<p> Ill-structured problem solving requires a variety of skills and strategies that K-12 students often lack due to limited exposure to these problems and a reliance on superficial problem-solving strategies (Greiff et al., 2013; Jonassen, 1997, 2000; Mayer &amp; Wittrock, 2006). This study employed a computer-based problem-solving program called Solve It!, which scaffolds students through a general problem-solving process to identify and support solutions to ill-structured physics problems. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, this study examined the impact of the prompt response and narrative writing tasks on seventh grade students&rsquo; (N = 117) physics content knowledge and problem-solving strategy acquisition while solving ill-structured problems in Solve It!. Students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, which varied in the type of writing tasks students completed. Findings from this study revealed a significant increase in physics knowledge and problem-solving strategies across conditions. Due to the small sample size and several limitations with the study design, condition effects did not emerge. However, students in the narrative writing condition with low physics prior knowledge did benefit from the narrative writing task. Implications for this research include the use of computer-based environments to teach both content and problem-solving strategies simultaneously and the potential to use narrative writing tasks for learning.</p>

The purpose of this study was to investigate issues of writer identity in a college classroom, especially as they relate to the social and cultural influences of society. Using a poststructural lens to establish the theoretical viewpoint, this study examined the role of discourse in both framing student constructions of their identities and shaping the ideological stances from which they drew those understandings. The methodology used included an ethnographic study of a junior year writing class required of education majors at a large university. Examination and analysis of student writing/talk was used along with observation of student behaviors. Discourse analysis was also employed as a means of more closely examining the work of four of these students who were chosen because they constructed their identities in a more negative fashion. The research was conducted with twenty-one students with findings indicating they did not generally recognize aspects of race, ethnicity, second-language, disability or other sociocultural conditions as influential factors on their writer identity constructions. Students demonstrated a clear preference for expressivist writing, constructing more positive identities around it. Many students expressed concerns about aspects of traditional formal writing and signaled stunted growth and uninitiated-type identities when discussing these concerns. A third of the students expressed concerns about process writing, primarily fearing judgment and critique of their peers. Discourse analysis provided evidence that the composition discourses of expressivism, traditional formal academic discourse, and process permeated student language and were instrumental in constructing writer identity. This methodology also provided evidence that the basic composition metaphors of “stunted growth” and initiation were implicated in student writer identities, especially in relationship to traditional formal academic discourse. Writer identity in almost all cases was found to be multiple and, for most students, conflicting across situation and genre. The implications of this study suggest a need for explicit discussion of the political aspects of written language use in the academy. A case is also made for integrating more hybrid forms of discourse into writing classes as students taking up expressivist discourse, for the most part, constructed more positive writer identities.

This dissertation reports a study of the social interactions of kindergarten children as they engaged in peer writing activities during free choice periods. The theoretical proposition framing the study is that children may use writing in peer groups to advance their social agendas. These agendas may or may not be those of the teacher or the school. The purposes of the study were: (a) to investigate the nature of students' agendas with respect to both their writing and their social relationships, and (b) to analyze the ways in which writing in this single classroom was connected to children's social and personal identities. Over a full school year, sixty-five hours of videotape were collected with a primary focus on writing activities. Microanalysis of students' discourse processes, using systematic discourse analysis and conversational coding techniques, provided the primary data that supported the findings. A focused study was carried out of the story-construction patterns of one group of girls. These girls created stories in which the characters were fictionalizations of themselves and each other. Through their peer interactions in the process of constructing the stories, the girls negotiated their real-life roles and positions of status, their ownership of both their writing and their personas, and their relationships with each other. Both their writing and their social relationships were transformed in the process. Current practice in teaching elementary writing, based on educators' agendas, supports social interaction as a medium for improved cognition and higher quality written products. The results of this study show that when writing in peer groups is viewed from the students' point of view, some children use school writing to serve their needs for both affiliation and individual agency by negotiating identity issues within the writing process. Such findings contradict the theory that young children are essentially egocentric, suggesting rather that their social competence is as developed when they enter school as their communicative competence. To be complete, a theory of school writing must take into consideration the students' agendas as well as those of educators.