MANIAC-MAGEE AND RAGTIME-TUMPIE - CHILDREN NEGOTIATING SELF AND WORLDTHROUGH READING AND WRITING

This article reports results from a year-long study of the specific wa ys that children's literacy practices enhanced their understanding of themselves and their social worlds in a classroom where they were enco uraged to read, write,and talk about personally and serially relevant subjects. Throughout the school year the researchers documented the na ture of classroom activities and the ways that they were taken up by c hildren in their reading and writing practices. In response to various classroom activities and in relation to many out-of-school experience s, children's reading and writing were found to function for them in a variety of personal and social ways, enabling them to understand the complex urban landscape they inhabited, to explore new roles and socia l identities, to wrestle with vexing social problems, and to envision ways of reconstructing their lives and their worlds. The strengths and limitations of this particular integration of action research and cri tical literacy are also discussed.