Improving disadvantaged students’ writing engagement and achievement

在连续几轮全国考试中，未能达到最低写作标准的学生中，经济状况不佳的学生所占比例过高。然而，我们的知识是有限的，为什么，如何以及在什么情况下，弱势学生从事或不从事写作。为了解决这一知识差距，该项目考察了弱势学生在参与学校、校外和网上不同社区的写作活动时，如何体验和参与写作，以及他们的作家身份和写作知识是如何发展的。该项目通过使写作对个人有意义和发展有利的写作社区来促进写作参与和提高成就。

Economically disadvantaged students are disproportionally represented among those who fail to attain minimum benchmarks in writing in successive rounds of national testing. Our knowledge, however, is limited on why, how and under what circumstances disadvantaged students engage in or disengage from writing. Addressing this knowledge gap, this project examines how disadvantaged students experience and engage in writing, and how their writer identities and knowledge about writing develop, as they participate in writing events in different communities in school, out of school and online. The project promotes writing engagement and enhances achievement by making writing personally meaningful and by developing enabling writing communities.