The inclusion of critical literacy is becoming more prevalent in our curricula, however, while the value of using trauma literature in the English Language Arts classroom has been established, the explicit use of sexual assault narratives sometimes seems too risky or intimidating for educators. This case study research utilizes social constructivism, feminist, gender studies, and queer studies, trauma theory, and reader response theory as lenses for analysis. Further, a narrative methodological framework was employed to explore how reading trauma literature can influence the writing practices, specifically the digitally written responses, of grade ten adolescents. As well, the study examined the usefulness of digital writing platforms and social media as vehicles to use while incorporating such critical literacies into the classroom. The research was carried out in one western Canadian high school and across two grade ten academic English Language Arts classes. Data was collected from 25 student participants for the primary portion of the classroom study and four of those participants also participated in the focus group discussion. The findings suggest that engaging with trauma literature is certainly a valuable form of critical literacy, particularly sexual assault narratives. Students’ responses indicated that they responded angrily and aggressively to the texts presented, they voiced a need to be heard through the use of repetition, they identified the significance of mental health issues, they made personal connections with the literature as well as intertextual connections between other stories, and created significant and telling silences. Perhaps most importantly, this study found that we must continue to work towards finding best practices for teaching these texts because doing so may lead to challenging rape culture and fostering a sense of empowerment, agency, and resiliency in our learners. These qualities were particularly demonstrated through the students’ personal, critical, and creative written responses using digital literacy practices. / Graduate / 0727 Curriculum and Instruction, 0279 Language and Literature, and 0533 Secondary / amberjanellemoore@gmail.com

Teachers' decisions are a powerful influence on student learning and it is important to fully document accomplished teachers' instructional decisions, as well as to investigate possible influences on those decisions. Shakespearean dramas are central to high school curricula across the U.S. and pose particular instructional challenges, therefore teachers' decisions about teaching these texts are of particular interest. There is limited empirical research, however, about these instructional decisions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to describe how four accomplished high school English teachers working on a single campus make instructional decisions about teaching a Shakespearean play. Specifically, research questions addressed teachers' decisions regarding the teaching of a Shakespearean play and various influences on those decisions (self-reports and inferences from the data). Case study methodology was used, including an inductive analysis of individual teacher interviews, classroom observations, focus group, instructional artifacts, and researcher's journal. The findings revealed that instructional activities described by these teachers addressed support for meaning-making during four stages of reading instruction: (a) before, during, and after; (b) before; (c) during; and (d) after. Comparison of these cases suggests that, although each teacher brings personal preferences and unique background knowledge to her instructional decisions, all make decisions to promote student engagement and student construction of meaning. Regarding influences on these teachers' decisions about teaching the Shakespearean play, four categories were identified: (a) response to students; (b) aspects of the text; (c) response to contextual constraints and supports; and (d) personal preferences and background experiences. Individual teacher differences are clearly a strong influence, even among this group of colleagues on the same campus. Also, two influences not reported explicitly by the teachers suggest a complex integration of these influences. One is their intuitive thinking, which deserves a closer investigation in future research. The other proposes that each teacher's decisions are influenced by her instructional interaction working model (IIWM), a conceptual framework that shapes each teacher's conversational patterns, non-verbal behaviors, and other interactional patterns. Further research should explore the use of such a model to describe and explain the complexity of teachers' decisions, particularly when teaching complex, challenging tasks and texts.

No description available.

No description available.