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- All Subjects: English
- All Subjects: Writing
- Creators: Blasingame, James
- Status: Published
Writing is an important lifelong skill. Most college freshmen are required to take first-year composition (FYC) to meet the needs of writing across disciplines. Yet, a great number of students enter college unprepared. To combat this, the writing process should be practiced as part of a solid writing program. The Common Core State Standards, the “WPA Outcomes for First-Year Composition,” and the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Education address the use of the writing process as a lifelong skill. Using Emig’s (1971) work on the composing process and Flower and Hayes’ (1981) cognitive process theory as a theoretical framework, this study seeks to define the components of the writing process and how these evolve for students in an online FYC course.
A qualitative, descriptive case study approach was used to explore qualitative documents. These documents were coded according to themes gleaned from the writing process literature. These emerging themes: invention work, multiple draft production, and the collaborative and social aspects of writing were used throughout the process-based curriculum. Participants made changes to their general writing process by conducting more invention work than they had before and finding the practice worthwhile, by producing more drafts than they had on previous writing projects, and by reflecting more about what the collaborative and social aspects of writing mean to them. The online FYC course curriculum gave students the tools to build and shape their existing writing practices, or as one participant wrote, “I wasn’t reinventing the wheel, just operating the tools.”
As of 2022, suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 12-24. For adolescents who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ communities, the rates of suicide contemplations and attempts are as high as four times more likely compared with their heterosexual or cisgender peers. As of 2022, 45% of LGBTQIA+ youths have contemplated suicide. LGBTQIA+ teens are also more likely to experience bullying and discrimination. Despite extensive research conducted by The Trevor Project pointing to the importance of representation in the media for these LGBTQIA+ teens, governors, state legislatures, and school boards around the United States have made it their mission to deny these teens access to literature that feature LGBTQIA+ characters. As of September 2022, one in four books that are banned across the country from school libraries contain LGBTQIA+ characters. In order to combat this lack of access to LGBTQIA+ Young Adult literature, I created a resource website that acts as a safe space for queer teens to explore literature that features teens who identify like they do. The purpose of my website is threefold. First, I aimed to create a joyous space for teens to discover LGBTQIA+ literature. Second, I provided resources and information about different sexualities and gender identities for anyone who might want more information on these topics. And third, I wanted to prove to website visitors that they are not alone, regardless of how they may be negatively treated at home or at school. To accomplish these three goals, I created specific pages on the website, such as book recommendation pages compiled with research of LGBTQIA+ YA books paired with my own knowledge and resource pages informed by outside research such as my hotlines, LGBTQIA+ terminology, statistics, and gender identity explained pages. I also include a handful of author interview pages, which highlight written interviews I conducted with a few critically acclaimed queer YA authors. I provide screenshots and explanations in the following pages.