Examines the "whats" and "hows" of first-grade urban children's appropriation of sports and sports-related media material for participation in unofficial peer worlds and official academic ones. Reveals the potential hybrid nature of even the earliest of children's written texts. Suggests that learning to write involves work of the imagination on…

Argues that, even for young children, composing of both oral and written texts is sociocultural process. Highlights variation in kind of oral and written genres child uses, in kinds of discourse traditions child draws upon, and kind of relationships child author enacts with others. Discusses implications of sociocultural perspective on young…

Exploring the concept of a "permeable" curriculum, this paper provides concrete examples of the social and cultural challenges of a curriculum that allows for the interplay between teachers' and children's language and experiences. The paper uses a recent study in an urban primary school to provide an illustration of the diverse kinds of…

Presents and considers the vision of children as receptors of adults' ideological messages. Reviews examples of adults' rewriting for children, drawing primarily on the rewriting of folk stories. Reconstructs, using ethnographic data from urban schools, one branch of a classroom chain of communication. Discusses the classroom conditions that…

Reprints a 1988 article from this journal on the social world as a factor that influences the choices that young writers make in an urban primary classroom setting. Updates the article with an Afterword commenting on the earlier writing and discussing other more complex influences. (SR)

What difference should sociocultural difference make in early literacy theory and practice? In response to this question, this paper argues that such differences should lead to a reconceptualization that highlights the social nature and cultural meaning of child literacy development. Drawing on a recent ethnographic study of child composing in an…

A qualitative study, presented in the form of an analytical narrative, examined children's symbolic and social use of superhero stories--popular media stories that vividly reveal societal beliefs about power and gender, which are themselves interwoven in complex ways with race, class, and physical demeanor. A second-grade classroom in an East San…

This book reports on conversations in which elementary schoolteachers--who have taught in urban settings for an average of 20 years each--reflect on their professional work. The conversations in the book testify to the teachers' ability to engage young people in active learning--and their stories of teaching and learning verify that difference…

Based on an ethnographic study in an urban classroom of 7- to 9-year olds, this book examines how young school children use popular culture, especially superhero stories, in the unofficial peer social world and in the official school literary curriculum. In one sense, the book is about children "writing superheroes"--about children…