Places, spaces and local customs: honouring the private worlds of out‐of‐school text creation

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of the out-of-school writing practices of three primary-aged children aged 9–10. In particular, it explores the writing these children chose to undertake at home including ‘for school’ writing, completed at home. The study’s findings reveal the ways in which these three, developing young writers engage and interact with writing and how this differs to writing for school , completed at home. To better understand the implications of national surveys that reveal a causal relationship between writing for enjoyment and positive writing attainment this research sought to expose the range and versatility of the children’s home and volitional writing practices. The children in this case study were not selected because they were writers but merely that they engaged with writing away from school. The study employs an ecological paradigm (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) to explore the participation and interaction of the children with their writing practices within the complex environment of home. The paper makes the case for teachers to be more curious about the private worlds of out-of-school text creation to better appreciate the provenance of home writing. \nevents and artefacts.