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Book: Learning to Write/Reading to Learn

Chapter: 2.1 Beginnings: the Writing Project 2.2 Types of writing in infants and primary school 2.3 Knowledge about language: genre 2.4 Teaching genre: Language and Social Power project 2.5 Negotiating meaning: teacher—student interactions

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.20128

Blurb:

This chapter focuses on writing in infants and primary school, describing the first phase of the Sydney School research, the Writing Project and Language as Social Power project. It first outlines the context in which our work began, outlining the kinds of writing we found in Australian primary schools at the time. The range of genres that primary students are expected to write are then described, and the model of genre that developed out of this work is introduced. We then outline the development of the pedagogy designed to apprentice students into control of these genres and illustrate the different kinds of teacher–student interaction this apprenticeship involves. The chapter concludes with examples of the kinds of writing that children have achieved by means of this pedagogy.

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