Shared Territory Understanding Children's Writing as Works [Hardcover]

This book brings together Patricia F. Carini's concept of the developing child as a maker of works and M.M. Bakhtin's theory of language as hero to re-examine how we have defined and researched early written language development. Through a collection of five essays and a documentary account of one young writer, Himley explores fundamental questions about development, language use and learning, and phenomenological reading or description as a possible interpretive methodology in education and research. She demonstrates how to understand writing as the complex semiotic authoring of self and culture enacted through actual moments of concrete language use.

This book is a very complex and subtle argument, in part because it crosses the disciplinary boundaries of emergent writing, child development, composition studies, and literary theory. . . . rich reading . . . holds value for those interested in both emergent literacy as well as those interested in the implications of reader response theories to the writings of very young children. . . . offers a well-crafted discussion of the tensions inherent in qualitative research relating to issues of human development. --Contemporary Psychology

Himley's respect for children's writing as worthy of attention and meaningful interpretation is laudable, and her criticism of many researchers as seemingly interested in children's texts only as data is accurate and challenging. --Teachers College Record