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School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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What's The Research On...?

Studies of English and Writing Instruction

    > Literacy Studies

 Roots of a new American literacy
A study of the historical basis of Hmong literacy development in the years before the Hmong left Laos, as well as more recent history of a group that settled in northern Wisconsin.

Developing as a Writer
How students learn to see themselves as writers is a question that has fascinated UW-Madison education professor Cathy Compton-Lilly for decades. She watched African American students develop into skilled writers over a 10-year period. Her case study of one of them, Peter (a pseudonym), shows how he accumulated what’s called writing capital. For her study, Compton-Lilly gathered and studied samples of Peter’s writing, weaving them together with notes from her interviews with him, his mother, his grandmother, and his high school English teacher. She explored the complexities of being a successful writer in school and considered how Peter’s accomplishments were contextualized within school and society.