2 CLASSROOMS, 2 WRITING COMMUNITIES - URBAN AND SUBURBAN 10TH-GRADERSLEARNING TO WRITE

Concerned with writing instruction and learning in contexts of student diversity, this study investigates how classroom communities were cre ated to support students' writing in two contrasting tenth-grade Engli sh classrooms, one in a low-income urban school with socioculturally d iverse students, and one in a largely white middle-class suburban scho ol. The researchers analyze class discussions to see how discussions f unctioned in creating community in these classrooms and supplement the se data with student and teacher interviews and student writing to pre sent case portraits of the two classrooms as writing-learning communit ies. In both classrooms discussion was seen to guide students' writing and to connect students and teachers to one another and to the world outside the classroom. Discourse reflected students in a ''role comple x'' as they interacted as learners, writers, peers, and actors in the broader culture. Yet, with differing ways of interacting around differ ent kinds of writing assignments, community played out differently in each classroom. The urban classroom was associated with a personalized community and approach to writing, while the suburban classroom was a ssociated with a professionalized community and writing approach. In p ortraying writing and learning in both classrooms as socially situated , the researchers argue that educators must take a social and cultural view of learning to understand fully how school writing and literacy prepare students for the world beyond the classroom.