No Stopping Rule for Writing Instruction: Thirty Years of Positioning Student Writers as Decision-Makers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Wicked Renewal: Reframing Problems of Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms (Table 3)

Abstract

Overview
Focusing attention on individual writers, not on standardization of writing and writing instruction, reveals the wickedity of instructing student writers. The problems writers face do not have “true or false answers,” and the solutions cannot be judged as “good or bad” without considering the situation, purpose, and audience (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 163). To address these problems and solutions, the teacher-researcher designed a learning experience ecosystem (Cooper, 1986; Inoue, 2015; McCarthey, 2012; Williamson, 2023) that opened spaces to explore language and texts and provided opportunities for dialogue about writing. These opportunities allowed for an authenticity of process for writers in a school setting.

Context, Data, and Analysis
The context occurred across thirty-plus years of practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; 2009) in the researcher’s classroom working with high school writers. In this environment, the teacher-researcher privileged and co-constructed relationships and community with her students, co-creating a climate that acknowledged, “To be a writer is to be human; to be a teacher of writers is to acknowledge and revere students’ humanity” (LeeKeenan & White, 2021, p. 93). Recognizing students’ humanity and leveraging the interdependence in this ecosystem—among students, between students and teacher, and between students, teachers, and texts—are keys to addressing the wicked problem of teaching writers and of positioning student writers as decision-makers. This positioning means addressing each writer and writing situation as unique, the heart of the wicked problem that teachers face when guiding students to navigate the ecosystem.

Using autoethnographic methods (Ellis & Bochner, 2000), the teacher-researcher examined her own writing instructional practices of using writer’s notebooks (Fletcher, 1996; Reif, 2003), mentor texts (Gallager, 2011; Wood Ray, 2006), and conferences (Anderson, 2000; LeeKeenan, & White, 2021) to guide writers in their decision-making processes, considering conversations with students, examples of student writing work, and growth over time.

To address positioning students as decision-makers, this research considers two questions: How can high school English teachers create classroom spaces that honor the humanity of their students, spaces where writers’ identities and voices matter, spaces where students learn about the decisions they need to and can make as writers? What pedagogical and design moves might a high school English teacher make to create this space to show students about being writers instead of just telling them how to write? These questions guide the examination of how students explore and share their identities as writers, and ultimately find their niches in a writing habitat that supports their growth.

Findings

Reflections on the use of writer’s notebooks, mentor texts, and conferences reveal how these tools help create a humane environment where the teacher-researcher learned alongside students about how to work as a teacher of writers while student writers learned alongside the researcher about being writers, and where both teacher and students learned alongside texts. The resulting decision-making allowed for both teacher and student agency and addressed the wicked problem of the uniqueness of teaching writers and of being a writer.

Word count: 497

Author

• Valerie Taylor, University of Texas at Austin