Lindy Johnson

This study investigates the emergence of empathic framing in a small group of university students’ discussions of equity-oriented concepts in a service-learning course. Empathic framing refers to the making of emotional connections that enable one to experience the world from another’s perspective, particularly when they are from different cultures, means of socialization, and life experiences. The study used collaborative coding for both concepts and empathic framing in six discussions of three scholarly books devoted to different equity concerns focused on the phenomenon of teacher-student reciprocal burnout, the differential experiences of affiliative or ‘jock’ students and disaffiliative or ‘burnout’ students, and African American speech and its political consequences. The findings identify examples of empathic framing in the six discussions, with most instances occurring in the two books that include narrative accounts of people experiencing oppression and inequity; the final v...

This article focuses on the intersections among language, literacy, and culture, and what these intersections have meant for me personally, and what they can mean for students who have been marginalized, neglected, or made invisible by traditional understandings of the role of education. Although not linked conceptually in the past, the more recent tendency to connect language, literacy, and culture gives us a richer picture of learning, especially for students whose identities are related to language, race, ethnicity, and immigrant status have traditionally had a low status in many societies. One result of this reconceptualization is that more education programs are reflecting and promoting a sociocultural perspective in language and literacy. Such a perspective is firmly rooted in an anthropological and sociological understanding of culture, a view of learning as socially constructed, and an understanding of how students from diverse segments of society experience schooling, due t...

In this study, we examine a multiyear professional development program designed to help English teachers incorporate connected learning into their classrooms. We propose a model of professional learning we term collaborative design as mediated praxis, which refines and extends the five features of high-quality professional development and takes into account a focus on social justice and equity. A variety of data were collected for the study including recordings of planning meetings, teachers’ reflections, and teachers’ unit plans. Analysis focused specifically on rich points (Agar, 2000) that occurred during the workshop and follow-up meetings, revealing tensions between university- and school-based educators as they engaged in the collaborative design process.

Become a part of the CEE community today! http://www.ncte.org/cee CEE is the professional community within NCTE for teacher educators in English language arts and literacy. Membership in CEE gives you access to a vibrant community of researchers and educators as well as a range of resources that support and extend ELA/literacy teacher education. What can you do as a member? Join one of the ten CEE commissions. • Apply for a CEE Research Initiative Grant. • Take part in the online CEE Connected Community. • Become involved in CEE leadership roles. • Receive a subscription to English Education. Interactions within CEE invigorate, challenge, and sustain us, which is increasingly important in today’s contentious educational climate.

Become a part of the CEE community today! http://www.ncte.org/cee CEE is the professional community within NCTE for teacher educators in English language arts and literacy. Membership in CEE gives you access to a vibrant community of researchers and educators as well as a range of resources that support and extend ELA/literacy teacher education. What can you do as a member? Join one of the ten CEE commissions. • Apply for a CEE Research Initiative Grant. • Take part in the online CEE Connected Community. • Become involved in CEE leadership roles. • Receive a subscription to English Education. Interactions within CEE invigorate, challenge, and sustain us, which is increasingly important in today’s contentious educational climate.

Minding the Gap: Reframing Writing as Creative ProblemSolvingLindy L. JohnsonThe College of William and Marylljohnson@wm.eduNicole SiebenSUNY College at Old WestburySiebenn@oldwestbury.eduLeaders in business, politics, and education have argued that students need to develop skills and habits of mind including creativity, flexibility, and problemsolving to be prepared for the rapid change of pace and increasing globalization of the twenty-first century. For example, in "How to Get a Job at Google," Laszlo Bock, senior VP of people operations at Google, says that Google looks for five attributes when hiring new employees: learning ability, leadership ability, humility, ownership, and expertise (Friedman). However, the curriculum of most contemporary English classrooms is not designed to nurture these habits. The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing describes habits of mind and rhetorical skills essential for postsecondary writing, but we think this statement's ...

This case study describes the creation of a digital multimodal poem by Mara, a preservice English Education teacher at a large state namesake university located in the Southeastern United States. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives broadly and New Literacies Studies specifically (Gee, 2012; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; The New London Group, 1996), this study uses multimodal discourse analysis (Jewitt, 2006; Lemke, 1998; O’Halloran, 2009) as a tool to analyze how one preservice teacher’s multimodal composition affected her concept of new literacies. To investigate what Mara learned through the multimodal composing process, the authors analyze three sources of data: a) Mara’s multimodal composition, b) Mara’s written reflection about her composing practices written immediately after she had created her multimodal composition, and c) a ninety-minute interview with Mara using photo-elicitation techniques. Findings indicate that multimodal composing practices can potentially take advantag...

This chapter describes how an experienced high school English teacher created critical spaces to support a group of Latin@ students as they used new media to create awareness of and opposition to the harsh anti-immigration policies in the southeastern United States. Drawing on a popular culture framework (Hagood, Alvermann, & Heron-Hruby, 2010; Morrell, 2004), the authors discuss the recontextualized model of pop culture that focuses on providing opportunities for students to construct new knowledge and to transform pop culture texts for new, unforeseen purposes (Marsh, 2008).

Many national organizations in literacy research and the teaching of writing have called for professional development that addresses the teaching of writing with digital tools. The Writing, Learning and Leading in the Digital Age report (2010), conceptualized and written by the College Board, the National Writing Project, and Phi Delta Kappa International, emphasizes that teaching effectively with technology necessitates more than access to computers and mobile devices; it requires that "Every teacher, at all levels of education, needs professional development in the effective use of digital tools for teaching and learning, including the use of digital tools to promote writing" (p. 3). Similarly, the National Council of Teachers of English stresses the need for professional development that goes beyond the "functional aspects" of technology and provides teachers with "opportunities to think critically about pedagogical concerns (with whom, when, where, how, ...

This qualitative multiple case study explores the collaborations between three STEM middle school teachers and three STEM undergraduate mentors of color in an urban school district. Drawing on sociocultural theories and literature on culturally relevant education, we used a comparative thematic approach to explore how mentors contributed to culturally relevant opportunities in STEM curriculum and pedagogy. We found that the partners’ STEM identities, how the teacher positioned the mentor in the learners’ experience, and the teachers’ philosophy of the purpose of engineering influenced the contribution undergraduate mentors could make to rigorous and equitable engineering instruction.

Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning, this case study describes how a small liberal arts university, steeped in a tradition of innovation and discovery, developed and introduced an interdisciplinary academic and applied esports program. The study describes the importance of a multi-interdisciplinary approach to program development and building community, drawn from the voices and expertise of interdepartmental stakeholders including administration, faculty, staff, and students. The authors share the timeline of events and lessons learned in launching a successful esports program by applying an entrepreneurial mindset and accepting an appropriate level of risk.

The prevalence of high-stakes testing, scripted curricula, and accountability measures in schools discourages experimentation with curriculum. This article encourages curriculum design experimentation in teacher education by proposing playful practices, game-like activities for designing curriculum that draws on students' out-of-school literacies. We explore the benefits and challenges of game-based curriculum design with preservice teachers (PSTs; N = 19) in two public university secondary English education courses and trace one PST's take-up of the curriculum design moves through incorporation of these playful practices into her classroom. Data collection occurred across one academic year and included field and observation notes, written reflections, interview data, and artifacts. Findings show the potential for game-based curriculum design in literacy teacher education to (1) create an imaginative space between teacher and student, (2) encourage col-laborative production, (3) connect PST university coursework to classroom practice, (4) support students' creative language production, and (5) create playful social contexts for participatory learning. Challenges highlight the importance of attending to power dynamics in game play and design. Implications include how game-based pedagogical invitations in teacher education can help PSTs imagine new ways to organize classroom structures and literacy learning experiences that value an interplay of youth cultures and classroom curriculum.

Purpose-The purpose of this study is to examine the use of game-based learning for approximations of practice within a critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experience for preservice teachers (PSTs). Within the clinical experience, secondary English Language Arts PSTs practiced modeling argumentative thinking through playing a board game, Race to the White House, with ninth-grade students. Design/methodology/approach-Data collection took place at a public high school in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA. A variety of data was collected including written reflections by PSTs about their experiences leading the game play, audio recordings of the small group game play and a transcript of a whole-class 30-min post-game discussion with the PSTs and classroom teacher. To analyze the data, patterns of discourse were identified. Findings-The game-based learning activity provided an accessible structure for PSTs to model their own argumentative thinking, presented opportunities for PSTs to elicit and interpret students' thinking to support students' practice in constructing an argument and created a playful context for PSTs to encourage students to produce arguments and critique the argumentation work of others. Research limitations/implications-Game-based learning within CPB clinical experiences has the potential to bring students, PSTs, inservice teachers and teacher educators together to experiment with how to help PSTs practice engaging with students in different ways than a traditional teacher-to-student dynamic. Originality/value-Game design and game play within CPB clinical experiences has the potential to bring students, PSTs, inservice teachers and teacher educators together to experiment with how to make teaching and learning a more social and collaborative process.

This article reports on the activities undertaken in a U. S. high school through which students produced video texts designed to address key social problems. The authors argue against conventional " writing process " models that assert a single set of stages for all writing and that position " publication " as the final stage of " the writing process. " In contrast, they illustrate how teaching grounded in critical literacy theory and informed by principles of connected learning requires instruction in task-specific procedures for interrogating information, imagining alternatives, and taking social action as the ultimate goal of composition. The authors detail one teacher's instruction and illustrate its effects with examples from students' work to demonstrate the shortcomings of conventional " writing process " conceptions and offer an alternative that advances the citizenship potential of youth in addressing societal inequities.

This article looks across two teacher education programs to review the tensions and benefits of critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experiences. The first study examines a project embedded within a methods course focused on secondary English language arts (ELA) preservice teachers (PSTs) engaging with youth around a shared writing activity. In the second study, PSTs partnered with local high school students to consider the relevance of writing in and out of schools. We consider how CPB clinical experiences served as mediating spaces that address the disconnect between universities, schools, and communities (Zeichner, 2010). Data analysis suggested there are numerous tensions and benefits associated with CPB clinical experiences for PSTs, teacher educators, and school-based teachers and students. We draw on the findings from this study to make recommendations for future iterations of such work.

This article draws on a longitudinal study generated by a school and university-based partnership and funded by an Improving Teacher Quality grant. This study uses Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Cole, 1996; Engeström & Miettinen, 1999; Wertsch, 1991) and social semiotic theories of multimodality (Jewitt, 2006; Kress, 2010) to examine how a group of secondary English teachers conceptualized writing process pedagogy and digital tool use after a week-long professional devel- opment program. Teachers used the online software program Prezi to create concept maps that showed their understanding of the concept of Writing 2.0. A CHAT and multimodal analysis indicated a number of contradictions. Examining such contradictions in teacher thinking is essential for understanding teachers’ agency in using new tools within multiple activity systems that often have competing values and goals.

In this manuscript, the author discusses the importance of conceptualizing place and space in teacher professional development intervention research. This article draws on data that was collected during a two-year study that followed 12 secondary English teachers who taught in a single school district, Stone Creek County, located in the rural southeastern United States. Using a cultural historical activity theory framework (Grossman, Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999) the author discusses how the cultural and historical aspects of the place and context in which the teachers taught mediated the teachers’ understandings of the affordances of incorporating critical digital literacies into their classroom teaching. Findings suggest introducing new tools into the rural setting (specifically the professional development intervention) helped influence teachers’ identity in their role as professional educators. The professional development intervention helped the teachers develop a greater sense of agency and purpose within their rural context. Actively drawing on the teachers’ insider knowledge as life-long residents in the setting helped the teachers develop a more agentive stance to toward teaching and learning with digital tools. Further, the teachers were able to become more powerful advocates for their students with regards to both students’ access to digital technologies and by providing further opportunities in the classroom for students to bring in their everyday and local knowledge through digital technologies.

Drawing on sociocultural perspectives and New Literacies Studies this study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a tool to closely analyse one way the Common Core State Standards in the United States are being produced, disseminated and consumed. The analysis focuses on a section of the CCSS, a model lesson given by one of the primary architects of the Common Core State Standards, David Coleman, and a group of English teachers’ reactions to David Coleman’s presentation. Analysing how the CCSS have been produced, disseminated, and consumed demonstrates how policy becomes normalised through discursive events. Coleman’s lesson serves as an instantiation of the ideological underpinnings of the CCSS and is illustrative of the ways in which the CCSS is working to position teachers and the teaching of reading in particular ways. Coleman’s presentation can be seen as a discursive event in that it shapes what counts as teaching reading. A CDA approach was valuable in that it showed a complex interdiscursivity at play in Coleman’s model lesson. Specifically, Coleman’s presentation begins by positioning teachers as in conversation with the Common Core, but ultimately condemns and critiques the way teachers approach the teaching of reading. A Critical Discourse Analysis framework can provide a helpful heuristic for both English teachers and English teacher educators to examine the ideological underpinnings of standardisation by considering the production, dissemination and consumption of texts such as the CCSS.

This case study describes the creation of a digital multimodal poem by Mara,
a preservice English Education teacher at a large state namesake university
located in the Southeastern United States. Drawing on sociocultural
perspectives broadly and New Literacies Studies specifically (Gee, 2012;
Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; The New London Group, 1996), this study uses
multimodal discourse analysis (Jewitt, 2006; Lemke, 1998, O’Halloran, 2009)
as a tool to analyze how one preservice teacher’s multimodal composition
affected her concept of new literacies. To investigate what Mara learned
through the multimodal composing process, we analyzed three sources of
data a) Mara’s multimodal composition, b) Mara’s written reflection about her
composing practices written immediately after she had created her
multimodal composition, and c) a ninety-minute interview with Mara using
photo-elicitation techniques. Findings indicate that multimodal composing
practices can potentially take advantage of the relation between cognition and
affect, and do so using cultural means of codification that are both inscribed
by textual authors and encoded by acculturated readers. Such experiences
may be more readily available to digital natives who are conversant with the
affordances of electronic devices, a trend that is likely to grow as technology
continues to advance and become pervasive in the lives of succeeding
generations.

ABSTRACT: This narrative chronicles my journey as a doctoral student in English Education as I navigated the decision as to which research methodologies I should align myself with during my doctoral studies. Gee's theory of discourses (2012) provides a framework in which to situate the identity work at play in deciding the kind of research methods one should undertake. This decision reflects not only the kind of work one will engage in, but also ways of doing, being, valuing and believing (Gee, 2012).

This chapter describes the experiences of one English Language Arts teacher who incorporated role-playing games into her 6th grade classroom. During a historical fiction unit focused on the American Revolution, students read young adult novels, participated in book clubs, and created role-playing games based on the novels. Drawing on game-based learning and literacy, and a transactional theory of reading, the authors argue that role-playing games can help students inhabit literary worlds by foregrounding the aesthetic aspects of reading. A description of the roleplaying game project, including its goals, activities, and assessments, is provided.