Reflexive writers: Re-thinking writing development and assessment in schools

Assessing Writing 22 (2014) 60–74

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Assessing Writing

Reflexive writers: Re-thinking writing development and assessment in schools Mary Ryan ∗ School of Curriculum, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Qld 4059, Australia

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Article history: Received 30 May 2014 Received in revised form 8 August 2014 Accepted 18 August 2014 Available online 15 September 2014 Keywords: Writing pedagogy Writing assessment Reflexivity and writing Reflexive writers

a b s t r a c t Writing is a complex and highly individual activity, which is approached in different ways by different writers. Writers reflexively mediate subjective and objective conditions in specific and nuanced ways to produce a product in time and place. This paper uses a critical realist theory of reflexivity to argue that the teaching and assessment of writing must account for the different ways that students manage and make decisions in their writing. Data from linguistically and culturally diverse primary students in Australia are used to illustrate how four distinct reflexive modalities constitute the ways in which students approach writing. The paper offers a new approach to assessing writing for and of learning that considers writers as reflexive and agentic in different ways. It posits the importance of making visible and explicit the context and reflexive decision-making as writers shape a product for a purpose and audience. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Writing is a multifaceted and learned activity, requiring us to choose appropriate words, textual features and structures to communicate our purpose and position ourselves as writer to a known or unknown audience. Unlike many other activities which become easier with practice, writing remains

∗ Tel.: +61 31383601. E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2014.08.002 1075-2935/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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highly demanding even for experienced writers (Cremin & Myhill, 2012). The writer must constantly make decisions about how to represent their subject matter and themselves through language. Language is a powerful communicative tool which can have unintended consequences if used without a good understanding of the social and cultural context in which it is produced and the audience for whom it is intended. Yet it also has the potential for reproduction beyond the original context and audience, particularly rendered in digital form and in networked platforms such as social media and messaging that are frequently used by young people. This means that the choices one makes in writing matter. Students need to develop a high level of awareness about the implications of their writing choices – in both formal and informal contexts. Recent research in writing foregrounds the writer as an active designer of text, shaping meanings and expressing aspects of self within the social context (Dyson, 2009; Myhill, Jones, Watson, & Lines, 2013; Ryan & Barton, 2014). The ability to make effective choices that consider both the intentions of the individual and the conditions in which the writing is produced, is paramount in this conceptualisation of the writer (Ryan & Kettle, 2012). Effective choices are contingent upon access to a repertoire of textual knowledges and skills constituted by four main domains: (1) metalinguistic (grammar, cohesion, structures and lexical forms); (2) communicative purposes of texts and how they can be designed to achieve these purposes; (3) roles and relationships between the writer and the audience and how meaning is negotiable and contested; and (4) affordances and dynamics of the medium (Ivanic, 2004; Macken-Horarik & Morgan, 2011). The skill of the writer is evidenced in the ways that they negotiate and use these knowledges for the texts that they produce in different contexts. Indeed, our teaching and assessment of writing cannot separate these knowledges and skills from the different ways in which writers apply them in different contexts. In this paper I argue that making students aware of their writing choices, the influences on those choices and the impact of those choices on their writing product, their audience and their writing success is a crucial aspect of self-assessment. First, I consider the writer as a self-conscious designer of text, which foregrounds their reflexive and agentic position as writer. Next, I use Archer’s (1995, 2007, 2012) theory of reflexivity to explain the ways in which writers mediate objective (contextual structures) and subjective (personal) conditions to make decisions in writing, how such decisions can maintain or subvert the status quo, and the different reflexive modalities that can be ascribed to writers. I use data from a small-scale exploratory study in two linguistically and culturally diverse primary schools in Australia to illustrate these distinct reflexive modalities. Finally, I use these findings as a prompt to suggest a new reflexive focus in assessment of writing for and of learning. 2. Teaching for self-assessment: writers as reflexive designers More than 30 years of research on writing has shown that writing development is more complex than simple knowledge transfer or vertical learning (Beard, Myhill, Nystrand, & Riley, 2009; Ryan & Barton, 2014). Writing development is mediated learning, that is, it requires intervention in different ways for different writers. Writing is uneven in its attainment and in the importance ascribed to it by individuals. Its uses, meanings, and transformations are informed by the contexts in which it is found (Macken-Horarik & Morgan, 2011; Myhill et al., 2013) and by the personal concerns of the writer. This means that developing writers must necessarily be positioned as self-conscious designers of writing, not just as learners of grammars, processes and structures. Individual writers are accorded the responsibility of choice (albeit with a range of influences) and self-assessment as they shape an identity as a writer. Research has shown that diversity and identity matter in writing (Athanases, Bennett, & Michelsen Wahleithner, 2013; Canagarajah, 2006; Cremin & Myhill, 2012). Linguistic and culturally diverse writers, who are proficient writers, can switch their languages, discourses, and identities in response to contextual change. Canagarajah (2006) strongly argues that multilingual writers are not passively conditioned by their language and culture, but rather, they make choices as writers for different texts and contexts. In order for diverse writers to have the repertoires from which to choose, they need to be enabled as writers. Enablement involves using a variety of strategies, including: explicit instruction in forms and features of texts; modelling and facilitating the processes of writing over time and in different ways for different texts; deep immersion in subject matter; opportunities for purposeful

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and creative writing; and interrogation of one’s representations of self, others and things in writing (Ryan, 2014b). Repertoires of knowledges and skills are necessary for diverse writers to be reflexive designers of text. Often our choices of strategies as writing teachers are influenced by the linguistic and/or cognitive and emotional development of the writers we teach. For example, emergent writers require focused attention on the motor skills necessary for writing and on the ways in which meaning can be represented on a page or screen (Cremin & Myhill, 2012). More sophisticated writers can be challenged with creative and hybridised ways of using language for abstract purposes. Other influences on our choices of strategies include the cultural and linguistic diversity of our students. Multilingual writers, for example, can be attuned to ‘code-meshing’ of language and culture (Jordan, 2012). There is little research, however, on whether and how teachers’ strategies in writing could also account for the kinds of reflexive decision-makers that their students are. Indeed, could students themselves be made more aware of the ways in which they weigh up choices, as a strategy for self-assessment in learning? The next section draws on a robust theory of reflexivity, investigated across the lifespan by Archer (1995, 2010, 2012), to provide insight into the ways in which people deliberate about action; how some decisions lead to morphostatic outcomes (reproducing) and some to morphogenetic (transforming); and how people tend to exercise a particular modality of reflexivity. This theory is innovatively applied to writing design and decision-making. 3. Reflexivity and writing Margaret Archer’s (1995, 2010) approach to reflexivity through realist social theory provides a framework for understanding the ways in which individuals manage choices and make decisions in different contexts. She highlights the importance of both the concerns of the individual and the social structures or ‘expected’ ways of acting in a particular context. Reflexivity involves deliberating about possible courses of action, deciding what might be feasible at this time in this writing situation and then choosing a way forward. The subsequent deliberations about the effects of these choices constitute a form of self-assessment for learning, as this new knowledge is woven into the next course of action. Effective individual writers are seen as active decision-makers and designers of text who mediate their own concerns and considerations (interests, emotions, beliefs, creativity, priorities, language and cultural resources and capabilities) and their particular circumstances (for example, school curriculum and assessment requirements, teacher and text type expectations, etc.) to write in certain ways. Archer suggests that we have ‘internal conversations’ in which we reflect upon and weigh up (multiple) possible options, taking internal and external considerations into account. The causal powers of these external or objective structures are exercised as enablements and constraints, and even the anticipation or perception of particular enablements or constraints can serve as a deterrent or an encouragement (Archer, 2007). Although students’ writing decisions are conditioned by social expectations, these structures are not considered by Archer to be ‘forces’, but rather are ‘reasons for acting in particular ways’ (Archer, 1995, p. 209). This means that student writers always have some agency in their writing. However, they may not necessarily be self-consciously aware of the objective and subjective conditions that they mediate or could consider in their writing. Their reception of such influences is essential to understanding and explaining eventual outcomes, which highlights the importance of making visible their reflexivity as a form of self-assessment. The cyclical process of reflexivity, according to Archer’s research, involves internal conversations whereby one discerns the situation and the possible choices, reflects and deliberates on the influences, and decides on a course of action, triggering the next cycle. In contextually congruent or static conditions (such as highly structured and formulaic writing conditions in some classrooms), students have less need (and potentially less encouragement) to reflexively weigh up their options. However in contextually incongruent or unpredictable conditions that have less formal structure and/or privacy and/or more potential for misinterpretation (such as out of school writing on social media sites, instant messaging, blogs or email), Archer argues that reflexive processes, which go beyond reflective thought to include action and re-action, are more important than ever in weighing up good decisions. If students only ever write in contextually congruent conditions, with no opportunities to deliberate about the influences on and effects of their writing decision-making, they

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will lack the self-assessment skills to write effectively and appropriately in other contexts. Making oneself the object of study through reflexivity is a powerful way to interrogate the decisions one makes and the ensuing effects or implications. The decisions we make and the responses we have when we write are constituted in internal conversations by three Ds: Discernment, Deliberation and Dedication (Archer, 2007). Discernment occurs when we identify something of concern to us – a priority for now in our writing, such as the desire to engage a real audience or the need to finish a school writing task or to communicate an important message to someone. Deliberation involves weighing up all of the mitigating factors, including our personal views, motivations and emotions, along with contextual factors, social norms and possible effects of our decisions. We sift through and decide what we are willing to concede or what we want to change or what is worth doing. Dedication is the point where we decide if we are capable and/or willing to follow through, and we decide on action or inaction – either of which could lead to change or to maintaining the status quo in the conditions around writing in this context. Different people will move through these moments in different ways. Archer (2012) suggests that we tend to develop and practice a particular mode of reflexivity, which may change at different times in our lives, but often stems from our experiences growing up. These modes are (1) communicative reflexive, (2) autonomous reflexive, (3) meta-reflexive, and (4) fractured reflexive. For communicative reflexives, decisions need to be confirmed and completed by others before they lead to action. For example, constant checking in with the teacher or peers about writing decisions or following the teacher’s ideas and structures without injecting personal style or voice. Autonomous reflexives, on the other hand, are clear about their pathway and goal and their deliberations lead to direct action. For example setting a writing plan and following it no matter what might develop in the process or through interactions with others. Meta-reflexives tend to critically analyse past deliberations and actions by them and others to make decisions that will best serve the common good. For example, meeting the expectations of the teacher while at the same time serving one’s own interests and priorities as a writer. Fractured reflexives, however, cannot use their deliberations to lead to purposeful action. Deliberation only serves to distress and disorient them, and they cannot work out how to put things right or make effective decisions. For example, disaffected writers who are paralysed by language requirements or the perceived enormity of the task. Each of us can adopt all of these modes at some point and in some contexts, but Archer argues that we generally have a dominant mode. Understanding our mode of reflexivity is a crucial step in becoming self-aware. This focus on reflexivity means that writing assessment cannot be reduced to the assessment of a product at a snapshot in time. Writers make decisions in different ways for different reasons in different contexts. In order to understand the developing writer it is necessary to make visible these decision-making processes, how they play out in different contexts for different tasks and the impact they have on the writing that is produced. Accounting for the interrelatedness of person, context and product is crucial in reliably assessing writing (Slomp, 2012; Wardle & Roozen, 2012). Further to this, I argue that not only should teachers account for this interrelatedness, but that students also should understand how they mediate these conditions to write.

4. Research context and design 4.1. Research context The student participants were drawn from two linguistically and culturally diverse primary schools, Mountain Gully School (MGS) and Willow Edge School (WES) in an Australian metropolitan area (pseudonyms used throughout). At MGS, 8.6% of students were Indigenous, 33% spoke languages other than English at home, and there was also a high proportion of students with special learning needs. At WES, 32% of students had language backgrounds other than English, making it also a linguistically diverse school. The local community is quite multicultural with around 45 different nationalities attending the school, including Indigenous students and families from countries in South America, North America, Asia, Europe and the Pacific Islands. This research specifically aimed to:

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Identify the types of writing that 10–13 year old students undertake in and out of school Use students’ writing samples as prompts for them to discuss their decision-making in writing Identify what students see as writing, and how they perceive of themselves as writers Speculate on what this might mean for teaching, learning and assessment, and enhanced future performances

Volunteer students from the latter years of primary school (ages 10–13 years) completed a questionnaire about their writing practices and attitudes towards writing (MGS n = 40; WES n = 42). Subsequently, 12 students from each school identified from the questionnaire (to represent a range of backgrounds and writing practices) agreed to be interviewed and to provide writing samples (n = 24). For the purposes of this paper interview data and work samples from four students are analysed to illustrate the ways in which different modalities of reflexivity can impact on writing.

4.2. Analytical methods Reflexivity theory (Archer, 2007, 2013) is operationalised in this study through the study of discourse; that is, how social practices and decisions influence and are influenced by semiotic systems of texts (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). The word text is used in the broad sense to mean any communicative event such as talk, written text, gesture, visual image and so on. The analytical method of critical discourse analysis (CDA) enables the exploration of reflexive writing modalities on three intertwined levels: the macro level of socio-historical ideologies, objective structures and influences on students, teachers and teaching; the meso level of the contextual specificities of the textual occurrences, the decisions that are made at these moments, and how these influence the texts produced; and the micro level of the language choices that are used to represent self, others, knowledge and ideas. I use Fairclough’s (1992, 2003) linguistic point of reference, that of Hallidayan (1978) systemic functional linguistics, which is concerned with the social character of text and the relationship between discourse and discursive practice. Hallidayan linguistics is particularly useful in exploring reflexivity as it foregrounds choice and decision-making in the design of texts. Discourse analysis of students’ interviews utilises linguistic evaluation and appraisal (Martin, 2004) within and through the three levels of CDA (macro, meso, micro) to determine students’ self-appraisal as writers and of their motivations, decision-making and writing practices in this context. Students’ writing samples are analysed for identification of their positioning as a writer through language. Specifically, assumptions that are made, grammatical mood, styles, modality and evaluation are examined to determine aspects of Archer’s (2012) four reflexive modes. I argue that writers can be identified as utilising particular modes in their decision-making and action. I used Archer’s (2012) descriptions of these modes across the life projects of generations of people as a starting point (see brief descriptions in Section 3), and then I applied these to writing: • Communicative indicators – parrots teacher talk and discourses; checks in with friends, teachers, parents; use of modals to show uncertainty; writing conforms to structures but does not show confident command of language, rhetorical devices or styles. • Autonomous indicators – keen to finish tasks; focused on most efficient way to get the task done; approaches all writing in similar ways; writing is structured according to expectations but shows a command of the genre; high linguistic modality and use of definite articles to show certainty. • Meta indicators– mediates appropriateness and creativity; uses unusual or interesting language and techniques; subverts genre; hybridises; talks about self as writer; writes outside school; pleases others and self; questions teacher. • Fractured indicators – does not apply pre-writing activities (vocabulary development, brainstorming) in writing; cannot answer questions about writing or decision-making unless very direct; does not elaborate on reasoning for choices; cannot see self as writer; tends to dislike writing; makes inappropriate writing decisions related to audience, structure, vocabulary, context; writes very little and follows a provided formula.

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5. Findings 5.1. Communicative reflexive Quinn, a trilingual (English, Kirundi, Swahili) Year Seven student from MGS, is a writer who seeks direction from her teacher and others. She explains the persuasive task: it was about animals in cages and we had to write about it and we had to persuade the reader why they should agree with us. Quinn’s repeated use of ‘had to’ indicates that she is completing this writing task for her teacher. She gives no indication that she has invested in the task, and her account of her decision-making during the planning stages suggests that her decisions are based on teacher instructions and surface elements such as where to leave a space. Well this is telling me how to set it out, this right here I just put it there because I thought putting a line between the ‘argument three’ and ‘restate thesis’ would help me and it’s good to acknowledge the other side but don’t put too much into it or the reader will think they’re right. (Quinn) Quinn defers to her teacher’s instructions to explain her strategy it’s good to acknowledge the other side including the imperative but don’t put too much into it. She is willing to follow directions and she incorporates the metalanguage used by her teacher into her descriptions about her writing choices. For example, she would write words down that she thought would help and were: not everyday language choices. This she said: made the text sound more ‘adulty’. Quinn associates writing with adults and evaluates its quality in these terms. Adults tell her how to set out her writing, and how to use big words. She does not acknowledge that children can be writers who take responsibility for decisions about writing or make creative choices. Throughout her interview, Quinn frequently demonstrates her propensity to check in with others about her writing decisions, using indicators such as ‘we are allowed. . .’, ‘we have to. . .’, ‘My teacher. . .’, ‘My friends. . ..’ She is immersed in the objective structures (Archer, 2007) of “school writing” whereby her personal or subjective concerns are related to pleasing her teacher. Quinn uses the structure and key points brainstormed with her teacher and classmates in the prewriting phase to produce her persuasive text in Fig. 1. She is able to discern some acceptable reasons why animals are kept in cages – an acknowledgement of her teacher’s instruction to include points from the other side. However, it is clear that Quinn does not have a confident command of this text. She tries to use strong modality as she has been taught for persuasive texts: I strongly agree. . . yet she dilutes her argument with but most people only think. . . This is a communicative reflexive (Archer, 2012) linguistic move in that she invokes the views of most people to support her argument, and the tentative only if its good for them and good for us. . . not realising that such general inclusive statements are subverting her argument. She is trying to please all parties and her argument ultimately maintains the status quo that animals can be caged for good reasons as long as they have enough space to move. Quinn is indicative of many of the students in this study who write for adults and according to particular rules and structures. This is not unexpected in a school environment, particularly when teachers are under incredible pressure to prepare students for standardised tests (Comber, 2012), which in Australia include a writing component that has traditionally been a persuasive or narrative text written on demand. Under these conditions, where students follow formulaic structures without question or reflection, they are much less likely to be able to make effective writing decisions in other less certain contexts outside school. Another reflexive mode evident in these data was autonomous reflexive.

5.2. Autonomous reflexive Sari, a Year Five student who attended WES (English speaker born in Australia, some Papua New Guinean pidgin spoken at home), considers herself a fiction writer. She has immersed herself in this personal (subjective) concern (Archer, 2007) through mind and body as she describes her pursuit of the tactile use of a typewriter rather than a computer to write: I don’t really like to use a computer. I’ve saved some money and I’ve bought a typewriter because I really, I like, I feel, I like writing on typewriters.

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Fig. 1. Quinn’s persuasive text.

Sari loves writing narratives: I just like making things up. I think I’ve got a good imagination. . . and she approaches most writing tasks with this personal concern as a priority. Her frequent use of ‘I’ collocated with dynamic (saved, bought) and stative (like, feel) verbs shows that she knows what she wants and how she feels. She frequently refers to her writing in narrative terms: I have this exciting beginning. . . here is my exciting ending. . . I like to think on my feet and write what I’m thinking. . . it just takes shape. . . I have quite a few stories from my life. She illustrates an autonomous reflexive modality (Archer, 2012) in pursuit of her goal, as also evidenced in her writing. Sari begins her persuasive text (Fig. 2) about dumping TV in favour of physical pursuits, with direct speech, more indicative of a narrative. She shows some command of language and engagement with audience through her dramatic voice, hyperbole, varied sentence lengths and use of imperative, declarative and interrogative mood: Dump TV and get out and play. Don’t you see that TV is ruining children’s lives? What a bore. Sari’s pursuit of the narrative style means that she employs techniques that are not necessarily appropriate for other contexts and purposes: I don’t really like the persuasive texts. . . I love narratives. Rather than demonstrating engagement in the subject matter and her position in the argument, she feels compelled to entertain: I like to give people insight to my world. Her attempt to develop a persuasive argument is subverted in her desire to engage the audience by describing all of the different things you could do – on both sides of the argument (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 2. Sari’s first persuasive paragraph.

Fig. 3. Sari’s fourth persuasive paragraph.

She is able to draw on some subject matter knowledge, yet her rhetorical strategies would not convince a TV buff that such a variety of shows is boring. Sari has a rhythmic and dramatic style that could be quite powerful if she reflexively used it in a more authoritative way for a persuasive text. Students who have a singular goal or concern that they do not question or interrogate, may find writing satisfying, yet are not necessarily able to achieve the purposes of different kinds of writing. A misreading of purpose, roles and relationships, context or audience can be risky when one commits words to a page or screen. 5.3. Meta-reflexive Ged, a Year Seven student who attended WES (born in the USA and moves between there and Australia), demonstrates a high level of self-awareness about his writing and the strategies he uses to achieve particular outcomes. He explains his meta-awareness of reliable sources of information and borrowing ideas from others: I research a lot. I usually cite many sources. I use the Internet but I don’t just use Wikipedia. . . I can’t just copy. . . it can, ah. . . it’s plagiarism. . . I’ve learnt to research and write in my own words. If I’ve got a lot of sources it’s easier. He is not only aware of the word plagiarism but he can explain his strategy for avoiding it. He is also prepared to question the teacher about feedback: Sometimes I think the feedback is very anti. . . like it’s against what I’m trying to do, which I would explain to them and they get it. . . it’s not like that happens frequently. His explanation of the feedback with the descriptors anti or against indicates his understanding that teachers are readers who look for particular things when they give feedback, but that they are not necessarily the authority on his writing. He is also quick to modify his statements so that he does not give the interviewer the wrong idea about his teachers. This indicates a meta-awareness of roles, responsibilities and authorities of participants in this context, including the university researcher. Ged wrote a narrative about visiting his grandfather who has dementia, including a flashback element remembering stories from his grandfather’s childhood. The narrative is engaging and realistic, exploring the relationship between the two characters, strategies for dealing with difficult emotions, and his knowledge about dementia and its effects. Ged demonstrates an authoritative and resonant style suggesting an investment in the story. He uses humour, creative wordplay and figurative language

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to foreground his recognisable style. Ged is a writer who can mediate subjective and objective concerns on his own terms. He has shaped an identity as a writer with something to share and make comment about, rather than someone who is going through the motions of a school task – evidenced in his narrative: Ryan closed his eyes, hoping, more than anything, that he would once again hear his grandfather’s strange but comforting voice, strange because what he said bore only a tenuous connection with reality and comforting because, before his dementia, Ryan’s grandfather had always been there for him. . . Netsook’s walking was almost as unsteady as his mind. He would stumble every five steps or so. . . and would talk to inanimate objects, which included complimenting an upright fan on its hairdo. . . Before he left, Ryan looked deep into his grandfather’s eyes, trying to see if there was any recognition, or any trace of the former self he had grown up around. But he saw only a blank, white slate without colour or meaning, an opaque window hiding what, if anything, was left of his soul. . . “Could you pass me the salted papershredder please?” Netsook said to his neighbour. . . Ged indicated in his interview that he was drawing on his family background for this story, using his own memories and those of his parents to paint a vivid picture of his Inuit grandfather. His connectedness to the subject matter and the narrative style to entertain and make social comment is obvious as he draws the reader in, and maintains interest using narrative techniques of flashback, characterisation and interesting vocabulary. Ged is able to explain how he changes his style depending on audience and purpose: If I was trying to write for a teacher to read and for their feedback I would probably make it more formal or scientific. For a class audience like if I wanted their applause or their feedback I’d make it humorous. He is aware of how he mediates the subjective and objective conditions (Archer, 2007) when he writes. His use of comparison/contrast shows that he understands that there are particular expectations in school writing, yet he is also able to satisfy his own desires and pique the interest of his peers in writing. Ged is a writer who is able to weigh up different contexts and considerations without needing a formula or guidelines. He is open to learning new skills and knowledge, however he is well aware of how he can utilise those new skills and knowledges in new and different ways across platforms and contexts.

5.4. Fractured reflexive Farideh, a Year Seven student from MGS (born in Afghanistan, speaks Persian and English at home), is a writer who engages well in highly structured activities for writing, such as exercises using descriptive language and simile to engage the reader. In the pre-writing stage, she uses brainstormed vocabulary (feel, hear and see) and a sentence starter provided by the teacher to paint an intoxicating picture for the reader: When you visit a theme park you might feel. . . like your (sic) in a washing machine, and going round and round and you feel dizzy as well as being nauseous on some of the exciting and leathel (sic) thrill rides. When she writes her persuasive text, however, Farideh is unable to transfer this knowledge or these ideas to her writing (Fig. 4). She writes a recount rather than a persuasive text, listing activities with temporal indicators: Following that. . . then. . . after that. . . finially (sic). She is not able to demonstrate an understanding of the objective conditions (Archer, 2007) of this text, that is, that the vocabulary around see, hear and feel could be used to entice the reader to visit this theme park. In her interview she shares subjective concerns (Archer, 2007): I like using my imagination. . .pretty much we have to do like, non-fiction, all the time. It has to be true, but I like imagination and stuff. It takes me to a different place to what I normally am. These desires are not evident in her writing. She is not able to manipulate language in her persuasive text, for example, to use creative and imaginative word play for persuasive purposes or to pose interesting or unusual arguments. While she knows what her personal concerns are, she is unable to explain what these look like in writing, how she might realise them or enact them in these conditions. She is fractured in her reflexivity (Archer, 2012) around writing. Her interview talk included much deontic modality (obligation) such as: We had to. . . we were allowed to. . . you could. . . I have to. . .

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Fig. 4. Farideh’s persuasive text.

indicating the boundaries that she works within, although she does not explain them as such – this is just ‘the norm’. She found it difficult to talk about her writing and tended to provide short answers to direct questions, unless she was describing her own context or recent experiences. For Farideh, writing is obligatory, both at school and at home: Yeah my Dad makes me write, like if I write down a story or something, five stories a week he’ll give me five bucks. Then I quit that last month. It’s boring now. Extrinsic motivation (offers of money or good test results) does not keep her interested for very long. She likes the idea of being imaginative, yet she does not know how to make choices to enact this in her writing. Fractured reflexives are turned off writing. It becomes too hard or too tedious and they feel no sense of control over their writing. 6. Implications: reflexivity as assessment in and for learning These four modes of reflexivity, communicative, autonomous, meta- and fractured, can be identified in these data through talk and writing. These modes have implications for writing satisfaction and success, however I argue that they can be used in productive ways for nuanced self-assessment. If students are aware of the ways in which they mediate concerns and deliberate about action in their writing, they can also learn strategies to manage and enable their concerns in satisfying and sustainable ways. This approach puts self at the forefront in writing. That is, writing is not just about something and for someone, but it is also of someone: the writer is there in a myriad of ways in different kinds of texts that they produce. 6.1. Reflexive self-assessment strategies Reflexivity in the moment when writing can stimulate deliberations that push the writing to levels beyond the immediate experience and can educe particular writerly voices (Baird, 1952; Elbow, 2000; Harris, 2012; Ivanic, 1998) as one shapes the text. We can teach students to take a self-conscious

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approach using reflexive prompts as a framework to interrogate and imagine the subjective considerations that influence their writing (their emotions, experiences, knowledge, beliefs, mood) and how their choices and manipulations of rhetorical tools and textual strategies afford them voice for particular objective structures or contexts, purposes and audiences. Do they lean towards particular tools and strategies when they are writing for their teacher or for a ‘real’ audience or about subject matter in which they are engaged or not? This double-sided thought process positions students as agentic and authentic writers who can shape their writing for a purpose, rather than obligatory school task writers. These strategies can stimulate the creative aspects of writing through such self-awareness and reflexivity to elevate the writer’s performance. Deeper reflection on one’s work and self can be facilitated through ‘stepping back’ strategies, which use one’s own work in a new context as an artefact to prompt reflection. Examples of this strategy can include dialogic reflections that draw on one’s own response and that of others to the work; and contemplative reflections that focus on the new context as a stimulus for response. Each of these involves recontextualising the written work to evoke newly reflective writer response and subsequent reflexive action. Dialogic reflections can be carefully facilitated so that the work itself and the responses of others to the work can provide the raw material upon which to reflect. Blogs or ‘Conversations with the writer’ are two ways to open written work to multiple responses, however it may be pertinent to limit access to a particular audience or group for response. Blogs can provide anonymity if so desired, but also allow time for responses to accumulate over days or weeks, each response potentially prompting others to respond in new ways. ‘Conversations with the writer’ are similar to ‘Author’s Chair’ or group discussions about a written piece, however they are scaffolded for deep, transformative reflection. In this strategy, the author shares a work in progress with a small group and they explore the choices made, and the meanings and emotions it evoked in the writer, the panel or interviewer. This strategy tends to be face-to-face but can be recorded for later viewing by the writer. In this way, the original writer can use these personal, reflective responses of others to engage in a second-order reflection about their writing. They can use others’ recontextualised responses and thoughts to reflect more deeply about what they had hoped to achieve and how they feel about the responses evoked by the work. The next step requires reflexivity in that the writer weighs up the experience and decides if and how they intend to revise or change their writing, making a plan of action. If students are not explicitly taught how to reflect in deep and critical ways for self-assessment, their reflections on their work tend to be superficial (Ryan & Ryan, 2013) and rarely lead to reflexive action for improvement. The use of scaffolded prompts can facilitate such reflexive action to improve one’s writing. Contemplative reflections can be undertaken by the writer when they perceive their work in a new setting or medium. This may include, for example, the performance of their play script, an oral reading (by someone else) of their creative writing, publication of their persuasive text in a newsletter or the online launch of their video game blueprint. The new setting becomes a prompt to read, see and hear the work in new ways (Ryan, 2014a). These contemplative reflections can also be prompted with particular focus on how the new setting infuses new meanings or enables the writer to see what was not visible in the original setting where the work was created. An interrogation of the effect of audience, platform and mode on written work can prompt new forms of reflexive action. Key learnings can be documented for future writing, including the effects of particular writing choices when the writing is recontextualised in a new context or platform. Teachers can scaffold the use of these reflective strategies using prompts for deep reflection and reflexive action. For example, I use Archer’s 3Ds of reflexivity: Discernment, Deliberation and Dedication as a framework (see Table 1) for specific prompts that relate to reflection on writing for self-assessment. These prompts can be modified according to the type of writing that was undertaken. These prompts can help students to articulate reflexive deliberations so that they can be made visible and opened up to analysis. Prompting Discernment is a way to encourage students to ‘notice’ things about their writing and have some kind of response to what they notice. Questions related to Deliberation include both personal concerns and contextual expectations. Questions related to personal concerns bring self to the forefront so students can see that they are in this text and can represent their identities and personal considerations through the decisions they make. Prompts for expectations can encourage a deeper interrogation of the reasons for and effects of particular choices in this

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Table 1 Reflexive prompts for self-assessment in writing. Stage

Questions to get started

Discern: Identify choices made

• Identify some key choices that you, as writer, made. For example, who or what is being written about and how did you intend them to come across? Or, what role did you take on as writer – to explain something or show your knowledge to an expert or make people laugh or voice your opinion etc.? Or, why is it set out that way? etc. • How do you feel about this piece of writing? Why? Who do you think will read it? How do you think they might respond? Why?

Deliberate: Weigh up personal concerns

• Are you interested in this topic? Do you know much about it? What do you know about it? • Have you done this kind of writing before? What do you think makes this kind of writing enjoyable? Do you like writing in this way? Why? • How did you go about it? How did you know what to write? • What is your opinion about this topic? Who would you really like to read this writing? Why?

Weigh up expectations

• What choices did you make to help you to represent the participants/topic/things/text or yourself in this way (refer back to Discern)? Give some examples. Do you think they work? Why? • What are some other ways you could have done this? • What response do you think your teacher would have if they read this? Why? What response do you think your friend/parent/sibling would have? Why? • How do you think they would think about you as the author of this writing? Why? • What do you think are important features of this kind of writing? Why are they important? How do you know they are important?

Dedicate: Make an action plan

• Look back over your writing and think about how you approached it. What are some different strategies you could try in this kind of writing? • What could you change about this writing to make it clearer/more exciting/more convincing for your ideal audience? • Where could you get some ideas for how to do this? • What kind of writer do you want to be? What can you do to make this happen?

context, including consideration of other possibilities. Prompts to encourage Dedication can lead to new understandings or plans for action based on these reflections. Making such reflections ‘social’ (Yancey, 2014), that is, sharing them with others in new an different ways, can lead to much more powerful and generative understandings. Self-conscious and shared forms of self-assessment facilitate transformation and a deeper engagement with writing, which takes time, but gives students ownership of their choices. The next section considers the utility of these reflective and reflexive strategies in terms of the four reflexive modalities: Communicative, autonomous, meta- and fractured. 6.2. The utility of self-assessment for the reflexive modalities Looking at Archer’s (2012) modalities of reflexivity – communicative, autonomous, meta-reflexive and fractured – I suggest that these reflexive strategies can provide an outlet for the internal deliberations, and enable a clearer process for self-assessment and reflexive action (Ryan, 2014a). Each of the reflexive modalities (introduced earlier) can learn about deliberation and decision making through writing. For communicative reflexives, the scaffolded interrogation of one’s own work in relation to the variety of responses from others can enable one to weigh up choices in a more agentic way than simple confirmation of courses of action. This means the communicative reflexive takes more responsibility for abstracting their ideas and interpreting others’ reactions, and they start to learn about making decisions with less reliance on specific advice from others. For autonomous reflexives, the single course of action can be tempered by considering others’ responses and by weighing up the potential effects of novel alternatives. In today’s society, the single-minded approach is almost untenable as we are much less able to predict outcomes in ever-changing contexts (Archer, 2012). Thus having the opportunity to stop, reflect and weigh up the impact of one’s choices can provide the

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catalyst for new ways of imagining and performing one’s writing. For meta-reflexives, reflexive selfassessment of writing provides morphogenetic possibilities, particularly in relation to expected norms and the interactions with the reader of the work. Analysing the potential effects of the writing on people and places can engender powerful deliberations for action that subvert the status quo and provide leadership for others in performing as a writer in new ways. Fractured reflexives (who are unable to commit to decisions or actions) can benefit most of all from reflexive and social self-assessment of writing. Dialogic and contemplative strategies that are well scaffolded can help to abstract the core issues and feelings from the fractured context and make appropriate action clearer. Responses from others can provide inspiration and a plan of action can help these students to reassert some control in their writing. These reflexive self-assessment strategies can form part of a more robust approach to assessing writing development in the classroom. 6.3. Assessing writing as a reflexive process Reflexive approaches to writing can provide rich data for teachers to understand how students approach writing, why they make the decisions that they do, and whether they know what and how to improve. Writing ability, according to Slomp (2012) (see also Beaufort, 2007; Ryan, 2014b; Ryan & Barton, 2014; Smit, 2004), is a much more complex construct than the knowledge transfer evident in a single writing product. Knowledges that are considered important for effective writing, not all of which are evident in a single product, include forms of metacognitive knowledge such as: discourse community knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, process knowledge, genre knowledge, subject matter perspectives (Beaufort, 2007), and more importantly, an awareness of one’s capabilities and positioning in relation to these. This more complex view of writing ability accounts for the interplay between (1) the person (dispositions, resources and motivations), (2) the context (both immediate and institutional), and (3) the developmental product. It is this interplay, and students’ metacognitive knowledge of such, which is crucial (Wardle & Roozen, 2012) and much more difficult to capture. I argue that the reflexive strategies outlined in the previous section are a way to make visible this interplay by asking students to interrogate and account for the decisions that they make in writing. Such reflexive data can enable teachers to interpret how students’ personal considerations such as their linguistic and cultural resources, beliefs, motivations and interests are mediated alongside the norms and expectations of the writing classroom to produce particular performances and products in writing. Reflexive data from these strategies, viewed alongside students’ writing, can also enable teachers to identify students’ dominant reflexive mode so they can use targeted scaffolds for improvement. Gathering richer and more nuanced data over time, including students’ reflexive self-assessments, can provide a much more reliable assessment programme for writing than assessment of a writing product at a point in time. 7. Conclusion Meaningful writing requires a purposeful shaping of text. When young writers produce texts with little understanding about how or why they made particular choices, they are unlikely to be able to negotiate new and uncertain writing conditions. Current conditions in writing classrooms in Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom engender reductionist approaches to form and feature at the expense of identity and voice (Comber, 2012; Enright & Gilliland, 2011; Turvey, 2007) as teachers negotiate standardised assessments and accountability regimes. There is a growing evidence, however, that writers, including multilingual writers, need to be positioned as active designers of text (Canagarajah, 2006; Myhill et al., 2013), which necessitates a self-awareness of writing decisions, rather than a reproduction of formulaic structures. Self-assessment is a pivotal skill for students as designers of text, so they can reassert authorial identity in writing. Using Archer’s (2007, 2012) theory of reflexivity and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003), I have illustrated how writers reflexively deliberate their writing decisions in quite different ways and with different outcomes. Communicative reflexives rely on others and their writing maintains the status quo; autonomous reflexives have their own clear goals and tend not to deviate from these; meta-reflexives weigh up different considerations and make judgements about when they can subvert

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norms and experiment with new ideas in their writing; fractured reflexives are disaffected writers who cannot make clear decisions and lack a sense of satisfaction or control in writing: they write little and do not invest in their writing. This paper has argued that making students more aware of how and why they make decisions in writing, and anticipating the effects of those decisions, can facilitate a powerful form of self-assessment. Reflexive prompts, used dialogically, can enable linguistically and culturally diverse students to assess their writing practices and their investment in writing, through new eyes. This approach rejects a singular focus on an idealised writing product in writing assessment. Instead it repositions the writer as agentic and adaptable as they interrogate self in relation to context and product. New and changing conditions require a meta-reflexive approach to writing development and assessment. The time invested in robust, reflexive self-assessment strategies is well spent to provide students with the confidence and skills to negotiate uncertain writing conditions. These selfassessment strategies are not merely focused on assessing one’s writing according to the teacher’s criteria. Rather, they encourage students to draw on their productive and diverse personal resources to find a sustaining and effective way to perform as writers in different contexts.

7.1. Limitations and future research The study reported here was a small-scale exploratory study to identify writing practices and decision-making processes of primary students in two schools sites. The data clearly indicated differences in the ways in which students reflexively approached writing, and particularly the effects these different approaches had on their writing. I have speculated about particular strategies and the potential affordances of these to improve self-assessment and agency in writing. The scope of the project did not allow investigation into the efficacy of these strategies to improve writing for communicative, autonomous, meta-reflexive or fractured (Archer, 2012) students. Further research is needed to identify students in terms of their reflexive modalities, to implement strategies, such as those I have proposed here, and to evaluate the effect of these on students’ writing performances and reflexive modalities.

Appendix 1. Sample interview questions Let’s have a look at the writing you’ve brought along. . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Can you tell me why you chose this writing to bring? When did you write it? Why did you write it? Who was the audience? Why is it set out in this way? What text type(s) do you think it is? How is this shown in the text? Talk me through the process you went through to create this writing. . . starting from the reason and the idea. . . (if not covered. . . did you research the topic? Write drafts? Edit etc.) How long did it take? Is this usually the kind of writing you do? At school? At home? What other kinds of writing do you do? Can you point out some of the language you have used and why? Can you point out how you’ve used other features (e.g. visuals, audio, layout etc. depending on the text) and why? Did you use any tools e.g. spellcheck; thesaurus; dictionary How would you write this text differently if it was. . . (for a website, for your friend, for the local paper etc. . . depending on the text) What do you like about this kind of writing? If you need help with your writing, where do you go or who do you ask?

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English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 13(2). Ryan, M. E. (2014b). Writers as performers: Developing reflexive and creative writing identities. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 13(3). Ryan, M. E., & Barton, G. (2014). The spatialized practices of teaching writing in elementary schools: Diverse students shaping discoursal selves. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(3). Ryan, M., & Kettle, M. (2012). Re-thinking context and reflexive mediation in the teaching of writing. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 35(3), 283–300. Ryan, M., & Ryan, M. (2013). Theorising a model for teaching and assessing reflective learning in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 32(2), 244–257. Slomp, D. H. (2012). Challenges in assessing the development of writing ability: Theories, constructs and methods. Assessing Writing, 17(2), 81–91. Smit, D. (2004). The end of composition studies. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Turvey, A. (2007). Writing and teaching writing. Changing English, 14(2), 145–159. Wardle, E., & Roozen, K. (2012). Addressing the complexity of writing development: Toward an ecological model of assessment. Assessing Writing, 17(2), 106–119. Yancey, K. (2014). The social life of reflection: Notes toward an ePortfolio-based model of reflection. In M. E. Ryan (Ed.), Teaching reflective learning in higher education: A systematic approach using pedagogic patterns. Sydney: Springer. Mary Ryan is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. Her research is in the areas of writing pedagogy and assessment, teacher and learner reflexivity, literacy pedagogy in schools and universities, socio-spatial and social-semiotic theories and discourse analysis.