My pen won't talk : towards an understanding of creative writing experiences among primary school children.

[摘要] The work of Piaget and Vygotsky has formed the theoretical foundation for manyresearch projects that investigate children's cognitive processes which are part oftheir learning experience, These investigations, however, do not address theaffective aspects of the learning process. This study seeks to isolate and-explore theaffective components of writing by conceptualizing a creative writing experienceas a personal meaning making event which is simultaneously influenced by thechildren's cognitive development and their emotional development. The feelingsexperienced by the children while writing are a particular interest. Theoriesdeveloped by Freud and Klein are used to investigate the children's emotions and toassess the impact these have on their writing process. The methods of investigationemploy a detailed observation of external behaviour with the help of a video camera,a focus group interview, a reflective interview and a projective technique. Thechildren's emotional experience of writing is deduced from the visual data as wellas the interviews. It is concluded that the children's experience of writing isdominated by anxious emotions. As the medium of writing does not providechildren with a communicative structure, it presents many children with anexperience of isolation and meaninglessness. If the children fail to provide apurpose for their task, writing becomes an experience of insecurity and alienation.The role of children's talk during the writing process does not have a cognitivesignificance. On the contrary, its primary function seems to be to control affectiveforces and to maintain the personal purposefulness of the writing task.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand