No abstract

U.S. adolescents’ prior technology experiences and exposure to digital genres vary, but they will often write digital texts as they enter college and adulthood. We explored middle school students’ digital writing instructional experience in the context of a university‐based summer digital writing camp. The sixth‐ through eighth‐grade adolescents fell into three profile groups: digital passengers, digital navigators, and digital drivers. Each group displayed distinct patterns of prior technology experiences and exposure to digital genres, digital writing processes, and instructional needs. Their digital writing instructional experience suggests that prior technology experiences and exposure to digital genres influence the ways adolescents envision and enact digital writing. In the middle school classroom, teachers may need to address a range of instructional needs during digital writing instruction.

managed this project at Ipsos MORI and would like to thank Tracy Mitchell, Charlotte Beckford and James Davison and all colleagues at LSC who worked on the research for all their help and assistance; thanks are also due to all the survey respondents who gave up their time to take part.

No abstract

Novice teachers experience language about literacy instruction from a variety of sources. This longitudinal case study uses Bakhtin’s notions of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse to consider how four novice teachers negotiated messages regarding literacy instruction from the conclusion of preservice education through their first 2 years of teaching. Although the challenges of the initial years of teaching have been studied, limited attention has been given to the ways in which novice teachers negotiate and take up language about literacy instruction within their school contexts. Interviews and email journals were used as data sources. Findings reveal that novice teachers perceived authoritative discourse from curricula, programs and assessments, and instructional expectations of administrators or senior colleagues. Participants accessed internally persuasive literacy discourses through questioning, supplementing, and changing literacy programs they perceived as required by authorities. Implications for teacher educators, researchers, and school personnel are discussed.