The Effect of Classroom Ideology on Children’s Production of Narrative Text

Abstract

This paper investigated the influence teacher differences have on how children learn to write during classroom lessons. In the academic teacher’s class, students tended to write narrative accounts about a baseball game by summarizing the literal features of the baseball game picture sequence and by summarizing the literal features of their first written productions. In addition, these students tended to discuss primarily game actions and overlooked player motives and game goals. In the cognitive-developmental teacher’s class, students tended to write narrative accounts about a baseball game by drawing on a variety of meaning sources and processes besides reproduction of some current stimulus. Moreover, these students tended to develop stories with developed motive structures and game goals. These findings are discussed in terms of teacher ideological differences (Bernier, 1981) and a theory of children’s classroom writing competence (Mosenthal, Davidson-Mosenthal, & Krieger, 1981).