This case study of a Native American high school senior focuses on one of the final assignments he completed before dropping out of school early in the school year. The task was to draw a life map--a nonverbal text that identified 10 key life events on his journey to that point--as part of a larger unit on identity for his senior English class.…

This article reports a study of one high school senior's process of academic bullshitting as she wrote an analytic essay interpreting Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing." The construct of bullshit has received little scholarly attention; although it is known as a common phenomenon in academic speech and writing, it has rarely been the subject…

This study focuses on two high school seniors as they wrote in their British Literature and Psychology classes. We analyse the writing experiences of the two volunteer students as they produced formal academic writing (research, essays, and synopses), personal writing (poems, stories, and personal narratives), and hybrid writing (research written…

Reviews the history of verbal data in a variety of fields, places protocol analysis in its historical context, and examines more recent claims and criticisms regarding protocol analysis. Concludes that protocol analysis, when conducted according to certain principles, can be an important tool for researching the composing process. (MG)

Outlines a cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective that accounts for protocol analysis along three key dimensions: the relationship between thinking and speech from a representational standpoint; the social role of speech in research methodology; and the influence of speech on thinking and data collection. (Author/VWL)

Eisner, Gardner, and others have argued that the arts should be better integrated into the K-12 curriculum. In this study we examine three high school senior boys who, as part of a unit of instruction on identity, each produced a mask through which he artistically expressed his sense of self. Using a sociocultural framework based in the work of…

Uses on-line protocol analysis to contrast the effects on the writing process of knowledge taught in three instructional treatments: models, general procedures, and task-specific procedures. Finds that the task-specific group integrated their ideas purposefully, thought critically about the concepts being defined, and appeared to establish a…

A study investigated the composing process to examine why different types of instruction have different effects on composing products. The study contrasted three treatments: (1) presenting students with models (the traditional method); (2) the general procedures approach stressing freethinking process; and (3) a method stressing task-specific…