Taking creative risks in the high school writing center: how secondary writing centers foster the development of risk taking that ultimately leads to creative agency in high school student writers

Abstract

This thesis explores how high school writing centers foster the development of risk taking that ultimately leads to creative agency in high school students, which, I argue, works in opposition to the current neoliberal educational agenda. To explore this topic, I used a mixed-methods approach for data collection. Working with the frameworks of both teacher research and ethnography, I gathered data through observations, interviews, and surveys. The results of this research show that particular methods of writing centers grounded in sociocultural theory do foster the development of risk taking that ultimately leads to creative agency in high school students. The results also show that some of these methods transfer to other educational settings as well. This project concludes with a discussion of the value of research that explores educational environments that oppose the neoliberal agenda.