Ten seniors writing.

摘要

This is a qualitative interview study of the experiences of student writers in classrooms designed within a constructivist writing process framework as advocated by, among others, Moffett, Britton, and Elbow. The participants were ten 12th-grade students in a suburban high school who had in earlier grades been taught by the researcher but were not at the time of the study. A central focus was the student writers' sense of audience.;The most strongly voiced theme to emerge from the interview data concerned students' negative feelings about peer response groups. Participants generally found these of little value when they were assigned to groups not of their choosing. They disliked sharing their personal writing with any but trusted audiences. Feedback was most frequently sought by these student writers from teachers, parents (particularly mothers), and trusted friends. Students wished to control how, when, and with whom sharing took place. Additional findings indicated that some participants viewed themselves as audience and others created an imaginary audience.;These students preferred such writing assignments as research papers when these were accompanied by clear guidelines because these assignments often afforded a choice of topic and student control over the research process. Poetry was described as a short, rule-free and thus relatively risk-free exercise.;Many of the students expressed concern about their handwriting because of early unhappy experiences with handwriting instruction. Several only felt comfortable handing in work that had been done on the word processor. Participants also expressed concerns about reading their work aloud. Several read everything out loud before sharing it with anyone; others said they were embarrassed to hear their own voice reading their words even in a room alone. These views seemed part of a larger issue having to do with self-presentation and personal feelings of self-confidence.;Writing was regarded as a private activity and most of these students indicated they were deeply afraid of revealing anything personal through it. Most of these students indicated that they knew how to be successful and came up with ways to do it without compromising themselves too much or too often. They took few risks, learning to shape their work to whatever "this year's teacher" required.