Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2022

Gendered Genius Hour: Tracing Young Children’s Uptake of Expert across the Nexus of Personal Digital Inquiry

Jon M. Wargo Boston College

Abstract

Drawing on data from a yearlong qualitative study examining how children in a multi-age (6-9 years) classroom utilized technology to write across genres, this article examines the gendered negotiation and discursive uptake of expert in early childhood writing. Zeroing in on genius hour as a “site of engagement,” the author thinks with rhetorical genre studies and mediated discourse analysis to examine how four second-grade writers positioned themselves as “experts” across the nexus of school writing. Findings highlight how expert—both conceptually and in practice—became gendered and was interdiscursively traced through three threads: the relational, the historical, and the distributive. Through analyses of young students writing in situ, this article contributes new understandings to thinking about children’s navigation of genres, not only as rhetorical typifications of academic and disciplinary discourse but as unique social actions of curricular play and gendered uptake.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2022-02-15
DOI
10.58680/rte202231638
Open Access
Closed
Topics
genre theory discourse analysis qualitative research race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (1)

  1. Tachino (2012)
    Theorizing Uptake and Knowledge Mobilization
    Written Communication
Also cites 21 works outside this index ↓
  1. Bourdieu (1990)
    10.1515/9781503621749
    The logic of practice  ↗
  2. Brandt (1994)
    Remembering writing, remembering reading
    College Composition and Communication  ↗
  3. Brownell (2018)
    Creative language play(giarism) in the elementary English language arts classroom
    Language Arts  ↗
  4. Buchholz (2019)
    Author(iz)ing a playground game: “The arguing started once the rules were written down.”
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  5. Coiro (2016)
    Personal inquiry and online research: Connecting learners in ways that matter
    The Reading Teacher  ↗
  6. Davies (1997)
    Constructing and deconstructing masculinities through critical literacy
    Gender and Education  ↗
  7. Dryer (2016)
    Disambiguating uptake: Toward a tactical research agenda on citizens’ writing
    Genre and the performance of publics  ↗
  8. Dutro (2002)
    Us boys like to read football and boy stuff”: Reading masculinities, performing boyhood
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  9. Freadman (2012)
    The traps and trappings of genre theory
    Applied Linguistics  ↗
  10. Ghiso (2013)
    Playing with/through non-fiction texts: Young children authoring their relationships with…
    Journal of Early Childhood Literacy  ↗
  11. Gilbert (1992)
    The story so far: Gender, literacy and social regulation
    Gender and Education  ↗
  12. Miller (1984)
    Genre as social action
    Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
  13. Orellana (1995)
    Literacy as a gendered social practice: Tasks, texts, talk, and take-up
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  14. Pappas (1993)
    Is narrative “primary”? Some insights from kindergarteners’ pretend readings of stories a…
    Journal of Reading Behavior  ↗
  15. Rish (2015)
    Researching writing events: Using mediated discourse analysis to explore how students wri…
    Literacy  ↗
  16. Rowe (2019)
    Pointing with a pen: The role of gesture in early childhood writing
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  17. Shipka (2013)
    Including, but not limited to, the digital: Composing multimodal texts
    Multimodal literacies and emerging genres  ↗
  18. Wargo (2019)
    Sounding the garden, voicing a problem: Mobilizing critical literacy through personal dig…
    Language Arts  ↗
  19. Wohlwend (2009a)
    Damsels in discourse: Girls consuming and producing identity texts through Disney princess play
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  20. Wohlwend (2009b)
    Mediated discourse analysis: Researching young children’s non-verbal interactions as soci…
    Journal of Early Childhood Research  ↗
  21. Wohlwend (2020)
    10.4324/9780429265754
    Literacies that move and matter: Nexus analysis for contemporary childhoods  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 3 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Written Communication Oct 1993
    Rethinking Genre from a Sociocognitive Perspective ↗
    CAROL BERKENKOTTER; THOMAS N. HUCKIN
    genre theory discourse analysis qualitative research race and writing
  2. Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2024
    Cultivating Genre Awareness of Speculative Genres: A Case Study of One Queer Latinx Educator’s Narrative Inquiry ↗
    James Joshua Coleman
    genre theory qualitative research multimodality race and writing
  3. Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2023
    All in a Day’s Play: How a Child Resists Linguistic Racism and Constructs Her Identity ↗
    Denise Dávila
    discourse analysis writing across the curriculum qualitative research race and writing multilingual writers
  4. Written Communication Jul 2022
    Threshold Genres: A 10-Year Exploration of a Medical Writer’s Development and Social Apprenticeship Through the Patient SOAP Note ↗
    Dana Lynn Driscoll; Omar Yacoub
    graduate education genre theory qualitative research race and writing
  5. Literacy in Composition Studies Feb 2021
    Composing Literary Arguments in an 11th Grade International Baccalaureate Classroom: How Classroom Instructional Conversations Shape Modes of Participation ↗
    Newell, George E.; Thanos, Theresa Siemer; Seymour, Matt
    writing pedagogy discourse analysis qualitative research multimodality race and writing argument