Eight Tweeters Tweeting: The Writing Processes of Second Graders Composing With Social Media

• In Event: Educators Meet the Fifth Estate: Social Media in Education

Abstract

Objectives. Information on children’s writing for online spaces is scarce (Authors, 2020). Despite standards for digital literacies, we know little about what young writers do or need to do to be effective communicators with social media. Such information could readily inform elementary writing instruction and technology integration in writing classrooms. This study addresses the absence of information by examining the writing processes of eight second-grade children (“tweeters”) when composing short-form writing online for their class Twitter account.

Perspectives. For nearly 40 years, scholars theorized about the writing process without focusing on technologies that made writing possible. They assumed that the underlying technologies--whether pencil, typewriter, on-screen keyboard, or speech-to-text app--had little or no bearing on a writer’s composing processes. In fact, no model of writing processes during these decades included technology as a component. Recent work has raised awareness about the possible role that technologies play (e.g., Graham, Harris, & Santangelo, 2015). This work, however, has not focused on the writing processes of children producing short-form text online. In response, this study inquired: What are the writing processes of second graders when composing tweets for online publication?

Methods and Data Sources. This multi-case study used two forms of data to understand children’s writing processes: talk aloud transcripts and video-stimulated recall interview transcripts. The multi-layered analysis focused on the tweeters’ motivation to tweet, goal setting, planning, and writing schema knowledge related to Twitter.

Results. The coarse-grained analysis indicated that the second graders’ writing processes with Twitter were similar to those of offline, paper-pencil writing, but finer-grained analysis indicated a number of ‘new’ processes. For these ‘new’ processes, the medium of Twitter shaped the tweeters’ motivation, goal setting, planning, and schema knowledge. For example, all eight tweeters said they were motivated to write because of the technology, not because they enjoyed writing or the content of their writing per se. Additionally, tweeters’ goal setting included management of the medium (i.e., the features and interoperability of Twitter) and aspirations that Twitter made possible beyond the medium (e.g., to a future life goal). When it came to planning, tweeters used features and affordances of the Twitter medium to move among modes (i.e., mode switching) as they planned and reworked plans for what they could write (e.g., from thought to visual to verbal to visual to physical modes of representation). Finally, tweeters drew upon several forms of medium-related schema knowledge when composing messages (e.g., blending visual, computer, and emotive codes with the linguistic code of the tweet). In all, the medium of Twitter was the main message for understanding what was ‘new’ about the writing processes of the eight tweeters (c.f., McLuhan, 1964, p. 7).

Significance. This study extends our understanding of writing with social media by highlighting how the processes used by children writing with Twitter are similar to the processes of offline writing in a general way, but more notably shaped by the material, features, and functions of the medium. Implications for social media-based learning and instruction-related research and practice are highlighted.

Authors

• Holly Marich, Michigan State University

• Diana Brandon, Florida State University

• Christine M. Greenhow, Michigan State University

• Douglas K. Hartman, Michigan State University