ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3755-7254

Date of Award

Spring 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

4-28-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning

Program

Literacy

First Advisor

Virginia Goatley

Committee Members

Cheryl Dozier, Kelly Wissman

Keywords

collaborative writing, multimodal composition, agency, home literacies, home/school connections

Subject Categories

Language and Literacy Education

Abstract

Students benefit academically and socially from strong home and school partnerships (Padak & Rasinski, 2010; Patrikakou et al., 2003; Risko & Walker-Dalhouse, 2009), yet there is often a gap between these contexts (Nelson, 2019; Padak & Rasinski, 2010; Risko & Walker-Dalhouse, 2009). To bridge the divide between these spaces, I drew on a sociocultural view of writing, the paradigm of family literacy, and third spaces of literacy to investigate four families’ experiences participating in a collaborative, multimodal writing workshop. Through practitioner research and case study methods, I explored the following research questions: (1) How do families talk about writing while participating in a collaborative, multimodal family writing workshop? (2) How do families participate in a collaborative, multimodal family writing workshop?, and (3) How do families describe and reflect on their experiences participating in a collaborative, multimodal family writing workshop? I utilized Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to examine artifacts from the workshop and semi-structured interviews to learn about the families’ distinct and common ways of participating in the writing experiences. I found that while the families talked about, participated in, and reflected on the workshop in different ways, they showed agency through their collaborative writing processes, leaned into their home literacies to support them in writing flexibly and adaptively, and wrote in ways that supported parents’ understandings of their children as writers. These findings advance the field’s collective understanding of how to create bridges and partnerships across contexts.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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