ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we meet Jessica, Donna and four other children from Amber Class as they participate in a schooled writing lesson in November 2010. A close analysis of this lesson reveals the complexity of the children’s engagement with being taught to read and write, illustrating many of the points discussed in Part I of this book. In particular, it offers an account of interpretive production in action as Jessica and her friends reproduce literacy practices to meet the priorities of their classroom social world. The data is presented in three ‘layers.’ The first layer, discussed in Section 1 of the chapter, is concerned with the classroom setting, the writing activity and the schooled expectations for how the children should participate in it. Section 2 offers a second layer of analysis, concerning Jessica, Donna and her friends as they engage in an ‘independent’ writing task within the lesson. The final layer, in Section 3 of the chapter, concerns how Jessica deploys the literacy skills and knowledge, taught during the schooled lesson, as she produces her text.
