Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School

Book excerpt: Dyson supports efforts to make literacy curricula accessible to our schools’ socioculturally diverse population. This two-year ethnographic study of K–3 children focuses on six students who would normally be deemed “at-risk” and who do not tell stories in the written language format valued by most early literacy educators. Their literacy learning, particularly their writing development, is portrayed as a social process in a complex social world. Dyson’s key theme is the link between composing a text and composing a place in this social world. “Dyson reconceptualizes classrooms as places for dynamic combinations of critical thinking, humor, growth, and understanding for children and their teachers.” —Harvard Educational Review