A case study examined assumptions of current written language pedagogies, particularly the links between oral performance, literacy pedagogy, and the use of the explicit, analytic language valued in school. The subject, a young African-American child enrolled in an urban K/1 classroom, used school writing activities and the music of language to…

Based on data gathered in a participant observation project that focused on young children's behaviors during school structured literacy tasks, a study examined the relationship between learning to write and learning to perform school writing tasks. (HOD)

Presents case studies of two first-grade children, examining their writing as a linguistic and social process that involves the child in an exploration of both oral and written language within the social context of the classroom. (HTH)

Presents brief stories of two students that illustrate how children's symbolic interactions and social relationships (how they interact with materials and people) influence their ways of gaining control over the interrelated parts of written language, and how these "casts of mind" may eventually emerge more fully within their stories.…

Using data collected from kindergarten and second grade children in a study of young children's concepts about writing as reflected in their school writing behaviors, this report focuses on information gathered from second grade children. The introductory chapter restates the research questions guiding the study and briefly reviews the major…