The Effects of Social Relationships, Writing Media, and Microgenetic Development on First-Grade Students’ Written Narratives

This study examined the effects of social relationships, writing media, and microgenetic development on first-grade students’ written narratives. In the within-subjects design, children’s written products and verbalizations were compared across different writing contexts, computer-supported writing and pencil-and-paper writing. Participant relationships were also manipulated to determine the influence of friendship on the outcome measures in the two writing contexts. At the same time, a microgenetic approach was adopted to examine temporal changes in students’ written texts. The results indicated that students’ narratives composed with a word processor were lexically denser and more cohesive than their narratives composed with pencil and paper. Students’ talk during computer-supported writing episodes included more metacognitive terms than their talk during pencil-and-paper writing. Similarly, the relative frequencies of metacognitive talk of friends and nonfriends differed. Results are discussed in terms of the facilitative effects of computer-supported writing and close relationships on metacognitive processes.