Re-thinking Personal Narrative in the Pedagogy of Writing Teacher Preparation

How can teacher educators mobilize contemporary understandings of personal narrative -- as socially and dialogically shaped in the context of culture and as instrumental to sociocultural processes of self-authoring -- in the teaching of narrative writing and, more specifically, in the work of teaching teachers to teach narrative writing? Rarely do teachers teach strategies that might result in good narratives. Rarely do narrative texts written in school (or any other kinds of texts written in school, for that matter) actually go anywhere beyond the teacher, thus failing to offer students experience in negotiating meanings with readers, working out the versions of self in context that narrative writing can foster. Teaching personal narrative well, in ways that are consistent with a social and dialogic view of personal narrative’s value and the identity work it can support, has proven challenging. This essay describes and reflects on one effort to do so in a teacher education setting. We introduce the example of a class-to-class partnership between teacher candidates and first-year college writers not as a success story or an exemplar, but rather as a problematic case to stimulate conversation about the challenges of narrative writing teacher preparation

Teacher Identity in the Context of Literacy Teaching: Three Explorations of Classroom Positioning and Interaction in Secondary Schools

This article presents the results of three separate studies of literacy teaching and learning in the U.S. that explore the social functions of language, specifically focused on the identity development of literacy learners and teachers. Each study offers a detailed account of how literate identities are constructed and enacted and the positive and negative consequences that occur for teachers and students when they are enacted. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate how teachers’ and students’ understandings of identity can promote or inhibit literacy teaching and learning

Spiritual and religious meaning making in language and literacy studies: global perspectives on teaching, learning, curriculum and policy

Purpose—In an editorial introduction essay for the special issue on Religion, Literacies, and English Education in Global Dialogue, the editors frame papers in the special issue in dialogue with previous scholarly literature around three central lines of inquiry: How do children, youth and families navigate relationships among religion, spirituality, language and literacy? What challenges are faced by language and literacy teachers and teacher educators around the globe who seek to respond to diverse religious and spiritual perspectives in their work? And what opportunities do teachers seize or create toward this end? How are developments of language and literacy theory, policy, curriculum and ritual entangled with race and religion? Design/methodology/approach—Taking an essayist, humanistic approach, this paper summarizes, interprets and comments on previous scholarly works to frame the articles published in the special issue “Religion, Literacies, and English Education in Global Dialogue” in relation to the field and in relation to one another. Findings—Denise Dávila, Matthew Deroo and Ilhan Mohamud reveal the relationships young people and families forge and navigate among spiritual literacies and literatures, digital technologies and ethnic identities. Heidi Hadley, Jennifer Wargo and Erin McNeill illuminate how teachers’ vocations, as well as their pedagogical goals and curricular artifacts, can become deeply entangled with religious and spiritual sensemaking. Kasun Gajasinghe and Priyanka Jayakodi expand perspectives on both the ritualization and racialization of religion through nationalist policies surrounding national anthem performances in Sri Lanka. Anne Whitney and Suresh Canagarajah discuss how spiritual commitments, communities and experiences interact with their scholarly trajectories. Research limitations/implications—The essay concludes with a discussion of scholarly capacity building that may be needed for conducting research on religion and spirituality in relation to languages, literacies and English education on a global scale. Practical implications—The second section of the essay discusses challenges faced by language and literacy teachers and teacher educators around the globe who seek to integrate diverse religious and spiritual perspectives into their work. It foregrounds how many teachers and teacher educators work within contexts where ethnoreligious nationalism is on the rise. It highlights the need for language and literacy educators to develop curiosity and basic knowledge about diverse religions. Further it calls for teacher educators to engage with teacher candidates’ religious identities and sense-making. Social implications—Because it considers religious and spiritual sense-making in relation to language and literacy education, the social implications of this work are significant and wide-reaching. For examples, the paper questions the conceit of secularism within education, pushing readers to consider their own spiritual and religious identifications and influences when they work across religious differences. Originality/value—This paper identifies, interprets and assesses current threads of work on religious and spiritual sense-making within scholarship on languages, literacies and English education

Expressive Language and the Art of English Teaching: Theorizing the Relationship between Literature and Narrative

How do teachers in diverse classrooms enact a transactional mode of literary response in their orchestration of classroom conversations about literature? This paper proposes that a theory of expressive language is central to answering this question and that the discourse genre of oral narratives may hold critically importance in accomplishing this challenge

Video-Based Response & Revision: Dialogic Instruction Using Video and Web 2.0 Technologies

This article documents the curricular decisions made by a teacher educator research team whose guiding theoretical focus for intern practice is dialogic instruction. Over a 2-year sequence, teaching interns used video and Web 2.0 technologies to respond critically to and revise their teaching practices in collaboration with peers and instructors. This article describes how a focus on dialogic instruction and an adoption of a multiliteracies pedagogy guided the implementation and use of technologies within the project. Through multiple examples of curriculum, including excerpts from course materials, screencasts of the adopted networking platform, Voicethread, and video of class sessions, the authors describe how a focus on the dialogic creates spaces for interactions that allow responsive and revisionary attitudes toward not only teaching practices, but the potential and place of technologies in teacher education

Supporting Dialogically Organized Instruction in an English Teacher Preparation Program: A Video-Based, Web 2.0-Mediated Response and Revision Pedagogy

Background/Context:This paper theorizes and describes a program-wide pedagogical design for teacher preparation that addresses central problems related to supporting beginning teacher candidates in designing engaging classroom interactions in and across diverse contexts. Focus of Study: In particular, we aimed to support the development of dialogically-organized classroom interactions over time through a pedagogy informed by Multiliteracies. Our pedagogy involved a Web 2.0-mediated process of Video-Based Response and Revision (VBRR), developed and implemented over two years with secondary English teacher candidates at Michigan State University engaged in fifth-year internships in local secondary schools. Project Design: Four times over the course of their year-long internships, teacher candidates recorded video of their teaching, posted clips and other related materials to an online social network, commented on each others\u27 practices, and reflected on how they might implement the feedback they received from their peers and instructors. In addition, they created an end-of-year “digital reflection” drawing on all of these materials. Conclusions/ Recommendations: Based upon analysis of teacher candidates\u27 moves within the structure of the pedagogical design, we present pedagogical and programmatic considerations for teacher educators interested in designing learning environments that make beginning teacher practices visible in networked spaces, that invite collaborative responses to those practices, and that create opportunities for transformed practices