Designing on the page: Composing picturebooks in a Kevin Henkes author study

Abstract

A team of four general education second grade teachers, who work in a neighbourhood state elementary school in a large urban area in the northeast United States, and their staff developer, redesigned their Kevin Henkes Author Study to equally value pictures and design, along with writing. They asked, what narrative understandings do children express by designing on the page? Using a framework of multiliteracies, they showed how they transformed writing workshop into composing workshop to support their emergent bi- and multilingual population. Through content analysis of 80 students’ completed picturebooks and constant comparison of 13 selected students’ retrospective accounts, findings show how students developed a metalanguage of composing for both writing and design craft moves that facilitated and supported their narrative understandings. Their narrative understandings were supported within the sociocultural contexts of our writing communities. Findings show the value of author studies and transforming writing workshop into composing workshop for primary grade writers. Findings have implications for classroom-based research and teaching of composing workshop, particularly for emergent bi- and multilingual populations.