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A Study Of The Reading And Writing Experiences Of Four Laotian Refugee Adolescents From One Family In An American Secondary School, Danling Fu

Doctoral Dissertations

This study describes and interprets the reading and writing experiences of four recently arrived Laotian refugee adolescents from one family in an American secondary school. Through four extensive case studies, the study compares and contrasts how these individuals read and write on their own initiative and are taught to read and write at school, and what happens when the school agenda matches and mismatches their learning patterns. This study reveals how school structure re-enforces the marginalization of the ethnic minority students in their school life by ignoring what they know and who they are. With a focus on four minority …

An Ecological Perspective Of Writing: Teachers, Peers, And Authors As Resources In A Response-Based Classroom, Margaret L. Murray

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study examines the ways in which the available resources of books, classmates, and teacher affect three fourth-grade students' writing development within the same classroom. The study's unique contribution is its holistic description of how all three resources contribute collectively to the ongoing writing of these individuals over the better part of their school year. The study describes the ways in which the children's writing and their notions of good writing are being formed in the dialectical processes of interaction with these resources. Further, the study describes the global traits of their particular classroom's culture--its extant written forms and …

A Celebration Of Tradition Or Of Self? An Ethnographic Study Of Teachers' Comments On Student Writing In America And In China, Xiao-Ming Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The study builds a dialogue between teachers of writing in China and America on what "good writing" is, for the purpose of revealing the fact that "good writing" resides not just with student texts, but with the teachers who read and judge student papers.

Writing comments on student papers is a time-honored and widely accepted practice in writing classrooms in most countries. Teachers offer text-specific advice to each student and communicate to the student writer, among other things, the criteria of good writing. A close look at the teacher's comments, therefore, reveals the criteria with which teachers measure student papers. …

More Than Print: The Home And School Literacies Of Three Fourth-Graders, Margaret M. Voss

Doctoral Dissertations

Through ethnographic case studies of three fourth-grade children, this study investigates the relationships between children's home and school literacies. The data were collected through participant-observation in the children's homes and at school; interviews of children, parents, and teacher; and analysis of children's products and processes (such as written work and hand-made crafts).

The study defines a literacy as a meaning-making system which can be used functionally, communicatively, reflectively, flexibly, and pleasurably. Schools typically focus on print literacy and do not always recognize or value the range of literacies children bring with them from home. This research shows children using not …