Welcome to the Pine Cone Wars, as enacted by Mrs. Kay's children in her urban first grade. The children brought these wars from the playground to the classroom, reformulating them within the possibilities and constraints of the daily writing time. The Pine Cone Wars thus illustrate the inevitable interplay between the official world we shape as…

Offers an account of school literacy development for all children. Uses a metaphoric "drinking god" to capture the influence that children's nonacademic textual experiences have on their entry into school literacy. Aims to describe how children use old resources from familiar practices and adapt them to enter into new ones. (SG)

Highlights children as a source of information about curriculum development. Observes how and why some first grade children write, and how this may affect teachers' instructional assumptions. (HTH)

Presents concerns about children's growth as oral and written language users and how disagreements over teaching strategies can affect this growth. (SRT)

Discusses recent research highlighting both the child's growth as a reflective language user and the school's capacity to enhance or hamper that growth. The research is concerned with the need for children eventually to use language in decontextualized ways, without the supporting context of visible or manipulable objects or actions. (HTH)

Examines the connections between children's writing and their earlier developed form of graphic symbolism--drawing--and explores research on early writing development. Considers the range of contexts for drawing and writing presented in the classroom. (HTH)

Presents observations of three children's styles of symbolic language focusing on how each leaned to different degrees on drawing and talking to create their imaginary worlds and thus faced different challenges in rendering those worlds in print. (SRT)

Defines the value of classroom research in terms of three paradoxes: (1) it steps back by taking an intimate look; (2) it yields a holistic view but also reveals the dynamics of its parts; and (3) it is a unique whole and a part of inquiry into language and learning. (RS)

Examines children's story-writing processes as they develop over a two-year period, from kindergarten through second grade. Observes that children reflect multiple worlds in their writing, including their ongoing social world, the imaginary world of their story, and the wider, experienced world of people, places, and events. (MM)

Focuses on the nature of elementary school classrooms as social contexts for literacy, particularly for writing. Explores the nature of the classroom as the context for literacy, how children come to understand such classroom contexts, and what defines a beneficial context for literacy growth. (HTH)

Presents brief stories of two students that illustrate how children's symbolic interactions and social relationships (how they interact with materials and people) influence their ways of gaining control over the interrelated parts of written language, and how these "casts of mind" may eventually emerge more fully within their stories. (SKC)

Explores the transition of several children from spoken language to beginning writing. (HTH)

Presents case studies of two first-grade children, examining their writing as a linguistic and social process that involves the child in an exploration of both oral and written language within the social context of the classroom. (HTH)

Reviews literature defining the characteristics of the complex puzzle children encounter moving from oral language to print. Illustrates that, by reading their own writing, children discover the precise connection between reading, writing, and language. (HTH)

Contrasts, through portraits of five young writers, the writing strategies of children used at home and in a kindergarten writing center that stressed a formal language arts program. Argues that the teacher's approach to writing instruction and the child's writing strategies must be compatible to ensure independent writers. (HTH)