The Influence of Author Visibility on High School Students Solving a Historical Problem

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of a visible author (one who writes in the first person, revealing personal beliefs and self) on adolescent students engaged in a historical reading-to-write task. Thirty high school sophomores and juniors were divided into 2 groups: 1 that read a passage from a textbook that featured an anonymous author (one who writes in the third person, revealing little about personal beliefs or self) and another that read a similar text featuring a visible author. Both groups then wrote a 1- to 2-page essay using information from the introductory passage and 6 additional historical documents. A subgroup of 6 of these students (3 from each condition) "thought aloud" through the entire process. Data from student essays and think-aloud protocols were analyzed to determine the influence of various levels of authorial presence on the ways students read, thought, and wrote about history. Students whose task began by reading a visible author tended to hold mental conversations with text authors, making judgments about those authors and thinking more about the history under discussion. The essays they wrote were longer and showed greater personal agency and awareness of audience. The nature of these relations and effects, both for the visible-author group and the anonymous-author group, are discussed.