Enhancing and Displacing Literacy Practices: Examining Student Publishing in a Fifth Grade Writer’s Workshop

Kimberly Lenters

doi:10.20360/g2x30w

Abstract

Publication of student work has been considered a mainstay of the writer’s workshop since the early days of the ‘children as authors’ movement (Graves, 1983). However, this philosophy, which stipulates students should share their work with peers, may not be one that always benefits students. This case study utilizes the concept of literacy-in-action (Brandt & Clinton, 2002), to look at the manner in which one local rendition of writer’s workshop both enhanced and displaced student literacy practices. The guiding question asks: How are focal students, Sara, Ally and Nigel, engaging in the practice of publication of their writing and how are those publications, as literacy objects, mediating their practice of literacy in the writer’s workshop? The examination of writer’s workshop first presents the way publication of student writing found its way into Sara and Nigel’s classroom and the kinds of investments accumulated in it as it made its way into their practice of classroom writing. It then presents the agentful activity engaged in by these students in their classroom literacy practice of writing for publication. Through the analysis, the ways an assessment-focused writer’s workshop worked to enhance and displace individual student’s literacy practices are brought out.

Highlights

Publication of student work has been considered a mainstay of the writer’s workshop since the early days of the ‘children as authors’ movement (Graves, 1983)
Proponents viewed the process of writing as the primary focus of writer’s workshop, while maintaining that children should be encouraged to draft and re-draft some of their written work with a particular audience in mind (Atwell, 1987; Calkins, 1986; Graves, 1983)
At the elementary school level, this came to be used as a motivational device: students would be more willing to revise and polish their written work if they knew it was going to be put on display (Calkins, 1986, 1994)

Summary

Introduction

Publication of student work has been considered a mainstay of the writer’s workshop since the early days of the ‘children as authors’ movement (Graves, 1983). Publication of student writing has been considered a mainstay of the writer’s workshop since the early days of the ‘children as authors’ movement (Graves, 1983). Lensmire’s analysis shows that positive aspects of his students’ participation in writer’s workshop were threatened by the way publications were used by some students to hurt others or express violent intentions, further entrenching existing social divisions and tensions in their classroom

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion