Handbook of Instructional Practices for Literacy Teacher-educators

Examples and Reflections From the Teaching Lives of Literacy Scholars

Joyce E. Many

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135673765
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This volume offers a unique glimpse into the teaching approaches and thinking of a wide range of well-known literacy researchers, and the lessons they have learned from their own teaching lives. The contributors teach in a variety of universities, programs, and settings. Each shares an approach he or she has used in a course, and introduces the syllabus for this course through personal reflections that give the reader a sense of the theories, prior experiences, and influential authors that have shaped their own thoughts and approaches. In addition to describing the nature of their students and the program in which the course is taught, many authors also share key issues with which they have grappled over the years while teaching their course; others discuss considerations that were relevant during the preparation of this particular syllabus or describe how it evolved in light of student input. The book is organized by areas within literacy education: reading; English/language arts; literature; emergent literacy; content-area literacy; literacy assessment and instruction; literacy and technology; and inquiries into literacy, theory, and classroom practice. It is accompanied by an interactive Web site: http://msit.gsu.edu/handbook. This online resource provides additional information about the authors' courses including complete syllabi, recommended readings, grading rubrics, and sample assignments. Readers are invited to respond and contribute their own syllabi and teaching experiences to the discourse generated by the volume.

IX
INQUIRIES INTO LITERACY, THEORY, AND CLASSROOM PRACTICE

33
Action Research in Educational Settings: A Graduate Course in Practitioner Research

Leslie Patterson

University of Houston

I usually have a general idea about where I think learners need to go, and 15 years ago, I did not have any trouble taking them there: “All together now, walk this way!” Since then, I have begun listening to the individuals with a bit more care, and I soon found that my teaching practices had to change. After many years of teaching/learning, I now describe my approach as social constructivism. Teaching from that stance, I value each student’s individual learning journey, but I also work to see that each group of students becomes a dynamic learning community, with shared goals and lively discussion. My primary challenge is to negotiate the emerging tensions between this individual and group learning. This is particularly true in the course included here—Action Research in Educational Settings.

At times, I have found ways to invite each learner to take charge, to find the right questions, to embark on particular and individualistic quests, yet to find common concerns and discoveries that held the learning community together. Those have been exciting semesters. Students’ energy and the synergy that emerges from their conversations makes for powerful learning. At other times, we have worked to generate common questions and a group quest. Those have also been exciting semesters, and challenging. With either approach (and with various combinations), I always face choices between what everyone “needs” and what each individual “needs.” These tensions are intensified by the institutional culture and inevitable constraints on time and resources. For me, the essence of teaching/learning is to negotiate those tensions so that everyone benefits.

These tensions make syllabi-building a complex process. Typically, students come to me expecting the syllabus to explain what my expectations and standards are and what the course “content” will be. It takes on a contractual significance: “If you complete these assignments and learn this content, you will receive an A.” Increasingly, that has become an uncomfortable way to begin a course. According to social constructivist approaches, the syllabus is not a contract, but an invitation to inquiry: “Here are some flexible boundaries to help us begin asking questions, but what is it that you want to learn? How can I help you?’

I value this open-endedness, and I see my role, not as the source of all knowledge and rigor, but as a resource, guide, cheerleader, listener, editor, facilitator, mentor, and fellow learner. Of course, I have to make both big and small decisions week by week to make that happen, and I usually invite students to help me make those decisions. I use the syllabus as a tool—a way to set boundaries—to get this collaborative process started.

Learning communities cannot self-organize without boundaries. Without boundaries, in the form of common readings, concerns, questions, routines, goals, or tasks, individual learners will remain isolated and will move randomly through a frustrating semester. Boundaries for learning communities must be flexible and permeable, but without boundaries, self-organization will not happen. Learning communities cannot form in a vacuum.

I use the syllabus to provide these initial boundaries, but the syllabus is just the invitation—a springboard to the rest of the semester. Week by week, we add reading lists, timelines, evaluation criteria, descriptions of tasks, procedures, written dialogues, and other documentation of our ongoing inquiries. Sometimes I generate these, but more often they are generated by groups of learners. E-mail and a web presence have helped support this communication during some semesters, but I have found that some groups of learners have resisted electronic communication and seem to work better through more familiar channels.

In the syllabus on Action Research included in this volume, collaborative inquiry is both the content and the process of the course. This course has been offered to advanced Master’s and Doctoral candidates, to extend their work in a range of research contexts. It is similar to a teacher research course in that we explore a range of epistemologies which are seldom included in traditional graduate research courses. It is different from a teacher research course in that it includes a focus on inquiry at the school and institutional levels, as well as classroom inquiry. Each semester, students and I struggle to find a balance between what we need to learn together about research frameworks and methodologies and what individual learners need as they proceed with their separate action research studies. That means that we take time to debrief about our own learning in the course. Identifying patterns and principles within our learning can be a catalyst for insights into the research process, as well as insights into the researchers’ individual projects.

With such a syllabus, each semester will be different because each group of learners is different, and because I am different each semester I lead this course. The syllabus included here is merely a snapshot during one semester in one course. A whole scrapbook of these snapshots (or a multimedia presentation) would provide a richer and more complete view of my teaching/learning.

I deeply appreciate colleagues and mentors who have helped me, both in person and in print, on this learning journey. My mother and three sisters built my first learning community, and they continue to be a major source of stimulation. John Stansell and Bess Osburn first showed me how a university professor— mentor can work with and for students. As for those colleagues whose published work has been significant, I can mention only a few. Jerry Harste, Virginia Woodward, and Carolyn Burke (1984) were among the first researchers who challenged my formalist/positivist notions of literacy, learning, and research. Shirley Brice Heath (1983) pushed my traditional ideas about the teacher’s role in language learning. Ken Goodman and his colleagues (Goodman et. al., 1987; Goodman, Y., 1978, 1989; Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 1987) first suggested how theoretical notions can change the way I think about learning and literacy. Paulo Freire (1985; 1987) and bell hooks (1994) first invited me to connect personal and instructional issues to culture and politics. Donald Murray (1982), Donald Graves (1983) and many others asked and answered important questions about writing instruction. Glenda Eoyang (1997) and Murray Gell-Mann (1984) have helped me understand how chaos science and complex adaptive systems can teach us how to participate in learning communities. Finally, my most important mentors are the teacher researchers I have had the opportunity to work with because they have shown me how teaching/learning approaches work in the lives of children and young adults (Patterson, Santa, Short, & Smith, 1993; Donoahue, VanTassell, & Patterson, 1996).

Each semester begins with this theoretical and research base and ends with new questions. Those questions become the core of my thinking as I build the syllabus for the next group of learners. As an invitation to join a learning community, the syllabus has become my most useful tool, a tool to help me negotiate the tensions between individual and group learning and a tool to help a new learning community come to life each semester.

REFERENCES

Donoahue, M.A., Van Tassell, M., & L.Patterson, (Eds.). (1996). Teachers are researchers: Talk, texts, and inquiry. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture power and liberation. Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey.

Freire, P. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

Eoyang, G.H. (1997). Coping with chaos: Seven simple tools. Cheyenne, WY: Lagumo.

Gell-Mann, M. (1994). The quark and the jaguar: Adventures in the simple and the complex. New York: Freeman.

Goodman, K., Smith, E., Meredith, R, & Goodman, Y. (1987). Language and thinking in school (3rd ed.). Katonah, NY: Richard C.Owen.

Goodman, Y. (1978). Kidwatching: An alternative to testing. National Elementary Principal, 57, 41–45.

Goodman, Y. (1989). Roots of the whole-language movement. Elementary School Journal, 90, 113–127.

Goodman, Y., Watson, D., & Burke, C. (1987). Reading miscue inventory: Alternative procedures. Katonah, NY: Richard C.Owen.

Graves, D. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Harste, J., Woodward, V., & Burke, C. (1984). Language stories and literacy lessons. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Heath, S. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge, MA:...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE
• I: READING
• II: ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS
• III: LITERATURE AND THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE
• IV: EMERGENT LITERACY
• V: CONTENT AREA LITERACY
• VI: LITERACY ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTION
• VII: LANGUAGE AND LITERACY IN A DIVERSE SOCIETY
• VIII: LITERACY AND TECHNOLOGY
• IX: INQUIRIES INTO LITERACY, THEORY, AND CLASSROOM PRACTICE