ABSTRACT
Even though there may be debate about the extent, most educational researchers agree that curricular texts shape instruction. There is less exploration concerning how teachers shape instruction as they interact with texts, or concerning the impacts these interactions might have on students. Instructional texts interact within the sociocultural milieu of teachers’ values and decisions, the classroom culture that they co-create with their students, and within the school and community cultures. Within these activity systems, a teacher’s choices about using a composition instructional text can determine whether students learn one approach to composing a text or many, whether composition is a collaborative or independent process, and whether they learn to use organizational essay structures as adaptable heuristics or as rigid forms. In this case study, the two subjects, Ms. LaMotte and Ms. Olsen,1 used the same Step up to Writing composition curriculum but created separate enacted curricula in their classrooms.
