Rick Coppola - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Rick Coppola
Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting
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Welcome to Chicago! We are very excited and proud to be able to host the 15 th biennial meeting o... more Welcome to Chicago! We are very excited and proud to be able to host the 15 th biennial meeting of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media! This year, we have an especially stimulating program, with keynote speakers, symposia, paper sessions, and posters that cover the full range of scientific research on issues related to how we understand, respond to, write about, and learn from literature and media. We are also excited to present several plenary addresses from exceptional researchers in our field, highlighted by Carol Lee (Northwestern University), Tim Smith (Birkbeck University of London), and Michael Young (University of Utah). The organizing committee wishes to thank the many reviewers who provided invaluable input on more than 75 submissions, and the many colleagues who pitched in and offered suggestions or assistance when needed. We also have a great group of student volunteers who have already helped us in many ways, both big and small. One...
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This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater linguistic flexibility in speech than in writing; (2) a sense that attention to grammar in feedback can enhance and/or inhibit written communication; and (3) apprehension about whether grammar instruction empowers or marginalizes linguistically minoritized students. We also highlight three productive strategies for teaching grammar while valuing linguistic diversity employed by one teacher: (1) selecting mentor texts t...
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English Journal, 2018
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Journal of Literacy Research, 2020
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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English Journal, 2018
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Language arts, 2017
As he introduced their new unit, Mr. Coppola directed his seventh-grade students' attention t... more As he introduced their new unit, Mr. Coppola directed his seventh-grade students' attention to a statement he had composed with a colleague and written on the whiteboard earlier that morning: "Poetry reveals a lived life through a colored lens." His students had just finished watching the documentary Louder than a Bomb (Siskel & Jacobs, 2011), which chronicles the experiences of high-school spoken-word poets in Chicago-the city that he and his students call home. The students' reactions to this video had been overwhelmingly emotional, with a few crying openly as they listened to young poets use voice, rhythm, and rhyme to chronicle their experiences in the city. Mr. Coppola continued, stating, ". . . each [poet's] perspective is colored by [his or her] lived experience . . . but some people don't give you credit for your lived experiences. How is your life colored through your experience? How can poetry be a mechanism to share and explore those details...
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Cooperating teachers are vital in the professional development of teacher candidates. Yet, little... more Cooperating teachers are vital in the professional development of teacher candidates. Yet, little research has been done to explore the generative and bidirectional nature of mentoring in the context of a student teaching-mentoring dyad—including the ways that teacher candidates are vital to the professional development of cooperating teachers. This case study addresses this gap by exploring the realized potential of adopting a transformative activist stance in relation to the mentoring of a preservice teacher candidate. The strategic partnering of a veteran teacher (Rick) and undergraduate teacher candidate (Daniel)—both committed to culturally sustaining pedagogies—created an opportunity to reimagine the student teaching experience in one English language arts classroom. Through collaborative reflection and artifact analysis, we examine our roles in contributing to bidirectional mentorship that stressed innovative collaboration rather than adaptation to existing power differentials.
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English Teaching: Practice & Critique
Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating c... more Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating critical English Language Arts (ELA) pedagogies supported teacher agency, or “the capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsiveness to problematic situations” (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998, p. 971). Design/methodology/approach Situated in a semester-long inquiry group, eight k-16 educators used narrative inquiry processes (Clandinin, 1992) to write and collectively analyze (Ezzy, 2002) stories describing personal experiences that brought them to critical ELA pedagogies. They engaged in three levels of analysis across the eight narratives, including open coding, thematic identification, and identification of how the narrative inquiry impacted their classroom practices. Findings Across the narratives, the authors identify what aspects of the ELA reading, writing and languaging curriculum emerged as problematic; situate themselves in systems of oppression and privilege; and exami...
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Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, Aug 19, 2019
This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally... more This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) over the course of a 9-week spoken word poetry unit in a seventh-grade classroom. The unit reflected CSP’s commitment to linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism (e.g., centering culture- and identity-focused writing) while also intentionally embedding principles of UDL (e.g., multiple means of representation, action, expression, and engagement). The analysis examines how and why some students in this classroom centered dis/ability in their poetry writing and how the design and implementation of the unit invited more complex understandings of cultures and identities. Findings suggest that CSP supported students in making their identities more visible in the classroom, while the integration of UDL principles eliminated barriers for participation. Both were integral in focal students’ engagements with aspects of their identities throughout the unit. Ultimately, the unit’s design facilitated the movement of the focal students from the periphery to more centripetal roles within the classroom community.
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Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally... more This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) over the course of a 9-week spoken word poetry unit in a seventh-grade classroom. The unit reflected CSP’s commitment to linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism (e.g., centering culture- and identity-focused writing) while also intentionally embedding principles of UDL (e.g., multiple means of representation, action, expression, and engagement). The analysis examines how and why some students in this classroom centered dis/ability in their poetry writing and how the design and implementation of the unit invited more complex understandings of cultures and identities. Findings suggest that CSP supported students in making their identities more visible in the classroom, while the integration of UDL principles eliminated barriers for participation. Both were integral in focal students’ engagements with aspects of their i...
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English Teaching: Practice & Critique
Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating c... more Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating critical English Language Arts (ELA) pedagogies supported teacher agency, or “the capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsiveness to problematic situations” (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998, p. 971). Design/methodology/approach Situated in a semester-long inquiry group, eight k-16 educators used narrative inquiry processes (Clandinin, 1992) to write and collectively analyze (Ezzy, 2002) stories describing personal experiences that brought them to critical ELA pedagogies. They engaged in three levels of analysis across the eight narratives, including open coding, thematic identification, and identification of how the narrative inquiry impacted their classroom practices. Findings Across the narratives, the authors identify what aspects of the ELA reading, writing and languaging curriculum emerged as problematic; situate themselves in systems of oppression and privilege; and exami...
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Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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Language Arts, 2017
Culturally sustaining pedagogy is a theoretical approach to teaching and learning that aims to su... more Culturally sustaining pedagogy is a theoretical approach to teaching and learning that aims to support and foster students' cultural, linguistic, and literate practices. We examine culturally sustaining pedagogy as it is applied to a unit on reading, writing, and performing poetry in an urban literacy classroom. Using qualitative methods, we look closely at how three seventh grade students explored their hybrid and fluid affiliations with a variety of cultural groups, ranging from religious cultures to local and interest-driven youth cultures. Through engaging in linguistic play, critiquing local culture by invoking an insider perspective, and leveraging the practices of youth literate culture, the focal students used diverse methods to engage with, examine, and critique culture. Through these activities, they came to see themselves and their peers in new ways. We conclude by offering suggestions for teachers who wish to take up culturally sustaining literacy pedagogies in their own classroom contexts.
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Voices from the Middle, 2019
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This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater
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Books by Rick Coppola
Addressing Diversity in Literacy Instruction: Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation, 2018
This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater linguistic flexibility in speech than in writing; (2) a sense that attention to grammar in feedback can enhance and/or inhibit written communication; and (3) apprehension about whether grammar instruction empowers or marginalizes linguistically minoritized students. We also highlight three productive strategies for teaching grammar while valuing linguistic diversity employed by one teacher: (1) selecting mentor texts that showcase a range of grammars; (2) modeling code-meshing practices; and (3) privileging alternative grammars while grading written work. We describe how teachers might take up pedagogical practices that support linguistic diversity, such as evaluating written assignments in more flexible ways, engaging in contrastive analysis, and teaching students to resist and rewrite existing language rules.
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Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting
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Welcome to Chicago! We are very excited and proud to be able to host the 15 th biennial meeting o... more Welcome to Chicago! We are very excited and proud to be able to host the 15 th biennial meeting of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media! This year, we have an especially stimulating program, with keynote speakers, symposia, paper sessions, and posters that cover the full range of scientific research on issues related to how we understand, respond to, write about, and learn from literature and media. We are also excited to present several plenary addresses from exceptional researchers in our field, highlighted by Carol Lee (Northwestern University), Tim Smith (Birkbeck University of London), and Michael Young (University of Utah). The organizing committee wishes to thank the many reviewers who provided invaluable input on more than 75 submissions, and the many colleagues who pitched in and offered suggestions or assistance when needed. We also have a great group of student volunteers who have already helped us in many ways, both big and small. One...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater linguistic flexibility in speech than in writing; (2) a sense that attention to grammar in feedback can enhance and/or inhibit written communication; and (3) apprehension about whether grammar instruction empowers or marginalizes linguistically minoritized students. We also highlight three productive strategies for teaching grammar while valuing linguistic diversity employed by one teacher: (1) selecting mentor texts t...
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English Journal, 2018
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Journal of Literacy Research, 2020
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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English Journal, 2018
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Language arts, 2017
As he introduced their new unit, Mr. Coppola directed his seventh-grade students' attention t... more As he introduced their new unit, Mr. Coppola directed his seventh-grade students' attention to a statement he had composed with a colleague and written on the whiteboard earlier that morning: "Poetry reveals a lived life through a colored lens." His students had just finished watching the documentary Louder than a Bomb (Siskel & Jacobs, 2011), which chronicles the experiences of high-school spoken-word poets in Chicago-the city that he and his students call home. The students' reactions to this video had been overwhelmingly emotional, with a few crying openly as they listened to young poets use voice, rhythm, and rhyme to chronicle their experiences in the city. Mr. Coppola continued, stating, ". . . each [poet's] perspective is colored by [his or her] lived experience . . . but some people don't give you credit for your lived experiences. How is your life colored through your experience? How can poetry be a mechanism to share and explore those details...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Cooperating teachers are vital in the professional development of teacher candidates. Yet, little... more Cooperating teachers are vital in the professional development of teacher candidates. Yet, little research has been done to explore the generative and bidirectional nature of mentoring in the context of a student teaching-mentoring dyad—including the ways that teacher candidates are vital to the professional development of cooperating teachers. This case study addresses this gap by exploring the realized potential of adopting a transformative activist stance in relation to the mentoring of a preservice teacher candidate. The strategic partnering of a veteran teacher (Rick) and undergraduate teacher candidate (Daniel)—both committed to culturally sustaining pedagogies—created an opportunity to reimagine the student teaching experience in one English language arts classroom. Through collaborative reflection and artifact analysis, we examine our roles in contributing to bidirectional mentorship that stressed innovative collaboration rather than adaptation to existing power differentials.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
English Teaching: Practice & Critique
Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating c... more Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating critical English Language Arts (ELA) pedagogies supported teacher agency, or “the capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsiveness to problematic situations” (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998, p. 971). Design/methodology/approach Situated in a semester-long inquiry group, eight k-16 educators used narrative inquiry processes (Clandinin, 1992) to write and collectively analyze (Ezzy, 2002) stories describing personal experiences that brought them to critical ELA pedagogies. They engaged in three levels of analysis across the eight narratives, including open coding, thematic identification, and identification of how the narrative inquiry impacted their classroom practices. Findings Across the narratives, the authors identify what aspects of the ELA reading, writing and languaging curriculum emerged as problematic; situate themselves in systems of oppression and privilege; and exami...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, Aug 19, 2019
This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally... more This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) over the course of a 9-week spoken word poetry unit in a seventh-grade classroom. The unit reflected CSP’s commitment to linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism (e.g., centering culture- and identity-focused writing) while also intentionally embedding principles of UDL (e.g., multiple means of representation, action, expression, and engagement). The analysis examines how and why some students in this classroom centered dis/ability in their poetry writing and how the design and implementation of the unit invited more complex understandings of cultures and identities. Findings suggest that CSP supported students in making their identities more visible in the classroom, while the integration of UDL principles eliminated barriers for participation. Both were integral in focal students’ engagements with aspects of their identities throughout the unit. Ultimately, the unit’s design facilitated the movement of the focal students from the periphery to more centripetal roles within the classroom community.
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Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally... more This case study explores how a research-practice partnership worked to cross-pollinate culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) over the course of a 9-week spoken word poetry unit in a seventh-grade classroom. The unit reflected CSP’s commitment to linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism (e.g., centering culture- and identity-focused writing) while also intentionally embedding principles of UDL (e.g., multiple means of representation, action, expression, and engagement). The analysis examines how and why some students in this classroom centered dis/ability in their poetry writing and how the design and implementation of the unit invited more complex understandings of cultures and identities. Findings suggest that CSP supported students in making their identities more visible in the classroom, while the integration of UDL principles eliminated barriers for participation. Both were integral in focal students’ engagements with aspects of their i...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
English Teaching: Practice & Critique
Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating c... more Purpose This paper aims to examine how a collaborative narrative inquiry focused on cultivating critical English Language Arts (ELA) pedagogies supported teacher agency, or “the capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsiveness to problematic situations” (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998, p. 971). Design/methodology/approach Situated in a semester-long inquiry group, eight k-16 educators used narrative inquiry processes (Clandinin, 1992) to write and collectively analyze (Ezzy, 2002) stories describing personal experiences that brought them to critical ELA pedagogies. They engaged in three levels of analysis across the eight narratives, including open coding, thematic identification, and identification of how the narrative inquiry impacted their classroom practices. Findings Across the narratives, the authors identify what aspects of the ELA reading, writing and languaging curriculum emerged as problematic; situate themselves in systems of oppression and privilege; and exami...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Literacy Research
There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing acro... more There is growing interest in foregrounding bodies in literacy research and pedagogy. Drawing across multiple conceptualizations of bodies as tools, mediums, and social texts, this qualitative case study examines the multifaceted nature of embodiment in two adolescent girls’ school writing. Situated in a research-practice partnership that included researchers, the teacher, adolescent youth, and their parents, this analysis explores the ways writing acted with/on bodies throughout a poetry-writing unit in an urban middle school English language arts classroom. Data collected over 11 weeks included student and teacher interviews, observations and field notes, and artifacts. Through inductive coding processes, coupled with member-check interviews with participants and their parents, four themes were identified: (a) embodied knowing as inspiration for writing, (b) bodies as a mode of multimodal representation, (c) writing as a way to counternarrate against/with other bodies, and (d) bodi...
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Language Arts, 2017
Culturally sustaining pedagogy is a theoretical approach to teaching and learning that aims to su... more Culturally sustaining pedagogy is a theoretical approach to teaching and learning that aims to support and foster students' cultural, linguistic, and literate practices. We examine culturally sustaining pedagogy as it is applied to a unit on reading, writing, and performing poetry in an urban literacy classroom. Using qualitative methods, we look closely at how three seventh grade students explored their hybrid and fluid affiliations with a variety of cultural groups, ranging from religious cultures to local and interest-driven youth cultures. Through engaging in linguistic play, critiquing local culture by invoking an insider perspective, and leveraging the practices of youth literate culture, the focal students used diverse methods to engage with, examine, and critique culture. Through these activities, they came to see themselves and their peers in new ways. We conclude by offering suggestions for teachers who wish to take up culturally sustaining literacy pedagogies in their own classroom contexts.
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Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Voices from the Middle, 2019
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This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Addressing Diversity in Literacy Instruction: Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation, 2018
This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around gra... more This study examines how writing teachers manage linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) around grammar instruction and highlights productive strategies employed by one teacher in an instructional unit on poetry. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine elementary and middle-school teachers to better understand how they conceptualized and enacted writing pedagogies in urban classrooms. Then, we documented the teaching practices of one teacher during a 9-week case study. We describe three LIDs expressed by the teachers we interviewed: (1) a perception of greater linguistic flexibility in speech than in writing; (2) a sense that attention to grammar in feedback can enhance and/or inhibit written communication; and (3) apprehension about whether grammar instruction empowers or marginalizes linguistically minoritized students. We also highlight three productive strategies for teaching grammar while valuing linguistic diversity employed by one teacher: (1) selecting mentor texts that showcase a range of grammars; (2) modeling code-meshing practices; and (3) privileging alternative grammars while grading written work. We describe how teachers might take up pedagogical practices that support linguistic diversity, such as evaluating written assignments in more flexible ways, engaging in contrastive analysis, and teaching students to resist and rewrite existing language rules.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact