From “Painstaking” to “Open and Loose”: Using a Discursive-Cognitive Lens to Ease a Frustrated Adolescent Writer’s Process

Abstract

This case study of teacher research explores the utility of framing the writing development of adolescent writers in terms of their discursive identities and strategic behaviors. By merging our understandings of these frameworks, I argue that we can examine how adolescents’ goals, values, and beliefs associated with writing inform the strategic behaviors they engage. The setting for this study was a university-based literacy clinic where Louis, a high-school freshman, was assigned to me, a former English teacher, for writing support. I drew from discursive identity and writing process theories to frame my instructional intervention. During the three-week session, I guided Louis to write an editorial he submitted to a news outlet. Instruction focused on strategies to separate the processes of planning, drafting, and reviewing. Analysis revealed Louis’ shifting perspective from the writing process as systematic to more exploratory. This study supports framing student literate profiles in terms of both their discursive identities and cognitive processes.