This embedded case study investigates the nature of authorship in a secondary English Language Arts classroom by examining two adolescents’ writing identities and experiences writing across genres. Using rhetorical genre theory, the study illustrates how composition and notions of authorship in this context were strongly informed by conversations—both with peers and the teacher. An additional finding was that students wrote themselves into different genre identities as they composed poetry, editorials, and memoirs, drawing on different authorial stances and sources of knowledge. Finally, this analysis documents robust learning about the nature of writing, including transferring rhetorical strategies across contexts and purposes, skills often called for in education policy as well as career and college writing, not documented in secondary schools. Implications for teaching include valuing relationship-building conversations, offering students multiple genre positions across secondary writing experiences, and considering ways to build upon writers’ self-described and socially constructed identities as successful writers.
Literacy self-assessments suggest that middle school students are haunted by standard language ideologies even during resource-based summer reading and writing instruction. E nglish language arts (ELA) research has documented the importance of students' ability to selfassess (Warrington, Graeber, White, & Saxton, 2018), set literacy goals, and maintain and develop positive literacy identities (Cremin & Locke, 2017; Skerrett, 2012). David, Consalvo, and Vetter (2019) found that "asking young people about their writing prompts… ELA educators to see students as more-as capable and collaborative writers who have the potential to refine and enhance their writing" (p. 67). Unlike traditional assessments framed around faults and deficits, selfassessments that ask students to articulate what they do well and want to learn are beneficial to students' achievement (Murphy,
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