This qualitative narrative study investigated the relationship between emerging adults’ understandings of themselves as writers and their autobiographical memories of writing. Narrative data, largely elicited through semi-structured interviews, were collected from 14 participants who were recruited from six postsecondary institutions. Recruitment efforts aimed to yield participants who had divergent educational experiences, career ambitions, and dispositions towards writing, and who inhabited divergent racial, social, and cultural identities. The study contributes to writer identity research by applying a sociocultural framework that holds memory, narrative, identity, and culture as reflections—and, often, distortions—of each other. The research questions, asked through this lens, aimed to provide insight into the emotional residues of pre-college writing experiences, the potential patterning of narrated memories or identities among participants, and the ways in which the stories participants shared and the identities they storied shape each other. While this is fundamentally an inquiry into the narrative features of writer identity, it is also a study about how certain lived writing experiences reincarnate as highly emotive autobiographical memories; even if such memories tend to be unstable, unreliable, and suggestable, they are nonetheless meaningful reflections of the lingering effects of the past. Through this retrospective study, a portrait emerges of classroom conditions and writing experiences that are particularly hospitable to the nurturement of positive memories and healthy writing identities, as well as to the inverse. This research is intended to speak to both secondary English teachers and English teacher educators and college composition instructors by bridging secondary and postsecondary understandings of how student writers are moving between worlds, the memories they are bringing with them, and the ways in which they might be storying their writer identities en route.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study explored essay writing errors of English First Additional Language (EFAL) FET rural learners. The aim of the study was to analyse essay writing errors of the EFAL FET learners in rural schools. EFAL Grade 11 learners together with their educators from 4 circuits in Mopani West District of Limpopo Province (LP), South Africa (SA), participated in the study. The learners’ 40 essays were analysed. Additionally, the learners and educators were interviewed and the data generated were analysed. A qualitative Content Analysis (CA) research method was used to collect data. The sample was made up of 3 instruments; an essay checklist for the 40 essays, EFAL learners’ group interviews that consisted of 4 equal groups made up of 10 learners per school, and interviews with 4 educators from each of the school represented. N – Vivo was used for data transcription, storage and analysis. Errors populated in the checklist were arranged into smaller units, identified, analysed, described and reported. Data obtained through semi-structured interviews with EFAL learners and educators were transcribed and analysed thematically. The analysis of the EFAL FET rural learners’ essay writing errors revealed weaknesses pertaining to choice of essay topics, proofreading, spelling, punctuation and grammar.

This thesis, the outcome of nearly three years of preparation, including study, development of procedures, trial and observation, was begun in an attempt to answer the following questions: How may original writing among elementary pupils be motivated successfully? Can positive feelings about self be promoted to a measurable degree as a result of emphasizing individual oral and written expression? Although much thinking and evaluating occurred during the three years, the experimentation and results reported here are limited to the work accomplished and findings obtained during the third year. The twenty-six children involved in this study were third-year elementary pupils, whose ages ranged from seven to nine years. During the experimental period, listening, speaking, thinking, and writing were emphasized in the language arts program. A variety of topics provided subjects for written composition. To test the hypothesis that a measurable increase in self concept or self report ratings could be brought about by experiencing feelings of success and acceptance as a result of self-expression in writing, the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale was administered to two third grade classes, the experimental group and a control group, at the beginning and at the conclusion of an eight-week experimental period. Average reading scores from the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Form F, were available as an index to the ability of the two groups. During the experimental time, a writing topic was presented to the experimental group daily. Questions were used to promote discussion, elicit ideas, and encourage thinking and interest. When the majority of the group members had participated orally, and appeared to be interested and involved, paper was distributed and writing was begun. The writer could choose the form his writing was to take, and a variety of ideas could be derived from the topic presented. The result might be an account of a personal experience, original imaginative writing, rhymed or unrhymed verse, or a factual report. At the conclusion of the eight-week experimental period, self report scores of the two groups were compared. To demonstrate a significant change in score from the initial to the final report, a difference in individual raw scores of ten or more points was required. The raw scores of four subjects in the experimental group, and two subjects in the control group increased by ten or more points. However. the findings of this study indicated no significant differences to the self concepts of children in the experimental group as compared to the self concepts of children in the control group as a result of the writing treatment.

Research in higher education service-learning suggests that there is a positive relationship between service-learning and student learning outcomes as well as a positive relationship between students‘ interactions with the ―real world‖ through service-learning and the effects of these experiences on deepening students‘ knowledge in their disciplines. Recent studies have established this positive relationship between service-learning and university composition and literature students. However, aside from the existing literature on service-learning and composition and writing, there has been virtually no examination of the relationship between service-learning and creative writing. The purpose of this study was to investigate how seven creative writing students experienced the process of creative writing differently after engaging in service-learning in a creative writing course at a large, urban university in the southeastern United States and to determine if students experienced a transformative learning experience as indicated by Mezirow‘s (2000) transformational learning theory. This research study employed an instrumental narrative case study design to determine how seven university creative writing students experienced the process of creative writing differently after taking a creative writing course with an optional service-learning component. The results of the study indicated that service-learning invoked a transformative learning experience in these seven higher education creative writing students, each in different ways—some in their writing processes and writing content, some in how they reflected upon themselves and their writing in relation to the ―outside world,‖ and some in their sense of civic duty

For 10 weeks, an online writing club was a place where seven children, ages 5 to 8, came together to co-construct a space for sharing favorite texts and composing practices. This study documents the ways that the writing club offered a space for children to construct shared literacy practices that allowed for new meaning-making, social relationships, and literate identities. As the researcher and facilitator of the writing club, I took up an inquiry as stance position, which provided a generative space for exploring the tensions between practice and theory. Additionally, literacy dig analysis provided an opportunity to understand the discursive elements of the popular culture texts that young children bring into their literacy practices. Taking up sociocultural and critical childhood frameworks as well as multiliteracies and multimodal models of literacy, I explored the following questions: How do young children narrate their identities and social worlds through text? What stories (narratives) and resources do young children value and take up when writing? How do young children take up the space of an informal, online writing group to pursue intellectual, social, cultural, and composing lives? Over the 10 weeks, the writing club developed into a space where telling jokes, grabbing a notebook to learn how to draw like Dav Pilkey, and creating a plan for surviving “infinity holes” signaled belonging. Children shared interests often deemed inappropriate for school spaces (e.g., consumer culture, violence, and video games) and took up ideas from popular culture (e.g., Minecraft, LOL and Calico dolls, and Captain Cage) in their composing practices. The literacies of the children in this study were mobilized by family participation, the shared and private spaces in homes, and opportunities to experiment outside of the constraints of school curricular goals and expectations. As the children engaged in transmedia and multimodal composing practices, new literate identities were revealed and established expertise in knowledge of popular culture and digital composing practices helped reposition how children were seen by their peers in the writing club. The social and composing practices of the young children in this online writing club have important implications for the ways we design writing spaces and curriculum for young children that center children’s culture, composing practices, and ways of knowing and being as important resources for teaching and learning.

This dissertation journeys into the heart of narrative writing, exploring how personal stories shape the practices and identities of both students and instructors within academic writing instruction. At its core, it is an autoethnographic study that employs my own writing life as primary data to investigate the impact of narrative writing on teaching pedagogy. The research interrogates the traditional academic prioritization of objective, linear essay structures, questioning how such practices may obscure other legitimate forms of knowledge representation and identity construction within educational settings. Drawing from personal experiences of struggle within the constrictions of academic writing expectations, this work advocates for a narrative pedagogy. It recognizes storytelling as a rich, inclusive medium through which students can engage with texts and express complex understandings. By weaving in elements of motherhood, ancestry, and lived experience, the study underscores the need for a pedagogical shift towards recognizing the multiplicity of writer identities and the value of diverse narrative expressions.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att belysa elevers uppfattningar om kreativt skrivande inom svenskämnet. Frågeställningarna ämnar undersöka hur kreativt skrivande påverkar elevens skrivutveckling samt om kreativt skrivande kan leda till ökad motivation hos eleven. För att besvara frågeställningarna och uppfylla syftet används tidigare forskning samt fenomenografi som ramverk för att analysera skriftliga reflektioner om kreativt skrivande där 33 elever i årkurs nio valt att delta. Resultatet visar att kreativt skrivande är en viktig del i elevernas skrivprocess och bidrar till kunskapsutveckling. Det framkommer att kreativt skrivande skapar motivation och bidrar till ett lustfyllt lärande. Kreativt skrivande bidrar även till personlig utveckling då det bland annat ger eleverna möjlighet att bearbeta och få utlopp för tankar och känslor. / The purpose of the present study is to illustrate students’ perceptions of creative writing within the subject of Swedish. The research questions aim to investigate how creative writing affects students’ writing development and whether it can lead to increased motivation. To address these questions and fulfill the purpose, prior research is used as well as phenomenography used as framework to analyse written reflections on creative wrtiting from 33 ninth-grade students who chose to participate. The results indicate that creative writing is an important part of students’ writing process and contributes to their writing development. It is revealed that creative writing fosters motivation and contributes to joyful learning. Additionally, creative writing contributes to personal development by providing students with opportunities to process and express thoughts and emotions.

Responding to Student Writing: Strategies for a Distance-Teaching Context identifies viable response techniques for a unique discourse community. An overview of paradigmatic shifts in writing and reading theory, 'frameworks of response' developed to classify response statements for research purposes, and an overview of research in the field provide the theoretical basis for the evaluation of the empirical study. The research comprises a three-fold exploration of the response strategies adopted by Unisa lecturers to the writing of Practical English (PENl00-3) students. In the first phase the focus falls on the effect of intervention on the students' revised drafts of four divergent marking strategies - coded correction, minimal marking, taped response and self assessment. All the experimental strategies tested result in statistically-significant improvement levels in the revised draft. The benefits of self assessment and rewriting, even without tutorial intervention, were demonstrated. The study is unique by virtue of its distance-teaching context, its sample size of 1750 and in the high significance levels achieved. The second phase of the research consisted of a questionnaire that determined 2640 students' expectations with respect to marking, the value of commentary, their perceptions of markers' roles and their opinions of the experimental strategies tested. Their responses were also correlated with their final Practical English examination results. The third phase examined tutorial response. The framework of response, developed for the purpose, revealed that present response strategies represent a regression to the traditional product-orientated approach to writing that contradicts the cognitive and rhetorical axiological basis of the course. There is thus a disjunction between the teaching and theoretical practices. The final chapter bridges this gap by examining issues of audience, transparency, ownership, timing of intervention and training. The researcher believes that she has successfully identified practical and innovative strategies that assist lecturers in a distance-teaching context to break away from old response blueprints. / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

The purpose of this project is to aid the classroom teacher in exposing children to poetry through a curriculum guide with enabling activities which will encourage children to develop an appreciation and understanding of poetry.

This diploma thesis focuses on the important knowledge related to education and bringing up left-handed children. The theoretical part focuses on the explanation of the term laterality and its diagnostics and also on the methodology of left-handed writing and the preparatory exercises for writing. Furthermore this part points to some various causes and effects suppression of left- handedness, and a brief insight into a former approach and an actual approach. This part offers information to the new trend in writing - Czech school font called Comenia Script. The practical part concentrates on the development of writing for left-handed in the commonly used writing alphabet, and in the font Comenia Script. There is also included a tentative questionnaire for primary school teachers and an observation and teaching of left- handed pupils in four different grades at primary schools. Keywords: laterality, left-handedness, upbringing, education, the commonly used writing alphabet, the font Comenia Script