Interplaying and the possibilities for selfhood as writers in a group writing activity

Beskrivelse

The presentation will focus on how a writing activity in a 7th grade classroom unfolds in the interplay between students and materialities, and how this interplay shapes opportunities and limitations of being a writer. More specifically, the presentation will focus on:

How do students interplay with each other, their computers, teacher expectations and the physical environment during a group writing activity, and what opportunities for being a writer emerge and are seized by the students?

The study is based on ethnographic data in the form of video and audio recordings combined with classroom observation notes (Bundgaard et al, 2018). In my analysis, I approach the empirical material from a socio material perspective (Burnett & Merchant, 2021) and combine this perspective with a sociocultural perspective, in that I discuss the analysis based on Ivanic's concept of writer identity (Ivanic, 2012). I do this by first following affective movements in the interplay between students, computers, furniture and place. I then turn perspective by focusing on two students in particular and show how attractive opportunities for selfhood in the writing process seem to come and struggle to come into being.

One student relates to peers, computers, group work, writing and the writing prompt by using the internet to search for information relevant to the writing prompt and by limiting collaboration to primarily orienting herself towards one specific peer. This seems to reveal a high degree of amusement and identification with writing. The other student seems to have more difficulty identifying attractive social opportunities for selfhood, indicated in her interplay with peers, computers and teacher expectations.

The combined theoretical perspectives on the writing activity help to shed light on the complexity, challenges and potential of group writing in relation to possibilities for selfhood as and opportunities to enact as writers.

References

Bundgaard, H., Overgaard Mogensen, H., Rubow, C., & Ahl, S. I. (2018). Antropologiske projekter : en grundbog. Samfundslitteratur.

Burnett, C., & Merchant, G. (2021). Returning to Text: Affect, Meaning Making, and Literacies. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(2), 355-367.

Ivanič, R. (2012). Writing the self: The discoursal construction of identity on intersecting timescales. In Matre, S., Sjøhelle, D.K. & Solheim, R. (Red.). Teorier om tekst i møte med skolens lese- og skrivepraksiser (pp. 17– 32). Universitetsforlaget.

Periode	27 jun. 2026
Begivenhedstitel	ARLE conference 2026: The Unbounded Journey: The Teaching of First Language, Literacy, and Literature in a Dynamic World
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Konferencenummer	15
Placering	Barcelona, SpanienVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International