Situating Technology-Facilitated Feedback and Revision: The Case of Tom

In this chapter, the authors present a case study of one writer, Tom, to uncover how his writing was mediated by school-level and individual factors. The online writing environment had three major affordances for Tom in this 8th grade classroom: the online writing environment increased Tom's access to peer response, motivated him write to a higher standard for an audience, and both scaffolded and increased his response repertoire. However, the larger policy context in which Tom's writing was embedded placed constraints on the classroom and school. Other constraints included Tom's lack of access to a computer at home, the teacher's highly structured task, and the online tool's assignment of random reviewers that forced Tom to continually write to a new audience of peers who lacked the previous context. In light of the situated nature of Tom's writing and responses in this classroom, the authors make recommendations for policy, research, and instruction.