A Secondary English Teacher's Use of New Literacies with Voice and Struggling Writers

Abstract

Voice is an integral part of writing instruction, and over half of state writing assessments include voice on scoring rubrics; yet, there is a dearth of research on voice and writing instruction with adolescents. Increasingly new literacies and digital tools are being used in the high school English classroom but with relatively little known about how these tools can teach voice during writing instruction. This qualitative single-case study examined how a public school, ninth-grade English teacher used new literacies to develop voice in students' writing and participants' perception of these instructional choices. The sample included the teacher and 14 students, and data collection included classroom observations, participant interviews, motivation inventories, reflective logs, state writing scores, students' writing folders, and wiki documents. An iterative process of inductive and deductive analysis led to key findings about instructional planning, purposeful writing assignments, teacher feedback, and participant response. Findings indicate that further attention is needed with respect to text structure development, writing pedagogy, and voice in writing; teachers' response to students' writing in digital environments; and motivation and adolescent writing.