Topics/markers/no location/tab



Fourth, sixth, and eight graders’ preferred writing topics and identification of gender markers in stories

Students in elementary and middle-grade writing classrooms whose teachers espouse a process approach to writing are encouraged to express their unique perspectives on their world and to exercise personal choice of topics, genres and styles in their writing. Students rehearse, write, revise and edit for the purpose of communicating ideas and sharing stories with their teachers and their peers. Teachers have embraced a process writing approach to instruction largely because of its documented success in fostering students’ motivation and competence as writers (Atwell, 1998; Calkins, 1994; Graves, 1994).

There is growing evidence indicating that students’ rhetorical choices are socially constituted, however, and that an emphasis on the idiosyncratic nature of writing obscures the social meanings that are embedded within the writing (Finders, 1997; Gilbert, 1992 & 1993; Lensmire, 1994). Recognizing literacy learning as a social process, these researchers insist that writing teachers’ pedagogical decisions must consider the social relationships and social meanings that influence students’ choices and decisions while writing. Furthermore, they contend that overlooking the influence of dominant gender discourses on students’ writing may limit the possibilities for individual discovery and self-expression that are integral to the process writing approach.

Evidence of the social constraints on students’ rhetorical choices has been documented in a first-grade classroom where a socially dominant boys’ group refused to conference with girls because they viewed girls as inadequate partners (Henkin, 1995); in a second-grade classroom where girls’ stories were often not published because they did not conform to the prevailing classroom conflict-resolution model of good stories (Fleming, 1995); and in a seventh-grade classroom where girls wrote about “safe” topics that “were tied to their social roles and filtered through their literate histories as students, daughters, and friends” that did not endanger their status in the classroom social network (Finders, 1997, p. 120). In all three classrooms, the speaking positions that students took up and the subjects they constructed in their narrative writing were overlooked, as the classroom teachers focused on students’ freedom of expression and the various stages of students’ writing processes.

Social constraints on students’ writing competence are apparent in a comparison of scores assigned to the narrative writing of elementary and middle-grade girls and boys on state, provincial, and national writing tests, as well. A trend emerges in this comparison showing the assignment of higher scores for girls' narrative writing than for boys’ writing (Afflerbach, 1985; Alberta Education, 1995 & 1992; Applebee, Langer & Mullis, 1986; Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1995). The predominance of this trend over time and across international borders warrants a closer examination of the gendered subject positions available to elementary and middle-grade students as classroom narrative writers and readers.

Situated within a poststructuralist theoretical framework, this research study explored the gendered subject positions taken up by middle-grade girls and boys in their own narrative writing and in their reading of peers’ writing. The following research questions guided the study:

(1) What gender markers do fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students use to identify the gender of writers of three narrative papers?

(2) What topics do middle-grade girls and boys choose when writing narratives?

Theoretical Background

Poststructuralist theory embraces the interaction of social structures, language and individuals, locating each of these within their social and historical contexts. Each individual is viewed as being simultaneously “constituted through social structures and through language, . . . becom[ing] a speaking subject, one who can continue to speak/write into existence those same structures through those same discourses” (Davies, 1993, p. xviii). Gender roles and relationships are significant features of individuals’ self-definitions. Indeed, “children learn to take up their maleness or femaleness as if it were an incorrigible element of their personal and social selves” (Davies, 1989, p. x). However, individuals’ gendered subjectivities are fluid, dynamic and non unitary; constantly being recreated in innumerable versions through individuals’ participation in various discursive practices. It is this aspect of poststructuralist theory that makes possible both an examination of the ways in which existing social relations are maintained and reproduced and an examination of the potential for individual agency in producing new social meanings.

In this study, poststructuralist theory is used to highlight the complex interactions of social meanings and students’ classroom narrative writing choices. Students’ discursive histories are examined through their perceptions of the topic choices that are available when they write narratives and through the ways in which they position writers of the narratives they read. A narrow range of gendered subject positions taken up by students in this study may reflect either limited access to a variety of discourses or the possibility that “subjectivity is more readily recognizable and acceptable when the subject position offered is compatible with a number of other dominant and powerful discourses” (Gilbert & Taylor, 1991, p. 42). Using a poststructuralist framework in this study also makes it possible to uncover ways in which students show resistance to subject positions available to them within dominant discourses and their sense of agency in offering other possible subject positions. Narrative writing is viewed as an important vehicle through which students may become agentic subjects because it affords opportunities for revising and rethinking using the forms and conventions of written language to organize thoughts and open up new ways of understanding the assumptions of dominant discourses.

The gendered subject positions taken up by elementary children are reflected in the power relationships among characters, characters’ sense of agency and the conflict resolution strategies adopted by characters within students’ narrative writing. Researchers’ analyses of student writing repeatedly reveal a narrow range of gendered subject positions within elementary students’ narrative texts. In two studies (Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Tuck, Bayliss and Bell, 1985), female and male writers created both stereotyped and non-stereotyped characters of their own gender in their narrative writing. There was greater evidence of male characters in girls’ stories than of female characters in boys’ stories, however. Male characters were portrayed as problem solvers in 92% of boys’ stories and 62% of girls’ stories written by students in grades one through six. Female writers assigned more emotional states and prosocial behaviors (helping, sharing, empathizing) to their characters than did male writers. In contrast, characters in stories written by boys exhibited aggressive behavior and were involved in high intensity, dangerous actions to a greater degree than were characters in stories written by girls. These findings were consistent with Gray-Schlegel and Gray-Schlegel’s (1995-96) analysis of third- and sixth-grade narrative writing and McAuliffe’s (1994) and Fleming’s (1995) examinations of second-grade narrative writing.

When compared with boys’ writing, girls’ writing exhibited a wider range of topics in third- and sixth-grade narrative writing examined by Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel (1995-96). In addition, while boys generally included only male characters, girls employed both male and female characters in their stories. McAuliffe (1994) found that encouraging children to explore gender-related writing differences in discussions of their narrative writing with peers did influence students’ writing, however. Within this environment, second-grade girls and boys became more flexible in their use of gender-related writing styles and in the creation of male and female characters.

Viewed through a poststructuralist lens, researchers’ analyses of elementary children’s writing highlight the constraints in terms of gendered subject positions available to children in their narrative writing. Boys’ writing can be characterized by a limited offering of roles for female characters, and a positioning of male characters in powerful, risk-filled roles that require independent problem solving to overcome obstacles. Violence and crime are typically found in boys’ writing. Girls’ writing is defined less rigidly, with the positioning of female characters in both powerful and powerless roles, and the presence of some male characters. Violence may be an element in girls’ stories. Characters are more likely to resolve conflicts through the creation of alliances with others, however, than through independent, aggressive action.

Procedure

Middle-grade students participating in this research study articulated their perceptions of gender markers in peers’ narrative writing through a questionnaire administered in their classrooms. In November, 1997, 200 fourth-grade, 232 sixth-grade and 185 eighth-grade students in one urban, one rural, and one suburban school district in north central Ohio read three stories written by students at their grade level. Participating students were asked to identify the gender of the writer, if possible, and to identify gender markers within the story. In addition, students indicated their own sex and listed topics they preferred to write about.

The three classrooms at each grade level within each district (nine in total in each district) were selected according to the protocol of the district. In the urban district, a language arts consultant provided a list of teachers who were interested in participating in the study, while the principals of the rural and suburban schools provided a list of teachers who could be approached as potential participants.

The stories, written by Ohio students from a nearby district that had not participated in the study, were selected because they exhibited characteristics of both girls’ and boys’ writing as identified in previous research studies (Fleming, 1995; Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel, 1995-96; Kamler, 1993; McAuliffe, 1994; Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Sutton-Smith, 1981; Trepanier-Street & Romatowski, 1991; Tuck, Bayliss & Bell, 1985). They were presented to participating students in type-written form, unedited by adults. The procedure was pilot tested in one classroom in each of the three grades in April, 1997.

Data Analysis

Following the calculation of frequencies of students’ assignment of gender to the writers of the three papers, gender markers within the nine narrative papers were analyzed using three categories that had guided previous research studies and one category that emerged from the data. The four categories are:

(1) primary territory/tertiary territory In a previous research study, Graves (1975) found that girls’ writing tends to be situated within primary territory; related to the immediate experiences and emotions of the individual writers. Boys’ writing, on the other hand, tends to be situated within tertiary territory; beyond immediate experience. MacDonald (1981) asserts that the differentiation of primary territory as a female domain and tertiary territory as a male domain is a major factor in the reproduction of a sex-segregated work force in which males are dominant. This differentiation is socially constructed and perpetuated through, among other social systems, educational institutions.

(2) relative positioning of characters A number of researchers (Fleming, 1995; Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel, 1995-96; Kamler, 1993; McAuliffe, 1994; Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Trepanier-Street & Romatowski, 1991; Tuck, Bayliss & Bell, 1985) found that girls’ writing positions female characters in both powerful and powerless roles, and includes some male characters, while boys’ writing is characterized by a limited offering of roles for female characters, and a positioning of male characters in powerful roles.

(3) presence/absence of violence and/or action Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel (1995-1996) found that violence and action are predominant features of boys’ writing, while girls’ writing shows little or no violence and action.

(4) linguistic competence/lack of competence An additional category emerged in the data analysis, as students identified gender markers regarding boys’ and girls’ relative competence as writers.

Percentages of gender markers identified by students of the same sex who agreed on the writer’s gender were calculated. For example, of the 79 discrete gender markers that were used by sixth-grade boys to identify writers of the three papers as male, 19.2 % referred to the presence of violence.

The two categories used to classify students’ topic preferences in their narrative writing were primary territory and tertiary territory. Within these categories, eight subcategories emerged. One subcategory, social issues, spans both primary and tertiary territory. Percentages of all topics preferred by students of the same sex within each grade were calculated. The eight subcategories are as follows:

|Primary Territory |Tertiary Territory |Spans Primary and Tertiary Territory |

|family/friends |natural world |social issues |

|feelings/personal experiences |supernatural world/ futuristic/magical | |

|romance |sports | |

| |action/adventure | |

Findings

Identification of Writers’ Gender

Although the nine papers were selected for the presence of both female and male gender markers, many students showed a willingness to identify the gender of the writers of the nine narratives. As shown in Table 1, fourth-grade students’ accuracy in identifying writers’ gender ranged from a low of 4.8% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a girl to a high of 69.9% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a boy. At the sixth-grade level, accuracy rates were much higher, ranging from a low of 58.5% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a girl to high of 71.6% of girls’ guesses for a paper written by a boy. Eighth-grade students’ accuracy in identifying the writer’s gender was lowest for a paper written by a girl (28.3% of boys’ guesses). The highest rate of accuracy (65.9% of girls’ guesses) was found for a paper written by a girl.

The following discussion of gender markers observed by participating students within the nine narrative papers highlights the factors underlying students identification of each writer’s gender.

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Identification of Gender Markers

Regardless of students’ degree of accuracy, their identification of the writer’s gender was informed by a uniform set of gender markers for all nine narrative papers used in this study. As Table 2 indicates, gender identification involved a process of foregrounding certain gender markers and ignoring or mitigating the influence of others. At the fourth-grade level, students placed a marked focus on elements within primary or tertiary territory when determining the writer’s gender. The relative positioning of characters was another significant gender marker for fourth-grade students. The location of elements within primary and tertiary territory was also salient to sixth-grade students. For sixth-grade girls, however, the presence or absence of violence was a significant gender marker, while sixth-grade boys used rhetorical markers to identify the writers’ gender to a great degree. In addition to using gender markers within primary and tertiary territory, eighth-grade students foregrounded rhetorical features when identifying the writer’s gender and focused on the presence of violence when identifying male writers.

Gender markers identified by participating students are presented within four categories: (1) primary/tertiary territory; (2) relative positioning of characters; (3) presence/absence of violence and/or action; and (4) linguistic competence/lack of competence.

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Primary/Tertiary Territory

An overwhelming number of gender markers within tertiary territory were used to identify male writers and a preponderance of gender markers within primary territory were used to identify female writers.

Gender markers highlighted within the story, “Burgertaur,” written by a sixth-grade boy, provide a clear example of this pattern. In this story Prince Jones slew the evil Burgertaur by grinding him up into a burger and eating the burger; an action that prompted the “invention of the fast-food place.” Students who identified the writer as a boy primarily selected elements within tertiary territory, such as the monster, machines, inventions, magic, and sailing, while students (all male), who identified the writer as a girl focused on elements within primary territory, such as having a baby, raising a prince, and the fairy tale prince and princess characters. Two girls identified the marriage between Prince Jones and Princess Ellen as a female gender marker and one boy who thought the writer was female observed that the writer “talks about mushy stuff.” The presence of hamburgers was viewed by students as being both a female and a male gender marker.

By focusing on elements within tertiary territory of “The Magic Shoes,” written by a fourth-grade girl, most students incorrectly identified the writer’s gender. Written in the first person, this story tells of a boy, Miky, who was the last one to be picked when the class played basketball in gym class. After Miky’s parents bought him running shoes for his birthday, Miky began “jamming above the rim and [] was so popular. So everybody was picking [him].” The few students who recognized the writer as a girl agreed that “some girls play basketball, too; not just boys play,” showing that girls’ behavior could be moved into tertiary territory, a domain they recognized as usually male. In contrast, the majority of students who incorrectly identified the writer as a boy used a stereotypical view of gendered behavior in defining the tertiary sports realm as a male domain. Five male students and five female students agreed that “boys like to play basketball. Girls do not.” One male student’s gender marker fit within the primary domain, but the student positioned the male character as more powerful than a female character would be in that domain. He stated, “Shoes aren’t usually $100.00 for a girl.” Another perspective on the shoes was provided by a girl who felt that the emphasis on new shoes pointed to a female writer.

The writer’s expression of emotions and the importance of friendship were viewed by students at all grade levels as female writing characteristics. For example, three boys and four girls who correctly identified the writer of an untitled futuristic story as female observed a female propensity to give to others. This story is told in the first person by the leader of a team of “famous archaeologists.” In the year 3785, the protagonist finds an “enchanting bag,” produces two million replicas and gives the original to a museum. The income from the sale of these replicas is given to charities such as “Save the Whales” and is used to buy a house and many pets. The eighth-grade students agreed that “girls are more caring” and that “if a boy got rich, he wouldn’t spend his money on saving the whales.”

Relative Positioning of Characters

The gender of story characters proved to be a powerful gender marker for students who read the nine narrative papers. Students in grades four and six perceived writers of their grade as autonomous individuals who positioned characters of the same sex in powerful roles and rarely included characters of the opposite sex in their stories. At the eighth-grade level, a few students noted the powerful positions of male characters in stories they perceived as written by female writers. They did not perceive that male writers would position female characters in powerful roles, however. As a result, stories with both male and female protagonists were the most problematic for students at all three grade levels when determining the writer’s gender.

This uncertainty is demonstrated by gender markers used to identify the writer’s gender for the story, “The Clock that Rang at Noon.” Written by a fourth-grade girl, this story tells of mysterious events that began to occur to a boy and girl after the clock rang at noon. Finally, the little girl made the connection between the clock and the mysteries and abruptly solved the problem by throwing away the clock. The presence of both female and male characters was the primary characteristic leading to readers’ uncertainty about the writer’s gender. Three boys and three girls who correctly identified the writer as a girl felt that the positioning of the female character as the problem solver and the one who was “the most noticed” was the primary gender clue.

The protagonist’s gender provided a clue that was interpreted differently depending on the students’ perception of the writer’s gender in an untitled story written by an eighth-grade girl, as well. In this story, the protagonist, Amber Pierson, turned on the television upon arriving at home on the last day of her Junior year. She listened to a journalist reporting on the murder of two Juniors in their home. The story ended as “Amber’s piercing scream broke the stillness. . .” Six girls and three boys perceived the absence of male characters as a female gender marker. One boy asserted, “Boys don’t write about girls.” In contrast, a boy and a girl agreed that “boys love to scare girls and have something bad happen to them and girls wouldn’t write about murdering another girl” in support of their view that the writer was a boy.

The relative positioning of female and male characters in the story, “Zookeepers,” written by an eighth-grade boy, proved to be a persuasive gender marker to many students. In this story, Anne, who had a “bizarre imagination,” came to school with bruises and scratches, telling Byron that the zookeepers were really animals who ate children. Byron visited Anne that night and found half human and half beast creatures crawling all over her. He ran to his home for safety, and the story ended with his glimpsing a “small human-like footprint on the window sill.” Five female students who correctly identified the writer’s gender noted the victimization of the female character and the labeling of Anne as bizarre as elements showing male control over females. In contrast, four boys and four girls observed that Anne played a larger role in the story and that it was presented from her point of view. These students concluded that the writer was female.

Similarly, sixth-grade students who identified the writer of “Bergertaur” as a boy contrasted the prince and the king, powerful protagonists who determined their own fates, with the compliant queen who followed the king’s wishes. Three female students asserted, “boys are brave.”

The characterization of boys as courageous and girls as fearful was evident in gender markers identified for a number of stories at all three grade levels. One story, “A Not So Ordinary Day,” written by a sixth-grade girl provides a clear example. This story is about a dog who was sprayed by a skunk and then ran into the forest. After being confronted by a snake and a groundhog, the dog was rescued by its owner. Seven girls and six boys who perceived the writer as male used the inclusion of a “scary animal like a snake” to support their perception of the writer’s gender. Four girls and a boy who thought the writer was a girl perceived the dog’s fears as a gender marker. One girl said, “Boys say they’re not afraid of anything. The person who wrote this was afraid.”

Presence/Absence of Violence and/or Action

A gender-related pattern exists in students’ gender markers indicating the presence or absence of violence and/or action in the nine stories. At all grade levels, the incidence of gender markers indicating the presence of violence and/or action is markedly higher for papers whose authors are perceived as boys than for papers whose authors are perceived as girls.

The sixth-grade story, “A Not So Ordinary Day,” written by a girl, elicited the greatest number of comments showing the absence of violence. One girl explained that “boys usually write about fights.” Because there were no fights in the story, she concluded that the writer was female. The story was described as “too sissy for a boy” by another girl. In contrast, one boy who thought the writer was male asserted: “a girl wouldn’t show that much action.”

A prevalent view of violence as belonging in the male domain is reflected in gender markers identified within the story, “Aliens Attack,” written by a fourth-grade boy. This story is about a boy and a girl who conduct a non-violent rescue of several humans who have been captured by aliens attacking with guns. Four male students and one female student highlighted the presence of weapons as an indicator of a male writer. Three male students agreed that “boys like to scare girls with scary stories” such as this one, while one male student asserted, “Girls wouldn’t talk about shooting.” Students who identified the writer as a girl did not identify any gender markers within this category.

Similarly, violence was highlighted in an untitled story, written by a sixth-grade male, about a “crazy little man” who invented a “Weather Controller” machine that sent “peculiar” weather to various parts of the USA. George, a scientist who had invented a “weather predictor device” located the “Weather Controller” machine and destroyed it. However, he didn’t notice that the “crazy little man” survived, “following George home, planning his next move!” Seven male students cited specific aggressive events, such as the near destruction of the world and the evaporation of Ohio, as markers identifying the writer as a male. Two female students viewed the explosions and the torture as features that a boy would include in a story. There was a noticeable absence of references to violence made by students who perceived the writer as female.

The untitled narrative about Amber Pierson that was written by an eighth-grade girl elicited responses showing that female writers at this level do include violence in their stories; writing within the mystery and horror genres. Students who disagreed on the writer’s gender viewed the violence in the story differently. Five girls who identified the writer as a girl felt that “it wasn’t that creepy,” while six boys and six girls who thought the writer was a boy found the story “scary and gory” and asserted that “girls wouldn’t write about murder.” In contrast, a boy and a girl agreed that girls do like to write mystery and horror stories.

Linguistic Competence/Lack of Competence

Though some boys at the fourth- and sixth-grade levels disparaged girls’ narrative writing and praised boys’ writing, a perception of girls as better writers than boys prevailed throughout the grades and became increasingly apparent at the eighth-grade level. Eighth-grade students’ comments for two of the stories clearly illustrate this perception.

Eighth-grade students positioned girls as better writers in their description of rhetorical gender markers for the story, “Zookeepers.” The length of the story and its broad vocabulary, together with the use of description and conversation were identified as female writing characteristics. One male student remarked, “Boys don’t like to write.” Two girls also agreed that “boys don’t write as well” because they “don’t take the time to write a long interesting story.” In addition, the correct use of writing conventions and the length of the story were gender markers identifying the writer as female in the eyes of eight boys and two girls.

Similarly, eighth-grade students who identified the writer of the untitled story about the archaeological dig as male used pejorative terms to describe the linguistic features of the writing. Six boys and two girls described the story as having “poor grammar,” “short paragraphs,” “not a lot of detail,” and “no big words.” One boy elaborated after identifying spelling errors, “Usually girls would go back and correct them.” A female student stated, “there’s no main character, plot and setting.” A female student who felt that a girl had written the story thought that the writer had used descriptive words, however.

Fourth- and sixth-grade students often evaluated stories whose authors were identified as boys as showing evidence of “bad grammar.” Longer stories were considered to have been written by females. There were mixed opinions regarding whether girls or boys wrote more creative stories. Boys associated their disinterested responses to stories as clues that girls had written the stories. Girls often described stories they felt were written by boys as “silly” and claimed that these stories “don’t make sense.”

There appears to be an interaction of stereotypical perspectives on gendered linguistic competence and students’ success on state writing proficiency tests that were written by these students in March, 1998. Table 3 shows that, with the exception of the fourth-grade students in the suburban school where 3.1% more of the boys’ writing received proficient scores, girls’ writing received the greatest number of proficient scores at all three grade levels. The gender-related disparity in proficient scores ranged from 1.2% at the eighth-grade level in a rural school to 27.6% at the fourth-grade level in the urban schools participating in this study. There is a pattern of greater gender disparity in the urban schools than in the suburban and rural schools at all three grades.

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Students’ Gendered Topic Preferences

Consistent with the findings of previous research (Fleming, 1995; Graves, 1975; Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel; & Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987), relatively greater percentages of girls’ preferred narrative topics were situated within primary territory, while relatively greater percentages of boys’ preferred narrative topics were situated within tertiary territory. Fourth-grade boys identified the greatest percentage (80.6%) of narrative topic preferences within tertiary territory. With the exception of eighth-grade girls for whom 49.4% of preferred topics were situated within primary territory, tertiary territory offered a wider range of subject positions to both boys and girls at all grades than did primary territory.

At the fourth-grade and eighth-grade levels, the greatest percentage of boys’ topics were situated within the tertiary subcategory of sports. Eighth-grade boys were four times more likely than their female peers to choose sports topics in their writing. In this subcategory dancing, games and cheer leading were included with the more conventional sports.

Also within tertiary territory, specific action/adventure topics common to all grades included action, attacks, mysteries and scary stories. Fourth-grade boys added wars, army and guns to the list. Sixth-and eighth-grade boys and girls included fighting, horror, blood, and killing, as well. In the action/adventure subcategory, the gender difference was most evident at the sixth-grade level, where 16.5% more of boys’ preferred topics were situated within the action/adventure subcategory.

Within the tertiary subcategory of the natural world, animal topics were the most common at all grade levels. There was a pattern of decreasing frequency in the choice of natural world topics by age. This is the only subcategory within tertiary territory where girls’ topic preferences outnumbered boys’ topic preferences at all three grade levels. The greatest gender difference (13.7%) occurred at the sixth-grade level.

The supernatural, futuristic and magical worlds of monsters, wizards, vampires, dragons, ghosts, fairies, super heroes, aliens, and star wars were visited by girls and boys at all grade levels. Gender differences were less than 10% at each grade level, with the smallest difference (1%) in grade six.

Although girls’ topic choices were located to some degree within every subcategory of tertiary territory, boys’ narrative topic preferences were not situated within the romance subcategory of primary territory. Indeed, only sixth-grade and eighth-grade girls situated their writing within the discourse of romance writing.

Within primary territory, specific personal subjects identified by students at all grade levels included sad topics, funny topics, pets, and holidays/vacations. Particular to fourth-grade girls’ topics were birthdays and going to camp. Sixth-grade girls added hobbies, shopping and dreams to this list, while one sixth-grade boy added emotions and “things I like.” Eighth-grade girls’ personal topics included future goals and baby-sitting, and eighth-grade boys added music to the list.

To the greatest degree, sixth- and eighth-grade girls indicated that they wrote about social issues such as suicide, drinking, homelessness, dealing with fatal diseases, and drugs. This subcategory straddles primary and tertiary territory, as it applies the emotions of personal relationships with family and friends to the problems of others who may or may not exist within the individual’s immediate world.

Discussion

In their identification of gender in the writing of nine narratives, students in this study reproduced a narrow range of gendered subject positions offered within dominant discourses. Congruent with Davies’ and Harré’s observations (1990), students defined the categories of female middle-grade writer and male middle-grade writer as binary opposites. Whether students identified a writer’s gender correctly or incorrectly, their positioning of a writer as female foregrounded specific characteristics: (1) the location of elements within primary territory; (2) limited or mitigated evidence of violence and/or action; (3) the demonstration of writing competence and a conscientious attitude toward writing, and (4) a positioning of female characters in more powerful roles. Students positioned writers as male using the following contrasting characteristics: (1) the location of elements within tertiary territory; (2) strong and graphic evidence of violence and/or action; (3) the demonstration of a lack of writing competence and an uncaring attitude toward writing, and (4) a positioning of male characters in powerful roles.

In this study, student readers’ positioning of an unknown writer of a narrative as female or male influenced the ways in which they viewed the writer’s competence. Students who disagreed on the gender of a writer often identified certain linguistic features as evidence of writing competence when the writer was positioned as a girl, and viewed the same linguistic features as demonstrating a lack of competence when the writer was positioned as a boy. To the greatest degree at the eighth-grade level, male students’ identities as writers were constructed around perceptions of linguistic incompetence and carelessness. Female students’ contrasting identities as more competent, conscientious writers were reproduced not only in their identification of gender markers in student writing, but also in their scores on the state writing proficiency tests that fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students wrote in March, 1998. Showing little variance among girls and boys at all three grade levels, these perspectives highlight the constraints that are imposed by the narrow range of gendered subject positions offered within dominant discourses when students read and respond to their peers’ writing.

Students’ identification of gender markers within nine stories also reproduced the discourses of male dominance and male aggression. As evidenced by the dearth of gender markers showing females in powerful roles in stories perceived to have been penned by male writers, it appears that the discourse of male dominance was reproduced uniformly in boys’ writing. While students accepted that female writers at all grade levels would resist this discourse to some degree by writing about female characters, however, they expected female writers to place male characters in powerful roles, as well. Similarly, students at all grade levels identified greater evidence of violence in stories they perceived as having been written by boys than in stories perceived as having been written by girls. To some degree girls did disrupt the dominant discourse by writing horror and mystery stories. However, students’ descriptions of the violence and action in stories perceived as having been written by girls often positioned the violence as less aggressive than the violence within stories written by boys.

Evidence of students’ readiness to take up the recognizable subjectivities available within dominant ideologies is found in the relative frequencies of students’ location of topic preferences within the romance subcategory. Sixth-grade and eighth-grade girls alone identified romantic topics as their preferred topics. Adolescent boys and fourth-grade girls and boys did not recognize or accept subject positions within the discourse of romance. Gilbert and Taylor (1991, p. 102) explain that romance ideology is readily taken up by adolescent girls because it presents them with “an alternative solution to the patriarchal parameters of their present and future lives.” However, at the same time, adolescent girls’ willingness to fold romance ideology into their gendered identities also “locks [them] into passive and submissive response rather than active and independent action” (Gilbert & Taylor, 1991, p. 103). In this way, by adopting the romance genre, adolescent girls in this study positioned themselves within the dominant discourse of patriarchy, accepting the constraints that this discourse places on females’ independence and sense of personal control.

In their positioning of themselves and others as gendered writers, students highlighted the dynamic, discontinuous, and uneven nature of the process of taking up gendered subjectivities when reading and writing narratives. While consistently greater percentages of gender markers within primary territory were used to position writers as female and greater percentages of gender markers within tertiary territory were used to identify male writers, girls and boys’ topic choices were situated within both domains. It appears that students granted themselves a greater sense of agency in resisting the gendered subjectivities available within dominant discourses in their own writing than they granted the peer authors of stories they read. Though girls and boys located between 0% and 10.5% of gender markers in the non-stereotypical territory for the perceived gender of the author, between 16.7% (grade four boys) and 64.8% (grade six girls) of their preferred narrative topics were situated in the non-stereotypical territory for the student.

Whether students positioned themselves or other students as gendered writers, they afforded female writers greater agency than male writers in resisting dominant gender discourses, however. While girls’ topic preferences were situated fairly evenly within primary and tertiary territory, less than 17% of boys’ topics reflected elements of primary territory. In their resistance to dominant discourses, girls opened up a wider range of subject positions to themselves than did boys in their narrative writing. These findings are consistent with a previous study (Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel, 1995-96) where female writers took up subject positions situated within both the female category and the more powerful male category. Girls’ propensity to write on topics within primary territory, the domain within which girls’ interests are typically situated, increased with age, however. It appears that the influence of dominant discourses strengthened with increasing exposure to these discourses in schools and social worlds beyond the school.

What, then, are the possibilities for middle-grade students’ self-discovery and self-expression as they constitute their gendered subjectivities through their narrative writing? The findings of this study show that these possibilities are circumscribed to some degree by students’ reproduction of a narrow range of gendered subject positions. For boys in particular, the range of choice in topics for narrative writing is limited by situating male writing and male interests primarily within tertiary territory. Opportunities for boys’ writing success are also constrained by girls’ and boys’ propensities to position male writers as less competent writers than female writers in their identification of gender markers in peers’ writing. With the exception of one fourth-grade suburban school, these gendered expectations were borne out in the results of state proficiency tests written by participating students.

While students showed a greater propensity to position other writers as non-agentic subjects using the recognizable gender categories of dominant discourses, however, they did offer limited alternatives to those taken-for-granted subjectivities when positioning themselves as narrative writers. To some degree, students in this study (particularly girls) did show a sense of agency in selecting narrative writing topics within both primary and tertiary territory, as did the writers of the nine narratives who used some elements from both male and female categories in their writing. In this respect, this study shows that the process approach to writing does offer some possibilities for fostering students’ sense of agency in constituting their gendered identities through narrative writing. The findings of this study also show, however, that a reconceptualization of the social structures that operationalize the process approach to writing is needed to open up further possibilities.

Because social interaction is integral to a process writing approach, opportunities should abound for students to learn and struggle with social meanings, and at the same time, to create new meanings while engaging in dialogue with peers and their teacher. The findings of this study provide evidence that the formal and informal interactions that currently take place in process writing classrooms tend to limit students’ agency in creating new meanings, however. It appears that the classroom environment needs to be restructured to provide access to a wider range of subject positions and to encourage exploration of subject positions outside of dominant discourses.

A reframing of the teacher’s role is an important first step. Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of learning as an interaction with a more capable other offers an alternative to the role of teacher as facilitator and nurturer who accepts the meanings communicated in students’ narrative writing; a role that is recognized within the discourse of process writing. Offering teachers a more powerful subject position, that of a critical reader who questions and wrestles with ideas and strives to address issues of social change, opens up new possibilities for teachers to create classroom environments that foster the disruption of the taken-for-granted meanings in middle-grade students’ narrative writing. Recognizing that gendered subjectivities are constantly being constituted as incompatible and contradictory perspectives are considered, accepted, modified and/or resisted, writing teachers need to examine on an ongoing basis, the ways in which they construct their own and their students’ gendered subjectivities when reading and writing narratives. Teachers need to demonstrate their attempts to grapple with new perspectives and contradictory meanings while writing in class alongside their students, in their responses to students’ writing during student-teacher conferences and authors’ groups, and in their formal assessment of the writing. In addition to using rubrics that assess rhetorical features of the writing, teachers’ assessment of student writing needs to include an awareness of and a questioning/puzzling over/wrestling with the social meanings embedded within the writing.

In the process approach to writing, the development of audience awareness is recognized as necessary in instilling a sense of purpose and personal meaning in students’ narrative writing. Students’ responses to the narrative papers read in this study show that the possibilities for their self expression may have been limited by their awareness of the narrow range of subjectivities available when writing narratives to entertain their classroom audience, however. As the more capable others in the classroom, teachers need to initiate conversations examining the constraints placed on classroom narrative writing by the audience’s demands for recognizable, normalized meanings found in dominant discourses. Teachers also need to initiate explorations of the ways in which classroom writers might offer up alternative subjectivities in an ongoing conversation about the sociopolitical influences on the classroom audience’s expectations. Inquiry and discovery through questioning and deconstructing written texts must permeate the various formal social structures, such as authors’ chair and authors’ groups, that are already in place within process writing classrooms. Within these social structures, classroom writers need to talk about their struggles to weave into their writing new meanings that express their uniqueness and at the same time are recognizable to and satisfy their classroom audience. The difficulties faced by writers in choosing to position themselves with and against certain meanings and values need to be acknowledged as students and teachers share their stories and invite feedback from fellow classroom writers.

Finally, in concert with a process approach to writing, teachers and students must come to know writing as a tool for social change. The very act of stretching, shaping, rounding, and pressing thoughts, feelings, experiences, and values into words, phrases, sentences and story structures creates possibilities for new meanings. Within a classroom environment where all writers acknowledge and struggle with the tension between simultaneously becoming an agentic subject and being subjected to the meanings embedded within classroom discourses, writing can be a powerful tool for creating from the ordinary and the normal of everyday life something extraordinary and unusual that transforms those daily experiences.

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Table 1: Students’ Identification of Writers’ Gender

|Narratives |% Girls Guessed |% Boys Guessed |% Girls Guessed |% Boys Guessed |% Girls |% Boys Uncertain|

| |Girl |Girl |Boy |Boy |Uncertain | |

|Gr 4 Girl: |7.4 |4.8 |90.5 |95.2 |2.1 |0 |

|The Magic Shoes | | | | | | |

|Gr 4 Girl: |49.5 |60.8 |12.9 |4.9 |37.6 |34.3 |

|The Clock that Rang at | | | | | | |

|Noon | | | | | | |

|Gr 4 Boy: |6.5 |8.7 |66.3 |69.9 |27.2 |21.4 |

|Aliens Attack | | | | | | |

|Gr 6 Boy: |15.6 |26.8 |71.6 |62.6 |12.8 |10.6 |

|Burgertaur | | | | | | |

|Gr 6 Boy: Untitled |7.4 |14.9 |62.0 |62.8 |30.6 |22.3 |

|Gr 6 Girl: |65.1 |58.5 |24.8 |27.6 |10.1 |13.8 |

|A Not So Ordinary Day | | | | | | |

|Gr 8 Girl: |32.1 |28.3 |40.5 |45.5 |27.4 |26.2 |

|Untitled #1 | | | | | | |

|Gr 8 Boy: |36.5 |42 |51.5 |46 |11.8 |12 |

|Zookeepers | | | | | | |

|Gr 8 Girl: |65.9 |47 |21.2 |41 |12.9 |12 |

|Untitled #2 | | | | | | |

Grade 4 girls (n = 95) Grade 6 girls (n = 109) Grade 8 girls (n = 85)

Grade 4 boys (n = 105) Grade 6 boys (n = 123) Grade 8 boys (n = 100)

Table 3: Middle Grade Students’ Writing Competencies as Measured by State Writing Examinations

| |Percentage of Proficient Scores:|Percentage of Proficient Scores:|

|Grade and School |Girls |Boys |

|Grade 4 |52.6 |25.0 |

|Three Urban Schools | | |

|Grade 4 |46.2 |33.3 |

|One Rural School | | |

|Grade 4 |73.5 |76.6 |

|One Suburban School | | |

|Grade 6 |81.7 |67.6 |

|Two Urban Schools | | |

|Grade 6 |94.8 |86.5 |

|One Rural School | | |

|Grade 8 |91.2 |78.5 |

|One Urban School | | |

|Grade 8 |100.0 |98.8 |

|One Rural School | | |

|Grade 8 |99.1 |88.7 |

|One Suburban School | | |

Table 4: Gendered Topic Preferences in Percentages Across Three Grades in Three School Districts

|Preferred Topics |Grade 4 Girls’ |Grade 4 Boys’ |Grade 6 Girls’ |Grade 6 Boys’ |Grade 8 Girls’ |Grade 8 Boys’ |

| |Topics |Topics |Topics |Topics |Topics |Topics |

| |(n = 130) |(n = 150) |(n = 207) |(n = 140) |(n = 162) |(n = 148) |

|Family/ Friends |20.8 |4.7 |15.9 |7.1 |19.8 |4.7 |

|Feelings/ Personal |21.5 |12.0 |16.4 |15.0 |22.2 |18.2 |

|Experiences | | | | | | |

|Romance |0.0 |0.0 |2.9 |0.0 |7.4 |0.0 |

|Total Primary |42.3 |16.7 |35.2 |22.1 |49.4 |22.9 |

|Territory | | | | | | |

|Natural World |28.5 |19.5 |26.6 |12.9 |12.4 |2.7 |

|Supernatural/Futuristi|9.2 |16.8 |11.1 |12.1 |8.6 |17.6 |

|c/ Magical | | | | | | |

|Sports |4.6 |22.8 |5.8 |19.3 |6.8 |25.7 |

|Action/ Adventure |13.1 |21.5 |15.0 |31.5 |15.4 |29.1 |

|Total Tertiary |55.4 |80.6 |58.5 |75.8 |43.2 |75.1 |

|Territory | | | | | | |

|Primary and Tertiary |2.3 |2.7 |6.3 |2.1 |7.4 |2.0 |

|Territory: | | | | | | |

|Social Issues | | | | | | |

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