On Becoming What the Story Needs

Abstract   In this article, I use Derrida’s (1978) conceptualizing of différance to inform hermeneutic readings of my queer archive of deferrals. These readings show some of the complex ways remembered and forgotten experiences of learning, teaching, and schooling are inevitably shaped by heteronormativity. My interest in différance is informed and maintained by my active resistance to how the subjects needed by those stories can lose track of their deferrals in ways that can reposition the normative within the counternormative and vice versa. I conclude by discussing how creative re-storying can support acts of remembering, forgetting, and fictionalizing that can lead to hermeneutic insight. Keywords queer, archive, subjectivity, story, difference, normative, hermeneutics, writing, teaching, reading &nbsp

Fishing for difference: A case study of singularity and sensibility in critical literary life writing

This paper draws upon a two-year study that examined how critical literary life writing helped a group of lesbian seniors negotiate identity. As we consider the notions of difference and singularity, building upon the earlier work of one of the authors, we analyze the work of one participant - an ex nun whose life’s work has made her remarkable in the eyes of the world. However, as oral historians (Portelli, 1981; Thompson, 2009) have found, epic stories of celebration and achievement can serve to limit the scope of life narratives. This can hold especially true for marginalized individuals (Boyd, 2008). We suggest that in this instance, structured practices of close writing opened up our participant’s narrative to lyric possibility, rather than the “grammars of consequence” (Zwicky, 2006)

(Un)Becoming a Teacher: Negotiating Identities While Learning to Teach

Becoming a teacher involves more than transposing teaching skills onto an already- established personal identity: it means including the identity “teacher” in one’s life. Beginning teachers must negotiate at least three teaching identities: those they bring with them into teacher education, those they develop while doing university course work, and those they develop during student teaching practicums. Because university and school experiences are generally only weakly connected for beginning teachers, the negotiation of these disparate teacher identities often remains unacknowledged and uninterpreted. By describing what happened when we used a “writerly” text in the teacher-education classroom, we show the importance of creating curricular locations for the interpretation of the teaching identities student teachers negotiate as they learn to teach. Devenir un enseignant implique plus que de simplement transposer des habiletés d’enseignement sur une identité personnelle déjà établie: cela signifie plutôt d’inclure l’identité “enseignant” dans la vie d’une personne. Les enseignants débutants doivent composer avec au moins trois identités reliées à l’enseignement: celles qu’ils amènent avec eux dans le cadre de la formation des maîtres, celles qu’ils développent en suivant des cours universitaires et celles qu’ils cultivent au cours de leurs stages en enseignement. Puisque les expériences du milieu scolaire et celles du milieu universitaire ne sont généralement que faiblement reliées pour les enseignants débutants, composer avec ces identités disparates demeure souvent un aspect non reconnu et non interprété. Les auteurs, en décrivant ce qui s’est produit lorsqu’ils ont utilisé un texte de type “littéraire” dans une classe de formation des maîtres, démontrent l’importance de créer une place dans les programmes universitaires pour l’interprétation des identités reliées à l’enseignement avec lesquelles les stagiaires composent pendant qu’ils apprennent à enseigner.

Effective whole-language teaching : case studies of two teachers' practice

102 leaves ; 28 cm.Whole-language theory, as an approach to language arts instruction, has been the subject of a wide and varied literature that has attempted to define, describe, validate and understand it. This research project is concerned with the issue of "effective whole-language teaching" as demonstrated by case study descriptions of two teachers' practice of whole-language. Using ethnographic techniques for data collection, each teacher's practice has been documented and analyzed in terms of themes that have emerged from the data. The analysis contained within each identified theme contains a descriptive and critical account of the kinds of "effective teaching" skills/strategies that have been identified in each classroom. A final discussion is offered that attempts to draw conclusions about the research question, making some recommendations about effective whole-language teaching. It is expected that these will contribute to a body of knowledge that addresses specific methods and strategies that may be used by teachers interested in whole-language education