Abstract

In this article, I focus on an everyday writer, my mother, engaging in self-sponsored writing to learn (WTL) activities across her lifespan. Focusing specifically on her personal journals and her accounts of her longitudinal WTL trajectory, I trace the learning pathways she took to develop her identity as a mother across her life. Writing was a benefit to her everyday life given, as she puts it, there is no set “instruction manual” for how to parent. Additionally, I trace the “multidirectional” nature of her literacy by investigating how literacy learning circulates given Jane’s intent to pass her WTL journals down to her children as a text to learn from when they become parents (Lee). In making my argument, I extend conversations happening in our field about writing and learning as a lifewide activity. I emphasize the importance writing has on identity development and learning across one’s life and, as such, this article helps literacy studies, lifespan development of writing studies, and motherhood rhetorical studies gauge the vast ways writers write to learn outside of formal schooling. 

Journal
Literacy in Composition Studies
Published
2025-05-29
DOI
10.21623/1.12.1.2
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
OA PDF Gold
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (40) · 8 in this index

  1. Ackerly, Brooke, and Jacqui True. “Reflexivity in Practice: Power and Ethics in Feminist Research on Internat…
  2. Axinn, William G., Lisa D. Pearce, and Dirgha Ghimire. “Innovations in Life History Calendar Applications.” S…
  3. Barton, David. “The Social Nature of Writing.” Writing in the Community, edited by David Barton and Roz Ivani…
  4. Barton, David, and Mary Hamilton. Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community. Routledge, 1998.
  5. Bazerman, Charles, Arthur N. Applebee, Virginia W. Berninger, Deborah Brandt, Steve Graham, Jill V. Jeffery, …
Show all 40 →
  1. Beaufort, Anne. College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction. UP of Colorad…
  2. Bowen, Lauren M. “Age Identity and Literacy.” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture, 8 J…
  3. Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge UP, 2001.
  4. Britton, James, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, and Harold Rosen. The Development of Writing Abiliti…
  5. Across the Disciplines
  6. Dippre, Ryan J., and Talinn Phillips, editors. “Introduction: Generating Murmurations for an Actionable Coher…
  7. Emig, Janet A. The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 1971.
  8. College Composition and Communication
  9. College Composition and Communication
  10. Freedman, Deborah, Arland Thornton, Donald Camburn, Duane Alwin, and Linda Young-DeMarco. “The Life History C…
  11. Frye, Joanne S. “Narrating Maternal Subjectivity: Memoirs from Motherhood.” Textual Mothers/Maternal Texts: M…
  12. Gere, Anne Ruggles. Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn Across the Disciplines. The WAC Clearinghouse; Nat…
  13. College English
  14. Kawash, Samira. “New Directions in Motherhood Studies.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. …
  15. Knappick, Magdalena. “Making Sense of a Person’s Literate Life: Literacy Narratives in a 100-Year-Study on Li…
  16. Lee, Yvonne. “Toward an Understanding of the Multidirectional Nature of Family Literacy Development.” Dippre …
  17. Melzer, Dan. Assignments Across the Curriculum: A National Study of College Writing. Utah State UP, 2014.
  18. Naftzinger, Jeff. “A Definition of Everyday Writing: Methods for a Writer-Informed Approach to Lifespan Writi…
  19. Nowacek, Rebecca S., Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, and Angela Rounsaville. “Writing across Contexts: From School t…
  20. Osorio, Ruth. “Constellating with our Foremothers: Stories of Mothers Making Space in Rhetoric and Compositio…
  21. College Composition and Communication
  22. Reid, Jennifer, Matthew Pavesich, Andrea Efthymiou, Heather Lindenman, and Dana Lynn Driscoll. “Writing to Le…
  23. Literacy in Composition Studies
  24. Rosinski, Paula. “Students’ Perceptions of the Transfer of Rhetorical Knowledge Between Digital Self-Sponsore…
  25. Stone, Jayne. “Putting It All on the Table: Making Visible the Material Realities of Single-Mother Graduate S…
  26. Taczak, Kara, and Liane Robertson. “Metacognition and the Reflective Writing Practitioner: An Integrated Know…
  27. “The Writing through the Lifespan Collaboration.” Writing through the Lifespan, 2024, https://www.lifespanwri…
  28. Vaughn, Lisa M., and Farrah Jacquez. “Participatory Research Methods—Choice Points in the Research Process.” …
  29. Vieira, Kate. Writing for Love and Money: How Migration Drives Literacy Learning in Transnational Families. O…
  30. Literacy in Composition Studies
  31. Literacy in Composition Studies
  32. Winslow, Dianna, and Phil Shaw. “Teaching Metacognition to Reinforce Agency and Transfer in Course-Linked Fir…
  33. Yancey, Kathleen Blake, Joe Cirio, Jeff Naftzinger, and Erin Workman. “Notebooks, Annotations, and Tweets: De…
  34. Yancey, Kathleen Blake, Liane Robertson, and Kara Taczak. Writing Across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and…
  35. Yoshihama, Mieko, Brenda Gillespie, Amy C. Hammock, Robert F. Belli, and Richard M. Tolman. “Does the Life Hi…