1st Edition
Understanding Young People's Writing Development Identity, Disciplinarity, and Education
This collection offers an inclusive, multifaceted look at individual students’ patterns of writing trajectories, as well as their development of an identity as a writer. Building on rare longitudinal research, this translated text explores how adolescents learn subjects through writing and learn writing through subjects. Contributors consider issues relating to different forms of writing and grapple with students’ ambivalence or resistance to this at school, together offering an examination of how the education system can rise to the challenge of offering today’s students meaningful and appropriate writing instruction.
Bringing knowledge from writing researchers and educational researchers together, Understanding Young People’s Writing Development explores:
- Young adults’ complicated experiences with the school writing project
- Practices, purposes, and identification in student note writing
- Knowledge construction in writing as experience and educational aim
- The pedagogical challenges and perspectives of writing and writer development
- Creativity as experience and potential in writing development
- The impact of digital technologies and media on student writing
Using students’ work to aid the understanding of practice, this book will help highlight the importance of viewing individual writer developments from a social, institutional, and societal context, and raise questions that will advance writing pedagogy and the teaching and learning of school subjects.
List of contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Ellen Krogh and Karen Sonne Jakobsen
Chapter 1: Writing and writer development: A theoretical framework for longitudinal study
Karen Sonne Jakobsen and Ellen Krogh
Chapter 2: Extended formats: Students’ development as knowledge constructing writers
Ellen Krogh
Chapter 3: Practices, purposes, and identifications in student note writing
Torben Spanget Christensen
Chapter 4: Enabling and constraining: Digital technology in students’ writing and writer development
Nikolaj Elf
Chapter 5: Young adults’ complicated experiences with the school writing project
Peter Hobel
Chapter 6: Narratives as practice and potentials in adolescents’ writer development
Anke Piekut
Chapter 7: Identity work and writing development in mathematics
Steffen Møllegaard Iversen
Chapter 8: Creativity as experience and potential in writing development
Karen Sonne Jakobsen
Chapter 9: Writing and writer development: Pedagogical challenges and perspectives
Peter Hobel, Ellen Krogh, and Anke Piekut
Biography
Ellen Krogh is Professor Emeritus at the Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark. Her main research areas include disciplinary didactics, curriculum studies, and writing in the disciplines. She has engaged in research leadership as chair and board member of Danish, Nordic, and international research organisations, such as ISAWR (International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research).
Karen Sonne Jakobsen is Associate Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University. Her main research areas include foreign language pedagogy, project-based foreign language education, and sociocultural and developmental learning theory. She is a co-editor of Sprogforum (Language Forum – Journal of Language and Culture Pedagogy).
Bethan Marshall, Senior Lecturer in English and Education, Kings College London, UK
Yes, I think there is a real need for this book. Although the research has been undertaken in Denmark many of the principles that they are considering apply as much to students in the UK as in Denmark. It will be primarily of interest to researchers in the field but also to those doing an MA or a PhD....Few books follow a student’s development over a number of years and this should be of interest. More work that followed pupils’ development in the way that the authors suggest this book does would be worthwhile.
Is the author a recognised authority in this field? Yes
Major strengths and distinctive features:
The major strengths are that they consider writers in a number of different areas and that they look at them over a period of time, most notably over the course of upper secondary education. Also interesting is the chapter on literacy and technology. Given the focus on both areas it is interesting to have two case studies telling different stories.
Weaknesses and the necessary modifications needed:
None
Do you recommend that we should publish this book?
YesReviewer: Lavinia Hirsu, Writing Specialist and Applied Linguist, Glasgow University, UK
The book seems is an appealing manuscript for an international audience. It lives up to the identified audience in the proposal as it maintains a wide scope and provides in-depth analyses that will appeal to teachers, scholars and students alike. While the book seems accessible for all undergraduate students, I see it primarily suitable for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, teachers and scholars.
By acknowledging its own location (the "Nordic" context) and its particular contribution to the literature on writing development, the book invites audiences in similar teaching contexts to reflect on their own practices. The manuscript is thematically generous and addresses a good range of subjects/disciplines, thus reaching a wide international audience.
Given the longitudinal data and the wide relevance of the topics covered, I see this book having a consistent market. For it to increase its potential audience in time, it may be good if it brought forward the issues of "mass literacy" and "digital technologies" more explicitly in the description of the book (even, potentially, in the title of the manuscript) and in some of its chapters. These topics are already present in the proposal so it is more a matter of foregrounding the contributions of this book to current literacy concerns while, at the same time, highlighting new shifts in the literature that the authors propose.
The authors are established scholars with relevant experiences and knowledge that add to the value of the book.
Major strengths and distinctive features:
The book makes key contributions in the following areas: a. it takes a longitudinal approach which is very difficult to harness in today’s economy of knowledge production; b. it brings together some very interesting themes and topics: "mass literacy," "bildung," different time scales, knowledge-making and development processes, c. it considers the relationship between writing development and the development of writers’ identities. These are all looked at in the context of different school subjects/disciplines. The chapters are well sequenced and each makes a good contribution to the overall scope of the book.
Elements that would make this volume a unique or essential resource:
A critical discussion of the longitudinal process behind the research would add a new dimension to the book that would interest students and scholars alike.
The focus on time scales and "mass literacy" in relation to subject and disciplinary writing are very interesting aspects that could be brought more upfront.
Weaknesses and the necessary modifications needed:
At this moment, each chapter starts with a descriptive title that outlines what the focus of the chapter is rather than what its main contribution is. To enhance the value of the volume, each chapter could have a revised title that would capture the argument or the contribution of the piece rather than the description of the content or the context of each chapter. In other words, the chapters should catch the readers’ attention by emphasizing some of the main findings and arguments sooner and more explicitly. The introduction and final chapters could also be used to highlight the key elements that add to the current literature and move the conversations on writing development further.
Do you recommend that we should publish this book?
Yes.
