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Fourth, sixth, and eight graders’ preferred writing topics and identification of gender markers in stories
Students in elementary and middle-grade writing classrooms whose teachers espouse a process approach to writing are encouraged to express their unique perspectives on their world and to exercise personal choice of topics, genres and styles in their writing. Students rehearse, write, revise and edit for the purpose of communicating ideas and sharing stories with their teachers and their peers. Teachers have embraced a process writing approach to instruction largely because of its documented success in fostering students’ motivation and competence as writers (Atwell, 1998; Calkins, 1994; Graves, 1994).
There is growing evidence indicating that students’ rhetorical choices are socially constituted, however, and that an emphasis on the idiosyncratic nature of writing obscures the social meanings that are embedded within the writing (Finders, 1997; Gilbert, 1992 & 1993; Lensmire, 1994). Recognizing literacy learning as a social process, these researchers insist that writing teachers’ pedagogical decisions must consider the social relationships and social meanings that influence students’ choices and decisions while writing. Furthermore, they contend that overlooking the influence of dominant gender discourses on students’ writing may limit the possibilities for individual discovery and self-expression that are integral to the process writing approach.
Evidence of the social constraints on students’ rhetorical choices has been documented in a first-grade classroom where a socially dominant boys’ group refused to conference with girls because they viewed girls as inadequate partners (Henkin, 1995); in a second-grade classroom where girls’ stories were often not published because they did not conform to the prevailing classroom conflict-resolution model of good stories (Fleming, 1995); and in a seventh-grade classroom where girls wrote about “safe” topics that “were tied to their social roles and filtered through their literate histories as students, daughters, and friends” that did not endanger their status in the classroom social network (Finders, 1997, p. 120). In all three classrooms, the speaking positions that students took up and the subjects they constructed in their narrative writing were overlooked, as the classroom teachers focused on students’ freedom of expression and the various stages of students’ writing processes.
Social constraints on students’ writing competence are apparent in a comparison of scores assigned to the narrative writing of elementary and middle-grade girls and boys on state, provincial, and national writing tests, as well. A trend emerges in this comparison showing the assignment of higher scores for girls' narrative writing than for boys’ writing (Afflerbach, 1985; Alberta Education, 1995 & 1992; Applebee, Langer & Mullis, 1986; Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1995). The predominance of this trend over time and across international borders warrants a closer examination of the gendered subject positions available to elementary and middle-grade students as classroom narrative writers and readers.
Situated within a poststructuralist theoretical framework, this research study explored the gendered subject positions taken up by middle-grade girls and boys in their own narrative writing and in their reading of peers’ writing. The following research questions guided the study:
(1) What gender markers do fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students use to identify the gender of writers of three narrative papers?
(2) What topics do middle-grade girls and boys choose when writing narratives?
Theoretical Background
Poststructuralist theory embraces the interaction of social structures, language and individuals, locating each of these within their social and historical contexts. Each individual is viewed as being simultaneously “constituted through social structures and through language, . . . becom[ing] a speaking subject, one who can continue to speak/write into existence those same structures through those same discourses” (Davies, 1993, p. xviii). Gender roles and relationships are significant features of individuals’ self-definitions. Indeed, “children learn to take up their maleness or femaleness as if it were an incorrigible element of their personal and social selves” (Davies, 1989, p. x). However, individuals’ gendered subjectivities are fluid, dynamic and non unitary; constantly being recreated in innumerable versions through individuals’ participation in various discursive practices. It is this aspect of poststructuralist theory that makes possible both an examination of the ways in which existing social relations are maintained and reproduced and an examination of the potential for individual agency in producing new social meanings.
In this study, poststructuralist theory is used to highlight the complex interactions of social meanings and students’ classroom narrative writing choices. Students’ discursive histories are examined through their perceptions of the topic choices that are available when they write narratives and through the ways in which they position writers of the narratives they read. A narrow range of gendered subject positions taken up by students in this study may reflect either limited access to a variety of discourses or the possibility that “subjectivity is more readily recognizable and acceptable when the subject position offered is compatible with a number of other dominant and powerful discourses” (Gilbert & Taylor, 1991, p. 42). Using a poststructuralist framework in this study also makes it possible to uncover ways in which students show resistance to subject positions available to them within dominant discourses and their sense of agency in offering other possible subject positions. Narrative writing is viewed as an important vehicle through which students may become agentic subjects because it affords opportunities for revising and rethinking using the forms and conventions of written language to organize thoughts and open up new ways of understanding the assumptions of dominant discourses.
The gendered subject positions taken up by elementary children are reflected in the power relationships among characters, characters’ sense of agency and the conflict resolution strategies adopted by characters within students’ narrative writing. Researchers’ analyses of student writing repeatedly reveal a narrow range of gendered subject positions within elementary students’ narrative texts. In two studies (Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Tuck, Bayliss and Bell, 1985), female and male writers created both stereotyped and non-stereotyped characters of their own gender in their narrative writing. There was greater evidence of male characters in girls’ stories than of female characters in boys’ stories, however. Male characters were portrayed as problem solvers in 92% of boys’ stories and 62% of girls’ stories written by students in grades one through six. Female writers assigned more emotional states and prosocial behaviors (helping, sharing, empathizing) to their characters than did male writers. In contrast, characters in stories written by boys exhibited aggressive behavior and were involved in high intensity, dangerous actions to a greater degree than were characters in stories written by girls. These findings were consistent with Gray-Schlegel and Gray-Schlegel’s (1995-96) analysis of third- and sixth-grade narrative writing and McAuliffe’s (1994) and Fleming’s (1995) examinations of second-grade narrative writing.
When compared with boys’ writing, girls’ writing exhibited a wider range of topics in third- and sixth-grade narrative writing examined by Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel (1995-96). In addition, while boys generally included only male characters, girls employed both male and female characters in their stories. McAuliffe (1994) found that encouraging children to explore gender-related writing differences in discussions of their narrative writing with peers did influence students’ writing, however. Within this environment, second-grade girls and boys became more flexible in their use of gender-related writing styles and in the creation of male and female characters.
Viewed through a poststructuralist lens, researchers’ analyses of elementary children’s writing highlight the constraints in terms of gendered subject positions available to children in their narrative writing. Boys’ writing can be characterized by a limited offering of roles for female characters, and a positioning of male characters in powerful, risk-filled roles that require independent problem solving to overcome obstacles. Violence and crime are typically found in boys’ writing. Girls’ writing is defined less rigidly, with the positioning of female characters in both powerful and powerless roles, and the presence of some male characters. Violence may be an element in girls’ stories. Characters are more likely to resolve conflicts through the creation of alliances with others, however, than through independent, aggressive action.
Procedure
Middle-grade students participating in this research study articulated their perceptions of gender markers in peers’ narrative writing through a questionnaire administered in their classrooms. In November, 1997, 200 fourth-grade, 232 sixth-grade and 185 eighth-grade students in one urban, one rural, and one suburban school district in north central Ohio read three stories written by students at their grade level. Participating students were asked to identify the gender of the writer, if possible, and to identify gender markers within the story. In addition, students indicated their own sex and listed topics they preferred to write about.
The three classrooms at each grade level within each district (nine in total in each district) were selected according to the protocol of the district. In the urban district, a language arts consultant provided a list of teachers who were interested in participating in the study, while the principals of the rural and suburban schools provided a list of teachers who could be approached as potential participants.
The stories, written by Ohio students from a nearby district that had not participated in the study, were selected because they exhibited characteristics of both girls’ and boys’ writing as identified in previous research studies (Fleming, 1995; Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel, 1995-96; Kamler, 1993; McAuliffe, 1994; Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Sutton-Smith, 1981; Trepanier-Street & Romatowski, 1991; Tuck, Bayliss & Bell, 1985). They were presented to participating students in type-written form, unedited by adults. The procedure was pilot tested in one classroom in each of the three grades in April, 1997.
Data Analysis
Following the calculation of frequencies of students’ assignment of gender to the writers of the three papers, gender markers within the nine narrative papers were analyzed using three categories that had guided previous research studies and one category that emerged from the data. The four categories are:
(1) primary territory/tertiary territory In a previous research study, Graves (1975) found that girls’ writing tends to be situated within primary territory; related to the immediate experiences and emotions of the individual writers. Boys’ writing, on the other hand, tends to be situated within tertiary territory; beyond immediate experience. MacDonald (1981) asserts that the differentiation of primary territory as a female domain and tertiary territory as a male domain is a major factor in the reproduction of a sex-segregated work force in which males are dominant. This differentiation is socially constructed and perpetuated through, among other social systems, educational institutions.
(2) relative positioning of characters A number of researchers (Fleming, 1995; Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel, 1995-96; Kamler, 1993; McAuliffe, 1994; Romatowski & Trepanier-Street, 1987; Trepanier-Street & Romatowski, 1991; Tuck, Bayliss & Bell, 1985) found that girls’ writing positions female characters in both powerful and powerless roles, and includes some male characters, while boys’ writing is characterized by a limited offering of roles for female characters, and a positioning of male characters in powerful roles.
(3) presence/absence of violence and/or action Gray-Schlegel & Gray-Schlegel (1995-1996) found that violence and action are predominant features of boys’ writing, while girls’ writing shows little or no violence and action.
(4) linguistic competence/lack of competence An additional category emerged in the data analysis, as students identified gender markers regarding boys’ and girls’ relative competence as writers.
Percentages of gender markers identified by students of the same sex who agreed on the writer’s gender were calculated. For example, of the 79 discrete gender markers that were used by sixth-grade boys to identify writers of the three papers as male, 19.2 % referred to the presence of violence.
The two categories used to classify students’ topic preferences in their narrative writing were primary territory and tertiary territory. Within these categories, eight subcategories emerged. One subcategory, social issues, spans both primary and tertiary territory. Percentages of all topics preferred by students of the same sex within each grade were calculated. The eight subcategories are as follows:
PrimaryTerritory / TertiaryTerritory / Spans Primary and TertiaryTerritoryfamily/friends / natural world / social issues
feelings/personal experiences / supernatural world/ futuristic/magical
romance / sports
action/adventure
Findings
Identification of Writers’ Gender
Although the nine papers were selected for the presence of both female and male gender markers, many students showed a willingness to identify the gender of the writers of the nine narratives. As shown in Table 1, fourth-grade students’ accuracy in identifying writers’ gender ranged from a low of 4.8% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a girl to a high of 69.9% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a boy. At the sixth-grade level, accuracy rates were much higher, ranging from a low of 58.5% of boys’ guesses for a paper written by a girl to high of 71.6% of girls’ guesses for a paper written by a boy. Eighth-grade students’ accuracy in identifying the writer’s gender was lowest for a paper written by a girl (28.3% of boys’ guesses). The highest rate of accuracy (65.9% of girls’ guesses) was found for a paper written by a girl.
The following discussion of gender markers observed by participating students within the nine narrative papers highlights the factors underlying students identification of each writer’s gender.
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Insert Table 1 About Here
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Identification of Gender Markers
Regardless of students’ degree of accuracy, their identification of the writer’s gender was informed by a uniform set of gender markers for all nine narrative papers used in this study. As Table 2 indicates, gender identification involved a process of foregrounding certain gender markers and ignoring or mitigating the influence of others. At the fourth-grade level, students placed a marked focus on elements within primary or tertiary territory when determining the writer’s gender. The relative positioning of characters was another significant gender marker for fourth-grade students. The location of elements within primary and tertiary territory was also salient to sixth-grade students. For sixth-grade girls, however, the presence or absence of violence was a significant gender marker, while sixth-grade boys used rhetorical markers to identify the writers’ gender to a great degree. In addition to using gender markers within primary and tertiary territory, eighth-grade students foregrounded rhetorical features when identifying the writer’s gender and focused on the presence of violence when identifying male writers.
Gender markers identified by participating students are presented within four categories: (1) primary/tertiary territory; (2) relative positioning of characters; (3) presence/absence of violence and/or action; and (4) linguistic competence/lack of competence.
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Insert Table 2 About Here
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Primary/Tertiary Territory
An overwhelming number of gender markers within tertiary territory were used to identify male writers and a preponderance of gender markers within primary territory were used to identify female writers.
Gender markers highlighted within the story, “Burgertaur,” written by a sixth-grade boy, provide a clear example of this pattern. In this story Prince Jones slew the evil Burgertaur by grinding him up into a burger and eating the burger; an action that prompted the “invention of the fast-food place.” Students who identified the writer as a boy primarily selected elements within tertiary territory, such as the monster, machines, inventions, magic, and sailing, while students (all male), who identified the writer as a girl focused on elements within primary territory, such as having a baby, raising a prince, and the fairy tale prince and princess characters. Two girls identified the marriage between Prince Jones and Princess Ellen as a female gender marker and one boy who thought the writer was female observed that the writer “talks about mushy stuff.” The presence of hamburgers was viewed by students as being both a female and a male gender marker.
By focusing on elements within tertiary territory of “The Magic Shoes,” written by a fourth-grade girl, most students incorrectly identified the writer’s gender. Written in the first person, this story tells of a boy, Miky, who was the last one to be picked when the class played basketball in gym class. After Miky’s parents bought him running shoes for his birthday, Miky began “jamming above the rim and [] was so popular. So everybody was picking [him].” The few students who recognized the writer as a girl agreed that “some girls play basketball, too; not just boys play,” showing that girls’ behavior could be moved into tertiary territory, a domain they recognized as usually male. In contrast, the majority of students who incorrectly identified the writer as a boy used a stereotypical view of gendered behavior in defining the tertiary sports realm as a male domain. Five male students and five female students agreed that “boys like to play basketball. Girls do not.” One male student’s gender marker fit within the primary domain, but the student positioned the male character as more powerful than a female character would be in that domain. He stated, “Shoes aren’t usually $100.00 for a girl.” Another perspective on the shoes was provided by a girl who felt that the emphasis on new shoes pointed to a female writer.