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Article
Publication date: 5 September 2016

Kati Macaluso, Cori McKenzie, Jennifer VanDerHeide and Michael Macaluso

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pedagogical innovation – a matrix construction exercise – intended to help pre-service teachers (PTs) navigate the multiple and…

1947

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pedagogical innovation – a matrix construction exercise – intended to help pre-service teachers (PTs) navigate the multiple and oftentimes competing discourses that shape the school subject English Language Arts (ELA).

Design/methodology/approach

To explore the various ways the PTs drew on the discursively constructed paradigms of ELA throughout their teacher preparation program, researchers (themselves teacher educators) conducted an intertextual analysis (Prior, 1995) of PTs’ classroom texts and interview transcripts.

Findings

The intertextual analysis suggested that PTs possessed knowledge of and investment in a range of discourses, which they used to anchor their own pedagogical and curricular decision-making and to anticipate the leanings and ideologies of other stakeholders in ELA. Although the organizational schema of the matrix proved helpful from an orientation standpoint, it also may have disguised the productive tensions between particular discourses for some PTs.

Originality/value

Although scholars have long noted the plurality of the school subject English and some studies on innovations in teacher education allude to the difficulties that teachers encounter as they navigate the multiple purposes of ELA, there is little scholarship that considers how pre-service and beginning teachers might best navigate that incoherence and unwieldiness. This study, which contextualizes and explores a pedagogical innovation in an English methods class designed to help PTs navigate the many “Englishes”, attempts to fill this gap. The findings suggest that teacher preparation in ELA would do well to conceive of pedagogical innovations in teacher education that allow teachers to grapple with, rather than solve, the uncertainty and unfinalizability of the discipline.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

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Article
Publication date: 24 January 2018

Mandie B. Dunn, Jennifer VanDerHeide, Samantha Caughlan, Laura Northrop, Yuan Zhang and Sean Kelly

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from a study of preservice teacher (PST) beliefs about teaching English language arts (ELA).

365

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from a study of preservice teacher (PST) beliefs about teaching English language arts (ELA).

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was administered to 56 preservice secondary ELA teachers at three universities to measure their beliefs about curriculum, authority and competition in schools. This study explores the beliefs of 17 of these PSTs who participated in an additional interview following up on six of the survey responses.

Findings

Although the survey forced a choice between various levels of agreeing and disagreeing, interview responses revealed that PSTs wrestled with tensions in what they believed about instructional and curricular choices. When describing situations that influenced their beliefs, they referenced situations from field placements, coursework and their own experiences as students. These tensions reflected the PSTs’ internally conflicting beliefs across their perceived binaries of teaching English.

Originality/value

This study suggests that these beliefs are formed in part by experiences in teacher preparation programs, particularly in field placements. However, even though PSTs recognized their internally conflicting beliefs, they understood them and their subsequent actions as dichotomous, rather than on a continuum. This study has implications for teacher educators; by understanding PSTs’ tendencies to understand their beliefs in binaries, teacher educators can provide reflective opportunities for PSTs to problematize these dichotomies and look for teaching identities and practices that are more nuanced.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

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Article
Publication date: 2 May 2018

Lauren Gatti, Jessica Masterson, Robert Brooke, Rachael W. Shah and Sarah Thomas

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which attention to programmatic vision and coherence – rather than foci on individual courses – might advance the work of…

211

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which attention to programmatic vision and coherence – rather than foci on individual courses – might advance the work of justice-oriented, critical English education in important ways. The authors propose that consciously attending to the work of English education on the programmatic level can better enable English educators to cultivate democracy-sustaining dispositions in preservice teachers. Using Grossman et al.’s (2008) definition of “programmatic coherence”, the authors illustrate how one interdepartmental partnership is working to create a shared programmatic vision for English education.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on Cornel West’s call for the development of a three-piece democratic armor – Socratic questioning, prophetic witness and tragicomic hope – the authors describe their programmatic vision for cultivating democracy-sustaining dispositions in preservice teachers. They show how this shared vision constitutes the foundation for the organization, purpose and sequence of the four-semester cohort program. Finally, the authors describe how this vision helps facilitate meaningful and purposeful symbiosis between field experiences and university coursework.

Findings

In an effort to promote replicability regarding programmatic coherence, the authors share structural aspects of their program as well as pose generative questions for colleagues who are interested in approaching the work of critical, democratic English education from the programmatic level.

Originality/value

Addressing the challenges of teacher preparation – especially in this polarized and pitched historical moment – requires shifting the focus from individual courses to a more expansive view that might enable English educators to consider how courses within a program might collectively advance a particular vision of critical and democratic English education.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

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