Looking Beyond the Texts in First Graders’ Nonfiction Writing: A Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Study

• In Event: Roundtable Session 96
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Multiple Discursive Contexts for Learning

Abstract

This study examines the ways young children construct their understandings of what it means to be a writer of nonfiction and how social and cultural practices are utilized in this construction. Using discourse analysis methodology it describes the literacy practices of one first grade student as he engages in illustrating a nonfiction report making visible the mediational tools and practices the student uses. This research focuses on the issue of what the written text is meant to convey and finds that the nonfiction text in its entirety indexes much more than what the student has been able to put into the writing.

Author

• Melissa I. Wilson, The Ohio State University