“[Writing]’s Like in a Hot Car Finally Opening the Window”: Humanizing Writing Instruction through Noticing in Fourth-Grade Language Arts

The purpose of this qualitative project is to examine the use of a noticing assignment in one fourth-grade dual language arts classroom. We, the authors, consider the texts most interesting to students and how these texts relate to humanizing and responsive writing pedagogies. Learning to write in K–12 schooling contexts is often dictated by state-sanctioned standardized assessments, creating a space in which writing is equated with the rules of grammar rather than with deeper meaning making, inquiry, or joy. For youth from historically marginalized communities, this lack of joyfulness in writing instruction is particularly evident. In this study, we consider the following research questions: (1) How do students in a fourth-grade language arts course interact with texts that are interesting to them? (2) How might the act of noticing support students’ understandings of their own literacies as valued, worthy, and connected to the spaces and places in which they live and learn? and (3) How do students voice their perceptions and experiences of writing and writing instruction through the noticing project? Data include 16 fourth-grade students’ noticing journals, pre-project surveys of youth feelings toward writing, focal group interviews, and researcher field notes. Findings demonstrated that youth held varied perspectives toward writing, that they engaged in multiple LA skills to notice and respond to their and others’ noticings, and that they engaged in discussions of social (in)justice through their noticings. This study has implications for educators and researchers working toward more humanizing writing pedagogies connected to youths’ lived experiences, interests, desires, and curiosities.