides a scafifold to the critical
examination of other writings. Thus, through the writing and sharing of their own texts,
my students create a body of literature that becomes a conduit to other published texts.
From a Writing Workshop to a Writer*s Workshop
In the second shift, I have come away from 'teaching writmg' ui a
85
Writing Workshop, to teaching writers', in a Writer's Workshop. This does
not mean that I never 'teach writing'. For students who have already
developed both the skills necessary for transcribing text as well as a sense of
personal purpose for literacy it may prove useful. Teaching writing can be an
important instructional practice in which students are guided to develop
specific literacy skills, including, for example, at the third grade level,
standardized spelling, punctuation, use of literary devices such as simile and
metaphor, and aspects of plot formation. However, I do not believe that
'teaching writmg' will help my students develop critical literacy, and it is
obvious that 'teaching writing' runs the dangerous risk of fi^acturing an
emergent writer's sense of purpose. A child just beginning to formulate a
personal purpose for writing can be irreparably damaged by instruction that
focuses on standardization of print, organization of text, or appropriateness of
topic. Therefore, m our Writer's Workshop I do not 'teach writing'. Writer's
Workshop remains exclusively the domam in wliich my students experiment
with and discover their own purposes for writing. The importance of allowing
students to write according to their own purpose and experience is
underscored by Ferdman (1990) who noted that instruction in 'schooled
literacy' can create divisions of 'us' and 'them' that further serve to
marginalize and silence minority language/culture group children:
Which texts and which writing tasks does the child engage in as 'ours' and which
as 'theirs'? When a child perceives a writing task and its symbolic content as
belongmg to and reafiSnxdng his or her cultural identity, it is more likely that he or
she will become engaged and individual meaning will be transmitted or derK'ed. (p.
86
195)
Writing to express and investigate personal meaning transcends tratUtional
schooled notions of what constitutes good writing, and what styles, languages and stories
are deemed worthy of being told. The exploration of self and larger identity as a member
of a writing community creates the potential for the mainstream ideology to lose some of
its power to dominate, and for other cultural identities to find a voice.
The more I learn about developing critical literacy with my young students, the
more concerned I am that the processes most necessary for its development are the
antithesis of current methodologies in elementary schools. As primary educators we are
encouraged to give students opportunities to be active in their own learning, to provide
experiential lessons in which children manipulate realia and interact in authentic situations
(Harste, Short and Burke 1996). In all of this preparation, the notion of student purpose
for the task is lost. We are pressured to provide motivating instruction, in which
motivation is equated with student mterest. We as teachers are engaged in the 'why's' of
instruction and curriculum planning, but we do not concern ourselves with the bigger
question of mtrinsic student purpose for the task. Yet, critical literacy is by definition
overwhelmingly concemed with the notion of personal purpose. As I define it for my
teaching context, critical literacy is the ability to use print for one's own intentions.
Therefore, my students need to be given the opportunity to write texts e.xclusi\'ely for their
own purposes, rather than according to teacher direction.
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Writing as Empowerment;
Students as Creators Rather than Consumers
I am perennially excited about \^at my students are doing as writers. Over the
last several years I have told anyone who would listen, about the ways my students
express vitality in print—the tongue in cheek poem Richard wrote about a white piece of
paper, too poor to buy a drawing (after I msisted in a moment of autocratic failing that
they create texts without illustrations), the narrative Adriana wrote about being unjustly
blamed for her cousin's accident on top of being forced against her wishes to share her
roller-blades, Matt's admiring biographical piece about a fiiend 'Svho has manners and
very good ones, too".
Enthusiasm is contagious, it seems, and my colleagues often invite me into their
primary classrooms to help them set up a Writer's Workdiop. As I look around their
bright and inviting rooms I find myself reluctant to tell them what I have learned over the
past few years about the absolute necessity of letting go and letting students take
ownership of their own process. I know that the varied opportimities available in my
colleagues' classrooms demand a high level of teacher-organized and teacher-directed
activity. 1 even recognize many of the learning center activities so carefully crafted for
maximum success— in which students will follow color coded instructions and after
several trials generate one of the many possible teacher-researched outcomes. Acti\'e,
interesting, fun, even. But the intended possibilities are always known. Rather than
providing opportunities for ^ared exploration in an open-ended zone of proximal
development, this teaching, however interactive and colorfid, simply represents another
approach to the one-way transmission of information fi-om teacher to student. The
88
chOdren engaged in these activities are still consumers, rather than creators. And
creativity, by which I mean being engaged in creating, is difficuk to organize neatly. I
have not been very successful in providing opportunities for autonomous discovery in
other areas of teaching and learning. I'm not sure how to turn over the process in Science
or Math, or Social Studies. But in writing, vviiere the content is controlled only by
individual mtention, and the process only by the lunits of hnagination, I have teamed how
to tum it over. Sometimes the creation of texts requires movement, rocking in a chair,
pacing, or periiaps lymg flat on the floor with a clipboard. Sometimes my students need to
reach a saturation point of peer discussion before they can begm to write. Sometimes they
need to create lists of words on the page, reaching a threshold level of text before they can
expand their meaning, rethink their purpose, or revise. In contrast to the neatly ordered
leammg centers described above. Writer's Workshop is a madhouse. In Writer's
Workshop my students experience almost total autonomy of both process and product.
Like many creative endeavors, it is often messy and lackmg obvious external order. That
"order" is germinating within the groups of children noisily coUaborating in the process of
bemg and becoming writers. They are engaged in all kinds of behaviors typically
discouraged m classrooms, as they argue, copy, plagiarize each other's material, brag,
threaten and manipulate m print. Their texts frequently consist of only a few lines. Their
longer texts rarely follow the story grammars found in children's literature, instead they
create long repetitive poems, and unedited narratives Graves (1983) labeled bed-to-bed
stories in w^ch nothing happens, no denouement is reached, no characters are changed
forever by the circumstances of the story told. All of these actions and interactions delight
89
me, because they indicate that my students are no longer concerned about what [ might
think matters. They are no longer controlled by external constraints or decontextualized
rules of good writing. They are busy finding a voice.
From the Teaching of Writing to the Teaching of Writers
I cannot overstate this; I am not interested m teaching writing to my students
newly acquiring literacy. I want to them first and foremost to become writers. This is a
significant distinction that derives from a profoundly different orientation of teaching, and
that provokes a distinctly different set of classroom circumstances. It is possible to 'teach
writing' without deviating from the transmission mode. One can ''teach writing' by
presenting children with examples of'good writing' according to a narrow mainstream
definition, and providing them with opportunities to practice the various school-approved
genres. One can 'teach writing' by creating a reading-writing connection where children
rewrite story endings, experiment with standard story grammars, receive instruction in the
elements of a 'good story', and synthesize these understandings into their own texts. At
the nadir, one can 'teach writing' by providing drill in what Jenny Gumperz (1986) calls 'a
system of decontextualized knowledge validated by test scores.' But, what I want is to
teach children to be writers. I do not wish to promote 'schooled literacy', described by
Wayne O'Neil (1977) as 'the teaching of reading [and writing] as a deconte.vtualized
activity devoid of personal purpose and having no relationship to the language and
knowledge already possessed by the child'. The notion of personal purpose is central to
90
the idea of education as empowering.
In Border Crossings (1992), Henry Giroux speaks to link between empowerment
and critical thinking;
Q:
Giroux:
We hear a lot about empowerment these days. How do you
understand that term?
It is the ability to think and act critically, (p. 11)
In order to think and act critically, we need to have a purpose, and intent for our actions.
In other words, empowerment comes from examining the 'why's' of our options and
actions. I think that understanding and developing purpose, the why of writing, is the
most significant aspect of becoming a writer. Hoyles (1977) challenged educators to
become conscious of our goals for literacy. He warned that the overemphasis in schools
on social control was easily generalized to schooled literacy tasks. The context of writing,
not the writing task is what needs to be revolutionized. Perhaps the key lies in freedom of
process, rather than freedom of product.
Revolutionizing the Contcitt; Liberatorv Literacy
I believe that the contexts in which emancipatory educational practices occur are
imbedded in the particularity of the specific learning environment, in all of its aspects,
including place/time, purpose and people. Therefore, the specific characteristics of the
learning experience probably cannot be easily or successfully generalized. That is,
practices which result in liberating literacy experiences in one conte.\t can not be counted
on to produce similar results in another. Graves (1983) revolutionary work in process
writing serves as an excellent case in point. The elements of writing process that he
observed to create enq)owering writing experiences were specific to the characteristics
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and cultural capital of that particular group of students: white, middle class, middle-school
aged, literate. Yet, those elements have become, in the hands of educators, an inflexible
orthodoxy frequently employed without regard to the specifics of the learners (Fox 1993,
Newkirk 1994). Gallimore and Tharp (1990) concluded that one of process writing's
most universally adopted elements, the "writing conference" was effective in Graves'
studies because it piggy-backed on the kinds of instructional dialogs that typify parentchild mteractions in white, middle class homes. Thus, its application with other, different
children faQed to create a simflarly effective learning experience. It seems likely, however,
that Graves' approach had less to do with a carefid analysis of student process, and
represented rather the top-down imposition of an adult model of writing (Thomas
Newkirk, personal communication, November 6, 1998). In that case, the approach failed
to represent a student-based taxonomy of writing behaviors, and its success speaks
therefore more strongly to the students' ability to 'learn the writing rules' than to
culturally embedded characteristics of the process. However, the hook, line and sinker
adoption of Graves' approach by so many teachers of writing makes me somewhat
reluctant to present a hypothetical scenario for developing critical literacy, because its
application outside of my specific context will likely render it meaningless. Nevertheless,
my studies have taught me that it is possible to create writing en\dronments that serve to
give my students a voice, and equally possible to create writing environments that silence
them I have been guided by the writings of other researchers who seek to understand
emancipatory literacy practices and whose findings have informed my own investigations.
I have been primarily interested in children writing, but I have been influenced by other
92
studies in different school settings that examine students' interactive processes, most
notably Writing in a Crowded Place (Peterson 1995), and Listening In: Children Talk
about Books and Other Things (Newkirk 1992). Ann Dyson (1994) suggests that a
reorientation from 'the child' to 'the children' provides a usefiil vantage point for
considering curriculum; one that requires that we focus on the sociocuhural situatedness
of the literacy event, and that (to rephrase her) 'we frame chfldren not with the relations
that matter to us, but with the relations that matter to them' (p 7). Vygotsky (1978 p
105) expressed concern decades ago that writing instruction was based on 'artificial
training' and decontextualized process handed from teacher to child and devoid of
personal intention. Ken and Yetta Goodman (1990) have long maintained that 'language,
written language mcluded, is learned most easily in the context of use'(p 225) advocating
for authentic opportunities for language use. However, Thomas Newkirk (1986)
cautioned that 'assigned versus unassigned pieces does not exactly differentiate between
authentic and inauthentic' (p 173), and Mem Fox (1993) urged that the notion of
authenticity be carefully examined, msisting that 'let's pretend isn't real' (p 4). What are
children's goals and practices that can be appropriated in such a way to revolutionize the
context of writing? What are their intrinsic purposes for creating print? . What does, then,
constitute authenticity of purpose for children?
Dyson's (1989, 1993a,1993b, 1994, 1995) research concludes that a dominant
goal for children writers is to establish social cohesion, and that writing is at once an
admired knowledge and sldll, as well as social tooL This has been borne out
overwhelmingly in my own work, as children created texts for a multitude of social
93
purposes, to exclude or include, amaze or dismay, and almost always for public display.
From this framework, then, how does one revolutionize the context of writing
instruction? Here are the characteristics supported by research:
Writer's Workshop needs to be a place where students meet for an extended
period every day for the purpose of engaging with print. It needs to be a place where
children can experience maximum autonomy over both process and product. Choices of
seating, writing materials, writing partnerdiips, must be in their hands. It needs to be a
place where talk and text can be aDowed to mediate each other. Harste, Burke and
Woodward (1982) noted that the difficulties children faced in acquiring print literacy
stemmed m part from the contrast between situationally controlled experiences outside of
school, and the contextually controlled nature of print. Therefore, it is important that
conversation be recognized as a valuable and viable part of the composing process. It is
also important that the teacher be equaUy involved as a member of the writing community.
In order for me to be an effective mentor, I must also be a member of the literacy club to
which my students belong. Membership comes from jointly participating as a writer with
my students. Only when I am also engaged in writing do I remember how difficult it often
is. When I am also a writer I recognize that sometimes the words and inspiration don't
come, and that my product for that day will be an empty page. Kinneavey's (1994)
observation buoys my ability to view writing as part of a larger often intangible creative
process, helping me to remain cognizant that 'much thinking time is part of writing^ and
to resist the 'implication that anytime a pencil hits the paper, [then, and only then] it's
writing'. Writer's Workshop must also be a place where children can share their writing
94
daily, where they can experience their words being heard by an audience gathered for that
purpose. This is important because most of my students wrote performance pieces—that
is, stories for audience efifect. The act of sharing their text with others provided
simultaneously a motivation for writing as well as a forum for reconsidering their words.
Collaboration
'Writing in Social Time*
Ann Dyson (1989) characterized the children of her case studies as Svriting in
social time'. I am struck by the aptness of this to describe the writing processes of my
own students. Their interactions with peers illustrate so clearly Vygotsky's notion that
chOdren develop first as social beings, their own developing cognition mediated through
their interaction with others. As they wrote, their motivation as writers was supported m
large part by the reactions of their peers, whose acceptance or rejection of their te.vts
provided a dynamic backdrop for continued eSbrt. In fact, it often appeared that their
written texts required the verbal response of their peers, as i^ as Bakhtin suggests, 'the
word in language is half someone else's... 'the job as listener is not to passively listen, but
to prompt response'. In Writer's Workshop, my students talked, talked, talked. They
talked about what they'd written, or planned to write, they responded each other's texts,
and sometimes what they talked about had nothing specifically to do with their writing at
all. It was clear that talk and text were inextricably intertwined. Dyson (1989) observed
that children created textual worlds through social interaction, and social worlds through
interacting with their texts. That is, they collaborated on written texts m order to form
95
relationsh^s, and fonned relationsh^s in order to collaborate on written texts. The
stamina and enthusiasm
students demonstrated for wiitmg was clearly fueled by its
capacity to fimction as a social tooL Bozuvich* (1967) claim that ^e attitude of a school
child toward his studies depends primarily on the extent to which his studies have become
a means for fiilfiUing his need for a new social status', also helps to illuminate why writing
became such a powei&l and self-peipetuating activity for my students. The very act of
writing brought their goals into existence.
Collaborating to Produce Texts: From Talk to Text
In Single Texts/Plural Authors, Ede and Lunsford (1990) attempted to redefine
collaboration, identifying instances of writing in ^^ch co-authors shared or delegated
amongst themsehes the tasks of planning, writing, and revising. Consideration of my
students' writing behaviors in terms of this list challenged me to broaden my definition of
collaboration, and to begin to view a broader range of written as well as oral interactions
as pertaining directly to collaborative writing. My students routinely participated in the
varied t>pes of collaborations described by Ede and Lunsford, such as one writer dictating
and the other transcribing, one writer overseeing and organizing the text pages and
illustrations to be conq>leted by others, one writer creating the original text and the other
revising it.
These elaborate collaborations required a great deal of verbal negotiation,
and the reflective nature of their conversations contributed to their meta-cognitive
development as users of language. They talked about what texts they might write m
English rather than Spanish, often reflecting on the needs of their intended audience, and
96
then wrote accordingly. They made explicit comments about variations m discourse style,
commenting on the effect of the language on the feeling of the text, and then appropriated
their peers' language in their own narratives. They queried and challenged each other's
choice of words in mcipient awareness of dialect difference, an awareness that eventually
carried over mto print. Through talk, students became conscious that their culturally
influenced ways with words could be deiiberatety manipulated for literary effect—^to
create voice.
The interaction of talk and text had a multilayered effect on writing. Students
developed an awareness of the ways in which written text differs ffom oral text. They
struggled with re-creating prosodic details in the written texts, and were often frustrated
with the task. However, they also chose to create texts \^ose very meaning could only be
derived from the reader's ability to add prosodic detail in the oral performance,
(experiencing for themselves Plato's complaint against the weakness of prmt over oral
argument. Gee 1995, 1996). Thus they claimed ownership of their texts both by
celebrating or ignoring the constraints of context.
Collaborating to Produce Texts: From Text to Text
My students collaborated as writers in many different ways that allowed them to
create a written text. Less fluent writers appropriated each other's strategies for
transcribing language, such as relying solely on environmental classroom print to create
stilted texts that nonetheless met their goals for lengthiness. They relied on other students
and me for spellings. They copied verbatim their classmates' texts in order to participate
as co-authors in the daily sharing circle. More fluent writers appropriated their peers'
97
more literary accomplishments, such as writing style, format, or story grammar.
However, the roles of skilled versus less-skilled writers remained relatively fluid, as
children defined their writing ability according to a rather different rubric. The
collaborating groups often consisted of children bringmg varied levels of expertise to the
task, (Dalton 1993; Daiute and Dahon 1993). Thus a child who found transcription
difScult but was admired for his great ideas might write with a partner who was a great
speller but less creative. These spontaneous patterns of collaboration created
opportunities for students who might not otherwise have had the chance, to write
successfully, and be considered and consider themselves authors. Gee (1994) commented
that classrooms need to be places where thick and layered interactions can occur. He
remarked specifically on the importance of a collaborative environment where children
could progress fi-om social activity to individual activity. Writer's Workshop embodies
those characteristics, and the effect on student growth as critical thinkers and writers
never ceases to amaze me.
Shared Zones of Proximal Development: Content ZPD*s
Several years ago a group of my students had mdependently decided to poll and
graph their classmates' favorite songs. I was proud of their appropriation of this literacy
device for their own purposes and displayed it prominently in the hallway next to the door.
The next day my colleague and good fiiend commented that she wasn't sure that was such
a good idea, gesturing toward the song titles which had been rapidly written without much
concern for standardized spelling. I acknowledged that the students had not had
publishing in mind when they made the graph, but that I wanted them to enjoy the public
98
validation of their efforts. The next day Debra took me aside and again pointed to the
graph. "Archer", she said, 'just what do you think those song titles are?" I accurately
(and defensiv e^) decoded the creative spellings for several popular songs, endmg lamely
with, '1 don't know what this is, a Buddy Holly remix, I think".
"No", Debra said, tracing an index finger under the letters that spelled out Boody
Holis, 'ihe name of this group is 'The Booty Holes'."
Recalling the incident makes me laugh, but it is a good example of the pitfaOs of
not sharing my students ZPD's. One of the great advantages of a daily sharing session of
written works, is that when my students share an aspect of their lives, they can count on
their peers to understand the conte.vt of their narratives. I am frequently drawn into
discussions with my students about their writing in which I do not share their knowledge
base. In these instances it is often dialog with their peers that mediates their writing
process, as well as my knowledge acquisition, and allows me to participate as leamer in
their collaborations (Gallimore and Tharp (1990). Writer's Workshop will fail to be an
arena of emancipatory transformation if the flow of information and awareness only moves
one way, if the acquisition of multiple 'ways with words' (Heath 1983) is only for my
students. There has to be a two-way sharing of our lives and narrati\'es in order for the
imagination of possible worlds to flourish and for us to share in an 'increasing sum'
(Takaki 1987) of collective understanding. Maxine Greene (1995) writes it so well:
'Indeed it takes imagination to bring people together in these times, in
speech and action, to provoke them to try and understand each other's
perspectives, to tap into each other's desires, even others dreams...to imagine...is
to look at things as if they truly could be otherwise' (p. 55).
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Student-Created Versus Teacher-Created ZPD*s
Previous research addressing zones of proximal development has focussed on the
ways students' knowledge and the knowledge of their community can become a bridge
between what they know, and what schools want them to know (Moll,1994, Moll and
Greenberg, 1990). The cultural capital of the students and their community has thus been
made explicit, to be honored as an information source of equal complexity and value to the
information dispensed by schools. The 'ways with words' of the community have also
been efifectively used in Uteracy programs to create mstructional dialogs that parallel the
discourses of the children's homes (Gallimore and Tharp (1990). In these studies, the
children's knowledge was appropriated by teachers in order to assist their acquisition of
school-approved forms of knowledge and display. That is, the zones of proximal
development, rooted in student knowledge and practice, were nonetheless created by
teachers to advance student learning. In other research, Daiute and Dakon (1993)
investigated the ways in which children's zones of proximal development facilitated the
acquisition of the writing skills, revealing the flexible nature of the roles of expert and
novice. Nevertheless, m this study, the student created ZPD's merely served to facilitate
the acquishion of teacher-based goals of standardized spelling and punctuation, again
emphasizing school-approved forms of knowledge and display
However, in my study of writing it became clear to me that the kinds of zones
children created with each other according to their own goals and intentions differed
substantially from the kinds of zones I had created with children (Newkirk 1992, Pearson
& Gallagher 1983). The effect of the student-created zones was that children became not
100
only proficient writers according to the school-based criteria of standardization, but also
developed strong voices. These zones differed from my teacher zones in a variety of
ways. Children were ultimately concerned with the story, but they focussed on sharing
ways for creating text, with an overriding enq)hasis on the process of creation rather than
the product. Indeed, their stories sometimes appeared almost a byproduct of their other
more pressing concerns of creating social networks— which m turn served as a vehicle for
the sharing of their creative processes. To my observing eye, these complicated
mteractions formed a recursive moibius strip that could not be analyzed into a progression
of discrete acts without losing its essential character.
Children's ZPD's were also characterized by a level of potential conflict that rarely
characterizes teacher-student interactions. That is, when students appeal to a teacher for
help, they can expect a supportive response. However, when children appealed to their
peers for help, the peers' re^onse depended on their opinion of the validity of the request.
Repeated requests for spelling were often rebuffed with " hey, I just told you how to spell
that, look, it's up there, in your writing." This created a zone of proximal development in
which children became more strategic m their attempts to problem-solve, and also learned
to rely on large network of peer-support.
Summary
The areas of discussion touched on here are intended to form a framework for
understanding the following case studies. The case studies are presented as narratn es of
an individual child's life as a developing writer over the course of a school year. Yet, they
are much more than just stories. Situated both empirically and theoretically, they sen^e a
101
vehicle for re-exanmiing literacy instruction and practices in elementary classrooms. It is
my hope, that by making explicit the philosophical political agenda that frames me as a
teacher-researcher, other educators will be simflarly encouraged to evaluate and situate
their own practice.
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CHAPTER FIVE: PRESENTATION OF THF HATA
Introduction to the Cases
The three case study children presented here were students m my third grade dual
language classroom in 1996-1997 (see Chapter Three). Palo Verde School resembled a
walled mission with its fresh coat of thick A^iiite paint, encircled by a teal colored sLx-fbot
metal foice. It was a newfy renovated bufldmg housing over three hundred students on
the economically in^overished south side of a large Southwestern city. All but a handful
of children eiurolled at Palo Verde walked to school from their neighborhoods to the west
and south. The school had been classified as a Chapter-One school, with at least ninetyfive percent of the children living below the poverty line.
Marco and Rico lived close to each other in small apartment complexes far to the
west, and both rode the bus the school Tenaya lived in the closest neighborhood, in one
of the ancient mobile homes clustered into dusty trailer parks.
Each of these children participated in the Writer's Workshop, and each of them
was an actor in their own transformation, and in the transformation of their peers, and me.
103
Case Study One
Introducing Rico
Rico began the year as a struggling writer. He had only a handfiil of sight words,
and a few letter/sound correspondences under his bek, and he felt deeply the discrepancy
between his writing skills and those of his peers. He wanted de^erately to collaborate
with his peers, but feared their rejection, and the lack of teacher direction during Writer's
Workshop left him at sea.
As the year progressed he began to write with his peers, going through several
distinct stages. Efis first collaborations were largely social interactions that resulted in
little text, but suggested the possibility that writing could be fiin. When his peers desire to
make him write like them resuhed m their over-correction of his texts, he completely
withdrew fi-om them. However, rather than retreating into non productive silence, he
wrote and rewrote his texts until his sense of authorship was less easily shaken by the
Voice of authority'. In this, he continued to differ fi'om his peers, who tended to
overemphasize spelling and punctuation, valuing instead the story he intended to tell.
Gradually he found a balance between peer assistance and autonomy.
As he became more fluent (that is, as he gained enough mastery over the sound
system to write fi'eely, able to focus on his purpose rather than the manner of
transcription), he developed multiple purposes for writing, including peer rebuttal, revising
'reality', and to entertain. His peers were outspoken in their admiration of his developing
voice, and this success simultaneously elevated his status in both his own as well as his
peers' eyes. Rico also participated in a collaboratively written play, in which many
104
chfldren created character sketches for a group performance.
District required assessments and teacher imposed restrictions during Writer's
Workshop temporarily derailed Rico's progress as a writer, but supported by interactions
with peers, he was able to reject the imposed paradigm and return to his own successful
strategies.
As the year pulled to a close, Rico wrote with increasing confidence both by
himself and with his classmates. Ifis stamina and fluency increased markedly, that is he
was able to compose easily readable texts of substantial length and his narratives revealed
his growing awareness of the possibilities for print. However, in spite of tremendous gains
in all areas, purpose, fluency, voice, Rico's writing did not yet mcorporate the expected
grade-level achievement in spelling and punctuation.
Rico
"Do YOU speak Spanish, teacher? What days are YOUR days?"
Rico's forehead fiurowed with concern. His expectations for third grade were clearly far
from bemg met. What he expected was ONE third grade teacher, and an English
speaking classroom. What he got was two teachers sharing a position, and a dual
language classroom. Most of the students, including Rico, had adjusted to the job-share
fairly well. My colleague and I chose each other for the split position because we shared
similar philosophies and our classroom practices were very compatible. However, I had
been a bilingual teacher for the last few years, and so when the need for bilingual
classroom placements outnumbered the available slots, six Spanish-dominant children
were moved into our classroom and dual-language instruction began.
105
Perhaps complicated by these &aors, for Rico and his classmates the
first few weeks of this school year were marked by an unusually difiBcuIt
transition from summer to school In spite of soaring temperatures my
students clamored to go outside for recess. Once outside they galloped after
soccer balls, jumped rope, and played Idckball in reckless defiance of the one
hundred plus degree heat. When we came in from recess and the boys had
doused their heads in the water fountain and everyone had had a drink, they
threw themselves down to cool oflf on the carpeted floor. I fretted at the 'loss
of instructional time," and worried at the lack of classroom order, yet, each of
these early Fall days with them I joined them on the carpet, to their obvious
delight. A teacher on the floor becomes perhaps simply another person, and in
this way we became acquainted.
When they learned I was a vegetarian, Rico elaborately modeled
catching and live-releasing the occasional insect that flew into our room. He
twined his arm through mine to draw my attention to the green worms that
hung on strands from the grapevine overhanging the chain-link fence that
enclosed the schoolyard. Faced with the threat of discontinuity in the
classroom, Rico more than met me halfrvay in his quest to 'be fiiends'.
106
Section One
Overview Of Section One
Rico's literacy instruction in previous years had emphasized the
mastery of writing skills, focusing on the acquisition of letters and regularized
sound relationships, certain 'high frequency words, the ability to follow simple
print directions necessary for completing worksheets, and rare opportunities
for self-selected composing within a provided format: a page of a pop-up
book, a card inviting a parent to a school fimction. The simultaneous
instruction in both creative fellings as well as the Dolch word list had created
a profound conilision for Rico, as he attempted to incorporate a letter/sound
system with sight words that violated every letter-sound relationship he had
been taught. His response to these conflicting possibilities was to reject
completely the 'given words' and use his own highly idiosyncratic method of
transcription. The fill-in-the-blanks worksheets had provided enough of a
meaning scaSbId for him to reread these texts. Without that framework, both
writing and reading on his own were extremely limited. He simply could not
recreate the meaning of his mtended message. Additionally, the teacher
directed nature of both process and product left Rico with little opportunity to
develop any meaningfiil reason to write. Writing was not something that he
needed.
107
Lack of Student Purpose as a Barrier to Writing
Reluctant Writer: The Downside of Teacher Directed Writing Activities
Rico was not particularly interested in writing, which he described as
hard and boring. However, he was fascinated by his classmates' mteractions
diuing Writer's Workshop, as they cemented fiiendships and created new
alliances through their collaborations. He watched curiously as the various
collaborating groups discussed who would sit with whom, and where, as they
collected paper and pencils and other writing paraphernalia. Unfortunately,
both his literacy skills and his social skills were equally
underdeveloped and it was difiBcult for him to gain entry into these peer
groups.
If his request to join a group were rebuffed, he responded to the
refiisal by taunting, which only served to fiirther his outsider status.
Writing to "Get it Done**
Rico's earliest writing, in response to the prompt to describe a
classmate, demonstrated little familiarity and comfort with print, and, combined
with the heavy penciling and multiple erasures, revealed Rico's lack of
confidence as a writer. Writing did appear to be both hard and boring. After
many minutes of staring at the ceiling tiles he asked me how to spell three ring
binder, and then quickly completed the assignment.
Witt surt bihi sorrs. Brawn sus blak her
she his a 3 ring binder wit soks sort her wrson hrs
(v\4ute shirt blue shorts brown shoes black hair
she has a 3-ruig binder white socks short hair (undecipherable)
While his classmates reveled in the autonomy of process and product
108
they experienced m Writer's Workshop, Rico was at a loss as how to proceed
during writing time. The fireedom to make his own choices of content and
form left him wondering WHY. Without a teacher-prompt, Rico could find no
intrinsic purpose for composing. For several weeks he merely sat by the
sidelines of other composing groups and traced cartoons of Garfield. At the
end of August he wrote the following sentence under one of these drawings:
Ouns a qun a time thaera was a cat namD grflaD
(Once upon a time there was a cat named Garfield)
Section Two
Overview of Section Two
While Rico's Garfield caption was unremarkable both m form and
content, it was his first independently created text. Content, length, writing
methodology and format were all self-selected. In that it represented a
breakthrough in his perceptions of what writing might be and how to go about
it. Peer response to his shared text now provided part of an answer to the why
of writing. Rico rapidly moved past the safety of captions to develop a
narrative story line, which he elaborated over several writing sessions. Writing
with and to his peers expanded his sense of the possibilities for print; writing
assumed personal purpose.
As Rico began to interact with his classmates to create collaborative
texts, the discrepancy between his limited literacy skills and their proficiency
became an issue. His peers' pointed criticism of his extremely non-standard
spelling and their msistence on 'helping him' operated to disrupt his sense of
109
self as writer. Not only did their assessment of his ability mark him as lessthan; their preoccupation with his gelling and punctuation prevented him from
participating m the creative aspect of writing. Essentially, they recreated the
model of writing he had experienced in other years. However, astonishingly,
the conflict that was created by negative peer re^onse did not 'shut him
down\ Unlike the potentially silencmg efifect of teacher criticisnL, peer
criticism motivated Rico to develop fiiither. His initial response was to
withdraw from the social mteractions with his peers, but he kept on writing.
When he eventually rejoined his peers, he chose for himself what peer mput he
would take, and what he would leave. He welcomed direct contributions from
peers regarding content and steadfastly rejected assistance with mechanics.
Peer Interactions as a Cataivst in Developing Writing; The Good with the
Bad
Developing Motivadon: Writing for an Audience
When Rico read his Garfield text at the author's share, the reward of
his peers' praise gave him an external purpose for continued writing, and Rico
began to write pieces to perform
In his text he again began with the traditional opening line, "once upon
a time', this time transforming his real life experience of walking his dog Axel
into an imaginative story. The two short lines of this story represented a
monumental leap for Rico; both in the development of a personal purpose for
print, as well as m his appropriation of conventional story grammar as a
110
scafifold for his own text. These lines did not come easily, however, and
ahnost two weeks of writing and wandering passed before he shared this story.
Ouns A pun A time A letol box NamDa Rico and Hes Dog NamDa
Axsol thiy wr lonle thiy wor wakemg
(Once upon a time a little fox named Rico and his dog named Axel, they were lonely, they were
walking)
In the next story, Rico again wrote on the theme of loneliness, with a 'happy
ending' that reflected his own emerging experiences in the classroom. The metaphor he
created of the boy and wolf meeting each other halfway was reflective of his own process
as he began to form social relationships with his peers.
On Sa pun A tam tar wus. A lonle wulv and A lonle Boy.
The Boy went wukeing and the wolv ws wukeing to and that wot so for tha burnt
in to youktr Tha wrt lonyonl nomor and tha Lav you kutr
(Once upon a time there was a lonely wolf and a lonely boy. The boy went walking and the wolf
was walking too and they went so &r they bumped into each other. They weren't lonely no more
and they loved each other.)
Talk Alone Does Not Create a Text: Frustrations with Peer Collaborators
Up to this point in early September, Rico had continued to compose alone,
participating in the 'community of writers' only through the sharing of his final written
products. However, while composing the wolf story, he was seated at a table near several
of his peers who were loudly discussing football He found these discussions so interesting that he abandoned his written narratives and joined in the conversation. After several
days of mostly discussion, Rico's text consisted of the title "The Football Game", and, in
their handwriting, the signatiu'es of his partners
The football Game
Rico team Jaime RomanM RomanG Santana
Two significant issues surfaced in this interaction. Firstly, while Rico
clearly enjoyed 'hanging out' with the other boys and talking, he was really
Ill
invested in creating a text. He was developing a sense of himself as an author,
and he wanted to write. However, his more skilled peers were less interested
in his ideas than in correcting his text; or rather, equally interested in both form
and content. This en^hasis meant that they constantly interrupted the flow of
story line to correct his gelling. Secondly, the football theme was not
significant for Rico. He was aot really mterested in developing themes
divorced from his own experience and even his imaginative stories were based
on fictionalized accounts fi-om his personal experiences
Although Rico originally found the football discussions attractive, the desire to
'tell a story' clearly outweighed the opportunity for social interactions, and he returned to
storytelling on his own, elaborating on his previous theme of foxes to produce his longest
text of the year so far.
Ons A ptm A time tar wus A DaD fos and A mom fox and 2 lito BaBes
Thay wre wacing and wocing and they stopt and tay soo A haws and thay want 1
in siyd and aet and I wokt in siyd I sote Ma and I kipt tham and I tuk tam to scool
Thay liykt tham
(Once upon a time there was a dad fox and a mom fox and two little babies. They were walking
and walking and they stopped and they saw a house and they went inside and ate and I walked
inside I shouted, ''MaP and I kept them and I took them to school and they liked them)
Conflict among Collaborators: But I Don*t Want Your Help!
Again, at sharmg time, peer response to the content was extremely positix e but
several of his classmates commented on his 'weird spelling'. Rico was aware that his
spelling was non-standard, but he relied on environmental print and peers for spellings
only when he was not actively engaged in composing. That is, he appealed to his
classmates and me for standardized spellings in order to facilitate clerical tasks in Writer's
112
Workshop such as tmintaining lists of his texts and dating pieces. As many of his
classmates began increasingly to incorporate standardized spellings, they frequently
criticized and corrected each other's works-in-progress. Rico, however, was frustrated by
his peers' habit of correcting his spelling while he was busily conqjosing. This behavior so
disrupted his process that he often isolated himself under a table to write, with an arm
shielding his text from view. Thus, while many of his classmates were now actively
collaborating to create texts, Rico continued to write alone.
The Need to Take Your Time
Shortly after Halloween I began to read The Twits by Raold Dahl at the end of
each day. After several days my students mutinied against the chapter-a-day reading and
insisted that I finish the book in a single sitting. Rico loved the book; delighted at the
complicated ways the Twits conspired and retaliated to make each other miserable. He
settled down with the book itself and attempted to copy a chapter. He traced pictures of
Mr. Twit's beard with bits of decaying food, drawing instead beans and came asada
tangled in his whiskers. He discussed other revolting ways the Twits could get back at
each other, laughing hysterically. And, after several days, he wrote the following text:
Beet fiiend Oectober
The twits Rico
I order a pizza and I dege sume wermse to pect the sen ofif the pzza to put
the wermse in siD it like A sanwed.
I will Biy A ftiss bol and put it unDr His cuvrs
Ewill
(Best friend October
the twits Rico
I order[ed] a pizza and I dug some worms [and] picked the skin
the worms inside it like a sandwich.
I will buy a fuzzball and put it under his covers
I will)
the pizza [and] put
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Performing Under Peer Pressure
Rico was so excited about writing this piece, and had engaged m so much
discussion about it that he found it impossible to keep his peers at bay. As soon as he put
the last word on the page they badgered for him to read. Rico remonstrated that he
wasn't ready, and Marco appeared to come to his rescue, booing their classmates away.
But then he himself sat down next to Rico, still an expectant audience, albeit of one. But
for Rico, an audience of one was still an audience and he was compelled to perform. In all
my student writers I had observed a need to prepare before sharing their texts with peers,
although frequently this preparation was little more than a final scannmg of the text. For
Rico and other emergent writers, however, it was extremely important to make sure that
they could successfully read their own nonstandard or idio^cratic spellings. Poor Rico,
prematiu-ely forced into sharing before he had had a chance to review his writmg,
struggled with the text:
Rico:
(reading over his text) Get some worms to.. What's this?
And I
dug some worms to take the skin off the pizza. To take the skin off
the pizza to put the worms., on the worms, in..? (He continues to
read and reread silently)
Marco:
Rico:
Marco:
Rico:
Marco:
Rico:
Marco:
Rico:
Need help, Rico?
Yeah.
Where, this?
Yeah
Sid.. What is it, sid?
(ignoring Marco) Oh! And
You don't know what you wrote?
(Looking imploringly at me) I forgot it.
Tenaya and Raquel come over to 'help', reading over Rico's shoulder. They miscue on
the first line.
Q and S:
I ordered pizza and salad
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Rico:
Raquel:
Rico:
Tenaya:
Rico:
Tenaya:
Rico;
Tenaya:
Rico:
Marco:
Rico:
Marco:
Tenaya:
Rico:
Marco:
Tenaya:
Marco:
Israel:
Rico:
Israel:
Rico:
Rico:
(taking over, en^hatically) AND I PICKED THE SKIN
OFF THE PIZZA TO PUT THE WORMS..
(dismissingly) He has sloppy writing (she leaves)
to put worms in..
in pizza?
No.
Where are you?
There.
(studying text) in s-s-s, in s-o, IN SOFA
(ignoring her) Put it like a sandwich..
(Beghmmg at the first line, miscuing) I ordered a pizza and I
changed..
NO. I'm right there, Marco.
Sandwich. No, it's sid
(echoing) That's sid
No.
S-I-D, sid
Yes, it is.
(turning to me) Ain't it? It says sid.
It could be. What did you want it to be, Rico?
Can I read the end, that 1 did with Roman?
Yeah. You wanted sandwich?
Yeah, like a sandwich. Sandwich's way over there, though.
(He points to his text \^^ere the word sandwich appears several
lines farther on. He skips the troublesome section and reads the last
line of text.)
I will buy a luzzball and put it under his cover.
After this difiBcult reading, his classmates agam returned to their own projects.
However, Rico was not ready to give up on this text. He came to sit with me and went
over each word of his text, trying to match the print with his original intention. When he
discovered he had written "in sid" for 'inside" and his meaning became clear, he was
delighted.
Rico:
Yeah! I order a pizza and I dug some worms to take up the skin
off the pizza to put the worms (checking the text again) Yeah, the
worms INSIDE it like a sandwich.
115
Withdrawing From the Community of Writers: Regaining Autonomy
Up until this point, for Rico, the most powerfiil motivation for writing had come
from the opportimity to share the written product with his peers. After this experience of
struggling to read his Twit-in^ired story before his critical classmates, Rico spent the next
few sessions writing and illustrating a personalized version of Hansel and GreteL He put
considerable effort mto this piece, writing n fancy script, but refused all peer assistance.
While his classmates now were extremely invested in 'helping him spell', Rico was
proportionately invested in resisting their tutelage. He rejected the notion that he needed
help. For Rico, being a writer meant having a story to tell, and telling it welL He resented
his classmates' insistence that spelling was necessary for storytelling. He had achieved
much of his classroom status through presenting his texts, and jealously guarded against
any implications of failure that might impinge on his status as storyteller/writer. For the
first time, Rico chose not to share his story, and once completed he simply filed the text in
his writing folder.
I was in the wuds.
I saw a haws fill of cndy. I eat and eat and the weh cot m
She sed cume here
I sed No and I ran a fast as I can
She got hee brwm and fluu
And I hed in a der hose
She fluu ovr me
The End
(I was in the woods. I saw a house fiiil of can(fy. I ate and ate and the witch cauglit me.
She said come here. I said no, and I ran as fast as I can. She got her broom and flew
and I hid under the house. She flew over me. The End)
We had all come to look forward to Rico's faring at our daily author's chair, and
Rico's refusal to read his stories had a powerfiil effect on his classmates. They begged
116
him to read the Hansel and Gretel story, which he flatly refused to do. I was really
mtrigued by his refiisaL It was obvious that he could reread this text easily. In fact, he had
rechecked this piece for readability many times before filing it away. However, neither his
classmates, nor I could convince him to share it. Perhaps we were being 'punished' for
failing to appreciate his Twits story, or periiaps that experience had been deeply painful
and he was truly reluctant to risk it again. For whatever reason, it was several weeks
later, just before December vacation, before Rico again shared a story.
Talk and Text: Conversations Facilitating Writing
Rico came to talk with me as I took notes on the 'state-of-the classroom'. He
was stuck. He wanted to write about his dogs, and as we both had rottweilers, wanted
some ideas. As we were talking, Rocco and Roberto joined us and began discussing the
cost of a dog. It is significant that in the following conversation Rico actually asked for a
speUing. This was his first direct request for peer assistance since the Twit's story
Rico: Rott cost a lost of money.
Chico: You don't need to pay money. If you have a girl because she'D have
babies.
Mario: If you have a boy.
Tenaya: (coming by to comment on her way to another table) Oh, I have to draw
a pictiu-e of my THREE dogs.
Mario: You don't have a dog!
Rico: No, she don't teacher, 'cause I know where she lives.
(Begins to draw a rottweiler) How do you spell 'rule'?
Mario: r-u-l-e.
Rico writes "dogs rule and cats drule"
Mario: Someone that loves cats is gonna be mad at you
This conversation marked the first time that discussion with peers directly
facilitated the development of Rico's written text. His classmates were by now extremely
aware of the effect their previous editing suggestions had had on him, and unless he
117
specifically asked for help they rarely suggested spellings to him again. This sensitivity
may actually have prevented Rico from making some of the gains in standardized print
that I observed in collaborators who routinely corrected each other's work. However, I
felt that the gains Rico made in developmg as an author as a result this peer restraint more
than outweighed the costs to conventional gelling and punctuation.
Section Three
Overview of Section Three
By early spring Rico had pretty well established a successful way to compose and
had found a creative balance between peer assistance and peer mterference. His
confidence as a writer, bolstered by peer response and his burgeoning writing folder made
it possible for him to consider other possibilities for print, and to further develop his own
intentions for his texts. Over the next period of time, Rico wrote for a growing variety of
purposes. He wrote rebuttals to peer comments about his beloved dog, created both nonfiction and fictionalized accounts of current sports events, and created a unique character
in print for an oral performance. His voice as a writer did not escape the admiring notice
of his peers, which in turn motivated him to continue to e?q)Iore the possibilities.
As the year's end approached and I reevaluated Rico's growth, I became fearful of
how Rico's progress (and my teaching) might be judged and found substandard according
to the criteria of discrete writing skills. I lost sight of my goals for developing critical
literacy: the use of print for a variety of personal purposes, to create possible worlds,
influence others, reflect, entertain, and above all have a developmg sense of efificacy as a
writer and social actor —all of wiiich Rico now demonstrated— and reverted to form-
118
driven writing instruction. This paradigm diift created an obvious discontinuity for Rico
as he struggled to be a writer according to teacher-imposed criteria divorced from his own
purposes.
Devdoping Intentions and Purposes for Print
Writing to Respond
Rico's story about his dogs provoked a lot of classroom discussion about dogs in
general, and Rico's dogs in specific.
Rico
My Dogs
My Dogs ar nos
Oim got bet
It was the rot buy getting ina fit weh my her dog
(Rico My E>ogs. My dogs are nice. One got bit. It was the Rott, by getting in a fight with my
other dog)
Children who knew Rico's dogs commented that it didn't make sense that the
Rottweiler had gotten bitten. After all. Rottweilers were known for being tough! The
children who lived next door to him also commented somewhat disparagingly that Rico's
Rottweiler had a long tail (rather than docked). For the first time, Rico responded to his
commentators in print, adding the following lines the next day, and rereading the entire
modified text.
...Becuys the rot is scard of the atr dog becos the atr dog is biger and the rot dus
hava his tel and I like it like tat.
(Because the Rott is scared at the other dog because the other dog is bigger, and the Rott does
have a tail and I like it like that)
This amended text represented another benchmark in Rico's literacy
development as he included editorial to his uses for print.
119
Revising Reali^: Creating Possible Worids in Print
In January the Superbowl furor spflled into the classroom and football stories
dominated Writer's Workshop. His peers' obsession with the playoSs was contagious,
and Rico composed two stories on that theme. In the first text, he presented a factual
accoimt of the game:
January
The Super Bole is on Sundy
49ers and the Cowboys
The Cowboys wne the 49ers The suor was 22 to 4
I wus sade but I stil like the 49er
(January
The Superbowl is on Sunday
49ers and the Cowix^
The Cowboys won the 49ers. The score was 22-4
I was sad but I still like the 49ers)
In the second story he again demonstrated his developing critical literacy as he
manipulated print to get a reaction fi-om his classmates. Loyalties to the two vying teams
had created intense fiiction among the children, and those whose loyalties lay with the
underdog were left with Uttle to say. However, Rico alone used print to present an
alternative and vastly more satisfying fictionalized outcome to the championship game.
The NFL camencep
The Egols worn 31 to 17 The Cowboys lost Beg Time
The Egold are in the Super Bowl
The DaUs end becase theay waned to be in the Superbowl
Egols rolls and the cowgrils droe
(The NFL Championship
The Eagles won 31 to 17. The Cowboys lost Big Time. The Eagles are in the Superbowl. The
Dallas cried because they wanted to be in the SuperbowL
Eagles rule and Cowgirls drool.)
This retaliatory re^onse met with tremendous acclaim on the part of his fellow
120
49ers &iis, whose own print voices had been sflenced by the actual outcomes of the game.
They were deeply appreciative. That only Rico had thought to use print to create a
different reality did not escape the notice of his peers. Once again his ventures with
storytelling served to elevate his status among his classmate, and to cement Rico's own
self-perceprion as an author.
Connecting Talk and Text: Experiments with Playwriting
Soon after Rico's fictionalized account of the Superfoowl game, several groups of
children began to work together on performance pieces. This writing activity occupied the
whole class for many weeks. They wrote somewhat limited scripts on the computer,
having discovered how easy that made it to print out the multiple copies necessary for
each partner. They made Popsicle-stick puppets and other props for their performances,
and began to do whole group choral readings of the narrative text, rather than creatmg
specific roles for each member of the group. While more time during this period was
spent performing the pieces than actually writing them, they remained aware that print was
a required component of the process. As one student commented, 'Tf you're doing a play
you got to do a story, even ask Mrs. Israel" Even after football theme (thankftiUy) began
to wear thm, classroom interest in producing plays remained strong. Rico was invited to
join in with a group of children who were creating a play with a complicated story line and
a cast of thousands. Rico successftilly convinced his peers that there could be more than
one dog although the role of the dog had already been taken by Tenaya. He spent a great
deal of time in discussion with his follow playwrights and in creating props for the
performance. However, when I insisted that the actors ^ow me their scripts, Rico
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presented the following tevt:
Wefe Wefe I ame on a coler Dnt you Hat that I wesh I can brak thes cane
Si I can cas the cat's and Have me a Barfoe q
I am [d]oing Bons weh solsa
And coll the otr dog's and hav a fest
Hope my onrs ant gna get mad.
( Woof, woof, I am on a collar. Don't you hate that? I wish I can break this chain so I can catch
the cats and have me a barbecue. I am doing bones with salsa and call the other dogs and have a
feast Hope my owners don't get mad)
At the final performance this characterization brought the house down. Rico's
peers proclaimed that he even sounded like a dog.
Teacher Interference in the Writing Process: Para<llgm Warp
I admired the emergence of Rico's very strong voice as a writer, but I began to
worry over his limited acquisition of standardized spellings and other conventions of print.
While I felt philosophically supported regarding my desire to foster voice and purpose m
my student writers, I was concerned that the emphasis on content over form might be a
liability for Rico the following year. Over the next few weeks I engaged my students in
writing activities outside of Writer's Workshop in an attempt to create a bridge between
imagination and convention. Writer's Workdiop remained imchanged and unchallenged as
THEIR writing time, where the story to tell had precedence over all other concerns. But,
at other points during the day I encouraged n^ students to become aware of editing
issues, and to consider the form of their writing. Rico continued to bring a high level of
creativity to these exercises, and, when so prompted, created more easUy readable texts.
In response to the assignment to create a personal text with 'feeling words', Rico wTote
the following sentences;
My dog got het I wes imhappy
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My brather went to gell I was disappointed
My mom got slapt I was sad
My dog ran away I was upset
My frand is not my frand I am angry
My bratay cam I did not no haw old I wes I wes irate
(My dog got hit J was unhappy.
My brother went to jail, I was disappointed.
My mom got slapped. I was sad.
My dog ran aw^, I was upset
My friend is not my friend, I am angry.
My birthd:^ cam [and] I did not know how old I was, I was irate)
Derailing Student Intentions for Print
Rico did fairly well on creating more standardized texts as a writing assignment.
However, the emphasis I had placed on creating readable texts had an immediate negative
effect on Rico's writing in Writer's Workshop. He became hyperaware of his spellmg,
and began to second-guess his instincts with disastrous effects. On the occasions wben he
appealed to his peers for help, their zealous over-corrections robbed him of any sense of
competence as a speller. He had already developed a pretty good awareness that spelling
was an arbitrary science, and in his next texts he suffered every word. The following text
is representative of his process as he struggled with this issue:
My Dog
My dog is men He ges men wen you pet you'r sue bai>' hes nose
and if you pet him on a bunp bede he well get skard and criy
and he well criey oil nite
and wenn my mom comes in my reme he ges happy
and he went lat my mom get hem down
(My dog is mean. He gets mean w^en you put your shoes by his nose, and if you put
him on a bunk bed he will get scared and ciy, and he will ciy all m'ght .\nd when my
mom comes in my room he gets happy and he won't let her get him down)
123
Section Four
Overview of Section Four
Rico, disconnected from his own process as a writer, sought out his peers by
participating as a creative consultant in their texts. These interactions served to reconnect
him with his own goals as a writer, and thankfiilly, he returned to the successful strategies
V
he had previousfy employed. With his sense of authority restored, Rico reached a new
level of collaboration. In choosing his collaborators over creative autonomy he was able
enter the creative world of his peers. As a confident writer, Rico now rolled with the
punches in Writer's Workshop. He was no longer easily distracted by peer criticism,
although he rarely asked for critique. If his classmates chose to work on topics that didn't
mterest him, he comfortably worked alone. A sense of community permeated Writer's
Workshop whether students were actively co-creating texts or not. Children stopped to
share a word or two, admire an illustration, and listen to the newest sentence. Writers m
the presence of other writers, Rico and his classmates became tacit collaborators. The
intimacy that developed among us all made Writer's Workshop a powerful arena for
sharing, risk-taking, and connecting.
Pulling it All Together; Reclaiming the Process of Being a Writer
Collaborating and Co-authoring
Rico became more frustrated with his own compositions as he tried to comply with
the emphasis on correctness. In desperation to be an author again, he turned to work with
his peers, participatmg with them on the creation of texts by contributing ideas. He began
to collaborate with Marco on a piece about swimmmg at the local pooL At the first draft
124
of the piece Marco printed out two copies, one for each of them, and Rico benefited
tremendously from the choral reading performances. Rico fai turn made himself invaluable
to Marco, acting as intermediary between the boys and me as we negotiated issues of
appropriate language versus freedom of ^eech. Over the next two weeks Rico shared in
several choral readings of the text as it went through various editing stages, even getting
himself written in as a protagonist m the final version of the story. (See also Marco, p
155) He included the following text m his own writing folder, indicating that he too felt a
sense of ownership/authorship towards the piece;
Sunnyside Pool
I like the Sunny Side Pool because we could swim but we get clorox in
are eyes and we get to jump off the diving board and we get to were
like jackets and we pay a quarter to get in Sunnyside Pool me and other
people have fun and we get to go to the bathroom and take a shower
and you can't wear flotes and it is the BOMB and the girls are fine
and the life guard saved Rico and the fine girls kissed Rico and the fine
girls kissed Frank and they kissed Marco too.
Creating Alliances through Collaborative Texts and Vice Versa
Rico was continuing to write with Marco, Frank and Roman, when
Roman was unexpectedly pulled out of Writer's Workdiop by his LD tutor due
to a conflict with his resource room scheduling. This created tension among
the three remaining collaborators because Roman, a fervent 49ers fan, had
acted to mediate topic selection in the group. Without Roman, Marco lobbied
hard and fast to get his peers to agree to a pro-Cowboys stoiy. Surprisingly,
the desire for solidarity with Marco won out, and both Rico and Frank,
heretofore dyed in the wool 49ers fjms, readily abandoned both their team and
their absent classmate. Rico also mcluded a printout of this text in his own
125
writing folder, although Marco and Frank had done all the typing of the text.
THE COWBOYS ARE THE BEST. THE 49ERS ARE THE
HOVERS. THE COWBOYS ARE NEAT. THE49ERSARE
LOSERS. THE COWBOYS ARE WINNERS. THE 49ERS #0 THE
COWBOYS ARE #1. THE 49ERS ARE BABBIES. THE
COWBOYS ARE THE TEAM. THE 49ERS WHAT ROMAN
LIKES. THE COWBOYS WHAT I LIKE. THE49ERSAREA
LITTLE WINER.
The Collaborative Effect of Community: Writing Among Friends
By the beginning of May, with the end of the school year in sight,
Marco and Frank were collaborating on a story based on experiences they
shared, that Rico did not. Without distress, Rico returned to his pattern of
composing alone. On his own he consulted with me several times over
appropriate topic and word choice, writing a story based on Bevis and
Buthead. This was very interesting to me, because I rarely censored anything
children chose to write, other than infrequently preventing a child from publicly
sharing a piece that deliberately insulted a classmate. Rico was very clear as to
the cause of his caution. His texts were written to share. He might choose
himself to keep a text private, but he did not want that choice made for him.
After verifying that I would let him write (and say) "Buthead", "chicks",
"rap", "stupid", and "cool, dude", he presented the following text:
Bevas
Hey dewd, look at those cheks. Hey Buthead, wont to lisen to raps?
Do you won't to Do [you] want to go out with those cheks if thay are
sutped? And thay [went} out with me and Buthead cool Dewd
Buthead, le go to gat food like Pezze Hut
(Bevis
Hey dude, look at those chicks. Hey Buthead, you want to listen to rap? Do you
want to? Do you want to go out with those chicks if they are stupid? And they went
126
out with me and Buthead. cool, dude. Buthead, lets go to get food like Pizza Hut)
On the last few days of school we spent a lot of time talking and
visiting with each other. I knew I would not be returning to Palo Verde
School, and, barring a trip to the school to visit them, would not be seeing my
students after the end of the year. This was difScuh for me as well as for them,
because we had become good friends. With few exceptions, perhaps as a
result of our many conversations, ahnost all the children ended the year's
writing with personal narratives. Buddy, too, wrote one last story about his
dogs.
ME AND MY DOGS
I LIKE TAKING HIM FOR A WALK BUT I HATE WHEN HE
RLTNS TO FAST AND HE IS A ROTWBLER AND A BANGE DOG
AND A POT POMERRANIN AND PORT CEWOWO
THE BANGE DIG IS NICE TO KIDS THE CEWOWO BITS AND
THE ROTWILER IS NISE BUT KIDS AOR ARFAD OF HEM
(Me and My Dogs
I like taking him for a walk but I hate when he runs too fast and [I have?] a Rottweiler and a
Benji dog and a part Pomeranian and part Chihuahua. The Benji dog is nice to kids. The
Chihuahua bites, and the Rottweiler is nice but kids are afraid of him.)
Reflections on Rico
As I reviewed my year with Rico, I was struck by how fragile his own perceptions
of writing and being a writer were, and how easily crushed in the face of a differing and
authoritatively presented perspective. However, while examining his documents and the
interactions surrounding them, a significant pattern appeared. I noted that while both
teacher and peer critique alike created an immediate fracture in Rico's beliefs about
writing, his response to the different detractors was very different. When presented ^ith
teacher-directed assessments of what writing was; such as valuing form over content, or
127
correctness over imagination, Rico was quick to conclude that his own differing vie^^point
was at fault and struggled to adopt the teacher-directed statement. However, when
critiqued by his peers, after an initial withdrawal, Rico either adapted the opposing
position into his own fi-amework, or activefy rq'ected it. That is, peer conflict actually
served to force him to reevaluate his position. That he didn't simply ignore peer criticism
speaks to the powerfiil need to belong to the group. Writer's Workshop became a rare
classroom ^ace in which both autonomy and collaboration coexisted in harmony. Even I
could participate as writer and collaborator in that environment, hopefully allowing my
students to benefit fi-om my more extensive experiences as a writer. However, when I
reverted to teacher-directed instruction it was nearly impossible for Rico to withstand the
overwhelming weight of that voice.
Concerns for His Future Schooling
From a simple comparison of Rico's first text in August:
Witt surt bllu sorrs. Brawn sus blak her
to his last text in May:
'Me and My Dogs
1 like taking my dog for a walk but I hate when he runs to fast'.
it was obvious that he had made tremendous gains as a writer in all areas, transcription,
purpose, voice. However, in spite of this growth, he still fell far below grade-level in the
mechanics of writing. Because Rico's gains had all come about through peer interactions,
and the effect of teacher-directed writing mstruction had been to shut him down, I worried
that future teacher atten:q)ts to provide remedial instruction would rob him of his sense of
authorship.
128
Case Study Two
Introducing Tenaya
Tenaya was the only non-Spanish speaking Black child in our room and she
entered the classroom on guard. She fought with her classmates and me, and rejected all
our overtures for friendship. She had been labeled LD, which in her case meant that she
did not appear to be able to read, and when forced to write employed an idiosyncratic or
possibly haphazard choice of letters that neither she nor I were able later to read.
At first Tenaya wrote with her peers only to benefit fi-om their knowledge of letters
and sound; she didn't welcome fiiendship with her classmates. She was quick to
appropriate her peers' strategies of repeated phrases, and reveled in the sheer length of her
repetitive text.
Her first acts to negotiate a relationship were though love letters to me. From a
distance she watched me read her letters. She watched me respond to her classmates'
requests for spellings. She watched her peers collaborate, and finally she joined in.
She wrote successfully (Le., she was able to read her written texts at the daily author's
share, to her peers approval), for several months. At mid-year, however, although her
own development as a writer was remarkable, there was still a discrepancy between her
still limited skills, and those of her peers. This discrepancy manifested itself after the
publication of the first anthology of collected student writings when she was unable to join
m when her classmates ^ared their texts.
Her peers increasing excluded her from
reading and writing with them, and she tried a variety of ways to write herself into a space
in the room. She tried to participate with a group of children by writing about what
129
interested them—^rottweilers. She tried to woo her peers by inchiding popular sports
theme m her writing. She tried to impress them by incorporatmg a 'kitchen smk' approach
to her writing, thus creating an impressively long but incoherent text. None of these
strategies worked to reconnect her with her peers. Finally her developing relationship
with Raquel provided an entrance back into the literacy club and she began to collaborate
with Raquel on a variety of shared texts. She partic^ated with her classmates by creating
a character for the group play, and for the first time, began to write and read fictionalized
narratives of her life—a vision of what might be.
In April, LD testing temporarily replaced her hard won knowledge of writing with
a school-based definition that reduced writing to spelling and punctuation, devoid of
meaning or purpose. By the end of the year she was able to overcome the destructive
eSect of that experience and in the final days of school she was again a writer, writing in
the company of writers.
Tenaya
On the first day of school Tenaya perched uneasily at a table with four other little
girls. She was the only Afiican heritage child in the class. She eyed her classmates
suspiciously, waiting for them to confirm her expectations that they would not like her,
would treat her unfairly, and would get her in trouble. Tenaya noisily set her folder on the
table, her pencil teetering on the edge. Elizabeth reached over to stop it fi-om rolling off.
"Gimme that! That's not yours you know. You don't be taking my stuff.
Teacher!" Her voice crescendoed. Tenaya's head wove back and forth, her
130
elaborate braids swinging, her hand tucked on her hip. Elizabeth was speechless, openmouthed.
When it was time for Writer's Workshop, Tenaya became restless.
"1 can't write," she said.
"'Oh, I bet you can," [ said, taking out
own folder, picking up a penciL
On this first day of school I did not want to define for her topics, or methods. She
gathered a stack of paper and a green marker, and after a little delay, began to write.
After each sentence she read out loud, punctuating the end of each line with a click of her
tongue. I took rapid notes as she read because her system of transcribmg the words other
than I LIKE was so non-standard as to make re-encoding impossible.
A cursory look at Tenaya's file indicated that she had been identified as having a
'learning disability'. Her non-mainstream dialect of English was not recognized as a
language variety, and so she was also labeled as having 'general language deficiencies'.
At the end of the one of the first days of school my third-grade teammate and I
were slumped next to the coffee machine when Tenaya came m, accompanied by several
other second and third grade girls. Tenaya wanted to dance. She badgered her fiiends
into doing what she called a 'cheer'. These were choreographed songs and dance moves
executed like a kinesthetic call and response.
Hey Tenaya
Yeah?
Do you wanna go down?
How YOU gonna go down?
D-O-W-N that's the way you go down
Huh, D-O-W-N that's the way you go down?"
Yeah!
Hey Maria...
131
Tenaya recited and danced, leading her friends in cheer after cheer, until laughing,
they had had enough, and quit. I was struck by the discrepancy between this performance
and the assessments in her cumulative folder. I was dismayed to consider the interaction
of Tenaya's ways with words—her culturally influenced patterns of discourse—
with the privileged discourse of the assessments, a collision that found her substandard
and in need of remediation. For her, as for
other students, I hoped that participation
in a writing community would bring her in from the margin, into a place where she could
share both who she was, as well as explore her possible selves.
Section One
Overview of Section One
Tenaya's literacy development was beleaguered by several factors. She
received instruction in a program of regularized phonics lessons that did not
encourage her to make connections about print based on her own sense of
language. AdditionaUy, her dialect of English did not share the phonemes of
Standard English on which the instructional program was based, further
confounding the opportunity for her knowledge of language to mediate the
acquisition of print literacy. Thus, reading and writing became completely
teacher directed tasks, devoid of meaning and notion of personal purpose.
Barriers to Acquiring Literacy
Tan Bats, Fans, and Vans: Writing for 'Success* in the Remedial Program
Tenaya, having been classified as LD, had in prior years received all of her literacy
instruction from a Specialist whose remedial program relied entirely on rote memorization
132
of regularized phonics lessons. She was provided with lammated cards with lists of word
families in order to compose. She was not encouraged to try to make sense of the letter
sound relationships, or to use 'creative spellings' in any way. And, as long as Tenaya
chose to con^ose sentences about tan bats, fans, and vans, and pigs m wigs dancing jigs,
she created 'successful texts', Le., texts that she and others could later read.
However, without the safety net of a controlled spelling vocabulary, Tenaya was
left with little support for creating meaning in print. On the morning of the first day of
school, in re^onse to the writing prompt to describe a fellow student, Tenaya produced
the following text:
8-14-96
1. Khrystle is my mptb blDa
2. Khrystle in a bot tran
3. Khrystle LT mn Tran
4. Khrystle bot
5. Jazmetmt
Tenaya had carefidly written letters to represent the words in her text, mimicking
her peers as they composed. However, her knowledge of letter-sound match was limited,
and her inability to read (or recall) her own message left her silenced and confused. Little
wonder that she aimounced to me during Writer's Workshop that she couldn't write.
Interruptions and Disrupted Process
Tenaya's LX> label meant that she was fi'equently called away for
resource support during Writer's Workshop. Sometimes the scheduling
appeared to give her a welcome break from the exhausting task of creating a
system of transcription for the stories she wanted to tell. (It often seemed that
the exhaustion stemmed from the compromises she was forced to make
1
between the stories she began to want to tell, and the stories she actually, with
her limited system, could tell.) More frequently, though, the pull-out program
divorced her from her fledgling collaborations with her peers and disrupted her
developmg strategies for creating social relationships through text, and texts
through social relationship (Dyson 1989).
Section Two
Overview of Section Two
Learning to Write
Within our classroom, Tenaya resisted using the controlled scaffold of the word
cards of her phonics program, and e.xperimented with alternative strategies for writing. By
incorporating environmental print into her narratives she was able to write lengthy texts
that satisfied her requirement of readability.
Experimendng with Systems for Transcribing
I don't know vN^iy Tenaya did not simply use the word-cards from her LD
classroom to compose, particularly because her motivating goal was to be able to read her
texts successfully. When questioned, she always answered 'I don't know'. Perhaps she
wanted to create texts more like those of her peers, or simply welcomed the opportunity
for creativity. For whatever reason, Tenaya actively searched for ways to create a
message beyond the restraints of the controlled vocabulary of the cards. She chose the
words I LIKE from the cards, and then she searched the classroom blackboards and
bulletin boards for environmental print to create this second text:
I like sports
134
I like bathroom
I like blue
She was able to read this at the author's share, which delighted her. The success she
experienced at being able to share her texts was enormously motivating for Tenaya. Her
previous experiences with writing had not developed the notion of a story to tell, or any
other purpose—so she didn't really care \N^iat her texts were about. What she wanted was
to be able to read her message later to her peers. She had begun to work out ways of
expanding her print world beyond the one-syllable pattern-words of the word-cards. She
could with, some success, produce some meaning on paper, come back later and still be
able to read it.
Expanding Writing Strategies
Tenaya had hit on a useful strategy for creating texts of substantial length, and she
continued with the repetitive I LIKE stories for several weeks.
Her te.vts of mid-August and early September showed her reliance on this method,
although she had also begun to experiment with creative spelling:
I like to read
I like to raay
I like to eeit
Ilikto school
I lik to wrok
I lik to plat
I like to read
I like to reat
I like to joly
I like to eeit
135
Section Three; Writing with Others
Overview of Section Three
Peer interactions provided Tenaya with new opportunities for
developing literacy. She appropriated both peer methods and purpose for
writing, which were demonstrated in her repetitive text and attempt at personal
narrati\'e. She also began to experiment with the print as a tool for making
social connections.
Earlv Collaborative E.\periences
Appropriating Peer Strategies and Purposes
By mid September Tenaya had begun to write at a table with Esther
and Khrystle. Neither Esther nor Khrystle were particularly fluent writers (that
is, they had not gained enough mastery over the sound system to write freely,
able to focus on their purpose rather than the manner of transcription), did not
incorporate much standardized print into their texts, and both employed highly
idiosyncratic creative spellings in their texts. This made writing a laborious
process for both of them. However, they had clear, if differing, intentions for
their texts. Esther was interested in creating pieces of length. Her goal for
each writing session was to create a piece to share, and the content was of
secondary importance. Khrystle, on the other hand, was motivated by the
desire to tell a good story, and spent a lot of time thinking about what she
would write next. As Tenaya continued to write at their table she began to
incorporate aspects of both of their composing strategies into her own writing.
136
She admired a repetitive story that Esther had written, impressed by the sheer
number of lines. 'And the clock ticked one and the clock ticked two and the
clock ticked three..." Tenaya appropriated the repetitive pattern of Esther s
story and employed in her own texts. Khrystle's influence showed up in the
details of personal narrative that she included in her text. Her next writings
also included longer final sentences that elaborated on a theme fi'om her own
personal narrative, and also demonstrated a move away &om total reliance on
the standardized spellings she gleaned from classroom labels and other
en\Tromiiental print:
I like school
I like to wrok
I like to play
I like book
I like to playno the pche
I like to play waie chico
(I LIKE SCHOOL)
(I LIKE TO WORK)
(I LIKE TO PLAY)
(I LIKE BOOKS)
(I LIKE TO PLAY ON THE PLAYGROUND)
(I LIKE TO PLAY WITH CHICO)
I like to read
I Uke to eta
I like to book
I like to play
I like to fiup
I like to cream
I like to play on the seeais
(I LIKE TO READ)
(I LIKE TO EAT)
(I LIKE BOOKS)
(I LIKE TO PLAY)
(I LIKE TO FLIP)
(I LIKE [ICE] CREAM)
(I LIKE TO PLAY ON THE SEESAW
Building Reiatjonships Through Print and Interactions with Print
You or the Bset I love you
As a result of her puUout program, Tenaya enjoyed just a few writing
sessions in which she wrote with her peers, and then was prevented by her
resource room schedule from participating in Writer's Workshop for about two
137
weeks. When I was finally able to get her time rescheduled, the writing
collaborations in the classroom had reformed and Tenaya could not find a way
to rqom her previous partners. For the entire month of October she wrote
letters of affection to me. She created envelopes and stamps, and illustrated
the letters with hearts and animals. Tenaya had discovered a new possibility
for prmt: creatmg a social relationdiip. She also recognized the potentialfy^
public nature of print, and she stood by
shoulder as I read her letters,
making sure that I did not share them with the class.
10/96
I Love You
I like you I love you youor The Best techth
By Tenaya
To M.S.Israel
I Love You
You or Best.
I love you
You or the best
I love I like
I love you
You or the Bset
Techen By Tenaya Jones
You I love
You or the Bset
I love you
138
Section Four; Peer Influences on Text
Overview of Section Four
Tenaya began to observe her classmates closely as they talked about
their texts and shared ideas, and spellings. She began to write seated together
with several other girls and their positive response to her provided the support
for her longest piece so far—a poem. She came increasingly to rely on her
peers for assistance and began to consider her goals for writing as she prepared
her poem for publication in the classroom anthology.
Connecting Talk and Text
When Tenaya finally got re-situated with her previous writing buddies. Esther
had created another lengthy repetitive text that Tenaya was enormously impressed with.
She abandoned her own I LIKE format in search of a new way to create a
similarly lengthy text, gathering together paper, a stapler and various drawing
supplies. She came to sit next to me, where several other students were also
working. She observed curiously the following interaction in which one of her
classmates had come to me as resources for spelling.
Chico: (writing) how do you spell bricks?
Israel: What do you think..
Chico: -bIsrael: uhuh, and —rChico: -i-k (writing down brik and turning away)
Raquel: He is learning to write fast.
IsraeL Yes, he is, and you are very kind to mention it.
Tenaya also observed similar mteractions among peers as she worked
on illustrations at their writing table. She had not yet begun to interact directly
139
with her peers over texts, but she gravitated to tables where others were
actively composing. On this occasion she had just began to do a series of cat
drawings while sitting at a table with her earlier writing partner. Raquel and
Linette had jomed Khrystle in writing a story about Halloween. Ahhough
Tenaya did not take a particularly significant part in the mteractions, the
following dialog marked the beginning of her joining in the conversations about
and around the task of writing.
Tenaya is formatting a book, using markers to draw her cats.
Khrystle brings her paper over close to Raquel's to copy the text so far.
Raquel:
Did you put 'to a'?
Khrystle:
What did you write? (rereading carefully, 'went to get a costume")
How do you spell 'was'?
Tenaya:
Y-E-S, right? (to Raquel) Y-E-S, right?
Raquel:
What 'was'? W-A-S?
Tenaya:
W-A-S!
Khrystle:
I know.
Peer Interactions Supporting Writing Development
Tenaya sat with her classmates every day, watching them create longer
and longer texts, and she was determined to write a long story herself. She
was equally determined to mcorporate her cat illustrations into a text. While
coloring in one of her illustrations she hit upon a method for creating a story
about multicolored cats, and her strategy was noticed and admiringly remarked
upon by Linette.
Tenaya:
Raquel:
Tenaya:
(writing) Is this a'P'? (showing her paper only to Raquel)
(to me) See, Tenaya onfy shows me. Let me see. (nods)
Can I ^ow Linette? (takes a page to Linette's work space)
My cat's purple, (writing with a purple marker) She.. No
(Changes the color of marker and continues to write)
140
Linette:
Tenaya:
My cat, by Tenaya. She is yellow. She holds up a yellow crayon, copymg
the spelling ofifthe paper wrapper.
(who has returned to this table with Tenaya's cat drawing)
Tenaya's smart. She went and got yellow and she's looldng at the thing.
(continuing to write) Now's gonna be the orange cat.
With the added impetus of Linette's praise, this piece grew to become
Tenaya's longest so f^.
My cat dy Tenaya
My cat is purple
I love you
My cat dy Tenaya
My cat dy Tenaya
See is (purple blot) but isd is cat see is blue blue
My cat dy Tenaya
See is yellow but see mean
Yellow
My green dy Tenaya
See is mean but see is mean
My orange dy Tenaya
Dot is mean
See is orang
My red cat by Tenaya
My cat by Tenaya
See is mean
In mes hee see oil sau you
My cat is black
Dua is modr blact
Mean cat cat mean
As in her earlier I LIKE pieces,Tenaya reached a point in the repetition of'known words'
where she created a critical mass of text that allowed her to elaborate on her theme—
See is (purple blot) but isd is cat see is blue blue
(She is purple but she is a cat)
Asserting the validity of cathood, regardless of its color, Tenaya then repeated
her 'chorus' and elaborated again:
See is yellow but see mean
(She is yellow but she is mean).
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Tenaya continued this pattern of repeating fall-back or chorus lines (MY CAT
BY TENAYA or MY [COLOR WORD] CAT) foUowed by elaborations
throughout the piece until she reached her longest section of creatively and
expressively written text:
See is mean
(She is mean)
In mes hee see oil sau you
(If [you] mess [with] her she will scratch you)
She then fell back again on a line of text she could easQy control:
My cat is black
and ended the piece with an elaboration and the final chorus:
Dua modr blact
(Their mother is black)
mean cat cat mean
I was amazed at the complexity of this particular text, and found much to
support that opinion in studies of social linguistics by Gee (1995, 1997), Heath
(1983) and Michaels (1981). In particular. Gee's analysis of the oral storytelling of an Aincan heritage child suggested that the poetic style of Tenaya's
narratK'e belied her cultural heritage and made me all the more anxious to
support her literacy development in a way that woidd not eclipse her own
'ways with words'. Yet, it was her peers' response to the story that truly
created the place for her to experience this voice. They were astonished and
admiring, '%'s like a song", and while they did not welcome her with open
arms into the fold, as it were, this had much to do with her own pattern of
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isolation and suspicion. However, ^e began to fight tooth and nail against
anything that interrupted her writing time, refusing to attend her pullout
program if it conflicted with Writer's Workshop. The Specialist was inclined
to let Tenaya's mterests control her instructional plan, and Tenaya attended the
resource room very infi-equently. Almost immediately she abandoned the use
of random environmental print as a source for word spellmgs and began to
seek out other strategies for conveying meaning in print.
Viewing Oassmates as Resources: **How do you spell rabbit?**
Tenaya's next text reflected her new dependence on her peers, and she
wrote only when she was assured of having a human dictionary on hand.
Esther and Khrystle were engaged in a joint writing project that excluded her,
and so she fi'equently wrote next to Lmette and Raquel who were both
relatively competent spellers. They were also engaged in their own writing,
and not interested in her story per se, but they enjoyed the role of'expert' and
were easily distracted fi-om their own texts to provide her with spellings.
Tenaya:
Tenaya:
Linette:
Raquel:
Linette:
Raquel:
Lmette:
Who likes my devil?
(no response, people are writing, thinking)
How do you spell rabbit?
Rabbit?
(going to board) I'll show you how.
(she writes r-a-b-i-t-e)
r-a-b-b-i-t
Oh, there's two b's in rabbit?
(writing on board) Like this.
The text that Tenaya created with this new peer support represented a balance
between strategies for obtaining word spellings, and her intentions for the
143
story. She again relied on a repetitive story grammar, ~I SAW A
~ filling
in the blanks with help fi'om her peers. She was quite successfiil with this
strategy although the seventh line —I SAW A EXX) [dog]~represents a
compromise between mtention and skill as her illustration is actually of a teddy
bear.
I wont to track or treating
My day it track
My day it track
I saw a deivele
I saw a rabbit
I saw a dooo
I saw a wisch
I saw a claw (clown)
Reconsidering Intentions; Revising for an Audience
By late October I was shopping around for ways to create an "authentic piupose"
for promoting te.xt revisions in both content and mechanics, and an Author's Tea where
their pieces would be shared with a parent audience was an obvious option. However, as a
class, this group of children produced a lot of te?as, and the opportunity for
'performances' in the daily authors' share was an essential part of their moti\ation to
write. Therefore, a conventional Author's Tea where some of the children would have
chance to read a single piece held little appeal As a result, we developed the idea of a
classroom anthology of children's texts. Over the year we produced four such anthologies
in which every child, (with a single exception due to excessive absences) published several
pieces. The district's printing center was extremely generous and printed up sixty spiral
bound copies of each of the four anthologies. We were then able to maintain a school
collection of the anthologies (in addition to the children's own individual copy) and these
144
became a part of our classroom library. In this way my children's voices shared the
bookshelf with the authors of other published works. Contributing to the anthology
became the focus of writing over the next writing sessions. Tenaya resurrected her cat
story for this first volume. She worked and reworked the text with a variety of peer
editors, generally accepting their input even when it appeared to change her meaning.
However, against their fbrcefiil suggestions, she added back in —My cat, by Tenaya— five
times, which maintained the poem^like structure of her original piece. At my suggestion,
the final format for her text supported the notion of a poem. At her suggestion, the font
was mcreased to I8pts so that the poem would fill an entire page.
My Cat
Written by Tenaya
My cat, by Tenaya.
She is purple, but she is a cat.
She is blue.
My cat, by Tenaya.
She is yellow, but she is mean.
My cat, by Tenaya.
She is green, but she is mean.
Yes, she is mean.
My cat, by Tenaya.
She is mean, but she is orange.
My cat, by Tenaya.
She is red.
She is mean.
She is mad.
If you mess with her she will scratch you.
My cat is black, but she is mostly black.
Mean, mean cat.
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Section Five; Reconnecting with Text through Social Interaction
Overview of Section Five
The pubHcation of the anthology created a rift between Tenaya and her newlyfound collaborators. Her inability to share as an equal in reading their texts marked the
discrepancy between her skills and theirs. This, and the loss of her best friend, Khrystle,
(who moved away) stalled her process. In the absence of peer support Tenaya tried
unsuccessfully to apply her earlier strategy of copying environmental print to her own and
others' texts. She was clearly motivated by the desire for peer approval, and tried to woo
her classmates by including popular sports themes into her texts. Her persistence finaUy
paid ofif and she was invited to join in a collaborative play. This collaboration proxaded
Tenaya with peer input during her composmg process, and mediated her awareness of the
discrepancy between her intended text and her actual text.
Losing Her Place
The publication of the classroom anthologies provoked a significant classroom
interaction that limited Tenaya's participation in the community of writers she had come to
value. When Tenaya tried to join her peers hi sharing their published stories, they
criticized her lack of skill at reading texts other than her own, and prevented her from
participating, as they could, as a reader. Discouraged by their criticism of her reading
ability, she retumed to writing, alone, revertmg to the early composing strategies of
directly copying environmental print.
Trying to Connect with Peers and Texts
Over the next several weeks Tenaya struggled to find a way to participate as a
member of the writing community. Both Khrystle and Esther had moved out of the Palo
146
Verde School area and Tenaya was at a total loss for direction in Writer's Workshop. The
rest of the class was obsessed with the anthologies, and were engaged in reading other
peoples' selections. Tenaya tried to read another classmate's story chorally with Raquel,
but her constant miscues were so commented on by her peers, especially the author of the
piece, that she was forced to quit. She tried to join in a conversation about dogs with
several of the boys who were writing on that theme. However, they were not interested in
her obviously made-up account of having three rottweflers and turned her away. Tenaya
returned to writing alone, but without the support of fellow-writers, she could not sustain
the efifort and did not con^Iete any pieces to share. Her folder for early November
contained three short texts illustrating three separate strategies for composing.
—Oirectly copying environmental print from a hallway bulletin board;
My day on Thanksgiving
—Directly copying the text of a classmate. (This was Khrystle's story from the anthology):
My fat tirek eat
(MY FAT TURKEY EATS)
15 cor A bay and
fat tirek allwas gete
(15 CORNS A DAY AND MY FAT TURKEY ALWAYS GETS)
—Relying exclusively on spelling from a classmate to create a repetitive text. In this case
Marco shares with her his own non-standard spellings:
Are rat chekta
(OUR RAT CHIQUrrA)
Are rat chekta
(OUR RAT CHIQUITA)
Gray and whrte some times
Tenaya's expressed sadness over the loss of her writing parmers was not unusual
in this classroom. The very transitional nature of the population meant that students were
147
frequently enrolled for relatively short periods of time during the school year and I was
sensitive to the grief nc^ students experienced at each move. However, [ underestimated
the impact of the separation on Tenaya's membership in the writing community. Only in
retrospect did I recognize that it took her all of December and January to reconnect with a
new group of writing peers. During that time of disconnectedness, all her writing efiforts
were directed exclu^ely toward seeking the approval ofher remaining classmates.
Trying Different Strategies for Peer Approval
Even More Cats, Maybe You Like the 49ers, and What About Christmas?
The class was pretty well divided on gender themes, with only the boys writing
about sports. Tenaya, not having much success connecting with the girls, attempted to
gain entree into that arena with her next piece. With the anthology opened to her story,
she used the printed text as a springboard.
12/96
My cat by Tenaya
My brown cat
My cat is orangs
My cat green
My cat is yellow
She continued on the same text, working alone, and wrote the following seven
lines, relying on her repetitive story grammar of earlier pieces:
49ers
49ers
I like 49ers be becinig tha or The Bst.
(I like the 49ers because they are the best)
4Pers 10000
I like the 49ers 1000
I like Mrs Thomas because my techer like the 49ers
I like the 49ers becinig *owz
(1 like the 49ers because #1)
148
In creating this text, Tenaya appealed to her classmates for help with spelling in
her first direct peer interaction in many weeks.
Tenaya:
Linette:
How do you spell 'Christmas'?
(pointing to C^s's writing folder) Like Chris and m-a-s.
And add a -t(She demonstrates again, covering the -o-p-h-e-r of
CHRISTOPHER with her hand) Like this and m-a-s.
When Tenaya returned to her text, her writing revealed two attempts to use
Linette's strategy. She strung together more unrelated text pieces and completed her
writing with a couple of creative spellings:
1 like Chistophes
I like Christmas
49#1 Cowgilrs
My Roberta
I like Christmas it is fom
(I like Christmas it is fun)
49 49 49 49
49 100*100
I like the 49ers
They are the woon
(They are the bomb)
Tenaya got some limited praise fi-om the boys over her inclusion of the 49ers in her
text, mostly over her illustrations of football helmet. They were critical of the mixed
themes, " she writes about cats, all about cats, that's all", and at this point most of the
children had switched their loyalties to the Dallas Cowboys. While the class had accepted
Tenaya's previous attribute lists as valid te.xts, this collection of unrelated themes \'iolated
their notions of story. After this mixed success, Tenaya spent the rest of January drawing
pictures of cats, even trying to enlist my support to her total claim to that theme.
Tenaya:
Linette:
Tenaya:
Well, I'm gonna write my white cat, my purple cat.
No, I'm going to do that!
No! I been doing that, haven't I, teacher?
149
Tenaya eventually wrote this cat story, making another bid for peer approval by
illustrating each page with a football helmet which both Rocco and Linette had showed
her how to draw. This piece finally resulted in a positive peer response. When she shared
there were expressions of appreciation over the details of her careftil drawings.
Through Text to Social Interaction to Interacting with Text
Tenaya was drawn into the creation of props for a play that several of the other
children were working on. This became a source of concern for me. because while most
of the other chfldren also participated in writing the scripts, Tenaya appeared to spend
most of Writer's Workshop making props. I was just at the pomt of interfering when she
was offered the role of the dog in the play. At that point, m addition to making herself a
dog costume of ears, whiskers and a tail, she began to compose her lines of the
coIIaboratK'e script. Her first te.vt for the play did not meet with much approval fi-om her
peers, because although at this point Tenaya could read her written text, her spellings
were too idiosyncratic for others to read:
I nd natt like tat cat
(I do not like that cat)
I all eat thet can
(I'll eat that cat)
I aU dtea thet can up
(I'll beat that cat up)
I all dten thet in Jati
(I'll put that cat in jail)
I all cat the cat
(I'll catch the cat)
Meanwhile, creating the dialog for the play presented an enormous problem for all the
collaborators. They had many discussions over the process of writing down their lines,
and finally began to compose with all eight to ten members of the 'cast' sitting together.
150
This provided another significant interaction for Tenaya, because for the first time she had
the support of an expert peer to note the discrepancy between what Tenaya intended to
write, and what she actuaUy got onto the page. While Tenaya had enjoyed the support of
peer editors in her other writings, they had always been reviewmg her previously written
texts. This was the first time she had had editorial peer support while in the actual
process of writing. In the foDowing conversation, five members of the cast are engaged in
various aspects of the play, and eventually settle down to write. Tenaya has just modeled
her dog costume, and is a little jealous that June has been given the role of Tenaya's
obviously favorite animal—the cat.
Lisa:
AU together;
Lisa:
Raquel:
Tenaya:
June:
Tm making my list, and one of the thmgs I need to do for next
Friday is...
Ooooh, that costume is so cute, Tenaya.
June's is cute!
Yeah, but Tenaya's is still cute. Sit down and write, Linette!
(taking off her tail and sitting down) I put ruff ruff. Should I put I
chase the cat? How do you spell 'chase'?
c-h-a-s-e
The text Tenaya produced in this collaboration met with general approval, and
was included in the final script:
Rrofrrofrrof rrof
1 chase the cat
1 am going to eat
I an going to bet the cat up
I all pul the ers of
(Ruflf niflf ruff ruff
I chase the cat
I am going to eat [it]
I am going to beat tlie cat up
ril pul [its] ears off)
151
Section Six; Personal Narrative
Overview of Section Six
Tenaya's development as a writer turned from an overriding emphasis on methods
of transcribing to the notion of purpose and intentions for her text. She wanted to write
her story, not just any story. Unfortunately, her lack of expertise at spelling made her first
two atteirq)ts unreadable. She the began to copy her parmer's personal narratives, which,
while they had little connection to Tenaya's own life, appeared to facilitate her writing of
more readable texts. She then went on to write several of her own personal narratives.
THEN MHE ALL GO SIR:
The Downside of Creative Spelling for^ What did I Write?
In early February Tenaya wrote two pieces independently, both personal
narratives. Her creative spellings were so non standard that she was not able to share
them out-loud with her peers, although later she and I were able to reconstruct her
intended meaning.
I mee goe to see mee sister then he or goo to the plen
(I'M GOING TO SEE MY SISTER THEN WE ARE GOING TO THE PLANE)
then mhe all go sir got then all go to the plat
(THEN WE'LL ALL GO [undecipherable] THEN WE'LL GO TO PLAY)
then MY sister go to the Dz
(THEN MY SISTER [will] GO TO THE STORE)
then MT all go to the go hooen MY
(THEN WE'LL GO TO MY HOME)
the a sath
(TAKE A BATH)
The go to bae
(THEN GO TO BED)
I clatched my room
(I CLEANED MY ROOM)
I clatched my car
(I CLEANED MY CAR)
152
1 painted to bab
(I PLAYED TODAY
I patinted wfate my brer
(I PLAYED WITH MY BROTHER)
Sttyed hcemt wihte My ball
(STAYED HOME WITH MY BALL)
Sttyed hcemt and kete my ball
(STAYED HOME AND KICKED MY BALL)
I sttyed hcemt and stpeo
(I STAYED HOME AND SLEPT)
I sttyed hemt and kete my room
(I STAYED HOME AND CLEANED/KICKED MY ROOM)
The experience of writing and later not being able to share her pieces with her
intended audience stopped her from attempting any independent writing for
several writing sessions.
Appropriating Narratives: Recopying Text
The next two pieces, which she shared in choral readings with RaqueL were
actually her attempt at word-for-word copies of Raquel's texts.
Maria
My old teche Miss mari was very nice to me she drown hear mor anita skin like me
She has with olverras like shallk she has. A dlue shorte like me
Maria
My old teacher Miss Maria was vety nice. She [had] brown hair, morenita skin like me. She has
overalls like chalk. She has blue shorts like me.
This story, while representing a personal narrative for RaqueL had little personal
significance for Tenaya. She had not had Miss Maria as a teacher, and, unlike RaqueL did
not share the kinship of'brown hair and morenita skin like me'
The following story about RaqueFs baby brother's new tooth, also presented a
similar discontinuity of experience for Tenaya
153
Tenaya Jones
My baby brothersne
My baby brothe hoe a new toothe now he bit's me..A lot and when he nevor had a
toothe when we. were eating he wold start to cry a lot becouse he wanted to eat
weah us and now he can eat with
My baby brother
My baby brother has a new tooth, now he bites me a lot, and when he never had a tootli, when we
were eating he would start to cry because he wanted to eat with us. And now he can eat witli
[us].
It was significant that Tenaya, and other students, typically made changes even
when copying peers' texts. The changes ran the gamut fi-om from rewriting the text in
colored pencil, to changing the names of the characters. A most common strategy was to
write a parallel text with a friend, m which every interaction was rewritten with the other
child's name. For example, if Raquel wrote me and Tetwya like tetherbalL Tenaya would
recopy me and Raqttel like tetherball. In this way, the 'copier', in this case Tenaya,
appropriated both the te.vt and the experience.
Sharing; Llfe*s Experiences and Life's Possibilities
In March, Tenaya wrote several personal narratives that she shared with
her classmates. While they contained several undecipherable words (even for
her), they represented such a growth in both purpose and understanding of the
mechanical as well as transformative possibilities for print that 1 was filled with
a sense of relief and pride at Tenaya's accomplishment. She wrote of her
fiiends and family, and although the piece about her mother was truly a
fantasy, Tenaya felt safe enough to share this with her peers, who knew w^ere
she lived, and who the actual members of her family were. To their credit,
none of them chose to make negative comments. This ^oke as much to
154
Tenaya's success in becoming a member of the classroom community as it did
to the kind nature of her classmates:
Tenaya
I play whe my dad and my dad is onoy 24 and my mom is 23
My sister is 20 and
I like to play wah my dad I love hom
I pl^ with my Dad and my Dad is only 24 and my Mom is 23.
My sister is 201 like to play with my Dad, I love him.
By Tenaya
My frins
I om sleeping it is morning now I am ta school now I sad to my mom I see my frins
and my mom wens to brop uof my brathr then sh
ByTenaya
My friends
I am sleeping, it is morning. Now I am at school Now I said to my mom. I see my friends and
my Mom went to drop off my brother and then she
Me and Raquel
Me and Raquellre go toi play teher ball every day
And on the first day of scool I shoud her
Oroond the scool ther we played togetner
The we ceme in and hae spot
Keedmg together and then we went to lunch to gether.
Me and Raquel
Me and Raquel go to pl^ tether ball every day
and on the first day of school I showed her
around the school, then we played together.
Then we came in and had [some? snack?)
Reading together and then we went to lunch together.
These texts also represented a tremendous breakthrough ni 'readability', as Tenaya finall>'
began to put in to practice her growing knowledge of letters and sounds. That she made
these coimections essentially on her own, through the negotiation of meaning further
bolstered my faith in emphasizing critical literacy over print acquisition.
155
Section Seven; Qaiming Literacy
Overview of Section Seven
The end of the year review threw Tenaya back into a marathon of mandatory LD
testing. The discrepancy between her own organic definition of writing and the program
definition created an enormous cognitive and affective conflict. Through renewed peer
interactions she was able to reclaim her own voice, and end the year writing for her own
intentions.
Conflicting Literacv Definitions
The LD Specialist was required to do a year end evaluation, and so in
early April Tenaya was pulled out for mtensive review and testing. Every day
she returned to our classroom a little more deflated and a little more
oppositional. She minded losing the opportimity to write with her peersmore than that, perhaps, the experience of total autonomy of choice within that
arena. No matter how I tried to organize instruction around the notion of
student choice, the autonomy students felt m Writer's Workshop simply did
not occur in other instructional settings.
When the testing was finally completed Tenaya rejoined Writer's Workshop. Her
texts clearly revealed to me the conflict she was experiencing between wiiat she had come
to recognize as writing, and what her LD resource program identified as writing.
156
Recreating the Journey to Personal Purpose
The first text she shared, written independently, and in physical separation fi-om
her peers, was an exercise in using environmental print as she again copied color words ofif
the paper wrappers of the crayons:
4/97
I like blue
I like thistle
I like red
1 like burnt
1 like yellow
1 like green
I like orange
1 like pike
1 like the me pike
Subsequent texts fi'om that same period include a sticker book in which she
relied exclusively on the available pictures to suggest the story-line:
My lion
1 hev 3 loveset
I hev a cat
I hev a dog
I hev a brt
I hev 3 bias
I hev 3 cat
I hev 3 dog
And I hev 3 lion
Then Raquel came to join her at her self-imposed exile, and while they
did not obviously collaborate, both the tone and the writing strategies of
Tenaya's sticker book changed. Tenaya's voice began to grow a bit louder,
and she again took the risk of using print to express her message, rather than
totally constricting her message to the standardized print she had mastered.
I hav a stckers book
I hav andas (animal) stase (stickers) inge my sarses (stickers) book
157
I hev little bars (bears) in my stares (stickers) book
I hev lanes (lions)in my Book
I hev aned (animals) m my book
I hav a stckers book it is red and it is pedte (pretty)and it look like thes
Just before the year ended, almost a month after her testing experience,
Tenaya finally reconnected with her peers in Writer's Workshop. In this last
interaction, Tenaya was busy working on illustrations for a book about
Barbie's, and Marco had commented that her drawings were very good.
Raquel had lured Tenaya mto the collaboration by suggesting that the main
characters could be cats mstead of girls.
Tenaya; Raquel:
Raquel
Teacher! (Tenaya elbows Raquel in the ribs as Lisa comes over
to 'eavesdrop')
(ever resourceful, switches into Spanish, which essentially renders
our conversation private, as neither Lisa nor Tenaya speak Spanish)
Sabes que vamos a hacer? Vamos a poner los gatos jugando con
barbies, pero los Barbie's are gonna be rats!
(You know what we're going to do? We're going to make the cats
be playing with Barbie's, but the Barbie's are gonna be rats!)
Here is Tenaya's final, although unfinished text;
The two cats
Once there was two cats name cadles and chocalet chip
And they were playmg Barbie's
And they whent to eat
Then they went to the park to go to slepe
Reflections on Tenava
Tenaya remained a challenge for me throughout the school year. I felt that I was
engaged m a battle for her very right to leam. The mterpretation previously gh en her EP
indicated that she would not and could not leara. Period.
158
When I first began to review the data I had collected over the year I was
encouraged by the patterns of growth I saw. While her earliest texts demonstrated little
awareness of the fiinction or possible purposes for print, there emerged a somewhat
progressive pattern of development toward both increased skill and complexity of
intention as the year wore on. [ say somewhat progressive because the changes in her
process were more circular and recursive than linear. I saw her interactions with her peers
mature as she negotiated her way mto membership into the literacy club, truly writing
herself mto the room. Her last month of writing demonstrated an interest in telling her
stories, both true personal narratives as well as stories to entertam.
Even at the end of the year, Tenaya was still struggling to write what she wanted
to with the limited writing tools she had. Without the tools she couldn't tell the story, and
without the story, she couldn't use the tools. And as with Rico, it was telling her story in
the company of fiiends that motivated her to continue to work so hard to acquire print.
For Tenaya, the likelihood that she would be given more time to develop as a writer was
slim. In spite of tremendous gains, her achievement did not bring her close to grade level,
and there was little chance that her voice would be given precedence over remediating
instruction in the year to come.
159
Case Study Three
Introducing Marco
Marco feh himself like his classmate, Tenaya, to be '^the other' although he wasn 7
Black, and shared the Mexican heritage of ninety-five percent of his peers. The one factor
that could have claimed for HIM, his heritage and identity, was Spanish. And, unlike his
classmates of similar cultural background, he did not ^eak Spanish— he was an early
victim of language shift (Fishman 1991).
He entered the classroom blustering and defiant, demanding attention, and ended
up isolated in comer desk where his talents for distraction would have less effect. As a
result, writing became immediately a means for him to leave this desk and connect with his
peers. Eiis first collaborations were purely social mteractions, partly because neither he.
nor his chosen writing partner had acquired the tools for transcribing language. Marco
tried to overcome this lack of skill by creating a te.xt that relied entirely on enxoronmental
print. The te.xt itself met with limited peer response, but the sharing of it opened the door
to collaborations with other classmates. While his earliest writing partners were chosen on
the basis of fiiendship, he came to coUaborate with many different partners, chosen for
many distinct reasons. He wrote with others because they could help him, because he was
interested in the topic they had chosen, because he couldn't find anyone else, and didn't
want to write alone. By mid-year he had begun to modify his topic selection in order to fit
in with the goals of his writing partners—abandoning his own intentions for his narratKes
in order to maintam the peer interaction.
Shortly after a home visit with his mother and me, Marco began to bring out-of-
160
school topics into his writings. His participation in a Mexican dance troupe created a
connection for him to his ethnicity, and his narratives were fiill of the details of his cultural
heritage— going to Nogales, Sonora, dancing the quebradita, eating came asada and
burritos.
After this point Marco became a fluent writer with many things to say. He often
wrote alone, avoiding the negotiations of collaborative writing because he wanted creative
control over his story. He wrote alone because he no longer needed the impetus of a
group to maintain his process. He wrote alone, because he could rejoin the community of
writers by sharing his completed texts, collaborating in the creation of the anthology of
collected works, rather than in the creation of his single text.
As the year drew to a close, Marco wrote on an ever-widening selection of themes.
He poked exasperated ftm at the family car, he wrote with hesitant admiration about low
riders, and he reflected on his lived experiences. He had become a writer with things to
say. He had found his voice.
IMarco
I couldn't help but be a bit impressed by Marco as he swaggered into
the room long after the first bell on the first day of school
He cast a
calculating glance around the room, mumbling just loudly enough to di\'ert his
classmates' eyes from me, without overtfy calling their attention. He installed
himself casually in the front of the room, slinging himself into his chair and
twisting his baseball cap around backwards with the duckbill over the nape of
his neck. I truly had to admire the way he carved out a niche for himself in the
161
classroom hierarchy without saying a word, and never openly defying my
authority. I gradually learned that his reaction to the threat of authority—a
knee-jerk response of defiance—had little to do with those of us in perceived
authority positions.
My desire to avoid forcing him into his one learned
response propelled me to give him every 'benefit of the doubt'. This choice
bafiDed and irritated my colleagues, who
I was excessively nawe m m>'
assessment of his behaviors, and this in turn made it difficult to brainstorm with
them ways of addressing his social and academic needs m the classroom.
Marco was pretty sure he was a bad student. Even that first week of
school he shared that he would probably not pass third grade. And, indeed, his
academic skills were poor. His spent a lot of time during the first few weeks of
school avoiding writing, reading... anything that looked like schoolwork. He
was, however, an intensely social child, determined to be somebody in the
classroom, so he put his enormous charm to work distracting his classmates,
creating exaggeratedly poor products, and engaging his fiiends by disparaging
the value of his own work, and by association, the task itself
This attitude
and mcumbent behavior so mfected the group process that I ended up isolating
him fi-om his peers m a work carrel at the fi'ont of the room.
As the rest of his peers became accustomed to my eiiq>hasis on
collaborative projects, Marco's isolation at the carrel became more profound.
His classmates resisted being drawn into off-task interactions with him. He
simply could not con:q>ete with poster-painting murals, dioramas of cliff
162
dwellings, and masks of mythical creatures from literature studies. Yet,
however I restructured groups to allow Marco to participate in the projects, he
could not manage to contribute positively, and I ended up, inevitably, sending
him back to his carrel to work alone. In retrospect I realized that he felt the
tasks were beyond his abilities. He didn't believe he could write well enough
to help record information and write reports about the people depicted in our
murals.. He didn't believe he could read well enough to help locate resources
and research the AnasazL He didn't believe he had anything to say to fiuther
the literature-based projects, so he fell back on what he believed to be his
strengths, and tried to entertain.
163
Section One
Overview of Section One
Although Marco characterized himself as a non-writer, his early
attempts demonstrated a good awareness of composing strategies. His
approach to transcribing employed both sight words and creative spellings and
he reread his written texts with relative ease. However, he had little sense of
any purpose for writing, beyond complying with teacher-direction. Marco
welcomed the opportunity to write with others simply for companionship,
rather than to facilitate the creation of texts. This was made apparent by his
choice of writing partner, whose own limited literacy skills and lack of
confidence as a writer did little to facilitate the writing process. Eventitally
Marco was drawn into productive writing with peers due to a shared
enthusiasm for the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the chance to create a
reaction in classroom fans of the opposing team. However, this new-found
purpose could not stand up to the disruption of Writer's Workshop due to
mandatory assessment testing, and when other factors conspired to undermine
Marco's confidence as a writer, he retreated to composing alone
Beginning \Vriter*s Workshop
As time passed writer's workdiop became for this group (as it has for every third
grade I have taught) a highly motivating and productive time in which students
experienced almost total autonomy of their own process. I mentioned that in other years
students had enjoyed writing together, and provided a brief overview of the steps of
164
process writing. However, aside from the instruction that the task was to mvofve writing,
and that there would be daily opportunities to share their texts, I provided no other
directive. Here, unlike the content-area in^ired projects, the writing was an end in and
of itself. The writing didn't have to follow any ^ecific form, there was no expectation of
content, and everyone listened to all the readers as they shared their texts at the end of
each daily writing period. Marco, suSermg from lack of interaction with his peers, was
clearly propelled by the need to belong to the community, and began to write.
Trying on Writing Strategies for Size
Marco's first te.vt was in response to the prompt I gave students during the first
few days of school, to describe a peer m the classroom so that the rest of us would be able
to guess who it was. This prompt t>'pically served to provide me with an early writing
sample, perhaps an insight into the classroom dynamic (as students often described the
classmates most important to them), as well as an opportunity for all of us to interact as a
group in guessmg.
Several students voiced concems about spelling. I assured them that 1 was good at
readmg kids' writing, and that I was really interested in their descriptions, not spelling.
This assurance was enough for most of the students to begin to comply with my request.
Marco remonstrated that he could not spell, and therefore could not write. 1 ignored him.
He began by copying the prompt off the board. He sat for several minutes considering this
text, and then added the date. He discovered a list of color words on a bulletin board for
organizmg group work and copied two of them down in a list on the side of his paper.
165
adding two other words in his own fellings. He copied the word 'blue' onto his paper
and then caught my arm and implored me to tell him how to write 'black'.
Over the next few minutes, exhorting him that it was not important to me, but noting that
he was unable to continue, I gave him the spellings for brown, black, shoes, and hair. His
short text relied heavily on those spellings:
8-14-96
In your journal
Blue and wite and black he is
He has blue sorts. Wite soxs
Brown eyes he is tall brown hair
and black shoes.
1 yelleo
6 red
2 green
4 wite
(8-14-96
In your journal
Blue and white and black. He is He has blue shorts, white socks, brown eyes. He is tall.
Brown hair and black shoes. I yellow 6 red 2 green 4 white
To Marco's obvious delight, his short and labored text was suf5cient enough for his
classmates to correctly guess the student he had described. He read and reread his text
over to himself
Collaborating with a Novice Partner
Marco now voiced a strong desire to work with his peers during writer's
workshop, and I invited him to join them. However, his selection of writing partner did
not do much to further his writing. He chose to write with Tavo, whose skill at writing
was even more limited than his own. The lack of confidence both boys shared as writers
prevented them from much constructive effort and they spent several days messing around
166
with clip art on the con^uters. As the novelty of this activity wore ofi^ Marco began to
disrupt his classmates, and as their complaints escalated, I put Marco back in the carrel to
work alone. He reacted to this move by refiising to write anything at alL However, the
opportunity to read the written texts to the class after each writer's workshop created a
power&l draw, and within a couple of days Marco shared the foDowing text.
8-26-96
My famoly
My mom is nice. Testerday MY broter brocook a wendo the perent got
Mad so she told My mom se (changed to said) sel pay for the wedo My
Mom said theat
(My family. My mom is nice. Yesterd^ my brother broke a window. The parent got mad so she
told my mom. She said she'll pay for the window. My mom said that)
A classmate had given Marco the spelling of'said', and this encouraged
Marco to see his peers as resources. However, he again returned
unsuccessfully to work with Tavo, trying to write a text about Khrystle, whom
all the boys admired. However, Khrystle made it clear that she did not like this
attention and insisted that the boys abandon the story.
Before they had the
opportunity to collaborate further, Tavo moved away.
At the beginning of September Tavo, wlio had been caught in a custody battle was,
to his benefit, permanently placed with his grandmother. This placement moved him out
of Palo Verde School's attendance area, and he was enrolled m a different elementary
school. This move saddened all of us. Tavo's resilient spirit and determination to find
the humor in life, coupled with a lack of confidence in his abilities had endeared him to
everyone. I was doubly discouraged, not onfy^ because I feared that a special education
placement would only serve to convince Tavo that the deficit was within him, but also
167
because I had hoped to focus on Marco and Tavo. However, if I was discouraged, Marco
was devastated. No matter that the coUaboration had not appeared to me to be
particularly productive, he had lost his writing partner. For most of September he spent
writer's workshop alternately irritating his classmates and creating illustrations. He
participated somev\4iat wistfully as spectator during the daily author's shares, but did not
write anythmg to share.
From Shared Interests to Writing Partnerships: 49ers Fans Unite
By early October the football season and upcoming games dominated
conversations, primarily among the boys. Marco began to participate
enthusiastically in the conversations, but struggled alone when the others
inevitably returned to the tables to write. Two factors contributed to Marco's
loner status at this time. One, while he had been establishing a writing
relationship with Tavo, other similar collaborating pairs had been established
and now Marco was odd-man out. Additionally, Marco was a DaUas Cowboys
fan m a 49er's world. No one would collaborate on a piece extolling the
virtues of the Cowboys. Marco began to watch another collaborating pair,
Eric and Ralph, and had begun to join them on the foldout couch during
writing time. They were engaged in writing a version of the three little pigs,
and could not be distracted from that task, and, they stated loudly, they were
49er's fans. Marco, nonetheless, began to ^vrite again, on a solitary theme,
wdiile seated on a comer of the couch next to Eric and Ralph. Although the
text did not grow beyond a few words, it represented a turning point for
168
Marco who observed how Ralph and Eric helped each other by collaborating
on ideas as well as helpmg each other speD.
MARCO/NTFL FOOTBALL
I went to the NFL I am on
The following week Marco actively searched for a writing partner. He finaOy
found Chico. who was also a 49er's fan. and together they extended Marco's text. Now
both collaborating teams of boys sat on the couch during writer's workshop, leaning on
whiteboards, and trading ideas. Ralph was their resource of choice for spellings, and both
Marco and Chico relied heavily on him.
At the next author's share Marco and Chico read chorally their text.
I went to the NFL
I am on the Dallas Cowboys team. It's the Best team I played for now it's
Time for the big game DaUas .v.s. Raiders in the 4"^ Qorter Dallas wer
Lozen. And then Dallas cath up Then Dallas Cowboys wone.
Dallas is the Best **&&!!
(I went to the NFL I am on the Dallas Cowboys Team. It's the best team I played
for. Now it's time for the big game, Dallas vs. Raiders. In the 4"* quarter Dallas
were loosing and then Dallas caught up. Then [the] Dallas Cowboys won.)
Outside Interference on Writing Process
In mid October standardized testing completely interrupted writer's workshop for
an entire week. Students curiously read the biographical data printed on the back of their
answer sheets and discovered that Marco was the oldest student in the class. This was a
bittersweet distinction for Marco, because wliile being the oldest afforded him some
status, the cause of his age, having been retained in second grade, also marked him as a
failure. He talked about this with me, wanting to believe as I believe, that the retention
169
said more about his second-grade classroom than about him. The combination of
Marco's preoccupation with his past retention as weQ as the break in the habit of daily
writing disrupted the fledgling collaboration between him and Chico. He wrote alone,
consulting only occasionally with me over spellings.
By Marco
Ownce upon a time there was a man named Marco. He was in 3"^ grade
He flocd 20 times. He is 30 years old he was pore. He was pore
Because he ^en all hes Money ona ecspcevi hose.
(By Marco
Once there was a man named Marco. He was in 3"^ grade. He flunked 20 times.
He is 30 years old, he was poor. He was poor because he spent all his money on
an expensive house.)
Section Two
Overview of Section Two
Marco tried unsuccessfiilly to find a writing partner. His previously
successful strategy of connecting over a shared interest fell on deaf ears. He
finally gravitated to a group of three boys who were actively collaborating on a
version of The Three Little Pigs. When he could not gain entree into their
project, he participated by creating his own parallel text. As his proficiency as
a writer improved, he became increasingly invested in the notion of authorship.
This made collaboration problematic as he and his collaborators struggled of
the issue of ownership. Marco discovered that claiming sole authorship of a
text resulted in being left alone.
He actively sought out MJ to work on a common theme, and MJ's proficiency s a
writer had a positive developmental impact on Marco's next text. Under MJ's wing.
170
Marco incorporated information gleaned in library research into his own text. He also
demonstrated for the first time a new purpose for print as he modified his own
preferences( at least in print) to create an alliance with his writing partner.
Collaborating through Shared Activity; Writing Side-Bv Side
When Marco was ready the following week to share the piece he tried to reconnect
with Chico to begin a new piece of writing. However, he discovered that while he, Marco,
had been working on the 30 year old third grader piece, Chico had found a new writing
partner. He was now writing with Lisa, and was busy writing his own version of the three
little pigs. Marco then tried to interest Eric and Ralph m a collaborative piece on the NFL,
but they refused. They were, they reminded him, 49er's fans. Marco gave up trying to
find takers for the NFL theme, and settled with Ralph and Eric and now Chico, on the
couch and settled down to create his own version of the three little pigs. He made few
requests of Ralph regarding spellings, and kept the te.xt partially hidden as he composed.
He could hardly wait to ^are the story.
11196
the trere little dogs
by Marco
the first little dog made a dog House wihe bones.
The big bad Bull dog eit the dog.
The sekent little dog made a home of Dallas homent
The next day the bull dog went to the house.
He we up to the house and he plow the house down.
The 3ed little dog made his house of40-wfaners helmets.
And the next day the big bulldog eet the dog up
And tate the end of the tree little dog's
(The Three Little Dogs
By Marco
The first little dog made a house with bones.
171
The big bad bulldog ate the dog.
The second little dog made a home of Dallas helmets.
The next day the bulldog went to the house. He went up to the house and he blew the house
down.
The 3"* little dog made his house of 40-whiners helmets.
And the next d^ the big bulldog ate the dog up.
And that [was] the end of the three little dogs.)
This piece represented a triumph for Marco who had accomplished so matiy
goals with the same piece. He had found a way to participate in the microcommunity shared by Eric and Ralph. He participated as a collaborator both in
the shared genre, as well as in the interaction with Ralph as a resource. And,
he managed to tweak his new foimd peers by mcluding the characterization of
the forty-whiners in his text. This particular piece was enormously well
received by all at the author's share.
.ApproDriating
Peer Process
Marco now commented on how much he liked working with other people. He
listened in a few days later wben 1 did an informal interview with Eric and Ralph on the
ways that they coUaborated in a writing partnership. Marco was particularly mtrigued
with their method of taking turns to create a text, ahemating between having artistic
control, and copying the other partner's section in order to create identical copies of the
collaborative piece. Marco returned to his 30 year-old third grader piece and recopied his
original text in order to make a copy for both himself and for Chico, makmg a few
inacciu-ate spelling changes and adding Giico as co-author.
172
The Trouble of Co-authorshiot Issues of Ownership
This piece was also much appreciated by his classmates who greeted his reading with
laughter, and much discussion of what a 30 year old third grader might look like. Marco
struggled with the gift of shared authorship he had conferred on Giico. He didn't want to
share the acclaim he received for the piece with Chico, who, he pointed out at the author's
share, had actually had no part in the creation of the piece. He legitimized his claim to
sole authorship by adding substantially to the original text, (ahhough with little concern
over developing the content) rewriting the entire story, and removing Chico's name as coauthor.
By Marco
Ownce upon a time there was a man named Marco he was in 3^'' grade he flocd 20
time. He us 30 years old he was pore. He was pore because he spen all hes
Momey on a ecspcevi hose. He was happy because he was pore he neve have no
money to spend because he didn't wont to spened money because he liket to slep.
(By Marco
Once there was a man named Marco. He was in 3"^ grade. He flunked 20 times.
He is 30 years old, he was poor. He was poor because he spent all his money on
an expensive house. He wa happy because he was poor. He never had any money
to spend because he didn't want to spend money because he liked to sleep)
Common Interests Re-surface as a Catalvst for Collaboration
Marco found himself again without a partner after removing Chico as
co-author on the 30-year-oId-third-grader story, and Ralph and Eric continued
to write paired pieces. Marco also began to compose alone and wrote the
followmg text about himself and his brother going to the high school football
game. He folded the paper into an envelope shape and carefully decorated the
flaps with Go Blue Dexols.
173
Me and MY brother
My brother and we like to go to everet (every) game of the sunnyside Blue Devils
wete hem (with them). We like varscede (varsity) the best because they are the
best of the best, football
Me and My Brother
My brother and [I] we like to got to every game of the Sunnyside Blue Devils with
them. We like varsity because they are the best of the best football (players)
In the meantime, Chico had become fascinated with Ralph's and Eric's
partnership and defected from the Dallas Cowboys camp. In a seemingly
deliberate snub to Marco, he began to modify the text of his story-in- progress
to include pro forty-niners sentiments. With Giico clearly otherwise engaged,
Marco again looked for a new parmership and had a long conversation with
MJ about football MJ was the classroom authority on the actual point spreads
of the various games being played that season. MJ and Marco asked to go to
the library to look up statistics on the performance of the Dallas Cowboys and
the 49er's in previous years. They returned with several books that contained
lists of the NFL teams and pictures of the team logos. These books provided
the catalyst for a long period of collaboration among Marco, MJ, and a third
classmate, Mario. Over the next few weeks they created many pages of
illustrations showing the name of the team and accompanying logo. They
discovered the image of football player m the computer clip art and made
stacks of Popsicle-stick puppets, all colored appropriately to represent the
teams currently con^eting in the play-offs. They created other props —goal
posts, confetti— and put on a skit for their classmates. Marco eventually wrote
the following text;
174
Marco M.
The 49er and Cowboy's Game
The 49ers Played agenst the cowboys last week the cowboys wone
It was 20 to 17. But last year 49ers bet the cowboys two times last
year
Senc 1993 the 49ers wone the cowboys.
(Marco M.
The 49ers and [the] Cowboy's Game
The 49er5 pl^vd against the Cowboys last week. The Cowbcqrs won.
It was 20 to 17. But last year [the] 49ers beat the Cowbcqrs, two times last year.
Since 1993 the 49ers won the Cowboys)
Peer Influences on Topic Selection and Content
This text illustrated Marco's developing purposes for print. He still
carefully labeled every piece with his name —after the experience with Chico,
he carefully guarded his authorship. However, the statistical information he
had found in the library now found its way into his text, in this first instance of
the interaction with a library text impacting his writing. And, he used print to
acknowledge the perspective of his classmate, MJ. MJ reflised to enter into
the partisan battles regarding loyalty to the competing teams, and often
commented that all the teams and players were equally skilled. The last lines of
Marco's text were a gesture of solidarity to his partner, of non-partisandiip.
While Marco clearly maintained a powerful loyalty to his favorite team, he
could, in print, present an alternative perfective m order to build community
with his peers.
In his characteristic fashion, once Marco had exhausted the possibilities
for a topic, he began immediately to look for another peer writing project. He
would have liked to continue working with MJ. However, MJ had became
completely absorbed in creating a biography of Michael Jordan's sports
accomplishment and retreated from peer collaborations. A pet rat name
Chiquita joined us as classroom mascot, and Marco joined in the conversations
about pets that her presence prompted. He told about his iguana in great
detail, and drew an elaborate illustration, but the text he eventually wrote was
very short.
My Iguana
My iguanas tails is langer then cekas
(My Iguana
My iguana's tail is longer than Chiquita's)
The conversations about pets continued for the next writing session
Tenaya told a made-up story about having three rottweflers which prompted
Marco to tell us all about his dog. He then settled down to re-title and rewrite
the short text of the day before. He struggled \\ith transcribing although he
asked me only for the spelling of'shepherd'
My pets
My pet snas tail is langer that ceckas tail. My ferest dog was a germen
seped and the nexet pet was a snace and ewrey time I go up to the cade
he wode radel and then I got a shepherd he is very playiiil he bite not
theat hard
(My Pets
My pet snake's tial is longer than Chiquita's tail. My first dog W3s a German
Shepherd and the next pet \v'as a snake and every time I go up to the cage he \\x>uld
rattle. And then I go a shepherd. He is very playful. He bites, not that hard)
Section Three
Overview of Section Three
A home visit with Marco's mother became a turning point for all of us.
176
As Marco's classroom behavior deteriorated I was torn between accepting the
seeming inevitability of his &flure, and doing whatever it took to help hfni
NOT fulfill the negative prophesies I had heard about him from the moment he
walked into our classroom. Meeting his mother gave me the opportunity to
collaborate with her in creating other possibilities for her son. She spoke
clearfy about the struggle he faced as a dark-skinned English-speaking Mexican
American, and acted to find him a way to connect positively with his cultural
heritage through participating in Mexican dance troupe. The mentorship he
experienced as a result of his interactions with the young men of the troupe
opened a door to possible worlds that he wrote about and shared at school.
Once he had connected home and school through writing, began to write more
reflectively, and to bring themes from home and the street to share with his
peers.
Connecting Home and School: Parent and Teacher as Collaborators
Just after Thanksgiving break Marco had a series of fighting incidents
with other students and seemed to be forever punished at the front office. One
day he was seen by the nurse taking a second unauthorized dose from his
asthma inhaler and she sent a letter home describing him as abusing drugs in
the playground. I had been concerned since the beginning of the year that
Marco was easily targeted by the staff as a troublemaker, and that his response
to being so labeled was to make it doubly true. Yet, he had come so far in
social and academic development within our classroom and 1 was anxious that
177
the experience of being a successfiil student was too new to withstand much
familiar negative typing. I also hoped to mediate the nurse's characterization
of his inhaler use. That afternoon I took advantage of his having missed the bus
to give him a ride home.
He called out to his neighbors as we pulled up to the gray apartments
that fronted busy two-lane traflBc. Animatedly he showed me where the stucco
had been chipped away by cops digging out the shigs from last week's driveby. When we entered the apartment his mother was seated on the couch,
balancing her dumer on her lap, getting ready to leave for work. She greeted
my unannounced visit with great hospitality of spirit. She carefully listened to
my concerns about Marco's fragile status as a successful student, choosing to
trust me as an advocate for her child. Marco watched me anxiously, waiting
for me to '^bust him'. And peiliaps I did, a little, in contrasting his current
successes to his past failures. His mother expressed her fears for Marco as a
child of color, of Mexican heritage, non-Spanish peaking, with little or no
cultural and linguistic ties to counterbalance the race-bias he experienced.
When I left that afternoon I was no longer just Marco's teacher, but a link of
trust between his home and his school In spite of her exhausting shifl-work
schedule, over the course of the remaining school year Marco's mother found
time to attend our classroom Author's Teas, the third-grade opera performance
of "The Three Javelinas", and parent teacher conferences. Marco frequently
referred to my visits, retelling a detail, or commenting to his classmates that
178
he'd better behave or Mrs. Israel would definitely tell his mom.
In later conversations, Marco's mother told me that she had found a
way for him to connect with his cultural heritage, enrollmg him in Bafle
Folklorico.
Connecting Home to School through Writing
A week or so later Marco ^ared a story about his anticipated trip to
the Mexico border town of Nogales.
Theis wekken I am going to Nogalies and buy boots and maby black
pants and wite cowboy shrite and I will look around the store and maby
buy sutheing ouse and maby a remote cutrol car and maby a cowboy
hat and a bike. Last time 1 went over I went to a famous Restaurant
I ate a jucy taco and two egg role and a bean bretow and ice cream and
jello.
I had a stamece egge and I went home.
(This weekend I am going to Nogales to buy boots and Maybe black pants and white
cowboy shirt and I will look around the store and Maybe buy something else and
Maybe a remote control car and Maybe a cowboy hat and a bike. Last time I went
over there I went to a fancy restaurant I ate a juicy taco and two egg rolls and a
bean burrito and ice cream and jello. I had a stomach ache and I went home)
This piece was greeted with tremendous interest by his peers. He had miscued
on 'bike', reading 'pink bike' and they teased him unmerciiully over havmg a
pink bike. As they questioned him, Marco ^ared that his mom had signed him
up to join a dance troupe that performed with a Mexican band called
Mercedes. The boots and pants and shirt of his story were for his dance
costume. Over the next several weeks he brought in cassettes and fi-equently
danced for his classmates. As his confidence as a performer increased, he
would occasionally show us the steps he was currently learning, laughing at his
own mistakes. He met a girl at one of their gigs, and created a stoiy about
that.
My grilfriend
My grilfiiend she is not counceted for cresmas sh gave me 100 dallers
and a DaOas cowboys. Wath and it had E. Smith ticing around the
clock and in the senter it had a DaOas cowboys star. And a kiss. And a
14k cane tat had my name
My girlfriend
My girlfriend she is not conceited for Christmas she gave me 100 dollars and a
D^las Cowtxjys watch and it had E Smith ticking around the clock and in the
center it had a Dallas Cowboys star. And a kiss. And a 14K chain that had my
name)
The written accounts of his experiences with the dance troupe marked
a significant change in Marco's status. With obvious pride, he took every
possible opportunity to show what he alone among his classmates knew about
Mexican heritage, both by performing for us, and writing about the band. He
seemed to have found another niche for himself and his confrontative
behaviors of the last few months faded away. He found himself more accepted
by his peers now that he wasn't always on the verge of a conflict with them,
and this led to more flexible collaborations. Additionally, his classmates noted
that he used difficult words in his texts, that he was not prevented by fears
about spelling from writing what he wanted to say. This also marked a distinct
departure from his earliest writing in which he had announced that as he
couldn't spell, he couldn't and wouldn't write. Although his spellings were
actually usually pretty non-standard, his ability to read what he had written
made that msignificant to his peers, who began to view him as an expert.
180
Section Four
Overview of Section Four
Marco and his coOaborators struggled to resolve the problem of
multiple authors and a single text. As they began to use the classroom
computers for composing, they discovered the strategy of printing multiple
copies. This allowed each of the collaborators to have a hard copy m hand,
and assured more equal weight at the daily author's share. Marco was able to
resolve the issues of authorship that had plagued his relationship with Chico,
and they eventually created a shared text and a by-line. As Marco became an
increasingly fluent writer, he was able to participate in multiple opportunities
for collaboration with an ever-changing configuration of writmg partners, and
an equally diverse pool of theuies. His investment in writing surpassed the
simple preference for companionship, and he began to reject collaborations that
were not productive. He also assumed a more directorial role with his peers,
insisting on being heard and having a say. If his peers refused to capitulate, he
withdrew quietly and non-reactively to compose elsewhere, thus
simultaneously maintaining his social place in the room as weU as creatK'e
control over his texts.
On the final days of the year, Marco divided his time between revising
and adding to earlier texts, and writing reflective personal narratives.
Group Collaboration: Multiple Writers Single Texts
Marco returned to write with Ralph, and the two were joined by Rico
181
and Sergio. For the entire month of January they wrote together on the folded
out couch. They consuhed with MJ and checked out books from the library to
develop their texts, which dealt exclusively with football
They composed
noisily, with Ralph and Marco taking turns as scribes, Rico frequently copying
the text to create multiple copies, and Sergio suggesting ideas and making
illustrations. Toward the end of the month Sergio's time with the LD specialist
was rescheduled during our writing time and he was forced to drop out as a
writmg partner. Left without their illustrator, Marco, Ralph and Rico
rediscovered the con:q)uter and used the clip art to illustrate their te.\ts. They
also began to print out multiple copies. Once Rico was assured of a copy to
read in choral performances, he dropped out of the writing group and Marco
and Ralph contmued as a pair. They wrote a series of almost identical texts
over the following weeks, changing only the names of the various competing
teams. Part of their delight in this theme came from the insider lingo: hoovers.
1 had shared with them that my sister was horrified that I let my own children
say 'that sucks', and had suggested I mstitute 'that hoovers' instead. This
became the favorite classroom epithet, and part of the shared experience that
forged our identity as a classroom.
The big game agenst 40 whiners and Dallas cowboys the 40 whiners
are hoovers and the Dallas cowboys are #1 and the 40 whiners #0 and
the score bord was 10,000 to 0 and the 40 whiners started to cry the
Dallas cowboys seid they are hoovers
The big game against [the] 40whiners and [the] Dallas Cowboys. The 40 whiners
are hoovers and the Dallas Cowboys are #1 and the 40 Whiners #0. And the score
board was 10,000 to 0 and the 40 Whiners started to cry and the Dallas Cowboys
said they are hoovers.
182
Marco grew tired of collaborating with Ralph, who, once Rico had defied,
tended to try to take control of the stories. He wrote two more football
pieces with Chico. Both boys were active in both writing and creating the
piece and for the first time in months, Marco included Chico as co-author on
his copy of the text.
1)
By Marco M. & Chico A,
The NFL super boll green bay agenst NeP I am going for green Bay for
the super bowl because they are the boom and NeP are hoovers and
green bay kiked but and the Patres kiss green bays but.
(The NFL Superbowl. Green Bay against New England Patriots (NEP) I am going
for Green Bay for the Superbowl because they are the bomb and the N^ are
hoovers and Green
kicked butt and the I^triots kiss Green Bay's butt)
2)
Today is the big game against the gb and cp the gb kicked off to cp
and the cp cached the football and ran to the touchdown and they had a
kick ofiTthen the gb ran to the touchdown the score bord was 35-14
the end of the game
(Today is the big game against the the Green Bay (GB) and Carolina Panthers (CP)
The GB kicked off to CP and the CP caught the football and ran to the touchdown
and they had a kick-off. Then the GB ran to the touchdowrL The scoreboard was
35-14. The end of the game)
By the end of the month Marco began again to collaborate with Rico
and Ralph on a new theme, low-rider cars. It became obvious that as his
confidence as a writer/author increased, so did his ability to interact positively
with his peers. As his peers came to view him as an expert writer, they also
deferred to him on other matters. In the following conversation, Marco resisted
the bid to build community with Ralph at Rico's expense, and chose as well to
include Jay positively in the group. This was a remarkable and compassionate
choice, because Jay spent much of his instructional day m special needs
183
programs, and had little opportunity to participate as a community member in
the classroom.
Ralph: (looking at Rico and Marco drawing)
Hey, Marco's drawing is better than yours!
(Rico snatched his paper away. Marco put his hand on Ralph's paper, patting
it, cautioning him to stop).
Ralph: Well, Jay's is better than yours, and he's faster too.
Marco: Yeah, well Jay's drawing is good, too. (including Rico's in the 'too')
Rico: (smiling at Marco) Hey. Look at Jay's, BAAAADD.
Marco and Ralph spent the next couple of days experimenting with
content changes, first adding-m and then independently editing-out detafls of
guns and violent crime. By this time they had discovered that writing all in
capital letters avoided the problem of when to capitalize and when not. While
Marco appreciated this as a solution, he commented that the text looked ugly,
[n his subsequent texts he avoided all caps.
LOW RIDERS
LOW RIDERS ARE EXCELENTE MAN. AND THEY HOPE AND
THEY ARE THE BOMB. AND THEY DO THREE WHEEL
MOTION. AND THE HOMEBOYS LIKE TO PICK UP GIRLS IN
THERE LOW RIDERS. THEY COULD CROSS THE BORDER.
THEY DO DRIVE BYE'S .
(Low Riders
Low Riders are excelente maxL And they hop and they are the bomb. And they do
three-wheel-motion. And the homeboys like to pick up girls in their low riders.
They could cross the border. Theydo drive-by's.)
Writing Alone for Creative Control
Although he liked the story, Marco was not pleased with the form of
his collaborative text with Ralph, and so he wrote another low-rider story on
1S4
his own, this time with the pages carefiiUy bound into a book with an oak-tag
cover.
BY: MARCO
Low Riders!
They hoop all day tonight.
My cusing haze a Low Rider.
He hoop all the time on Friday.
He don't sowe offlike other people.
He sheid he will give me the car.
(By: Marco
Low Riders'.
They hop all day [and] night
My cousin has a low rider
He hops all the time on Friday
He don't show off like other people.
He said he will give me the car.)
Putting It All Together: Conversation. CoUai>oration. Composition
la late spring an early heat wave opened up the local pool, and
everyone was talking about the unusual circumstance. Marco, Ralph, Rico and
Sergio were clustered around a single computer, taking turns at the keyboard
to type in sentences one by one^ The three other classroom computers were
available for use, but they were clearly choosing to work together. Quickly,
however, Marco became exasperated at the random nature of their joint
composition and decided for the group that they should write about swimming.
Then, unwilling to share creative control, he took over the theme as a solo
project. When he had written the first few lines he printed out the text to
review it before deciding what to write next. He talked a lot about what he
could write about, with me, with his classmates, adding a word or two in pencil
185
to the bottom of the page before returning to compose on the computer.
4-97
I like the Sunny Side Pool because we could swim but we get clorox in
are eyes and we get to jump off*the diving board and we get to were
life jackets and we pay a quarter to get in Sunnyside Pool me and other
peple
Pencilled m at the bottom of the text Marco added; ...'are haveing fim and
swimming a lot'.
The next day he was again joined at the computer by Sergio and Ralph
who participated mainly as admirers, and he typed in the pencilled line of the
day before. There was lots of discussion and Rico came to ask whether they
could say that the girls were FINE. Marco somewhat adversarily announced
that he was gontta say it,(ostensibly with or without permission). Before he
continued with this piece, however, he was involved in a conflict with a student
in the neighboring third-grade class. He spontaneously wrote the following
letter, printing out a copy for both the student and principal
Marco M.
Dear, Mr Smith
I go kiked (kicked) out of Mrs. Winters room because I hit Winters
stoudent (student). And I am sory ( sorry) Hary (Harry) and you Mrs.
(Mr.) Smith
Love,
Marco Martinez
He then returned to his swimming story, made a few editing changes, and
added the text about the "fine" girls.
I like the Sunny Side Pool because we could swim but we get clorox in
are (our)eyes and we get to jump off the diving board and we get to
were (wear) like (life) jackets and we pay a quarter to get in Sunnyside
Pool me and other people have fim and we get to go to the bathroom
and take a shower and you can't wear flotes (floats) and it is the
BOMB and the girls are fine
The same day Marco started another piece about his experiences with
the band. After a few minutes he came over and stood behind me, watching
me take field-notes, his paper chitched m his fist.
Marco: I don't know any Spanish, (sigh)
Israel; Well, wbat do you want to say?
Marco: (^ebradita
Israel: Oh, you mean you don't know how to spell it. Because you
speak it fine. (I give him the spelling)
Marco: I don't know how to speak it that much.
Marco returned to write the quebradita piece, commenting as he
prepared to share it that he needed to write more, more details, and more of
the continuing story.
By Marco
Marco Banda Mercedes
Tomrow I am go to Phoenix to dance quebradita and I went to 3 dance and
this is gona be my 4"* dance I am going to swim whih the band and we are
going to a wonderful resteront. lam going to have a good time. They are
good stars to me.
Marco never got back to adding to this piece, perhaps in part because
Ralph and Rico really pestered him to continue with them on his Sunnyside
Pool story. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves with this rewrite, making
lightening fast changes and suggestions that never made it to the page. The
final version developed in two steps in which Marco included both Rico and
Ralph as protagonists in the story:
187
I like the Sunny Side Pool because we could swim but we get clorox in
are eyes and we get to jump off the diving board and we get to were
like jackets and we pay a quarter to get in Sunnyside Pool me and other
people have fun and we get to go to the bathroom and take a shower
and you can't wear flotes and it is the BOMB and the girls are
fine.. .and the life guard saved Rico and the fine girls kissed Rico and
the fine girls kissed Ralph
The final version included Marco as well
... and they kissed Marco too.
When Marco put the te.\t into his writing folder (typically a sign that
he was done with the piece) he had scratched '^'they kissed" and simply written
"...and Marco too."
Revisiting Old Themes
A few weeks before the end of school, Marco wrote his last football
story with Ralph and Rico. Sergio had been a previous writing partner for this
theme, but his LD resource pull-out schedule prevented him fi'om participating
at all in writer's workshop. In his absence, Ralph and Rico switched their
loyalties to the Dallas Cowboys, (and to Marco), identifying Sergio as oddman-out-49er-fan in the te.xt.
4-18-97
THE COWBOYS ARE THE BEST. THE 49ERS ARE THE HOVERS.
THE COWBOYS ARE NEAT. THE 49ERS ARE LOSERS. THE
COWBOYS ARE WINNERS. THE49ERS#0 THE COWBOYS ARE #1.
THE 49ERS ARE BABBIES. THE COWBOYS ARE THE TEAM. THE
49ERS WHAT SERGIO LIKES. THE COWBOYS WHAT I LIKE. THE
49ERS ARE A LITTLE WINER.
Marco aimounced that he was no longer at all interested in this theme.
although he had enjoyed writmg with his partners. He retumed to the story of
188
buying his dance costume in Nogales, creating a bound book. He carefully
went through the original text determining what illustrations he needed to draw
for the pages of text. At author's share he held up the pictures for his
classmates to see whfle he read the appropriate text from his original
manuscript. He also returned to his earlier Low Rider text and added
signifrcantfy more detail The original text had read:
LOW RIDERS
LOW RIDERS ARE EXCELENTE MAN. AND THEY HOPE AND
THEY ARE THE BOMB. AND THEY DO THREE WHEEL
MOTION. AND THE HOMEBOYS LIKE TO PICK UP GIRLS IN
THERE LOW RIDERS. THEY COULD CROSS THE BORDER.
THEY DO DRIVE BYE'S .
He now added:
THEY DO DRUGS AND THEY HOPE ALL DAY AND THERE
DRUG DILLERS
THAT'S WHY THEY MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND GET
THOSE LOW RIDERS
LOW RIDERS ARE# 1
The last two weeks of school were a bedlam of activities and special
opportunities. In spite of endless interruptions, Marco wrote and shared two
last pieces. He talked with me about the first one, ruefiilly acknowledging his
frustration at not having a dependable family car.
Final Days; A Return to Personal Narrative
5-7-97
By Marco M.
My Car!
My mom drives slow.
We got our Honda.
We call the car the love bout (boat).
189
We work on the car.
But it just don't wont (want) to work.
We stall on the freeway.
We went to eat good food like calnesata (came asada) and Brrito and tocos
and a Pepsi
The carberater Just Don't Work
I hat (hate) that car so much.
We pot (put) lots of money in Gas
I never got to talk with Marco about his last wTiting of the year. 1
found it tucked mto his writing folder after the last day of school. It described
the third-grade field trip to the Southside Convention Center, where we were
treated to a special performance by the Southside Symphony Orchestra.
Marco was particularly thrilled by the performances of the young people, as
well as the experience of seeing his own music teacher perform as a
professional musician; wearing a tuxedo, no less. That excitement, and a touch
of wistfiilness echo in his text.
5-9-97
By Marco Martinez
E>r. Ricks at the c.c.c. southside symphestra Orchestra
Dr. Rick was playing the clarinet.
It was flmny wen (v^4len) the ISteen year old kid song (sang).
I wish 1 was one of them.
It was very cool with a Big C.
This kids were looking at me and I said what (What?).
They were in 4'^' grade there was lots of people.
E>r. Rick was playing good!
Dr. Rick was wering (wearing) the same thing like yesterday.
Reflections on Marco
Marco came into third grade already convinced that school was not for
him. The certain amount of academic skill he had achieved masked the
190
disconnected-ness he feh. It was easy to assume that he was rejecting school,
rather than experiencing the school rejecting him. With his blustering
behaviors and penchant for whole class disruption, I also struggled with Marco
as a student. However, to me his earliest pleas for help ^oke to his fears and
vulnerability, rather than his skill at manipulation.
Marco was able to get the words written down on the page, and this
ability, coupled with the opportunity to share, provided enough early
motivation for him to persevere in Writer's Worktop. He was invested in
connecting with peers, rather than the story to teU. The affective aspect of the
collaborative experiences with peers he had in Writer's Workshop carried over
into his other classroom interactions. Sharing his writing opened the way for
sharing who he was, and he began to feel at home in the classroom.
His participation m Baile Folklorico and the Banda Mercedes provided
a significant opportunity for him to discover who he might be, to consider
'possible lives'. His growing pride in his Mexican heritage was demonstrated
by his in^romptu dance performances for class, his desire to speak Spanish,
and in the stories he began to tell.
Marco evolved dramatically fi-om child with arms folded across his
chest, to a child with arms outstretched. The relationship of trust he shared
with me and his classmates provided him with a safety net to as he began to
abandon his previous confi'ontative persona. However, if challenged he often
reverted quickly to defiance, and the situation, however mildly begun, could
191
quickly escalate. I observed how eaaty he triggered those who didn't KNOW
him, engendering reactions more suited to a gangbanger than an eight-year-old
boy. As I read the last piece in his writing folder, I was touched by how
openly
he confided his dream:
Dr. Mike is at the CCC Symphony Orchestra
Dr. Mike was playing the clarinet.
It was fiinny when the fifteen-year-old kid sang.
I wish 1 was one of them
I hoped that he would be able to keep that dream of a possible life alive in the
coming school years.
192
CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION
In the following discussion I will be addressing the notion of writing instruction as
a liberatory literacy practice. I will present examples of student interactions in peer
collaborations, both positive and problematic. I will highlight the interplay of social
relationships as they shape writing process and the facilitating mteractions that
characterized student-created zones of proximal development. I will discuss the barriers
of institutionalized individualism (Salazar 1997) and decontextualized EKscourse (Gee
1989, 1991, 1995, 1996) that characterize mainstream schooling and disadvantage
minority lang:uage and culture children. I will blend the theoretical and empirical evidence
to present Writer's Workshop as a location of liberatory literacy education. Lastly, I will
revisit the considerations of race addressed in Chapter Two.
Creating a Liberatory Balance of Freedom and Authority
With the current reexamination of literacy education m recent research,
the Qotioa of locating writing instruction in a progressive-post progressive continuum has
become timely. As other researchers review earlier investigations of writing (Graves 1994,
Newkirk 1994, Atwell 1998), I am mindful of Dyson's (1993) admonition that polarized
arguments create a dichotomy of either-or that neither accurately describes nor aids in the
understanding of the issue. I am not arguing for a progressis'e 'just let them write'
curriculum, and the negation of a post progressive 'teaching-writing' curriculum, but
rather seeking to imderstand how these instructional perspecti\'es fimction to empower or
disempower my students.
In his discussion of empowerment Ruiz (1997) writes, 'Teachers do not
empower or disen^ower anyone, nor do schools. They merely create the
193
conditions under which people can empower themselves, or not." (p. 323)
The three students of my study had not experienced school writing as creative or
empowering. All three referred to writing as hard and bormg, and all three had limited
mastery of basic literacy skills. None of the children had any sense of personal purpose for
print, no reason "\^y". For Rico and Marco, school writing had consisted of using print
for the purpose of displaymg content area knowledge, largely by filling in the blanks. For
Tenaya, whose BVE dialect was not recognized as a language variety by the school,
school writmg had been reduced to crafting essentially meaningless sentences with one
syllable word cards and copying them onto lined paper (Gee 1996, Michaels 1981). No
wonder they had concluded that writing was not for them.
When I directed my students to write any way they wanted, about anything they
wanted, with anyone they wanted, they did not wildly embrace the idea, to say the least.
They had no idea what writing without teacher-directed parameters might be, and how to
begin. They reacted with an.xiety, desperately racking their brains to figure out what it
was I really wanted. If it was words I was after, that they could provide, scouring the
room for environmental print (print that I had provided —school sanctioned print—) that
could be parlayed into an acceptable script, a text I might approve. They were suspicious
of my unspoken motive, all too sensitized to the ever-present hidden agendas, unwilling to
be caught ignorant yet again of the implicit rules of the game.
The notion that their
stories were the real goal of Writing Workshop was beyond credibility. For Rico and
Marco, their lived experiences held no connection to the experiences of school: how could
194
such disparate worlds coexist? For Tenaya, not only her life but her very language had
been deemed deficient, unsatisfactory as a means of expression.
Supporting Student Voices
Empowerment is tied to the notion of voice. Of voice, Ruiz (1997)
says,' when sociolinguists carry out their investigations of language use, they
ask, "Who says what to wliom m what language? When we investigate the
issue of voice, we should ask, "Who says?" (p 321).
My students have taught me that to have a voice is to speak according to selfdriven intentions and to know that what they say will be heard and considered, simply
because they say. My own recent experience of voicelessness brought my students'
awareness sharply to mind. No matter how clearly 1 described to the mechanic the errant
workings of my car, he repeated fiustratedly, 'if you could just describe what the car is
doing when it stalls, we could fix it for you.' Only when I watched the mechanic nod in
obvious comprehension as my husband described the vehicle's behavior using exactly the
same words as I had, did I realize that in that male dominated context, as a woman with
car trouble, I had no voice. In classrooms where the instructional dialogues are typically
dominated by the teacher, both in topic selection and discourse style, students have little
opportunity to experience voice. You cannot experience voice when engaged in a
recitation script, or the three part I-R-E interactions described by Mehan (1992). Neither
is it possible to experience voice when the opportunities to speak are always delegated by
another. Thus, fostering voice within the authoritatK'e framework of schooling is
enormously difiScult. The power differential between my students and me is undeniable
195
by dint of my race, age, education, and institutional position. Yet I cannot equalize our
status merely by atten^ting to abdicate my position— my students will not be
automatically elevated by my own self-lowering. I cannot delegate them power merely by
choosing to have less. Neither am I advocating for non-directive education, for as Gadotti
(1996) discovered, "the educative act cannot do without authority, it is present even if the
educator and pupil don't wish it to be present... Without the dialectics of authority and
freedom, there is no education." (p 75). Rather, 1 am strugglmg to find a forum where
my students' voices can share the floor with the mainstream voice that dominates
schooling. Therefore, Writer's Workshop is (initially) an e.xtremely teacher-directed
environment, an instructional scenario in which I trust that the impositions of structure will
justify the creative means. After all, while I am convinced that writmg Is a powerful tool
for emancipation, these students did not share that conviction. They didn't write because
they wanted to, but because I (and the situation) demanded it.
With these three students, as with every class I have had, the early experiences of
Writer's Workshop were agonizing for me. I worried that the imposed quiet writing
periods, the enq)hasis on production, and the obvious discomfort of my students as they
struggled to find something to say, would silence them forever.
I began to fear that this
time. Writing Workshop would fail to be a liberatory experience. And yet, in spite of my
fears, Writmg Workshop again fimctioned to create the cotiditiom wider which [my
students] empowered themselves.
The evolution of my students' writing —from their early attempts at teacherapproved writing, to the self-determined te.xts they wrote by the year's end— was truly
196
astonishing. An entire world of experience and possibility came to life between Tenaya*s
earliest text:
8-14-96
6. Khr>'Stle is my mptb bIDa
7. Khrystle in a bot tran
8. Khrystle LT mn Tran
9. Khrystle bot
10. Jazmetmt
and her last:
The two cats
Once there was two cats name cadles and chocalet chip
And they were playing Barbie's
And they whent to eat
Then they went to the park to go to slepe
Between Rico's first text:
Witt surt bllu sorrs. Brawn sus blak her
she his a 3 ring binder wit soks sort her wrson hrs
and his last:
ME AND MY DOGS
I LIKE TAKING HIM FOR A WALK BUT I HATE WHEN HE
RUNS TO FAST AND HE IS A ROTWILER AND A BANGE DOG
AND A POT POMERRANDSf AND PORT CEWOWO
THE BANGE DIG IS NICE TO KIDS THE CEWOWO BITS AND
THE ROTWILER IS NISE BUT KIDS AOR AFRAD OF HEM
Between Marco's first text:
8-14-96
In your journal
Blue and wite and black he is
He has blue sorts. Wite soxs
Brown eyes he is tall brown hair
and black shoes.
1 yelleo
6 red
197
and his last:
5-9-97
By Marco Martinez
Dr. Ricks at the c.c.c. southside symphestra Orchestra
Dr. Rick was playing the clarinet.
It was funny wen (v^en) the 15teen year old kid song (sang).
I wish I was one of them.
It was very cool with a Big C.
This kids were looking at me and I said what (What?).
They were in 4"' grade there was lots of people.
Dr. Rick was playing good!
Dr. Rick was wering (wearing) the same thing like yesterday.
Far more important than the te.\ts themselves were the ways in which
my students interacted with me and their peers in the creation of their stories.
While I delighted in the obvious acquisition of literacy skills that came about,
not as a result of discrete writing lessons, but rather through the practice of
telling their stories, that is not the aspect of being and becoming a writer I find
exciting. (Although, given the mainstream emphasis on form over content,
increased standardization is a fortunate byproduct of developing voice.)
Rather, it is the evolution of my students writmg for self-directed piupose as
reflective social actors that I find so compelling.
A Discourse of Collaboration
As I tuned my ear more sharply to my students' voices, I became aware
that their ways with words were deeply embedded in social practices. In fact,
their interactions as collaborators in Writer's Workshop were part of a
developing Discourse of writers that both supported and determined what they,
as writers, could do (Gee 1994, 1996). This Discourse was marked by
198
collaborative activities at odds with the mainstream expectations for writing
behaviors—^peer collaborations that impacted every student m the class, and
provided a forum for developing voice for even the least fluent of writers.
Peer Collaboration
Although Writing Workshop began as a teacher-directed activity, within the
framework of restrictions on movement and noise leveL the requirement that the activities
in which students were engaged be directly related to writing, rare dictatorial lapses on my
part regarding topic selection or product length, and occasional 'nudges' (Atwell 1987)
toward specific literary considerations, my students quickly appropriated the format for
their own. They began to participate in collaborative writing activities, or behaviors, that
changed the character of the Writing Workshop. My students as writers, rather than their
writings, became the focus of their activity, and we became co-members of a Writer's
Workshop.
Over the course of the year, my students wrote for multiple purposes. The
following list, while extensive, by no means represents the extent of their intentions. Their
texts were as diverse in content and purpose as any random selection of published works.
They wrote to create stories specifically for peer admiration, as in Marco's story about the
most popular girl in the school, or simply to be able to interact socially with others, as in
Tenaya's letters to me. They wrote pieces to rib each other as in Marco's version of the
Three Little Pigs (Bulldogs), or to refiite peer commentary as m Rico's story about his
long-tailed rottweiler. They wrote to share a common theme, as in Tenaya's stories
incorporating the 49ers, or to diffuse painful experiences, as m Marco's story about the
199
thirty-year-old third-grader. They wrote to create a different reality, as in Rico's
fictionalized story of the Cowboys Superbowi loss, and modified their texts to build
community, as in Marco's story presenting both the 49er's and Cowboys as winners.
They wrote for the sheer enjoyment of interacting with peers, as in Tenaya's dog script for
the class play, and to create lengthy encyclopedic accounts, as in Marco's collaborations
with Ralph on the football game anthology. They told stories to impress and display
privileged information, as m Marco's story about his girlfriend, and to share out-of-school
experiences, as m Rico's stories about walking his dogs. They wrote to participate in each
other's lived experiences, as in Tenaya's copies of Raquel's personal narratives, and to
consider future outcomes as in Marco's story about the symphony orchestra. They wrote
to entertain, as in Rico's rendition of the barbecuing dog, and to apologize, as in Marco's
letters to the principaL They wrote to reflect on their experiences, as in Tenaya's story of
her fiiendship with Raquel, and to brag as in Marco's story about winning the go-cart
race. They wrote to participate as members of a community actively engaged in storytelling. I watched my students engage in social mteractions so different fi'om my own
personal writing experiences, and yet so clearly en^owering, and wondered at the
possibility that in their collaborative activity might lie the seeds of a new order of social
relations (Smit,'^1994).
I had observed students collaborating in the years before this study, and had been
intrigued by the ways they interacted with each other around their texts. Fortunately, I
had no preconceived ideas about student collaboration, no notion of how I might shape
their interactions, and so I was able to simply watch and leam.
200
Writing Collaborations for Transcribing
My students' earliest collaborations centered around appropriating peer strategies
for transcribing. This was a particularly crucial interaction for Tenaya because without
assistance she was unable to create texts of peer-approved length or elaborate on any
intended meaning. That is, the strategy that she herself devised of copying environmental
print proved inadequate for composing, so she looked to her peers for assistance. The
preoccupation with sheer text length, as opposed to considerations of other intentions for
writing was evidenced by the many ways the issue of length came up in my students'
exchanges. These interactions mcluded querying each other, 'how much have you
wrote?,' announcing that their writing would be 'done' when they had filled up their fivepage pre-made booklet, or complaining that they had too many pages stapled together.
That is, the arbitrary number of pages of the booklets they made then dictated for them
how long their texts should be. As a result of this obsessive preoccupation, most of their
earliest peer collaborations dealt exclusively with the mechanics of transcription. The
following exchanges are typical of peer collaborations around these issues:
S1:
S2:
'How do you make pond?
Like this, and then you go shooo and shooo and shooo'
(demonstrating circular letter formation in the air)
S3:
'Teacher, do you spell supper, s-u-p-p-e-r-?'
S4:
S5:
S4:
'How do you spell uas?
What was, w-a-s ?'
WAS!'
S6:
S7:
S6:
'How do you spell boiightl
B-u...
D-u?
201
S7:
Bought... move the 'b* and put the 'g' over here
Writing Collaborations for Story
Gradually, the overwhelming emphasis n:^ students placed on length gave way to a
greater emphasis on the story to be told. They began to talk about their developing stories
in progress. These children, seated together while writing and illustrating their individual
te.xts, were essentially thinking out loud:
SI;
S2:
SI:
S3:
S2:
S3:
Si:
S2:
S3:
I'm gonna make a soda, but what kind of soda?
A coca-cola.
[No] Fm gonna make an ice cream.
Thanks for the idea.
You're copying her.
No, I'm not gonna make ice-cream, I'm gonna make cotton candy.
What's your popcorn look like, let me see. I love popcorn.
I like pretzels.
With cheese.
Students also talked with each other to develop writing topics, as in the
following mteraction:
SI:
S2:
SI:
I don't know what to write.
How about the Beetleborgs beat the Power Rangers?
What, the Beetleborgs? No, they should beat them up because the Power
Rangers are adults and the Beetleborgs are just kids.
In other peer interactions, students ^ared their works in progress both
for assistance, and to check for peer response to their texts.
SI:
S2;
I put ruf^ rufil Should I put 'I chase the cat'? How do you spell chase?
c-h-a-s-e
And, they collaboratively worked out the details of writing shared te.xts.
Si:
S2:
SI:
Who's gonna write the next part?
IwilL
No, because you wrote the first part.
202
Problems in Peer Coilatx>ration
Peer collaborations did not always operate smoothly. Often, my
students' interactions dealt with the problems of collaborative writing. These
conflicts most often occurred in two specific areas; around affecthe issues of
social exclusion and access, and around text issues of copyright and creative
control.
Social Relationships
Writer's Workshop provided daily opportunities for students to
negotiate social relationships through their interactions with text. When the
students shared relatively equal status in the classroom, their interactions with
text served to cement their relationships and foster social cohesion. The social
cohesion achieved through collaborative writing is evident in the previous
xignettes I presented to illustrate the variety of writing mteractions among
peers. However, for Tenaya, and other low status students. Writer's
Workshop could easily become an arena for margjnalization by peers.
Very frequently Tenaya found herself on the outside of peer interactions,
looking m. She lacked both the confidence and the social tools for gaining
inclusion, and so I tried to give her support and direction as she battled to 'join
the club'. She chose to ignore my suggestions, however, and solved the
problem of entree in her own way, by playing one writing partner oflf the other.
Tenaya:
Israel:
(to me) I don't have no one to write with and Patty said
no you can't write with me cause I'm domg something
different.
Can you ask what she's writing about?
203
Tenaya:
Patty:
Tenaya:
Lilian:
(Rqecting my suggestion, turning to Patty) Are you
working with Lilian?
Yeah.
(Turning to Lilian) Can I work with youl
(Long, long pause) Yeah.
In their developing Discourse of writers, my students negotiated
between their notion of mainstream expectations for writing, and their own
socially embedded collaborative practices. Gradualfy^ mainstream miluenced
dictates of length and form gave way to an emphasis on the story to be told.
The mteraction among students— of talk and text —became a cornerstone of
Writer's Workshop, and students negotiated social relationships that supported
the creation of texts. For popular students, these social relationships were
easily formed and the resulting writing collaborations were marked by patterns
of acceptance and friendship. For less popular students, the social relationships
that became part and parcel of the writing Discourse were themselves
problematic and presented a potential barrier to membership m the writer's
club.
Problems of Authorship and Creative Control
The very real issue of determining the authorship of collaboratively
created texts was a recurrent theme of peer conflicts in Writer's Workshop.
The sophisticated understanding my students had of the problems of joint
authorship is evidenced by the following conversation between a student and
me:
Israel:
M:
You look sad.
I don't want them. ( Gesturing toward a group of other
Israel:
M:
Israel:
M:
Israel:
M:
Israel:
M:
girls)
Why not?
Because our ideas...I don't want them to say I copied
them.
You don't like to work together?
Not with them. They keep copying me.
Who do you like to work with?
I don't know.
How could you work together in a way you would like?
I don't know. If I make up ideas and they do the same
thing, they get all the credit.
The notion of creative control also became an issue for my students.
The very collaborative efforts that had earlier made it possible for them to
write, (indeed, on which they had been dependent), now became a restrictive
scaffold that impeded their process. As they became more fluent and
confident as writers, they resisted and resented peer impositions on both the
form and content of their texts. Yet, they had needed their peers' input in the
past, and might want it again. The following conversation illustrates the
complicated nature of refusing offered assistance:
Mario:
Sergio:
Mario:
Israel:
Mario:
Israel:
Mario:
Israel:
Sergio:
Israel:
(To me) It has mistakes! It's mine, too. See? It has
my name. (He is pointing to the filename on the top of
the document)
(Keeps his hands over the keyboard, sitting perfectly
still, protesting silently)
(Trying to reach around Sergio to the keyboard)
No. Wait, Mario
It's mine. (Pointing again to the filename)
Well, did Sergio ask for your help?
Yeah, well I'm just telling him how to spell 'are'.
(Sergio has written 'ear')
Sergio, do you want Mario's help?
No.
Well, then you have to let it go.
205
The need for creative control became more of an issue as the year
progressed, students had more experience as writers, and developed a stronger
sense of their intentions for their texts. At the end of the year, Tenaya
demonstrated greater flexibility m negotiating topic selection with her writing
partners in contrast to Marco and Rico. This flexibility appeared to have to do
with her valuing of the social interaction over the text, and was generally more
characteristic of the girls in the class, rather than the boys. However it may
also have reflected Tenaya's relatively greater reliance on peers for assistance
with transcribing her stories.
Marco and Rico, on the other hand, demonstrated an increasing desire
for autonomy over their texts, and when faced with a choice between texts or
partners, usually opted for their texts. This choice surfaced at mid year for
Rico, partly in reaction to his classmates' avid corrections of his misspellings
that interfered with his own writing process, and left him protesting the value
of his story over their concerns with its form. Writing alone thus preserved for
Rico the opportunity to develop his texts on his own. He presented his
narratives for peer review only when they were sufficiently developed to
withstand possible criticisms. One effect of this pattern was to limit Rico's
opportimities for acquiring his peers' more standardized forms which was
evident in the conqiarison of his final texts to both Tenaya's and Marco's texts.
Word for word, his texts contained more non-standard and idiosyncratic
spellings. However, his sense of purpose for writing was greatly developed by
the opportimhy to share daily with his peers, and with few exceptions, Rico
wrote 'performance pieces'.
By the end of the year, Marco, for whom the opportunity to Svrite with
friends' had been the overriding initial motivation for his texts, also usually
chose to compose alone. This had little to do with the rejection of peer
interactions, but rather reflected his own deeply sophisticated perception of the
metacognitive possibilities for print. His later texts reveal a developing
awareness of writing as a tool for reflection, and while the text itself was
usually mtended for an audience, his process as a writer became more private.
Marco used print to capture and reflect on who he was and might be. He
commented on the permanency of print, conscious that his written te.xts could
be re\dsited. He used them critically to contemplate possible lives —in his
writings he examined his identity as a Mexican (American) through his
dancing, claiming his heritage through his acquisition of dance, rather than
through language. However, he also embraced the collaborative impact of
membership in the writing community once his texts were written. Sharing his
texts with the audience of his peers acted to extend the power of his words
beyond the page, and to validate the possible worlds he could imagine.
Marco's transformation as a writer graphically illustrated Freire's concept of
'conscienticao' as he, claimed conscious awareness of his own literacy
development and began to read the world in his own words. (Freire and
Macedo, 1987)
207
Diversity of Collaborations
As the year came to a close, students separated into two distinct
patterns of writing behavior. Some continued to compose collaboratively,
creating with peers joint texts which they read at the author's share. However,
for other students, the collaborative acthities that had assisted them to write m
the first place were no longer necessary. With practice, they had become fluent
writers who no longer need help with transcribing their words, and were
hampered by the requirement in coUaborative efiforts, to please many cooks.
Thus, for them, the collaborative impact of Writer's Workshop came fi-om
sharing their completed texts with their peers. What had earlier been a social
process between peers now became an mtemalized process within the
individual. Yet, writing was still an intensely socially embedded practice, and
the public forum of the daily author's share remained an integral characteristic
of the writing process.
Zones of Proximal Pevelopment
My observations and mteractions with my students in Writer's
Workshop has been fi'amed by Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory of
learning: "Every fimction in the child's cultural development appears twice:
first on the social level, and later on the individual level First between people
(mter psychological) and then inside the child (intra psychological) (p. 57 )
Smagorinsky (1994) defines the concept of the ZPD as "a range of ability with
the upper reaches continually in a state of evolution: development consists of
208
using sociaOy mediated assistance to move towards the higher levels of the
range, with that range ahvays itself developing into a new and advanced state."
(p. 3) Smagorinsky's elaboration of this concept was particularly descriptive
of my students' collaborations ~ they used socially mediated assistance to
move towards the higher levels of the range. That is, they sought from each
other assistance to enhance their own development toward their own goal As
I reviewed their interactions, I was struck by the ways the zones of proximal
development students created with each other differed from the kinds of zones
I created with students. The kinds of zones I had typically created for and
with my students were intended to help them see the larger picture. That is,
through using their own writings I tried to help them generalize to other
contexts. I also waited expectantly to see them apply the knowledge they
gained from our interactions in their subsequent texts. 1 tried to be unfailingly
patient, as I guided student development; I was after all the expert assisting the
novice. I tried to keep my shaping conversations short and to the point.
Lastly, I responded to the isolated text, rather than the text situated in
experience.
Student Created Zones of Proximal Development
Student ZPD's were significantly dififerent from the kinds of zones I
created with my students in six distinct ways;
1.
They were situationally contextualized in the interactions of the
moment.
2.
They were quixotically both extremely directive and non-
209
demanding.
3.
They were often pointedly criticaL
4.
The roles of novice and expert were flexible.
5.
They talked together a great deal to efifect relatively small
changes in each other's texts.
6.
They reconnected text and experience in deeply afi&ctive ways.
Situationally Contextuaiized Zones
My students responded to each other and their texts in the particular.
rather than the general. They criticized or praised the ^ecific text under
consideration, and their comments to and about each other's writing reflected
the actions of the moment and were often embedded in complex social
interaaions. The following two mteractions are concerned with issues specific
to the actual writing of texts:
This first vignette depicts the specificity of peer response— the second
student responds only to that particular spelling request of the first student.
SI:
S2:
S1:
S2:
SI:
'Little, does it say littlel (Meaning, is this supposed to be little?)
Yeah.
L-i... and 'e' goes off the end.
I ab-eady put the 'e'.
Yeah, but you can't see it.
In the second exchange, students expressed disapproval of their peers'
Writing project, invoking possible legal repercussions to lend weight to their
criticism.
SI:
S2:
That's not a rewrite. (Reading over the shoulder of several
students copying &om a children's book)
We're not aUowed to copy books.
210
S1:
Yeah, they can get arrested.
The next two interactions were concerned with affective issues of
collaborative writing. In the foOowing conversation two children discussed the
complicated social relationships that dictated who wrote with whom.
S1:
S2
Stacy and Ciara used to work together, but now Stacy works
with us. She works with just me and Marialisa now.
And now Ciara is working by herself on the couch, and Linette
and Raquel are working is the spot that umm, Stacy and Ciara
were working in.
In the next dialog, the first student was discussing the length of her
mtended text when the theme of the conversation changed to her imminent
move and its effect on her collaborative writing project with the second
student.
SI:
S2;
sr.
S2:
SI:
S2;
I'm going to write a lot of pages on this one because I want to
get better and better.
I've got a lot of papers in mine.
I do too.
Because /'m going to be here a long time.
Yeah..
When you move Stacy will be my partner, Michelle or Stacy
because they asked me, like when Michelle wrote down, "If
Nicole leaves and you don't have a partner for Writer's
Workshop, well you can just turn to me and I'll help you.'
Directive Yet Non-Demanding Peer Interactions
While I eagerly anticipated the effect of my comments on my students'
subsequent texts, my students had no such expectation. Their directives to
each other were very pointed, but they typically did not care whether their
comments were taken to heart or not. They teased each other unmercifidly
211
over reading errors, as when Marco miscued in his own story, reading aloud
'my pnik bike' mstead ofbike', but tolerated approximations in their own
and each others texts, often questioning me as to whether a gelling "was
close'. This phrase. Is it close? became a shorthand for Does this match the
dictioimry spelling And, 'close' was certamly good enough, most of the
time.
This pattern of directive yet non-demanding comment also occurred in
interactions over content. In the following dialog students are discussing the
effect of mflammatory material.
Rico:
Marco:
Rico:
I know what I'll put. I'll put Cowboy's drool and 49ers
rule.
Why do you say stuff about Dallas (Cowboys)? People
who like Dallas don't say nothing about the 40Whiners.
Yes they do. You just said the 40 Whinersl
However, when these texts were read at the author's share, students did not
comment negatively at the choice to leave the text unchanged. They were
enormously respectful of each other's decisions regarding text.
Peer Criticism of Text: Honest Response
While I attempted to be kind and supportive in my comments to
students about their writing, they pulled no punches with each other. They
were bluntly honest in their comments. They routinely criticized each others'
texts as stupid or repetitive, wondered exa^eratedly out loud how a peer
could write the word correal in one sentence and incorrectly in the next, and
rebuffed appeals for assistance with, 'Hey, I just told you that!' I cringed
when I overheard their interactions, particulariy their criticisms of students like
Tenaya for whom (in my opinion) any writing represented a triumph.
However, the effect of the peer critiques was far more positive than I had
imagined. When Ralph commented critically of Tenaya's writing, 'Cats, cats,
all she writes about is cats', her response was to write on a different theme.
When Rico's peers attacked his text with gelling and punctuation corrections,
he responded by writing prolifically away from the public eye and sharing only
his completed texts at reading time. When Rico's peers commented negatively
about his rottweiler's undocked tail, rather than retreat, he wrote a rebuttal In
fact, rather than the sflencing effect [ anticipated from the peer criticisms,
students were spurred on to develop new competencies.
Flexible Roles of Novice and Expert
Regardless of my desire to quiet my own voice, and allow my students
to speak aloud, regardless of my desire to participate with my students as a
mentor and guide, the reality of my greater competence and experience as a
writer created ^ecific undeniable outcomes. When I made suggestions it was
almost impossible for students to choose not to incorporate them. (And
indeed, I typically did expect students to apply what I taught them.) The
interactions between my student and me were extremely unidirectional in that
regard. As I reviewed my notes I realized that they never made suggestions to
me about how / might change
enthroned expert.
texts, or make them better. I was the
213
However, among my students these roles were considerably more
flexible. Daiute and Dahon (1993) noted similar interactions among the
students of their study. Their investigation focussed on the writing strategies
used by students described as either good or poor spellers. In that study,
good spellers tended to write together, and poor spellers tended to write
together. Thus the hierarchy of con^etency was somewhat diminished and
among writers of approximately equal competency, the roles of novice and
expert appeared flexible. However, in my investigation, students of extremely
disparate competencies often wrote together, and the permeability of expert
and novice roles was still maintained. Although there were students who were
both good spellers and good storytellers, in their collaborations the roles were
more divided. Novice versus e.xpert status fell into the two specific areas of
spelling-transcribmg, or storytelling. As m the Daiute and Dalton study, poor
spellers were rarely the experts when transcribing text with good spellers.
However, Tenaya found a way to attain expert status as a speller by privately
conferencing with me, or an expert peer, and presenting the garnered spelling
to her writing partners.
However, in the most common interaction I obser\'ed by far, both
collaborators claimed expert status. Students who were participating with
peers in a coUaborative project would either contribute te.vt-transcribing
strategies or text-creating strategies. Thus, two students could simultaneously
enjoy the role of expert with one commanding expert status as the scribe, and
214
the other comtnandhig expert status as the storyteller. This type of interaction
provided an enormously efifective scafibid for the least competent and
unconfident writers, and many of Tenaya's texts were created this way. The
collaborators frequently created several copies of the same co-created text, and
this gave writers like Tenaya valuable practice in transcribing her own text—
practice in more standardized forms of ^ellmg that later transferred into her
other writings. In another common mteraction, students shared expert status
by taking turns to create a text. In this way each student altemately
participated as expert in both storytelling and transcribing.
No Economy of Words
While 1 tended to keep my comments to students brief and to the point,
this did not characterize their own mteractions over text. All of the vignettes I
have presented in this discussion clearly illustrate how much my students talked
about writing, and often what small e£fect their words had. Yet, they were not
at all displeased with their peers' choices to incorporate or not their
suggestions.
Affective Connections; Recontextualizing of Print into Experience
The last, and perhaps most significant zone of proximal development
was created through the student interactions that occurred in the daily sharing
of their stories.
Werstch (1990, 1996) has decried the institutional elevation of the
215
decontextualized rationality of print, noting the oven^elming preference in
school literacy tasks for objective text, particularly in instances where other
more subjective texts would work as well or better. For my students, the daily
sharing of their stories provided an opportunity to recontextualize their text
into experience, recreating the link between the 'rational' print, and the context
of the original e?q)erience. Students' texts often provoked strong affective
responses for both author and audience: In the following story, Chico did not
include the significant last lines, until, seated at the author's circle, he pencilled
them in. Through sharing his story Chico was able to resituate his text m the
experience, thereby able to retrieve both the memory and the words to name
the memory:
I had a dog named Guero. My Dad tod his fi'and to lat he go and I dots
see he no more and I had a Dog named boy and I muved and my Dad
lat he in the back yard. And he dint hav notin to eet aitd he cout gat
oiit of the yard and he did. We wen bak catd he did.
I had a dog named Gueio. My dad told his friend to let him go and I didn*t see him
no more and I had a dog named Boy and I moved and my dad left him in the back
yard And he didn't have nothing to eat and he couldn 'tget out of the yard and he
died. We went back and he died.
At the conclusion of his reading Chico put his head down on his arms
and sobbed. Later another student commented on his own dog story:
'I read mine to the classroom, because it wasn't that big of a deal. But
to our family it was a big deal, because he got ranned over right in fi'ont
of our yard-'
ZPP's in Summary
The zones of proximal development my students created revealed, as
do all Discourses, the underlying ideological fi-amework. Highly valued were
216
all collaborative effiirts, situation-^ecific mteractions, an acceptance of
approximations, honest critique, and an increasing sum (Takaki, 1987) of
writing possibilities in which collaborating students participated as experts by
doing what they did best. Through coDaborative interactions they also
received implicit practice in less well-developed areas through both observation
and direct copying of peer process. They valued conversation, and talked to
connect, rather than direct. The role of talk was extended in their written
texts, and they wrote to connect and reflect, to share their lives, their pain, and
their joy.
Writer's Workshop as a Revolutionized Context for Emancipatory
Literacy
Institution Barriers to Becoming Critically Literate
Stanton-Salazar (1997), in addressing institutional barriers to academic
success of minority language and culture children, refers to Gee, specifically his
concept of Discourses. Gee (1996) describes E>iscourse in this way. 'A
discourse is a socially accepted association among ways of using language,
other symbolic expressions, and 'artifacts', of thinking, feeling, believing,
valuing and acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially
meaningful group or 'social network', or to signal (that one is playing) a
socially meaningfid 'role"(p. 131). The Discourse of schooled literacy is
charaaerized by a penchant for the decontextualized rationality of print.
Bearing as little trace as possible of its origins, schooled literacy provides little
217
opportunity for students of other traditions to decode the system, (p. 13) As an
educator of minority language and culture students that has become my job—
to help n^ students decode the system. Somehow I must determine a
supportive balance between iiqjlicit and explicit strategies: somehow I must
find the balance between fostering voice and fostering access. Somehow I
must find a way to foster the growth and conscious awareness of their own
cultiu-ally influenced EMscourses and simultaneously induct them into the
Discourse of Power (Delpit 1988, Heath 1983). Yet, I work with little
children, eight years old, and am deeply conscious of Wayne CNeil's (1977)
admonishment, that one may foster schooled literacy at the expense of 'proper
literacy'. That once those culturally contextualized ways with words are
supplanted by schooled literacy, they may not ever be accessible again. I
ponder this as I search through the publisher's lists for minority language and
culture authors. Why so few? Politics of the press? Undeniably so. Yet
perhaps also, because decades ago in their own third grade classrooms their
proper literacy was supplanted, and they can no longer get back to their own
stories. Because, unlike Yolanda, in Julia AKarez novel YO!. there is no one
to reclaim that voice and say, 'My daughter, the future has come and we were
in such a rush to get here! We left everything behind and forgot so much.
Ours is now an orphan family. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren will
not know the way back unless they have a story. Tell them of our journey'
(Alvarez 1997 p. 309).
Salazar (1997) and Ogbu (1983, 1994) describe the seemingly
insurmountable barriers for minority language and culture children faced with
decodmg the system and acquiring the cultural logic of the dominant group (p.
13), and for whom the adoption of the mainstream flmds of knowledge may
require a repudiation of their own. Salazar also identifies the barrier of
insitutionalized individualism, *^and the corresponding moral view... that
competition and the pursuit of self mterest [is] a natural and superior means by
which people are motivated to attain their highest level of human functioning'
(p.29). Thus, mainstream instructional practices embedded in this ideology act
almost automatically to undermine or dismiss collaborative learning. Yet,
Salazar argues convincingly that minority student achievement is dependent
upon the opportimity for collaborative mteractions in a bicultural social
network. He suggests that through interactions with institutional agents—
including teachers—minority students can 'learn to engage socially those
agents and participants in mainstream worlds and social settings who control or
manage critical resources.' That, through interactions with peers, 'minority
children...leam to engage in the academic process communally...they must
remain embedded in familial and communal support systems whUe they
participate m other worlds.'(p. 33)
219
Considerations of Race
In the fbOowing discussion I will present a personal history of the development of
the ideology of race, or rather an ideology of whiteness, that guides me as an educator,
indeed as a person. The evolution of my thinking in race terms has followed a complex
evolution. My perspective as an educator of race/ethnic minority children was originally
guided by the notion of a muhicultural curriculum founded on acceptance and
acknowledgement of diverse cultural groups. As I became increasing aware of race as a
limiting factor in the education of my students, I was forced into a critical consciousness
of the privilege afiforded me by dint of my white skin and economic status, in contrast to
the lack of privilege enjoyed by my students of color. I began to recognize the dialectics
of power that determined what voices were heard and valued. I came to understand the
politics of language distribution that created opportunities for some and silence for others.
I saw how not only opportunities to ^eak and be heard, but the ontological value of the
speaker were determined by the very language —or the dialect of English that one spoke. I
saw how the fimdamental issue of race was obscured by the dialectics of prestige and
power. I finally understood the necessity of demystifying race politics on both the
personal and social level that is crucial to the goals of educating for social reform and the
creation of liberatory educational practices.
White teacher, children of color: The politics of race in the classroom
Over the years 1 have struggled with my role as a uliite teacher of race/ethnic
minority children. Indeed, it was an increasing awareness of the significance of race on the
220
education of my Southeast Asian refiigee students that compelled me to pursue graduate
studies in the first place.
I use the label race/ethnic minority deliberately, in spite of its potential to oSend
those I describe. I find it problematic that other terminology, coined to avoid the
connotations of inferior status, (anagrams such as ALANA, for Afiican-American, LatinAmerican, Native-American), also convenient^ obscures the power di£ferential that
characterizes race relations. Cultural diversity thus divorced fi^om social, political,
economic context becomes a sanitized concept, merely a matter of colorizing the
advertisements in the magazines.
As a teacher of race minority children I have taught in neighborhood schools of
communities ravaged by poverty and gang violence, where a third grader was shot to
death in a 'drive-by accident' walking home fi'om school, where only a handful of fifth
graders had a living father who was not incarcerated, and where ram kept children home
because their only pair of pants hadn't dried on the clothesline. As 1 looked into the
brown and black faces of my students and their families, I was forced to recognize the
overwhehning mteraction of poverty and race, everyday. I recognized my privileged
status as I went home at the end of the day, to my 'mixed' neighborhood whose fifleenminute distance fi-om the school represented a world of difference fi-om the neighborhood
of my students, where my own children walked in relative safety to their fiiends' houses,
and swam in each other's pools. Here race difference was mediated by economic status,
my neighbors and I were peers of material acquisition, homeowners, professionals,
registered voters.
221
Still, during those years I was comfortable as a wliite educator at Palo Verde
Elementary School As a white person, I was in the numerical minority. My concerns
about my de facto participation in the social reproduction model of school faded. The
brown faces my students saw were not custodians and kitchen help, but teachers and
instructional staff My voice was simply one of many, and I fek secure that I had plenty to
learn as weQ as ofifer in a muMethnic environment.
Interactions of Race and Power
When I returned to the northeast after several years in the southwest, I was
confronted again with the dilemma of what I defined as the appropriateness of my place
as the white teacher of race-minority children. My third-grade bilingual class, along with a
fourth-fifth grade combination, was bused across town to one of the newly built schools.
Now I taught in a school with no race-minority teachers. The only people of color on the
entire staff were two instructional assistants in the bilingual program. In this environment,
my whiteness became again a marker of privflege, a potential symbol of difference
between my students and myself and a demarcation of opportunity for people like me, and
people like them. I was again confronted with the implications of whiteness.
This time, however, I was not surrounded by my firiends of color, to reassure me
that they were glad to know me: to have an anti-racist colleague, to confirm for me the
appropriateness of my place as a member of a multiethnic learning communit>'. This time
it became clear, that as a w^e person I am a de facto supremacist. This may sound
extreme, but I am increasingly convinced that it is not. Consider the following contrast
where I use the unqualified signifier MEN as a parallel to the unqualified signifier WHITE.
222
As a woman, I am somewhat comforted by bumper stickers proclaimingsMan
Against Violence Against Women. I am pleased that MEN are reflecting on the eSect of
their gender, and the historical treatment of women, physical, cultural, and economic.
Perhaps the world wiO become a safer place for my own daughter. I appreciate their
commitment to combating violence against women, but I may not want to hear their
stories. If MEN choose to locate themselves outside the paradigm of male dommation, I
want them to use their male power to help women learn how to protect against it, to
participate as aggressors in self-defense classes, for example. Still, I do not want MEN to
join support groups for women addressing male oppression. Why? Because I am afraid of
that historically situated category: MEN.
The fear of the historiological category MEN I discuss above is recast in race
terms by bell hooks (1995) in a description of that surfacing fear m her experience at a
conference on cultural studies:
Attending the conference because 1 was confident that I would be in the
company of like mmded, 'aware', progressive mdividuals, I was disturbed
when the usual arrangements of wiiite supremacist hierarchy were mirrored
both in terms of who was speaking, of how bodies were arranged on the
stage, of who was in the audience. All of this revealed the underlying
assumptions of what voices were deemed worthy to speak and be heard.
As the conference progressed I began to feel afraid. If these progressive
people, most of whom were white, could so blindly reproduce a version of
the status quo and not 'see' it, the thought of how racial politics would be
played out 'outside' this arena was horrifying. The feeling of terror I had
known so intimately in my childhood sur&ced. (p. 48)
This is part of what Darder (1993) addresses in her comparative study of white
versus Latino critical educators. As a critical educator, I can work to demystify the
hegemonic practices in schools. I can work to facilitate the development of voice in my
223
students. I can work to bring their lived experiences into our classroom; I can work to
help my colleagues recognize the mtrinsic value of multiple ways with words. Yet, as a
white educator, 1 cannot ^are in my students' experiences as minority group members.
Lazaire (1996) eloquently describes this insurmountable barrier of whiteness as a teacher
of Black students.
want to identify with your story,' he will teO a v^liite woman who has written a
moving memoir about disappomtment with her father's distance from her. 'I see
that your emotion is real, and I want to feel it too,' he will say, 'But I can't. I have
no room for those kinds of angers. I am angry at racism. I am angry at slavery. I
am angry that some place inside I still believe I am not as good as you.' (p. 39)
If I were Black, I could at least mitigate the pam on his face by taking some of it
onto myself; I feel that way too, at times, I might say; we all do, even the most
successfid of us. (p. 40)
Like Lazarre, I will always be a member of that category WHITE, my very skin a
symbol of the dominant ideology, regardless of my own awareness of whiteness as an
ideology beyond race, an ideology that I reject.
Giroux (1997) speaks of the ideology of whiteness, an ideology of institutionalized
individualism, the old-boy's network, an ideology that describes current hegemonic
political, economic, social practices that perpetuate institutionalized racism and structural
inequality, books (1995) in her conversation with a Black colleague and her white
partner, describes moving beyond the ideology of whiteness:
... We talk about the way v^iite people v^o shift location, as her
companion has done, begin to see the world differently. Understanding
how racism works, he can see the way m which whiteness acts to terrorize
without seeing himself as bad, or all white people as bad, and all black
people as good. (p. 49)
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I have chosen to shift location, to see the world differently. Yet, in a society that
quickly draws boundaries of us, and them along color lines, I am conscious that the
historical situatedness of whiteness creates a potentially limiting factor for me as a critical
bilingual educator
Revolutionizing the Context; Writers Workshop as Liberatorv Practice
What was it about Writer^s Worktop that allowed it to function as a
place of liberatory experience?
While the original framework of Writer's Workshop was originally
extremely teacher directed, over time. Writer's Workshop was transformed
into an intensely child directed arena. It became a place where the Discourse
of mteraction was bom out of the children's experiences, cultural knowledge,
intentions and language.
The collaborative nature of Writer's Workshop was facilitated by the
children's goals for social cohesion, as they created text worlds through social
interactions, and social relationships through their interactions with text
(Dyson 1989). The zones of proximal development that were created in peer
collaborations allowed children to move beyond their individual efibrts, and to
stretch toward the competencies of their peers. This process stood out in its
contrast to the teacher created zones in wliich students are pushed toward the
higher reaches of the zone according to external assessments of their potential
for growth. In order to participate with them, I (the teacher), rather than they
(the students), had to be educated and inducted into the Discourse of their
225
literacy world.
The shared valuing of writing as a cultural tool by the both home and
school community facilitated the development of Writer's Workshop as a
forum where student voice could develop. As children wrote and shared their
stories, both their voices and the voice of the community found a place within
the school This was doubfy enhanced when parents also chose to contribute
to the bound collections of children's stories wWch were then 'published' by
the district printing center. Thus the community-based fimds of knowledge
interacted with mainstream discourses and manner of display, and mirrored the
balance of explicit and implicit learning experiences that inducted students into
the discourse of power.
Through the interplay of talk and text students mediated the acquisition
of decontextualized print through its constant recontextualization as
experience. I am not suggesting that writing is merely talk written down. In
fact, my students' awareness of the literary nature of print was evidenced by
their elaborated texts, and made it clear that writing was a genre in and of
itself The poetic style of Tenaya's cat stories, the tongue in cheek asides of
Rico's barbecuing dog, clearly illustrated their intentions for print not
expressed in oral language. However, through talk they situated themselves as
authors bringing their life's e7q)eriences within the boundaries of the classroom
and their text.
Participating in Writer's Workshop became an intensely personal
226
experience, in which children entrusted their stories and lives to their friends.
They shared the very essence of who they were and who they were becoming
in a manner of deep reflection that impacted powerfully on the Discourse of
Writer's Workshop. The collective weight of their personal narratives created
a social history that ^oke to the political nature of their literacy education
(Edgerton 1992). In the daily reading and discussion of their texts arose a
compilation of generative words (Freire 1973) that acknowledged the social
realities of minority experience outside the classroom. Thus we were engaged
consciously m liberatoiy practices against the dialectic of social control and
silence that characterized other school and out-of-school experiences.
Perhaps Writer's Workshop flmctioned as a forum for the bicultural
social networks proposed by Stanton-Salazar (1997) as necessary for minority
academic success. He posits the necessity for institutional agents—teachers as
well as peers— who can make explicit the hidden agendas, and the 'rules of the
game' that control access to school capital, by providing role modeling,
emotional and moral support, evaluative feedback, advice and guidance (p.
II). He suggests the need for minority language and culture children to
develop coping strategies that acknowledge their subordmate or outsider status
vis a vis the dominant culture. He points to a collective approach as key to
decoding the in^licit Discourse of schools. Writer's Workshop embodied all
of these characteristics; I as well as peers fimctioned as instructional agents for
the group, the generative words that arose from my students texts created
opportunities for examining the institutional and structural limits that face
members of minority groups. Collaborative mteractions were the very heart of
Writer's Workshop. The very heart. That is the piece that Writer's Workshop
provided about which I had known nothing. I knew nothing about the
affective power of writing with friends. It was only after my accidental
participation in a writer's project that I came to understand what might be
meant about collaboration containing the seeds of a new social order. I too
required the recontextualizmg of my stories into shared experience. As later I
reflected on my students conversations, how new worlds became possible as
they formed the words to frame them, I realized that I didn't come to know
through my writing, I came to know through sharing nty texts. In Giinese
mythology, the panda cub is bora amorphous, and only takes form as his
mother licks him into the shape of a bear. Periiaps we humans are also so
formed, through the experience of our words m another's ear, as members of
community gathered for mutual support.
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CHAPTER SEVEN! IMPLICATIONS
I have shared with my elementary school colleagues what I have
leamed from my students about teaching writing, about Writer's Workshop as
a forum for emancipatory education. And while they are frequently impressed
by the resuhs, no one, to date, has chosen to build its practice mto their day.
The dialectic of freedom and authority leaves too much room for change. All
that talking, and we distmst talk m schools. Perhaps I simply have not been
able to present my case rationally enough to be heard in those institutional
arenas, for however much I modulate my voice I am far too passionate. It is
interesting how quickly an argument can be dismissed if it betrays the speaker's
passion. Indeed, the affect is the fastest destroyer of decontextualized
rationality. Yet, it is e.\actly m that passion that the seeds of emancipatory
education can be found. Freire's (1973) generative words were fighting
words, images from the very lives of his students, words steeped in history and
meaning. Little wonder that practitioners of mainstream mstructional
methodologies view them with mistrust. Education is indeed political act, and
as Gee (1994) eloquently warns, 'Literacy education is not for the timid.' (p.
39)
Not very long ago I was chafing to explore possibilities of enq)loyment
outside of my classroom I wanted the chance to work with other teacher
educators iiiq[)arting what I have leamed about emancipatory practices with
young and pre-service teachers. I longed for the chance to better the school
229
lives of minority language and culture children through the education of their
future teachers. I watched with increasing despair as my students struggled to
interact in the stratified world of public school, each day alive with the hope
that they would be seen and treated with same respect as their white peers.
Yet, only within the four walls of our classroom can my students truly
experience the notion of "possible Kves". Today, I am ambivalent about
ventiuing beyond my third grade classroom. The changes I see each day in my
students as they grow in empowerment are far too precious. I no longer
believe that what I have learned is easily transmitted. It is a passion, and
passion cannot be passed on like a baton. I have no complex list of do's or
don'ts that can be incorporated into ongoing instruction. What I propose is
rather a deep commitment to demystifying the ideology of mainstream
instructional practices. Kincheloe (1992) has long suggested the view of
curriculum as social psychoanalysis. First, I believe, we must turn the mirror
to ourselves.
Aspects of Emancipatorv Practice
I cannot reduce Writer's Workshop to a finite set of variables. Indeed,
the most fascinating aspect of Writer's Workshop, is its indefinable shape
outside the specific contexts of children and teacher. However, there are
clearly aspects that must be present if Writer's Workshop is to be an
emancipatory practice, aspects of community, voice, purpose, conversation,
collaboration, and shared texts.
230
I am equally concerned with voice and access, but the instructional
balance of the two has much to do with the level of fluency and voice already
controlled by the student. I am aware that developing voice is fragfle,
particularly of minority language and culture children wlio rarely hear their
voices and the voice of their community within schools; it is easily crushed into
sflence by instruction in the mainstream ways with words. Purpose for writing
must always be in the hands of the children, and teachers must be equally
engaged m determining the purpose of the texts we are writing, seated
alongside our students. This is periiaps the most difiScult part of Writer's
Workshop—that of participating as a member of the writing community. We
teachers are always hungry for the few extra moments to research curriculum,
grade papers, review science journals. Writer's Workshop is not the time for
such actixoties. How can we provide the role modeling, emotional and moral
support, evaluative feedback, advice and guidance so significant for our
students' success if we are not totally present in the process? Unless we are
also partners in the creation of texts we can easily forget how difScult and
demanding a task writing can be.
I have come to view conversation and collaboration as the cornerstones
of writing process, indeed one cannot exist without the other. The sheer
quantity and complexity of both my students' conversations and collaborations
marked Writer's Workshop as a place of social interaction. Certainly writing
also occurs in quiet spaces, but I have been continually amazed at the
231
mteractional mediating effect of talk and text.
How these a^ects are enacted in a Writer's Worktop depends upon
the idiosyncratic nature of the writers themselves and the mteractional context
of the moment. They must be considered against the philosophical framework
of emancipatory education that grounds and drives instruction.
Purpose
Consider Miguel, in this hypothetical example. Copying is not likely to
advance the goals of critical reflective literacy and therefore it is probably not
useful for students to copy books. Yet Miguel is passionate about dinosaurs
and is determined to commit the first two pages of the science text to memory.
Later I observe that Miguel has ahemated pages of copied text with
information of his own. In this mstance copying has provided a scaffold to
other more significant experiences with print. Or conversely, after three days
Miguel has copied down four pages of mcomprehensible text that he waves
about with inordinate pride. Three days... I think his literacy development will
survive three days of delay, and the mediating efifect of his copied te.xt may
have outcomes I cannot expect or predict.
Voice
It is impossible to foster voice if students have never experienced
speaking and being heard. It is far from unusual for my students to have never
experienced having their words received by another. I could never suggest
outside of the specific context of interactions that another teacher make the
232
choices I have made. I have forced
students to read aloud at the daily
author's share, inwardly quaking at the sound of their voices cracking under
the strain of breaking the silence. And sighed with relief as the foDowing days
revealed that that forced experience opened the way for them to share their
subsequent te.vts with mcreasing confidence.
Conversation
This remams the most difficult aspect of Writer's Workshop for my
colleagues to tolerate. How can anything constructive be happening m the
midst of so much talking! Yet time and time agam I have seen the mediating
efifect of talk and text, and imagine that to silence one may silence the other. I
have autocratically insisted on silent writing when my instincts told me that the
topics under discussion could have no possible connection to the creation of
texts. Still, I deeply believe in the power of dialog to resituate narratives in
print in the narratives of life, and my tolerance for talk is high.
Collaboration
Everything I hiow about collaboration I learned first fi'om my students.
1 had participated myself as an adult m collaborative projects and I had found
them to be a morass of complicated negotiations around issues of ego,
ownership, and direction. Somehow it wasn't real collaboration unless at least
two of us were struggling simultaneously over the same piece of text, mangled
beyond recognition as we each tried to shape it according to our own
purposes. In a grant writing project we eventually assigned each other
sq)arate sections of the project, relieved to have some creative control, yet
each feeling that somehow we were cheating. Nevertheless, I have had other
wonderful collaborative experiences, grant writing with a &iend, giddy with
laughter over the power-packed phrases we loaded with the requisite jargon
and almost incomprehensible grant-ese. And, I have had experienced the
tremendous satisfaction of sharmg texts in progress with other writers, fiiends
in the struggle to coax the words to carry our intended meaning. These
experiences with fiiends—writmg with fiiends—that is collaboration. That is
what I learned fi^om my students—collaboration requires an affective
connection.
Sharing texts
Sharing texts, finished or in progress, was one of the most significant
collaborative interactions my students engaged in. I had become so focussed
on collaborations invoking works in progress, coDaborations that allowed
texts come to life for writers for whom that support was so crucial, that I
sometimes failed to recognize the power of sharing texts among peers.
Through my observations of students I came to recognize m my own life as a
writer how necessary that sharing is. Writing becomes most meaningful as a
shared e?q)erience—^text resituated m dialog among fiiends.
Incremental Progress
To my eyes, by the end of the year Rico, Tenaya, Marco, were lightyears m literacy development fi-om where they had begun the school year.
234
Still, I worried that this progress, in comparison to school expectations for
grade-level achievement, would &il to impress their next year's teacher. I had
had to train myself to recognize the tiny developments in my students' writing,
to recognize and help them recognize the incremental yet significant changes in
their texts, their process, their intentions for print.
Typical school assessments, however, are not concerned with actual individual
growth, but rather coiiq)arative data against normed criteria. That type of
assessment can only reveal the discrepancy between what my students know,
and what they are expected to know. It cannot track their remarkable
achievement and project the likelihood of fixture success. Measured against
grade level expectations, and in atomistic exercises, I fear that these students
will not be able to demonstrate their literacy development.
In Summary
Community, voice, purpose, conversation, collaboration, shared texts,
recognition of incremental progress. These seem so attainable, and yet I fear
that for my minority language and culture students these factors that have
framed writing as a liberatory practice will not be placed within their reach.
Yet it is my overwhehning experience that without them, my students will fail
to thrive, fail to achieve, fail to imagine the enactment of possible lives. It is
far to easy to locate the reasons for their &ilure within the students themselves,
in their Discourses that mesh awkwardty with mainstream dialog, in the
poverty that marks so many of their lives. It is far too easy to point to the
235
institutionalized racism that limits options for access,
too easy to simply
give up. But there are actions we can take, within our classrooms and within
our schools, that challenge the invisibility of stratification, dialogues we can
enter into, strategies we can teach, actions essential if we are to facilitate the
dialectic of fi'eedom and authority beyond the confines of our classrooms.
Taking Action
One situation we must address is the overwhelming labeling of minority
children as having special needs, and therefore requiring special instruction
away fi-om their peers. In my experience, and certainly borne out by the cases
presented in this studyj^ (see epflogue), this label results in instructional
practices that are m diametric opposition to the very characteristics of
emancipatory education. In the special education program my students
received (which I believe to represent a very typical model) the mtentions for
print, the form and manner of di^lay, were teacher imposed. The notions of
student purpose and voice, were not a concern of special education: the goal of
instruction was to remediate failure. Therefore, the instructional activities
were most often selected by the Specialist to provide practice in the very
literacy tasks the child could not successfully achieve. Indeed, after several
instructional sessions, my students were well aware of their failings.
The disruptive nature of the pull-out program wreaked havoc on the
relationships nQ^ students were struggling to establish as members of a learning
236
conmnmity. Each time my students were 'pulled-out' for special education
tutoring they were separated from the collaborative community that so deeply
supported their growth as writers. Thus, the very children for whom
collaborative activity was simultaneously essential for their growth, and
enormously difficult to achieve, had this process interrupted on a regular basis.
Each time they were 'pulled-out^ th^ had to remake their connections with
both peers and text, and rewrite themselves into the room.
Our educational institutions are quick to mark difiference and find it
deficient. We need to protect our students from these 'othering' practices.
The survival of our students' voices into adulthood may well depend on the
their experience of voice as children.
Future Directions
I am curious now about other aspects of my students' writing, t am curious about
their topics, and how identity is shaped and revealed by their texts. I have begun to
rethink my practice of referring to my students' texts as stories. I chose to refer to my
students' texts as stories in order to honor them, and encourage my reader to honor them
as well. Still, that has pediaps obscured for me the patterns of growth as children's texts
progressed from attribute lists to stories demonstrating a chronology: movement over
time. In retrospect I see this development in Tenaya's texts, as she gradually moved away
from attribute lists to personal narrative. Perhaps next time I will view student texts
diflFerently.
237
I am amazed at the huge themes that characterize their writings, of race, power,
and access. I wonder at the interaction of author(ship) and authority, an etymological
relationship I see borne out by practice as my students assume power and status through
their texts. I am curious to examine the use of popular culture by my students. That is,
not so much the themes themselves, but the way they use popular themes for their own
goals of community buflding. Children occasional^ chose to write on aggressive or
violent themes that had me ferociously rethinking my position on avoiding censorship.
Yet they used these common themes, of football, lowriders, and fighting, to forge a
common ground where they behaved in remarkably humanistic ways with each other.
They shared the role of Superbowl winner pretty equitably, each child getting a chance to
proclaim his favorite team the champion. They agreed to disagree over game statistics.
They negotiated the use of derogatory labels, as they talked and wrote about the fortywhiners and the cowgirls.
Just a few days ago I was walking through a shopping plaza and I overheard a
young boy talking with his father. The little boy, maybe five years old, was teUing his
father a fantasy story m which he, the boy, was battling wild animals by punching them in
the nose. He would stop after each phrase to grin at his father, and to invite him to join in
the tale. But the father msisted on respondmg to content of the story, rather than its
purpose. Each time he responded that he hoped the boy would not pimch the animals,
that he did not hke the story, that it wasn't nice to hurt animals. His son, desperate for his
&ther to 'get with the program' of creating a collaborative fantasy responded in turn by
escalating the violent action. His father told him to be quiet. I want to remember this
238
when my students write about blood and poop and squashing bugs. 1 want to remember to
look beneath the words, and find the message.
I ponder how I, who share the race and privilege of the dominant class, can
participate in the education of the minority language and culture children I have come to
admire so greatly. I find comfort in the notion of Whiteness as an ideology beyond skin
color, the hope that I can reach beyond phenotypic descriptors of race and choose to
locate myself as a social worker within a fi-amework of human emancipation (Giroux
1992). I see myself tomorrow, seated at the table with my young students, sharing in the
communit>' of writers. I look forward to joining with them and other teachers as we
search out ways to participate in a pedagogy of hope.
239
EPILOGUE
Almost a year after I conqjleted my study I was finally able to return for a visit to
Palo Verde School I was anxious to see all nty students, but particularly Rico, Tenaya^
and Marco, whose faces I carry with me in my mind, and pasted to ray computer tower.
It was an odd experience to visit my school as an outsider this location which had been
such a powerfiil community when I lived there. My closest coUeagues welcomed me
warmly, but there had been many staff changes, including a new administrator, that
increased my sense as 'the other'. Most of my past students, too, welcomed me,
disregarding the commonly enacted (and unspoken) convention which demands that
loyalty to the previous year's teacher be replaced by exclusive loyalty to the current one.
However, maintaining these concurrent relationships proved too dif5cult for several girls,
who announced to me that their fourth grade teacher (whom I had not met) did not like
me. In this uncomfortable stance, straddling the insider/outsider boundary, I found Rico
and Tenaya.
Rico had lost his smile, the mark of easy confidence. He walked roundshouldered, and his voice was so quiet I could not hear his greeting. His teacher, certified
in special education, had quickly referred him for additional services, and he now recei\'ed
all of his instruction in a pull-out resource program In the face of this child, now so
clearly convinced of his inferiority as a learner, I could not find the Rico I had known. I
could not uncover the child who had written about his long tailed rottweiler, or the salsaeating dog. When I reminded him of his stories, his face lit, briefly. He still had the dog,
he told me. I didn't ask him if he still wrote. I didn't want to suggest, inadvertently, that
240
he was failing to write, maybe letting me down. I wouldn't be there to admire his writing,
and I feared the reaction his text might receive in his classroom.
Tenaya was also in the resource room. She, however, would not be there next year. She
had been assigned to a self-contamed classroom for children with fecial needs. She was
marked by and for absolute school failure. Everything about her be^oke despair. Her
braids were gone, and her
hair stood out in ragged tufls on her head. Every time I
saw her, she was wandering the halL She appeared friendless, and without the support of
daily classroom interactions, perhaps was simply unable to connect with her peers. She
tracked me down each day I was at the school, stu£5ng folded pictures of trees, rainbows
and hearts into
hand. Her teacher was relieved that Tenaya would be m the special
program next year, and commented enthusiastically about Tenaya's improved behavior.
She didn't fight anymore, and was veiy quiet m the classroom
Marco had been moved to a neighboring school wlien the attendance boundaries were
again redrawn. To my surprise, although the secretary did not know me, she called him
down to the ofiBce so I could visit with him. She didn't know if he was actually in school
that day, he was out a couple of days every week. At the time of my visit in May he had
missed about forty days of school He was a tough kid, she remarked. Marco sat down
two chairs away from me. He smiled only briefly; no sign of the charm that had gotten
him labeled as an 'operator' the year before. He didn't like school He was still dancing
with the Banda Mercedes, some of the time. He didn't appear to be particularly interested
in my visit, and after I told him I didn't think I would be moving back, he seemed ready to
leave. The meeting was awkward, and I could not find a way to reconnect. I looked
241
back as I went out the door, but he was already headed upstairs. I watched until he
disappeared but he did not look back.
When I contrast the portrait of these three children against my memories of them, I
am aghast at how quickly a child can be crushed. In only a few months Rico was reduced
from a writer with a voice, to struggling and sflenced student. In only a few months
Tenaya was reduced from loud talking negotiator to sflenced loner. En only a few months
Marco became a truant with ever weakening connections to school experiences. How can
it still be possible, that a child's school experiences can focus so completely on what he is
perceived to lack, that the child himself is lost? How is it possible that these three children
went from being social actors in their own education, to failures slated for remedial
instruction?
Early in my investigations of children writing together, I gave a presentation at a
graduate seminar of my findings. I was surprised at the vehement responses my fellow
students and teaching colleagues expressed. After all, I wasn't (then) promoting a
pedagogy, but rather sharmg what I had learned. Yet, they were angry. ""What will
happen to those kids next year. Archer, when they're in another classroom?" they
challenged. "You see the changes in their writmg, but what about the State
assessments?" I didn't understand the anger that accompanied their queries then, but I
understand it now. This pedagogy, if you will, of collaboration, connection and
community, has profound effects on student development. But, it takes time. It takes
more than a year, or maybe even two, to replace a child's internalization of literacy as a
school task, with the notion of literacy as a tool for transformation. It takes a lot of
242
writing and sharing to bring that notion to the level of invariant knowledge, where that
notion of writing cannot be easily undermined by the voices of authority. Until our
schools become places where what children bring to us is as valued as what we teachers
bring to them, then we will continue to &il the Rico's and Tenaya's and Marco's in our
classrooms. It will look like they have &iled, but the failure will be ours. We will have
&iled to participate as co-leamers with our students. We will have &iled to learn new
'ways with words'. We will have &iled to enter with our students into the creation of new
worlds and the consideration of possible lives. We will have failed to arm our students
with the tools for their transformation.
243
POST SCRIPT
In the stories of Tenaya. Rico and Marco, I described Writer's
Workshop as an element of an emancipatory curriculum. Yet the epilogue
clearly depicted the silenced, dispirited, disengaged students they had become
one short year later. How is it possible then, to describe this pedagogy of
collaboration as a liberatory practice? Can an educational practice be
considered liberatory if it doesn't last?
Both this query and the answer came about in the dialog between my
doctoral committee and me at the final defense of this dissertation. I am deeply
grateful for that opportunity to finally define why I continue to believe so
strongly in Writer's Workshop as a significant emancipatory practice. Freire
described coming to critical consciousness as an experience akin to religious
conversion. That is, having once perceived of the world fi-om such a
perspective, one can never completely revert to the previous state of'not
knowing'. I believe this is also true of critical consciousness, that, as in the
indefatigability of grace, there is an equally powerful awakening that occurs
when one becomes of critically aware. In the face of enormous barriers that I
know my young students may experience it is my faith in this uidefatigability
of critical comcionstiess that sustains me.
244
REFERENCES
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Portsmoi^ NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Hememann.
Atwell, N. (1998). In the middle: New understandmps ahout writing reading and
learninp (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Heinemann.
Alvarez, J. (1997). Yo! "New York: Plume (Published by Penguin Group).
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