Reading Research Quarterly • 45(2) • pp. 169–195 • dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.45.2.2 • © 2010 International Reading Association 169 This study investigated 2- and 3-year-olds’ personal interests as a possible source of variation in preschool writing activi- ties. Structured observations of the play behaviors of 11 preschool children in a childcare classroom were conducted one to two days per week for one school year. These data were analyzed to determine choices of play activities, material use, and play actions for each of the children. Naturalistic data collection techniques (e.g., participant observation, video recording, field notes) were used to record the children’s participation at the classroom writing table two to four days per week. Video transcripts were microanalyzed to identify the children’s preferred types of writing activities. Findings indi- cated that patterns in the preschoolers’ profiles of play behaviors reflected conceptual, procedural, creative, or socially oriented interests and that their personal interest orientations were related to ways they participated in emergent writing activities. Children with conceptual interests used writing to explore and record ideas on topics of personal interest. Children with procedural interests explored how writing worked and practiced conventional literacy (e.g., writing alpha- bet letters). Children with creative interests explored writing materials to generate new literacy processes and new uses for materials. Children with socially oriented interests used writing to mediate joint social interaction and aligned their activity choices with those of other participants. These findings suggest that children’s personal interests help shape their transactions with people, materials, and activities, resulting in different profiles of early writing experiences. O ver the last four decades, emergent literacy re- searchers have established that, early in life, preschoolers growing up in literate communi- ties begin to take part in local writing practices (e.g., Heath, 1983; Larson, 1999) and to explore writing in their play (e.g., Baghban, 1984; Martens, 1996; Neuman & Roskos, 1991). Although we know a good deal about the kinds of literacy hypotheses children construct during the preschool years (Rowe, 2008a) and can identify the positive value of early writing experiences for later reading and writing (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008), we know relatively little about the ways preschoolers actually participate in everyday home or classroom writing activities. Only a handful of studies have focused on the writing experiences of children un- der age 3 (Lancaster, 2003)—the age group of interest in the current study. Although existing work with 2- and young 3-year- olds provides some initial insight into the interactive strategies children use to jointly construct texts with adults (Lancaster, 2001, 2007; Rowe, 2008c), there is limited research describing the literacy activities very young children choose in preschool classrooms or why they make these choices (Han, 2007). In addition, relatively little is known about variability in the ways preschoolers of any age participate in writing events, including the ways they exert agency as they take up, contest, and reshape local writing practices. Research (Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984; Kress, 1997) con- ducted with 3- to 6-year-olds suggests that preschool- ers approach writing events to foreground and actively pursue their own interests. This work suggests that per- sonal interests may provide a frame through which chil- dren approach writing events, affecting which topics and materials children choose to explore (Han, 2007; Kress, 1997), and even which literacy hypotheses they test (Harste et al., 1984). The present study was designed to address two gaps in the literature. First, we explore personal in- terests as one possible source of variation in the ways 2- and 3-year-olds participate in writing events. Often, research has highlighted the powerful role of adults and cultural practices in shaping very young children’s participation in local literacy events (e.g., Rowe, 2008c). In this study, we highlight children’s agency in shap- ing local writing practices to better align with their own interests. Second, we explore the relationship between children’s patterns of play and writing activi- ties. Research suggests that children may be developing more general patterns of personal interest that guide Interest and Agency in 2- and 3-Year- Olds’ Participation in Emergent Writing Deborah Wells Rowe, Carin Neitzel Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA ABSTRACT