A Hero's Journey? Advancing Expressive Writing and Literacy Development in Middle School
- Type
- Single Paper
- Presenting author
- Adin-Surkis, Abigail , Atid Network if Schools, Israel
- Presenting author
- Harush, Yamit Tarin , Haifa University, Israel
- Co-author
- Katzir, Tami , University of Haifa, Israel
- Co-author
- Barak, Matan , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- Keywords
- motivational and emotional factors in writing;writing and linguistics;writing at school;writing skills
- Domain
- Motivational, Social and Affective Processes
Abstract
Middle school students frequently disengage from literacy instruction when pedagogical approaches emphasize technical skills while marginalizing emotional engagement (Eccles & Roeser, 2011). This intervention study examines whether integrating the Hero’s Journey narrative structure (Campbell, 1949) with dialogic teaching can simultaneously foster literacy skills, writing quality, and writing identity. The framework positions the Hero’s Journey as eliciting emotional investment in characters’ transformative journeys. When engaging authentically in dialogic pedagogy (Nystrand, 1997; Alexander, 2020), students can connect the archetypal patterns of the Hero’s Journey to their developmental experiences (Erikson, 1968). The framework distinguishes between writing-to-learn—analytical writing regarding textual meaning—and writing-to-express—reflective writing exploring students’ own transformative experiences—integrating academic writing development with identity construction (Graham & Perin, 2007; Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999).Following year-long teacher professional development, the “Journey Through Words” intervention was implemented across 13 classrooms in four Israeli middle schools (N = 240). Pre–post assessments measured writing quality using benchmark rating procedures and reading comprehension through text-based tasks. Students reported writer self-efficacy, achievement emotions, and teacher–student relationship quality. In-depth interviews with nine teachers provided implementation insights.Response-to-intervention analyses demonstrated significant improvements across all writing dimensions—content, organization, and linguistic expression—as well as in reading comprehension. Baseline performance negatively predicted improvement trajectories (β = –.48 for writing; β = –.54 for reading), indicating that initially lower-performing students achieved the largest gains. Relational–emotional analyses showed that positive teacher–student relationships predicted elevated pride, which significantly enhanced both writing and reading performance, with indirect effects through pride (95% CIs excluding zero). Despite these performance improvements, students’ writing self-efficacy did not significantly change, suggesting a divergence between skill growth and self-perceptions as writers. Teacher interviews confirmed that integrating analytical and reflective writing around the Hero’s Journey enabled simultaneous development of critical writing skills and authentic personal expression. Grounding writing instruction in emotionally resonant narratives, combined with dialogic teaching, advances writing competencies and writer identity, with particularly robust effects for struggling learners. Positive teacher–student relationships operate through pride as an emotional pathway supporting literacy growth.
