Original article: LINK
By Margaret Vaughn, Bong Gee Jang, Vera Sotirovska & Gemma Cooper-Novack
Classrooms are inherently complex environments where writer-teachers must navigate multiple demands and responsibilities. These include adhering to institutional directives and teaching in a way that respects students’ diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds [LINK], and creating opportunities for students to develop essential skills such as writing proficiency and motivation [LINK]. Beyond these tasks, a crucial aspect of writing instruction is fostering student agency – empowering students to apply new-found writerly knowledge independently, and to take ownership of their compositions.
The role of writer-teachers in fostering agency
Teachers play a vital role in planning class writing projects that promote agency. When students act on their sense of agency, they take initiative, use and apply their learning, and influence the instructional process. Agency is therefore a fundamental element of effective writing teaching. As such, writer-teachers must engage in deep reflection about their instructional strategies to cultivate classroom environments where students feel empowered and can actively use and apply new writerly-knowledge.
Insights and implications for fostering agency in the writing classroom
From the comprehensive review, several key insights emerge about how to encourage teachers to reflect, understand, and plan for agency in the writing classroom Here’s a synthesis of the recommendations based on the review’s findings:
Foster agency through instructional practices, dialogue, and materials:
- Instructional practices: Teachers should integrate practices that allow for student choice. This could include establishing publishing goals for class writing projects together [LINK], having Ideas Parties so children can choose what they would like to write about within the parameters of the project [LINK], make contributions to the success criteria for the project after reading as writers together [LINK] and give children access to time and support for pursuing their own personal writing projects at school and at home [LINK].
- Dialogue: Facilitate open and invitational dialogue during pupil-conferencing that promotes critical thinking and collaborative engagement. Encouraging students to voice their thoughts and interact with their peers and writer-teacher can help them exercise agency more effectively [LINK].
- Link agency to writing achievement: Focus on fostering agency as a means to enhance children’s writing engagement, attention and focus, which will invariably but indirectly support improved writing outcomes [LINK].
Implications for school leaders and teacher educators:
- Professional development: Structure professional development to focus on strategies for cultivating students’ self-awareness, persistence, intentionality, and choice-making [LINK, LINK, LINK]. Providing teachers with practical tools and resources can enhance their ability to foster agency in their students [LINK].
- Supportive environments: Create school contexts that support agency [LINK] by addressing barriers such as restrictive writing schemes or ill-informed external pressures.
Conclusion
There is a growing recognition of the need for agency-centered writing teaching [LINK, LINK, LINK]. By fostering environments where students can exercise agency, teachers can help them become more engaged, independent, and successful writers.