The Social Construction of Intentionality: Two-Year-Olds’ and Adults’ Participation at a Preschool Writing Center

This paper describes how one group of Euro-American, middle-class two-year-olds living in the southern US learned to form and enact locally appropriate textual intentions and literate identities as they participated in writing events. Data were collected during a nine-month ethnographic study of two-year-olds’ and adults’ interactions at a preschool writing table.