The absence and presence of identification: Interplaying student writers, materialities and technologies

Molbæk, M. (Introductory speaker)
Bonnie Vittrup (Introductory speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture or presentation

Period	4 Mar 2026
Event title	NERA 2026: Courage and Agency in Education for the Present
Event type	Conference
Conference number	2026
Location	Århus, DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International

Documents & Links

The absence and presence of identification: Interplaying student writers, materialities and technologies As we are interested in writer identity and school writing, this presentation moves into the classroom and shows examples of how a group writing assignment focusing on subject specific writing gives rise to students interplaying with each other, texts and other materialities. Our research question is: How do writing activities including identification with writing unfold in two writing groups in the same classroom? The presentation will focus more closely on two examples of group writing. We will demonstrate how writing as an activity unfolds and struggles to unfold through the ways in which students, materialities and technologies relate to each other. The examples thus show how the same framework and tools for writing introduced by the teacher are woven into the group activity in different ways and how these configurations of relating make writing become something different in the two cases. The examples are based on ethnographic data in the form of video and voice recordings combined with observation notes from the same classroom. In our analysis, we approach data from a socio material perspective (Leander & Boldt, 2012; Burnett & Merchant, 2021). We discuss the analysis drawing on Ivanic’s concept of writer identity (Ivanic, 1998; 2012) In example 1, we show how a writing group of five students engage in affective encounters with each other, materials and technologies. Rather than facilitating the act of writing designed by the teacher, the computer and the online writing program redirect the activity, producing alternative forms of engagement or output that diverge from the intended writing trajectory. In example 2, we follow affective movements in writing in the relationship between students, computers, furniture and place with a focus on two students in particular. In this way we will show how identification with writing emerges and how especially one of the students relates to writing and the subject matter in a personal way. Both examples point to how the relations between students, materialities and technologies in the writing activity transform and animate the act of writing. It is within these relations that writing and struggle unfold. But it is primarily the students' affective relations with each other that seem to intensify the students' engagement.