Becoming a Writer in PreK: Constructing Writing Practices and Identities in Collaborative “Live Writing” Events

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Imagining Early Literacy, Care, and Criticality

Abstract

This paper describes how expert early writing teachers and their 4-year-old students built shared understandings about writing in “live writing” events where they publicly co-authored a shared text. Data were collected across nine months in three PreK classrooms using ethnographic methods. Micro-ethnographic discourse analysis procedures traced how teachers and children publicly proposed and negotiated writing practices expected of 4-year-old writers. Live writing events were marked by flexible shifts back and forth between idea generation and transcription. Recording children’s ideas in print provided opportunities for instruction in transcription skills within the context of meaningful writing. The class constructed conceptions of the characteristics of a “good” PreK writer and children had opportunites to construct positive writerly identities for themselves and peers.

Authors

• Deborah Rowe, Vanderbilt University

• Erica Lee Payne, Vanderbilt University