Young children’s textual worlds: Topics and emergent genres in students’ early writing
Submitted by:
Jesper Bremholm
Abstract:
In the study we propose to present in this paper, we use empirical data from the research project Automated Tracking of Early Stage Literacy Skills (ATEL) (2018-2023) to describe the textual world in texts written by students in the early years of schooling. At this age, the students have only just begun to use written language to communicate about themselves and their surrounding world, and in our study, we examine these early writing attempts adopting topic and genre as our analytical focus.
As part of the ATEL project, we have - through the collection, coding and statistical analysis of a large number of student texts - described proficiency scales in multiple dimensions for students’ writing development in the first years of school (Bremholm et al., 2022). The empirical data for this work consisted of picture books written by Danish primary school students (ages 6 to 8) using a digital book creator app intended for children (n=803). For the coding of the student texts, we developed a fine-grained analytical framework that combines structural linguistics and systemic functional linguistics (Kabel et al., 2022). This framework also includes the categories "Semantic universe" (main topics in the texts) and "Genre" (genre features in the texts). Regarding the “Genre” category, it refers to an understanding of genre as both social action and routinized, socially recognizable ways of making meaning (Miller, 1984).
In the present study, we undertake to examine the textual worlds in students’ early writing by doing a more in-depth analysis of the data from the coding of the categories “Semantic universe” and “Genre” than was possible in the larger ATEL study. In the paper, we present the analytical procedure as well as the results of the analysis of the two coding categories. Regarding “Genre”, for example, we have identified several emerging genres reflecting both school genres and genres from popular culture – although not yet in conventionalized formats. In conclusion, we discuss the findings of the study in a pedagogical perspective, including curricular goals and the influence of digital writing technology on what and how the students write (Burnett & Merchant, 2020).
References
Bremholm, J., Bundsgaard, J., & Kabel, K. (2022). Proficiency scales for early writing development. Writing & Pedagogy, 13(1), 1-34. DOI: 10.1558/wap.21490.
Burnett, C., & Merchant, G. (2020b). Undoing the Digital: Sociomaterialism and Literacy Education. Taylor and Francis. DOI: 10.4324/9781003023159
Kabel, K., Bremholm, J. & Bundsgaard, J. (2022). A framework for identifying early writing development. Writing & Pedagogy, 13(1), 1-38. DOI: 10.1558/wap.21467.
Miller, C. R. (1984) Genre as social action, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70:2, 151-167, DOI: 10.1080/00335638409383686.