MULTIPLE WAYS TO MAKE WRITING PUBLIC: MAKING A CRITICAL TURN IN WRITING PEDAGOGY IN

Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction

MULTIPLE WAYS TO MAKE WRITING PUBLIC: MAKING A CRITICAL TURN IN WRITING PEDAGOGY IN A TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM

Valerie Mulholland¹, Karen Lind², Barbara McNeill³

¹University of Regina, Regina, SK Canada ²University of Regina, Regina, SK Canada ³University of Regina, Regina, SK Canada

For the past two years, a team of language and literacy professors in a Faculty of Education designed and delivered a cross­course assignment to provide an authentic forum for pre­service English teachers to develop as writers and as teachers of writing. Each week during the term, students selected one article from the professional literature (peer­reviewed, field­based) and posted a 500 word response (critique, analysis, interpretation) to an on­line forum. The instructors responded in writing to each student. In turn, students contributed feedback at least three times. What resulted is a lively digital “discussion” of multiple texts by multiple voices from multiple perspectives, hence the title of our research ​ Multiple Ways to Make Writing Public​ . In course evaluations, students cited the assignment as being illuminating and useful. The authors’ theoretical framework for teaching writing aligns with socially and culturally contextualized theories of writing (Newell, 2014) and Gee’s (2006) theory of discourse. Constructed as a self­study (Bass, Anderson­Patton & Allender, 2002), the purpose of the research is to improve the instructors’ practice of teaching pre­service teachers both to engage as professionals with ideas at work in the profession (Watson, 2010), and to improve their teaching of writing prior to their 16 week practicum. Written as a bound case study (Stake, 2005), the paper draws on the following data sources: written feedback generated by instructors and students; weekly debriefing sessions; and course evaluations. This study contributes to the “need for teacher education programs to improve the teaching of writing instruction” (Grisham, 2011) with a successful process developed over two years of research.

References

Gee, JP, 2006, What is literacy? in Relations, locations, positions: Composition theory for writing teachers, ​ P Vandenberg, S Hum, & J Clary­Lemon, NCTE, Urbana IL, pp. 29­39.

Grisham, D L 2011, ‘Writing instruction for teacher candidates: Strengthening a weak curricular area’, Literacy Research and Instruction​ , vol.50, no.4, pp. 348­364.

Newell, GE, 2014, ‘High school English language arts teachers’ argumentative epistemologies for teaching writing’, ​ Research in the Teaching of English​ , vol. 49 no. 2, pp. 95­119.

Bass, L, Anderson­Patton, V & Allender, J, 2002, ‘ Self­study as a way of teaching and learning: A research collaborative re­analysis of self­study teaching portfolios’, in ​ Improving teacher education practices through self­study​ , in T Russel & J Loughran, eds, Routledge, London, pp. 56­70.

rd Stake, R, 2005, ‘ Qualitative case studies’, in ​ The Sage handbook of qualitative research​ , 3​ ed, N Denzin & Y Lincoln, eds, Sage, Thousand Oaks CA, pp.443­466.

Watson, D, 2010, ‘Teaching teachers to think: Reflective journaling as a strategy to enhance students’ understanding and practice of academic writing’, ​ Journal of College Teaching and Learning​ , vol. 7, no.12, pp.11­18.