Learning about Language: Written Conversations and Elementary Language Learners

Many approaches to literacy instruction treat language as an object of study. The curricular assumptions that inform such instruction are that language is located outside the person, extracted from context, neutral, and explicable through defined rules. An underlying assumption in many language arts classrooms is that children will not pay attention to the parts of language without direct instruction. In this article, the authors examine how children in a first- through third-grade and a fourth- through sixth-grade classroom used written conversations as a communicative forum to explore writing and their surrounding social worlds. Through written conversations, children explored grammatical features of texts, genres, spelling, and language. Children also used written conversations as a forum to explore cultural identity, linguistic resources, and gain cultural capital within peer worlds. Findings from this study suggest the need for classroom curricular structures that encourage inquiry into language and learning. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)