Exploration of the Gendered Nature of Children's Self-Chosen Writing Topics in a Diverse Classroom Community

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: Writing and Literacies SIG Roundtable 4. Children's Writing: The Truth About Feedback, Self-Efficacy, and Gender Bias

Abstract

This ethnographic study investigated how the students in a third-grade classroom chose their writing topics and how they perceived their peers’ choice of writing topics in relation to gender. Data collections included participant observation, field notes, interviews, retrospective conversations, and collection of the students’ writing artifacts. Unlike the findings from the previous studies, the students’ stories in this study were not consistent with conventional gender binaries. Instead, there were several unrecognized and unnoticed moments at which the students were not subjected to the conventional gender binaries. Implications suggested that it may be necessary to reconceptualize the writing workshop as the site in which teachers and students can question and discuss dualistic gender ideology and experiment with multiple gendered positions.

Authors

• Jeonghee Choi, Arkansas State University

• Yeonsun (Ellie) Ro, Institution of Early Global Education

• Kwangok Song, Arkansas State University